6 ms·

And OS settings scattered around multiple places (control panel vs settings), forced rebooting every 10min, resetting your default apps regularly, trying to pre

by cm2187 5y ago

And OS settings scattered around multiple places (control panel vs settings), forced rebooting every 10min, resetting your default apps regularly, trying to prevent me from creating a local account, and for most of the life of windows 10 a broken start menu (locking for a long time, inconsistent search results), cortana. I am personally convinced that the windows developers all use macs and are not bothered by these glaring, in your face quality issues.

elygre 5y ago
I have never encountered a situation with forced reboots every 10 minutes. Do you have any very special hardware that might cause this?
- rleigh 5y ago
  I think this was somewhat hyperbolic, it's not that frequent, but it's still beyond ridiculous. I run VMs on vmware workstation. Every 2 or 3 days I come in to find the system rebooted during the night. I've tried every knob possible to turn it off to no avail. Updates regularly reset all the power settings so it suspends after 30 minutes. The lack of control over the machine's basic functioning makes it barely fit for purpose.
  - heelix 5y ago
    yup - this one kills me too. I'll have multiple VMs/docker images up and running all week and discover my dev machine sitting there with a fresh login prompt. A hard, not scheduled by me, reboot is absolutely unacceptable.
    - naikrovek 5y ago
      here's the thing, though. microsoft has watched people in the past NEVER update their operating system for whatever reason. too much of a pain, "no need", can't deal with the outage caused by a reboot, whatever. microsoft has also been blamed quite voraciously for "insecure" operating systems allowing worms to spread, when patched systems don't even get infected. so, because MS is damned if they do, and damned if they don't, Microsoft has chosen to "do" and keep people patched up. oh the horror. the culture of blaming Microsoft for things that you or your installed applications do is the cause for this attitude Microsoft has about users not knowing what's good for themselves. THEY DON'T KNOW WHATS BEST; Not when it comes to security. We as users have demonstrated this over and over again. So MS err on the side of caution, and essentially force updates. and, yes, Microsoft change things, for reason(s) that you are not aware of, because either a new feature requires a change in a supporting subsystem, or because they believe they've discovered a better way to do something, or through extensive user testing they have discovered a better UI paradigm. or maybe just because they want to. look, things are NEVER going to remain the same from year to year. your "the good old days" were someone else's "this new stuff sucks so much, why did they change it, it was fine" and that will be true so long as humans use things others create. sometimes the decisions Microsoft makes are good. sometimes they are bad. yes, the correct decision FOR YOU is crystal clear FOR YOU, but guess what? other people exist, and what's best for them is something else. so the majority get better representation. positively and negatively. I hate many decisions Microsoft has made, and I recognize that there is no way to please everyone. It is amazing to me how many people do not understand this. (in this entire comment, I am using the royal "you" and I am not talking about any specific individual.)
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - dTal 5y ago
        Maybe they should make an OS that doesn't get pwned if you connect it to the internet when it's two weeks behind on updates. Linux and BSD machines manage it. Remote 0-days don't come by that often.
        tored 5y ago
        cough Heartbleed cough
        naikrovek 5y ago
        > Maybe they should make an OS that doesn't get pwned if you connect it to the internet when it's two weeks behind on updates. do you really believe that they AREN'T working on this? of course they are. the field of software development is extraordinarily young. we still don't know how to do things very well, and we're still discovering new ways to know we aren't doing things well. > Linux and BSD machines manage it. it's a matter of target value, and the number of people who would be inconvenienced enough to pay a random to unlock their files on Linux is FAR smaller than for Windows. So attackers go where the money is. Governments overwhelmingly use Windows as a desktop OS as well. Attackers go where the secrets are. etc. And when you count remote exploits capable of remote code execution, last I read there had been slightly more of those on Linux than Windows. don't quote me on that until I find a source. > Remote 0-days don't come by that often. yes they do. not all of them get media attention, though. the most recent monthly patch from MS for Windows 10 included fixes for six of them. All were actively being exploited. SIX.
        dTal 5y ago
        If we're talking target value, I rather think that servers are higher value than people's desktops - they have lots more juicy info, and richer owners.
        5y ago
  - InvaderFizz 5y ago
    I've been running this[0] solution on machines that I need to control the reboot cycle due to long running processes. It has been working flawlessly for the past two years and has survived multiple feature upgrades. What it does is override the call to the executable that schedules the reboot using the Windows built in debugging tools. One line registry patch and the executable is redirected elsewhere. 0: https://lazyadmin.nl/it/how-to-stop-automatic-restart-win-10-after-installing-updates/ https://lazyadmin.nl/it/how-to-stop-automatic-restart-win-10...
  - tobias3 5y ago
    So this comes up every time Windows comes up. I have a "Pro" version, went into Group Policy Editor and changed updates to require user action. This setting is supported by Microsoft and persists through updates. It only updates if I tell it to update. Is that too hard to discover? Do you use a Home edition? (Obviously if you use any unsupported registry hacks it can revert to default behaviour any time...)
    - pram 5y ago
      You think Microsoft hid that in a GPO because it has great discoverability?
