7 ms·

Too many users were using options to hit the 'defer updates for 365 days' button. Microsoft can't let them do that ("...Star Fox!"), they NEED the newest featu

Too many users were using options to hit the 'defer updates for 365 days' button. Microsoft can't let them do that ("...Star Fox!"), they NEED the newest features, security updates, and telemetry. Cynical: The stupid users don't know what's good for em, that's for MS to decide now, not the users. However, there is an opt out via GPO for now. Of course if that gets used enough it will be ignored. "If you wish to continue leveraging deferrals, you can use local Group Policy (Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Windows Update for Business > Select when Preview builds and Feature Updates are received or Select when Quality Updates are received)."

rkagerer 6y ago
They ought to consider why users don't want (and are actively circumventing) the updates.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  I may be a cynical, and lets face it angry, old man, but I am quite confident they do know why and just don't care because their priorities do not lie with making the user experience good.
  - 3pt14159 6y ago
    Counterpoint: A critical security bug in Windows led to the power grid going down due to a worm. Maybe security updates shouldn't be dismissible for weeks and weeks?
    - dx87 6y ago
      I think that's a failure in the organization that didn't have a security update policy, not a failure in Windows.
    - cybwraith 6y ago
      In a corporate network full of critical systems, absolutely! On a home PC used to check email or play games... no way should updates be forced upon an end user who specifically opts out. Note this update applies to Win10 "Pro" versions, not just enterprise or volume licensing, so developers who need to test/support older versions will also have problems.
      - Spivak 6y ago
        I think you have it backwards. It's the home users that you have to force updates on. Corporate users will have their own patching schedule that's usually on a 1-2 week delay from patch Tuesday. Like it's wild to me that people want to leave their boxes unpatched for a year because it's annoying.
        Jonnax 6y ago
        Getting your pc compromised as part of a botnet or malicious code keylogging or uploading your data online through an exploit is something a lot of power users feel they are immune to.
        folmar 6y ago
        The corporate users I know are rather 1-2 years delay... A lot of system I see are left unpatched because no one has time to fight bugs in windows update stuck at some random update. If updates didn't take 1-10 hours to install and still fail 1/4 of the time uptake would be better.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      That should be up to the organization, because the other side of that coin is the power grid going down because a critical process was disturbed by changes brought in the update.
    - pritambaral 6y ago
      Your parent comment, and all of their ancestor comments, are talking about updates in general, and not about security updates specifically. Here over on the Linux side of the world, we have enjoyed the separation of security updates from feature updates for such a long time. We even voluntarily turn on automatic updates on our servers because of how much confidence we have in the stability of the system and that the updates shall not compromise that.
    - LadyCailin 6y ago
      Yeah. I see both sides of this argument, and don't really know where to stand. Probably some middle ground. But I think that this isn't as straightforward of an issue as some people are making it out to be, and pretty much any decision is going to piss off someone. But I also see the points of separating security updates and feature updates.
    - Hamcha 6y ago
      Counter-Counterpoint: The features allowed you to specify different delays for feature and security updates. Why not just take out the security one and leave the feature update, especially since 2004 has been, once again, a complete trainwreck that left many users without a functioning system until they manually blocked people from updating. I've been lucky enough that by the time my PC found out about 2004 it was already on the blocklist, but friends of mine haven't been so lucky.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
