4 ms·

> it won’t spontaneously reboot your computer and kick off an update while you need to use it. That only happened if you ignored and dismissed updates for week

> it won’t spontaneously reboot your computer and kick off an update while you need to use it. That only happened if you ignored and dismissed updates for weeks. It's amazing how much hyperbole is permitted around here as long as it's about Windows.

wlesieutre 6y ago
If 5 years after release, Windows 10's "active hours" setting wasn't still braindead, I would be more inclined to cut them some slack. But it still hasn't occurred to anyone at Microsoft that the hours I need my home computer to be functional might not be the same on a Wednesday and a Saturday. Even with working from home during COVID where I'm using my Windows machine for a large chunk of every day and the weekday/weekend use patterns are more similar, they're still not the same. And not everyone is on an office worker's weekday/weekend schedule either. If it's so important that updates can be installed all the time, just give me a damn weekly calendar and let me say when to do it. "Active Hours" is already buried in a nested page of UI with mostly empty space, it's not like this would over complicate the settings app or take up room that they can't spare. https://i.imgur.com/x5I65Jx.png https://i.imgur.com/x5I65Jx.png A $10 clock/radio has more sophisticated and user-friendly alarm scheduling than Microsoft has managed to create in the world's most popular desktop operating system. Edit to add: why does "Update and Shut Down" mean "Update and Shut Down then Update a Bit More When Turned Back On Later"? Even if it has to reboot a couple times before staying off, "Update and Shut Down" should have the updates completely done the next time I turn it on to use it. Edit 2: Also should point out that the "reopen apps after restart" feature on macOS is pretty much universally supported across apps and works nearly flawlessly. You can reboot and hardly notice it happened afterward. Not as much the case for Windows, where a forced reboot when you're away from the computer is probably going to destroy any unsaved changes in documents that you had open. Apple has been working on seamless reboots since 2011 (OS X Lion) instead of just shoving in "3 AM is update time and we're forcing your computer to reboot, hope you didn't need the stuff you left open yesterday."
- layer8 6y ago
  I fully agree. Luckily there’s RebootBlocker: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25971264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25971264
- jackson1442 6y ago
  My personal favorite is when I am presented with the "Shut Down" and "Update and Shut Down" options in Windows. Guess what? Both of them update!
tharax 6y ago
> That only happened if you ignored and dismissed updates for weeks. I should be able to ignore and dismiss updates for years. I recognise I'm taking on risks, but it's my hardware and my data. Some of these updates are downgrades in functionality and behaviour. I specifically don't want to be forced to accept whatever patch is pushed out.
- nucleardog 6y ago
  You can if you run Win 10 Pro. Only home users are forced to keep their systems up to date. Which I don’t really see an issue with in the grand scheme of things given what the alternative looks like.
  - craftinator 6y ago
    I'd pay to have the option of giving consent! Sure would be great. Or I'd just use Linux, where I'm not treated like a third class citizen on my own computer.
  - wlesieutre 6y ago
    You still can, yes. But as of last year, the UI for doing this in Settings has been removed - Pro is only allowed to defer updates for up to 35 days, the same as Home. To go any longer than that, Pro users now need to dig through Group Policy Editor, which lets you defer updates for 365 days. https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/237087/windows-10-pro-users-can-no-longer-defer-windows-updates https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/237087/windows-1...
- jojobas 6y ago
  >I should be able to ignore and dismiss updates for years. And then blame Microsoft when you're wormed. If you really insist on not installing updates there are intentionally dirty ways to do it.
- MikusR 6y ago
  You can if you don't connect to internet.
lawl 6y ago
> That only happened if you ignored and dismissed updates for weeks. Not true. I only use windows for the occasional game that doesn't yet work well with wine/proton. And every time I do boot it and start playing a game, it suddenly randomly reboots me. No, I haven't ignored and dismissed updates for weeks. Indeed I haven't updated for weeks because I haven't booted it for weeks. But I haven't dismissed or ignored it. And it's really annoying.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  I have a PC that I use almost exclusively for gaming that is booted at most once a week these days. I don't recall it ever spontaneously rebooting. The worst I have experienced is slow downs in game because it chose to update in the background.
  - lawl 6y ago
    > that is booted at most once a week I suspect that's often enough to easily stay under that threshold. For me it's at most every 3ish months that i boot windows for one particular game that releases updates in 3 month cycles. Sometimes I skip one or two and then it's 6 or 9 month between boots. And everytime it just reboots me, no prompt, nothing, just in the middle of the game, good-bye.
- glandium 6y ago
  I have similar sporadic Windows use, but never random reboots. What I do get is updates happening at boot or at shutdown. The latter is okayish, but the former is annoying: you haven't used Windows for a while, and when you do need to use it, it takes forever to start up.
lilyball 6y ago
I have ignored and dismissed a macOS update on my laptop for weeks with no penalty.
marcinzm 6y ago
>That only happened if you ignored and dismissed updates for weeks. Given that some updates have caused systems to brick or deleted data I want a way to wait weeks or longer before updating.
katbyte 6y ago
The fact it does that at all and people accept it amazes me.
q845712 6y ago
I volunteer at a community organization that uses a laptop to help livestream some events, and other times it uses the laptop to drive a projector during an event. The laptop is rarely used outside of these events, as it isn't anyone's workhorse machine for anything. In particular it's a good rule of thumb that if someone is booting the laptop up, they have a fairly immediate goal (e.g. they've come straight from work and have 30-60 minutes to set up A/V equipment before a public evening event). We had to buy a windows laptop, both because of cost and because of strong "I'm a PC person" preference of a few board members. Sometimes we use it 1-2x per week, but sometimes a few weeks go by and we don't use it for anything, so I've absolutely hit this case where the last time I had the machine open, it wasn't concerned with updating itself, but it now, after being off for weeks, feels that I am delinquent in updating. I curse that machine every single time it hijacks my setup time to install updates. I feel so frustrated, and so powerless. I would so dearly love an option that says "I will stay late after this event. I promise, you can install this update in 3-4 hours, just as soon as all the time critical live stuff is done." Anyway it's the curse of success, right? I guarantee I'm not the only one with this kind of story, but I guarantee that all of us together are a tiny fraction of a percent of all Windows users. Still in all, I'd gladly have paid the cost difference for a macbook air that I could trust not to start updating itself shortly before it's going to be relied on for a public event. But I guess the worst case now would be a mac running Big Sur but set to auto-update, cause then you really _could_ be out of operation for 30+ minutes. (and obligatory - gosh, it has to have been a year since I dealt with this. Everything fades with time but I can still feel that helpless panic.)
alternatetwo 6y ago
Happened to me while being afk for 30 mins. I reboot daily, yet it still force closed programs ...