    - rleigh 5y ago
      I have already tried this and all of the other recommendations out there including Shutup10 (on Win 10 Pro). It's quite possible it was working and got reset on an update, lots of things seem to get reset. But whatever the actual case, it's not at all obvious what triggers the reboots or why. It doesn't even have the courtesy to ask. It just does it and loses all my current work and VM states. The deliberate removal of direct user control is absolutely nuts. I didn't buy my computer with its primary purpose being applying Windows updates and rebooting. It's there for me to use for doing work, and it's failing at that by placing Microsoft's whims above my needs.
  - naikrovek 5y ago
    Every 2-3 days? Microsoft doesn't even publish patches that require reboots that often. NEVER has a Microsoft patch ever reset my power settings to re-enable standby after X minutes. I have dozens of machines that I use between home and work. never once has that happened. there's something else going on
    - rleigh 5y ago
      Every major update e.g. 29H2 has reset the power settings the past couple of years. Patches don't do this, but the major updates do seem to reset a whole swath of basic settings and it's bloody infuriating.
      - naikrovek 5y ago
        No major release has ever done this to me. I have a desktop PC which I first installed Windows 10 on in 2015, and where I initially turned off the stupid "standby after 20 minutes of inactivity" setting, whatever it's called, and not once have I ever need to repeat that action. On that computer or any other.
        simonh 5y ago
        It’s entirely possible the behaviour varies on different hardware/driver combinations.
        dTal 5y ago
        Lucky you. I've seen it personally, look upthread.
  - drewzero1 5y ago
    > Updates regularly reset all the power settings so it suspends after 30 minutes. Until recently, I was having major issues with every update resetting network and sharing settings, which essentially caused shared folders to become invisible to other computers on the network. It was a real pain and I'm glad they seem to have fixed whatever was causing it.
  - dTal 5y ago
    > Updates regularly reset all the power settings so it suspends after 30 minutes. I have also hit this behavior and it is shocking - I gave a relative a laptop that should get 7 hours of battery life, but she was getting maybe 2 (and the laptop would get boiling hot) because the power mode defaulted to "performance". I fixed it for her when I visited but it reset itself after I left - a condition it remained in until the computer died from chronic overheating. It's scandalous.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  I have a Surface for work that does this if you move it at all.
Erlangen 5y ago
> resetting your default apps regularly This is my biggest pain points of windows 10. Why is it OK for windows to change my default image viewer everyday, with the some obscure message "there is a problem with your image viewer, we changed it to preinstalled image viewer from Windows"? Why? My image viewer is running perfectly OK, it has never crashed. I don't understand it at all.
- naikrovek 5y ago
  it's because your preferred image viewer isn't doing what it's supposed to do, and windows is correctly doing what it can to make sure you're using an image viewer that works.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - simonh 5y ago
    If it wasn’t successfully performing the functions of an image viewer, don’t you think the user would notice?
    - cuddlybacon 5y ago
      It's not properly boosting usage metrics for first-party Microsoft apps!
    - jodrellblank 5y ago
      The user has noticed, and is incorrectly blaming Microsoft for the software’s problems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27524888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27524888
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  Your image viewer is editing registry keys to set itself as the file extension handler instead of using the correct way - the correct way is to register itself as a new handler so Windows prompts the user whether to change to the new program or not. Trying to make the change by editing registry keys is a pattern used by shady devs to hijack file extensions without user consent, and as s user defence Windows rejects the change and resets the file handlers to default. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170517-00/?p=96175 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170517-00/?p=96...
Groxx 5y ago
By far, the most effective tactic I've found for controlling those update-triggered reboots is quite simple: Set your wifi as metered. That's it. It'll tell you about updates, but not auto-download them, until like 6 months or something have passed. It'll even actually fail to download them sometimes, even when you click the download button... but un-metering easily fixes that.
- NoSorryCannot 5y ago
  For Pro SKUs on up, group policy isn't exactly obvious but it is more effective. You can disable automatic downloading or installation of updates, and you can disable forced rebooting. You can also disable Cortana, most telemetry, and some other things. I've yet to see it messed with by an upgrade and it applies no matter what network you connect to.
  - Groxx 5y ago
    I think you can disable Cortana (and many other annoyances) by just disabling the service. But yeah, group policy is generally more capable and fine grained. And yeah, Cortana was one of the first things I killed off after getting a windows machine again, though I don't remember for sure how. It's so bad.
    - Clamchop 5y ago
      You can but one of the grievances with what Microsoft is doing with Windows is the tendency to reverse some of those electives after you install an update. I haven't seen this happen with GP, probably because MS isn't in the habit of duping their corporate customers (yet?). N.B. same guy, different account because passwords are hard.
sitzkrieg 5y ago
i have 33 days of uptime on my win 10 machine atm

by cm2187 5y ago

elygre 5y ago

I have never encountered a situation with forced reboots every 10 minutes. Do you have any very special hardware that might cause this?