        In order to clarify for those unaware: '2004' here is not referencing a year, it's a version/release number for Windows 10 (with a build number of 19041, just because Microsoft likes to confuse people).
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        Similar to Ubuntu releases, it's last two digits of year followed by two-digit month (though the actual release isn't always in the nominal month, IIRC, but it's usually close.)
        kasabali 6y ago
        Ubuntu puts a dot between year and month so it's not confusing.
    - erichurkman 6y ago
      Counter-Counterpoint: if Microsoft made updates painless, users would notice them less, and defer them less, and be more up to date/secure. Updates are highly disruptive. An update happening at the wrong time forever taints a user's view of updates: an unexpected reboot and hour long install the night before a term paper is due, a reboot to fix a crashing program unexpectedly installs some lengthy update, update progress bars are bigger liars than politicians, an update fails so Windows has to un-apply the update which takes $ages for some reason the user doesn't care about. The way updates happen on Windows is anti-user so it's not surprising so many users go out of their way to avoid them.
      - gruez 6y ago
        > Counter-Counterpoint: if Microsoft made updates painless, users would notice them less, and defer them less, and be more up to date/secure. But it is painless, at least for me. Just install it a few days after patch tuesday before you go to bed and you should be fine. Sure, you can probably make the experience even better (eg. hotpatching), but the current process doesn't seem hard or demanding.
        deadbunny 6y ago
        Windows 10 will literally auto reboot while you are playing game, ignore the fact it's a game and think of it as high resource usage. People probably don't care if their machine reboots in the middle of the night, they do care when it decides to reboot right in the middle of usage.
        Tostino 6y ago
        Or a simulation/long running task you kick off knowing it'll take most of the night, then wake up to a rebooted computer. I don't even defer updates if I can help it, but have still been bitten by this multiple times.
        gruez 6y ago
        >Windows 10 will literally auto reboot while you are playing game, ignore the fact it's a game and think of it as high resource usage. I feel like we're missing some context here. Is this happening the week that the patch was released? Or was the system unpatched for weeks/months, and the user clicked "delay" multiple times? >People probably don't care if their machine reboots in the middle of the night, they do care when it decides to reboot right in the middle of usage. The grandparent comment was complaining exactly about this.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      Counterpoint: this was 17 years ago, and that type of worm would not work today for many other reasons.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  > ought to consider why It's a stunning indictment of the entire concept of telemetry. They know what people are doing but have no idea why. You can root out and eliminate bugs this way, but improving the experience is a crap shoot.
  - blibble 6y ago
    next they'll hook the camera and microphone into the telemetry service (sounds far fetched, right? if you told me 10 years ago that the 2020 version of Windows Pro had adware, spyware and reboots whenever it wants I would have laughed at you)
TwoNineA 6y ago
After my GPU drivers were force updated by MS and caused blue screens, after my local admin account was disabled by an update, I decided to switch my network connection type to metered in windows settings. Now I am in full control of updates.
- rjsw 6y ago
  You now get updates on metered connections too. Plus if the system detects that the Windows Update service is disabled it will start it for you.
  - TwoNineA 6y ago
    As far as I can tell, yes I can download them and apply them but it's at my control when/if.
- pndy 6y ago
  While I had no blue screens, the WU NVidia drivers for my GTX 670 were causing visual tearing on both desktop and in games. So I had to look up for a solution that turns off drivers delivery via WU, then uninstall drivers, clean up all the mess and install last working version before NVidia decided to fix the issue. IIRC that was around 1703 and gave me so much fun.