wlesieutre 6y ago

If 5 years after release, Windows 10's "active hours" setting wasn't still braindead, I would be more inclined to cut them some slack. But it still hasn't occurred to anyone at Microsoft that the hours I need my home computer to be functional might not be the same on a Wednesday and a Saturday. Even with working from home during COVID where I'm using my Windows machine for a large chunk of every day and the weekday/weekend use patterns are more similar, they're still not the same. And not everyone is on an office worker's weekday/weekend schedule either. If it's so important that updates can be installed all the time, just give me a damn weekly calendar and let me say when to do it. "Active Hours" is already buried in a nested page of UI with mostly empty space, it's not like this would over complicate the settings app or take up room that they can't spare. https://i.imgur.com/x5I65Jx.png https://i.imgur.com/x5I65Jx.png A $10 clock/radio has more sophisticated and user-friendly alarm scheduling than Microsoft has managed to create in the world's most popular desktop operating system. Edit to add: why does "Update and Shut Down" mean "Update and Shut Down then Update a Bit More When Turned Back On Later"? Even if it has to reboot a couple times before staying off, "Update and Shut Down" should have the updates completely done the next time I turn it on to use it. Edit 2: Also should point out that the "reopen apps after restart" feature on macOS is pretty much universally supported across apps and works nearly flawlessly. You can reboot and hardly notice it happened afterward. Not as much the case for Windows, where a forced reboot when you're away from the computer is probably going to destroy any unsaved changes in documents that you had open. Apple has been working on seamless reboots since 2011 (OS X Lion) instead of just shoving in "3 AM is update time and we're forcing your computer to reboot, hope you didn't need the stuff you left open yesterday."

layer8 6y ago
I fully agree. Luckily there’s RebootBlocker: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25971264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25971264
jackson1442 6y ago
My personal favorite is when I am presented with the "Shut Down" and "Update and Shut Down" options in Windows. Guess what? Both of them update!