rleigh 5y ago
I think this was somewhat hyperbolic, it's not that frequent, but it's still beyond ridiculous. I run VMs on vmware workstation. Every 2 or 3 days I come in to find the system rebooted during the night. I've tried every knob possible to turn it off to no avail. Updates regularly reset all the power settings so it suspends after 30 minutes. The lack of control over the machine's basic functioning makes it barely fit for purpose.
- heelix 5y ago
  yup - this one kills me too. I'll have multiple VMs/docker images up and running all week and discover my dev machine sitting there with a fresh login prompt. A hard, not scheduled by me, reboot is absolutely unacceptable.
  - naikrovek 5y ago
    here's the thing, though. microsoft has watched people in the past NEVER update their operating system for whatever reason. too much of a pain, "no need", can't deal with the outage caused by a reboot, whatever. microsoft has also been blamed quite voraciously for "insecure" operating systems allowing worms to spread, when patched systems don't even get infected. so, because MS is damned if they do, and damned if they don't, Microsoft has chosen to "do" and keep people patched up. oh the horror. the culture of blaming Microsoft for things that you or your installed applications do is the cause for this attitude Microsoft has about users not knowing what's good for themselves. THEY DON'T KNOW WHATS BEST; Not when it comes to security. We as users have demonstrated this over and over again. So MS err on the side of caution, and essentially force updates. and, yes, Microsoft change things, for reason(s) that you are not aware of, because either a new feature requires a change in a supporting subsystem, or because they believe they've discovered a better way to do something, or through extensive user testing they have discovered a better UI paradigm. or maybe just because they want to. look, things are NEVER going to remain the same from year to year. your "the good old days" were someone else's "this new stuff sucks so much, why did they change it, it was fine" and that will be true so long as humans use things others create. sometimes the decisions Microsoft makes are good. sometimes they are bad. yes, the correct decision FOR YOU is crystal clear FOR YOU, but guess what? other people exist, and what's best for them is something else. so the majority get better representation. positively and negatively. I hate many decisions Microsoft has made, and I recognize that there is no way to please everyone. It is amazing to me how many people do not understand this. (in this entire comment, I am using the royal "you" and I am not talking about any specific individual.)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - dTal 5y ago
      Maybe they should make an OS that doesn't get pwned if you connect it to the internet when it's two weeks behind on updates. Linux and BSD machines manage it. Remote 0-days don't come by that often.
      - tored 5y ago
        cough Heartbleed cough
      - naikrovek 5y ago
        > Maybe they should make an OS that doesn't get pwned if you connect it to the internet when it's two weeks behind on updates. do you really believe that they AREN'T working on this? of course they are. the field of software development is extraordinarily young. we still don't know how to do things very well, and we're still discovering new ways to know we aren't doing things well. > Linux and BSD machines manage it. it's a matter of target value, and the number of people who would be inconvenienced enough to pay a random to unlock their files on Linux is FAR smaller than for Windows. So attackers go where the money is. Governments overwhelmingly use Windows as a desktop OS as well. Attackers go where the secrets are. etc. And when you count remote exploits capable of remote code execution, last I read there had been slightly more of those on Linux than Windows. don't quote me on that until I find a source. > Remote 0-days don't come by that often. yes they do. not all of them get media attention, though. the most recent monthly patch from MS for Windows 10 included fixes for six of them. All were actively being exploited. SIX.
        dTal 5y ago
        If we're talking target value, I rather think that servers are higher value than people's desktops - they have lots more juicy info, and richer owners.
        5y ago
- InvaderFizz 5y ago
  I've been running this[0] solution on machines that I need to control the reboot cycle due to long running processes. It has been working flawlessly for the past two years and has survived multiple feature upgrades. What it does is override the call to the executable that schedules the reboot using the Windows built in debugging tools. One line registry patch and the executable is redirected elsewhere. 0: https://lazyadmin.nl/it/how-to-stop-automatic-restart-win-10-after-installing-updates/ https://lazyadmin.nl/it/how-to-stop-automatic-restart-win-10...
- tobias3 5y ago
  So this comes up every time Windows comes up. I have a "Pro" version, went into Group Policy Editor and changed updates to require user action. This setting is supported by Microsoft and persists through updates. It only updates if I tell it to update. Is that too hard to discover? Do you use a Home edition? (Obviously if you use any unsupported registry hacks it can revert to default behaviour any time...)
  - pram 5y ago
    You think Microsoft hid that in a GPO because it has great discoverability?
  - rleigh 5y ago
    I have already tried this and all of the other recommendations out there including Shutup10 (on Win 10 Pro). It's quite possible it was working and got reset on an update, lots of things seem to get reset. But whatever the actual case, it's not at all obvious what triggers the reboots or why. It doesn't even have the courtesy to ask. It just does it and loses all my current work and VM states. The deliberate removal of direct user control is absolutely nuts. I didn't buy my computer with its primary purpose being applying Windows updates and rebooting. It's there for me to use for doing work, and it's failing at that by placing Microsoft's whims above my needs.
- naikrovek 5y ago
  Every 2-3 days? Microsoft doesn't even publish patches that require reboots that often. NEVER has a Microsoft patch ever reset my power settings to re-enable standby after X minutes. I have dozens of machines that I use between home and work. never once has that happened. there's something else going on
  - rleigh 5y ago
    Every major update e.g. 29H2 has reset the power settings the past couple of years. Patches don't do this, but the major updates do seem to reset a whole swath of basic settings and it's bloody infuriating.
    - naikrovek 5y ago
      No major release has ever done this to me. I have a desktop PC which I first installed Windows 10 on in 2015, and where I initially turned off the stupid "standby after 20 minutes of inactivity" setting, whatever it's called, and not once have I ever need to repeat that action. On that computer or any other.
      - simonh 5y ago
        It’s entirely possible the behaviour varies on different hardware/driver combinations.
      - dTal 5y ago
        Lucky you. I've seen it personally, look upthread.
- drewzero1 5y ago
  > Updates regularly reset all the power settings so it suspends after 30 minutes. Until recently, I was having major issues with every update resetting network and sharing settings, which essentially caused shared folders to become invisible to other computers on the network. It was a real pain and I'm glad they seem to have fixed whatever was causing it.
- dTal 5y ago
  > Updates regularly reset all the power settings so it suspends after 30 minutes. I have also hit this behavior and it is shocking - I gave a relative a laptop that should get 7 hours of battery life, but she was getting maybe 2 (and the laptop would get boiling hot) because the power mode defaulted to "performance". I fixed it for her when I visited but it reset itself after I left - a condition it remained in until the computer died from chronic overheating. It's scandalous.
MattGaiser 5y ago
I have a Surface for work that does this if you move it at all.