rkagerer 6y ago

They ought to consider why users don't want (and are actively circumventing) the updates.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
I may be a cynical, and lets face it angry, old man, but I am quite confident they do know why and just don't care because their priorities do not lie with making the user experience good.
- 3pt14159 6y ago
  Counterpoint: A critical security bug in Windows led to the power grid going down due to a worm. Maybe security updates shouldn't be dismissible for weeks and weeks?
  - dx87 6y ago
    I think that's a failure in the organization that didn't have a security update policy, not a failure in Windows.
  - cybwraith 6y ago
    In a corporate network full of critical systems, absolutely! On a home PC used to check email or play games... no way should updates be forced upon an end user who specifically opts out. Note this update applies to Win10 "Pro" versions, not just enterprise or volume licensing, so developers who need to test/support older versions will also have problems.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      I think you have it backwards. It's the home users that you have to force updates on. Corporate users will have their own patching schedule that's usually on a 1-2 week delay from patch Tuesday. Like it's wild to me that people want to leave their boxes unpatched for a year because it's annoying.
      - Jonnax 6y ago
        Getting your pc compromised as part of a botnet or malicious code keylogging or uploading your data online through an exploit is something a lot of power users feel they are immune to.
      - folmar 6y ago
        The corporate users I know are rather 1-2 years delay... A lot of system I see are left unpatched because no one has time to fight bugs in windows update stuck at some random update. If updates didn't take 1-10 hours to install and still fail 1/4 of the time uptake would be better.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    That should be up to the organization, because the other side of that coin is the power grid going down because a critical process was disturbed by changes brought in the update.
  - pritambaral 6y ago
    Your parent comment, and all of their ancestor comments, are talking about updates in general, and not about security updates specifically. Here over on the Linux side of the world, we have enjoyed the separation of security updates from feature updates for such a long time. We even voluntarily turn on automatic updates on our servers because of how much confidence we have in the stability of the system and that the updates shall not compromise that.
  - LadyCailin 6y ago
    Yeah. I see both sides of this argument, and don't really know where to stand. Probably some middle ground. But I think that this isn't as straightforward of an issue as some people are making it out to be, and pretty much any decision is going to piss off someone. But I also see the points of separating security updates and feature updates.
  - Hamcha 6y ago
    Counter-Counterpoint: The features allowed you to specify different delays for feature and security updates. Why not just take out the security one and leave the feature update, especially since 2004 has been, once again, a complete trainwreck that left many users without a functioning system until they manually blocked people from updating. I've been lucky enough that by the time my PC found out about 2004 it was already on the blocklist, but friends of mine haven't been so lucky.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      In order to clarify for those unaware: '2004' here is not referencing a year, it's a version/release number for Windows 10 (with a build number of 19041, just because Microsoft likes to confuse people).
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        Similar to Ubuntu releases, it's last two digits of year followed by two-digit month (though the actual release isn't always in the nominal month, IIRC, but it's usually close.)
        kasabali 6y ago
        Ubuntu puts a dot between year and month so it's not confusing.
  - erichurkman 6y ago
    Counter-Counterpoint: if Microsoft made updates painless, users would notice them less, and defer them less, and be more up to date/secure. Updates are highly disruptive. An update happening at the wrong time forever taints a user's view of updates: an unexpected reboot and hour long install the night before a term paper is due, a reboot to fix a crashing program unexpectedly installs some lengthy update, update progress bars are bigger liars than politicians, an update fails so Windows has to un-apply the update which takes $ages for some reason the user doesn't care about. The way updates happen on Windows is anti-user so it's not surprising so many users go out of their way to avoid them.
    - gruez 6y ago
      > Counter-Counterpoint: if Microsoft made updates painless, users would notice them less, and defer them less, and be more up to date/secure. But it is painless, at least for me. Just install it a few days after patch tuesday before you go to bed and you should be fine. Sure, you can probably make the experience even better (eg. hotpatching), but the current process doesn't seem hard or demanding.
      - deadbunny 6y ago
        Windows 10 will literally auto reboot while you are playing game, ignore the fact it's a game and think of it as high resource usage. People probably don't care if their machine reboots in the middle of the night, they do care when it decides to reboot right in the middle of usage.
        Tostino 6y ago
        Or a simulation/long running task you kick off knowing it'll take most of the night, then wake up to a rebooted computer. I don't even defer updates if I can help it, but have still been bitten by this multiple times.
        gruez 6y ago
        >Windows 10 will literally auto reboot while you are playing game, ignore the fact it's a game and think of it as high resource usage. I feel like we're missing some context here. Is this happening the week that the patch was released? Or was the system unpatched for weeks/months, and the user clicked "delay" multiple times? >People probably don't care if their machine reboots in the middle of the night, they do care when it decides to reboot right in the middle of usage. The grandparent comment was complaining exactly about this.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Counterpoint: this was 17 years ago, and that type of worm would not work today for many other reasons.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
OldHand2018 6y ago
> ought to consider why It's a stunning indictment of the entire concept of telemetry. They know what people are doing but have no idea why. You can root out and eliminate bugs this way, but improving the experience is a crap shoot.
- blibble 6y ago
  next they'll hook the camera and microphone into the telemetry service (sounds far fetched, right? if you told me 10 years ago that the 2020 version of Windows Pro had adware, spyware and reboots whenever it wants I would have laughed at you)

TwoNineA 6y ago

After my GPU drivers were force updated by MS and caused blue screens, after my local admin account was disabled by an update, I decided to switch my network connection type to metered in windows settings. Now I am in full control of updates.

rjsw 6y ago
You now get updates on metered connections too. Plus if the system detects that the Windows Update service is disabled it will start it for you.
- TwoNineA 6y ago
  As far as I can tell, yes I can download them and apply them but it's at my control when/if.
pndy 6y ago
While I had no blue screens, the WU NVidia drivers for my GTX 670 were causing visual tearing on both desktop and in games. So I had to look up for a solution that turns off drivers delivery via WU, then uninstall drivers, clean up all the mess and install last working version before NVidia decided to fix the issue. IIRC that was around 1703 and gave me so much fun.