tharax 6y ago

> That only happened if you ignored and dismissed updates for weeks. I should be able to ignore and dismiss updates for years. I recognise I'm taking on risks, but it's my hardware and my data. Some of these updates are downgrades in functionality and behaviour. I specifically don't want to be forced to accept whatever patch is pushed out.

nucleardog 6y ago
You can if you run Win 10 Pro. Only home users are forced to keep their systems up to date. Which I don’t really see an issue with in the grand scheme of things given what the alternative looks like.
- craftinator 6y ago
  I'd pay to have the option of giving consent! Sure would be great. Or I'd just use Linux, where I'm not treated like a third class citizen on my own computer.
- wlesieutre 6y ago
  You still can, yes. But as of last year, the UI for doing this in Settings has been removed - Pro is only allowed to defer updates for up to 35 days, the same as Home. To go any longer than that, Pro users now need to dig through Group Policy Editor, which lets you defer updates for 365 days. https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/237087/windows-10-pro-users-can-no-longer-defer-windows-updates https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/237087/windows-1...
jojobas 6y ago
>I should be able to ignore and dismiss updates for years. And then blame Microsoft when you're wormed. If you really insist on not installing updates there are intentionally dirty ways to do it.
MikusR 6y ago
You can if you don't connect to internet.

lawl 6y ago

> That only happened if you ignored and dismissed updates for weeks. Not true. I only use windows for the occasional game that doesn't yet work well with wine/proton. And every time I do boot it and start playing a game, it suddenly randomly reboots me. No, I haven't ignored and dismissed updates for weeks. Indeed I haven't updated for weeks because I haven't booted it for weeks. But I haven't dismissed or ignored it. And it's really annoying.

cptskippy 6y ago
I have a PC that I use almost exclusively for gaming that is booted at most once a week these days. I don't recall it ever spontaneously rebooting. The worst I have experienced is slow downs in game because it chose to update in the background.
- lawl 6y ago
  > that is booted at most once a week I suspect that's often enough to easily stay under that threshold. For me it's at most every 3ish months that i boot windows for one particular game that releases updates in 3 month cycles. Sometimes I skip one or two and then it's 6 or 9 month between boots. And everytime it just reboots me, no prompt, nothing, just in the middle of the game, good-bye.
glandium 6y ago
I have similar sporadic Windows use, but never random reboots. What I do get is updates happening at boot or at shutdown. The latter is okayish, but the former is annoying: you haven't used Windows for a while, and when you do need to use it, it takes forever to start up.

lilyball 6y ago

I have ignored and dismissed a macOS update on my laptop for weeks with no penalty.

marcinzm 6y ago

>That only happened if you ignored and dismissed updates for weeks. Given that some updates have caused systems to brick or deleted data I want a way to wait weeks or longer before updating.

katbyte 6y ago

The fact it does that at all and people accept it amazes me.

q845712 6y ago

I volunteer at a community organization that uses a laptop to help livestream some events, and other times it uses the laptop to drive a projector during an event. The laptop is rarely used outside of these events, as it isn't anyone's workhorse machine for anything. In particular it's a good rule of thumb that if someone is booting the laptop up, they have a fairly immediate goal (e.g. they've come straight from work and have 30-60 minutes to set up A/V equipment before a public evening event). We had to buy a windows laptop, both because of cost and because of strong "I'm a PC person" preference of a few board members. Sometimes we use it 1-2x per week, but sometimes a few weeks go by and we don't use it for anything, so I've absolutely hit this case where the last time I had the machine open, it wasn't concerned with updating itself, but it now, after being off for weeks, feels that I am delinquent in updating. I curse that machine every single time it hijacks my setup time to install updates. I feel so frustrated, and so powerless. I would so dearly love an option that says "I will stay late after this event. I promise, you can install this update in 3-4 hours, just as soon as all the time critical live stuff is done." Anyway it's the curse of success, right? I guarantee I'm not the only one with this kind of story, but I guarantee that all of us together are a tiny fraction of a percent of all Windows users. Still in all, I'd gladly have paid the cost difference for a macbook air that I could trust not to start updating itself shortly before it's going to be relied on for a public event. But I guess the worst case now would be a mac running Big Sur but set to auto-update, cause then you really _could_ be out of operation for 30+ minutes. (and obligatory - gosh, it has to have been a year since I dealt with this. Everything fades with time but I can still feel that helpless panic.)

alternatetwo 6y ago

Happened to me while being afk for 30 mins. I reboot daily, yet it still force closed programs ...