Erlangen 5y ago

> resetting your default apps regularly This is my biggest pain points of windows 10. Why is it OK for windows to change my default image viewer everyday, with the some obscure message "there is a problem with your image viewer, we changed it to preinstalled image viewer from Windows"? Why? My image viewer is running perfectly OK, it has never crashed. I don't understand it at all.

naikrovek 5y ago
it's because your preferred image viewer isn't doing what it's supposed to do, and windows is correctly doing what it can to make sure you're using an image viewer that works.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- simonh 5y ago
  If it wasn’t successfully performing the functions of an image viewer, don’t you think the user would notice?
  - cuddlybacon 5y ago
    It's not properly boosting usage metrics for first-party Microsoft apps!
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    The user has noticed, and is incorrectly blaming Microsoft for the software’s problems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27524888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27524888
jodrellblank 5y ago
Your image viewer is editing registry keys to set itself as the file extension handler instead of using the correct way - the correct way is to register itself as a new handler so Windows prompts the user whether to change to the new program or not. Trying to make the change by editing registry keys is a pattern used by shady devs to hijack file extensions without user consent, and as s user defence Windows rejects the change and resets the file handlers to default. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170517-00/?p=96175 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170517-00/?p=96...

Groxx 5y ago

By far, the most effective tactic I've found for controlling those update-triggered reboots is quite simple: Set your wifi as metered. That's it. It'll tell you about updates, but not auto-download them, until like 6 months or something have passed. It'll even actually fail to download them sometimes, even when you click the download button... but un-metering easily fixes that.

NoSorryCannot 5y ago
For Pro SKUs on up, group policy isn't exactly obvious but it is more effective. You can disable automatic downloading or installation of updates, and you can disable forced rebooting. You can also disable Cortana, most telemetry, and some other things. I've yet to see it messed with by an upgrade and it applies no matter what network you connect to.
- Groxx 5y ago
  I think you can disable Cortana (and many other annoyances) by just disabling the service. But yeah, group policy is generally more capable and fine grained. And yeah, Cortana was one of the first things I killed off after getting a windows machine again, though I don't remember for sure how. It's so bad.
  - Clamchop 5y ago
    You can but one of the grievances with what Microsoft is doing with Windows is the tendency to reverse some of those electives after you install an update. I haven't seen this happen with GP, probably because MS isn't in the habit of duping their corporate customers (yet?). N.B. same guy, different account because passwords are hard.

sitzkrieg 5y ago

i have 33 days of uptime on my win 10 machine atm