5 ms·

Windows 10's terrible installer

33 points by pdeva1 11y ago

brudgers 11y ago
It's not clear how this is more than FUD based blogspam.
rwmj 11y ago
As a virt developer I spend a lot of time installing Windows and various Linux distros, and Windows (all versions) has terrible installers. However I'm also not surprised by this: almost no end user needs to run the Windows installer since the main way they get Windows is preinstalled on their PC.
donniefitz2 11y ago
I have updated several machines and had no problem at all.
jmgrosen 11y ago
Getting that dreaded "Something happened" error on my machine... very annoying.
binarycrusader 11y ago
Barely three paragraphs of text, not much background, and a bordering hyperbolic headline. Not the sort of "article" I would hope to see.
minimaxir 11y ago
I just did a factory restore of my Windows 7 PC last night in preparation of the Windows 10 update. After finishing 4 years of Windows Updates (eventually), I wasn't offered an opportunity to upgrade to Windows 10 via Windows Update. Apparently, it's given out at random and you can't manually request it. In order to manually update, you apparently have to download the Windows 10 ISO (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I... ) and create a boot media? And some are saying that this doesn't count as an "upgrade" for the Win7/Win8.1 Product Key. Maybe. The Windows 10 upgrade path is more confusing than it needs to be.
- mmozeiko 11y ago
  I had Windows 8.1 (non-OEM version) installed. Yesterday I created Windows ISO from that link. When booting from this ISO (on USB stick) it allowed me to upgrade existing Win8.1 installation. After upgrade I did clean install using same ISO. During installation I skipped entering windows key. Then at first boot it activated Windows automatically.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- mikehodgson 11y ago
  I updated this morning using the installer tool available at that link. If you're running the tool on the computer you want to upgrade, you don't need to create any media. It will do everything automatically, I think I only had to answer two questions. edit: Forgot to mention I was also on Windows 7
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - minimaxir 11y ago
    Will give that a try. Thanks! :)
- JohnTHaller 11y ago
  Run the appropriate tool and select upgrade. There's no need to create boot media in terms of an ISO or bootable USB. You shouldn't be prompted for a license key.
kefka 11y ago
That's strange. We have a pile of the new Intel Compute Sticks, HDMI windows 8.1 x86 devices. They're pretty slick. So, I threw Win10 on them. My big complaint is that the install took 2.5 hours. That sucked. And then it came up. Like a charm. Super smooth, responsive and it just worked. Admittedly, I didnt have a firefox window to surf the web whilst being installed, but this was a 1 time affair. I'm rather impressed with Win10 so far.
chroncilinks 11y ago
Here's a helpful link http://www.howtogeek.com/190217/10-alternative-pc-operating-systems-you-can-install/ http://www.howtogeek.com/190217/10-alternative-pc-operating-...
GodKronos 11y ago
No offence to the poster but stealing images from a Reddit mega thread, one of which is an outlier error and the other being 2 lines of text that wasn't changed in the "help" text, does not a terrible installer make. The same thread has hundreds if not thousands of posts indicating how easy the install was, only a few people are having issues which is to be expected on a product launch. Also if you say, " I cant remember an instance in the last 10 years when it just failed on me randomly while updating Windows", I really can't take you seriously, especially with the qualifier: that Windows updater is a "rock solid" platform.
- scott_karana 11y ago
  > The same thread has hundreds if not thousands of posts indicating how easy the install was, only a few people are having issues which is to be expected on a product launch. It's not "having outliers" that is a problem: it's how you treat them that matters. "Something happened" is not useful a useful message to anyone: not the end-user, nor Microsoft. Imagine being the poor dev having to troubleshoot problems based on that message alone.
  - GodKronos 11y ago
    I agree to certain degree that it is how you treat the outliers. However 1) they are outliers for a reason: they happen to a very small subset of users. Its not as if every other person is having this error, that particular image was up-voted because it is a hilarious error to have not because it was happening to the majority of people. You can't plan for every eventuality which brings me to point 2) it would ludicrous to assume that every single issue is taken into account and that every install will go exactly as planned. With something as big as a new OS launch things are going to go wrong, that's just the way it works. If you can find me a company that has everything exactly perfect at launch with a product as big as Windows 10 with no errors I would be very impressed to see it. I'm not trying to Microsoft "fan-boy" or come off in that manner, it's just silly to me that people are bashing Microsoft (or any company) for things not going PERFECTLY on launch day. It comes off as childish IMO.
    - 11y ago
kirk21 11y ago
Installing was a piece of cake. The only thing that annoyed me slightly was a dialog that said 'We will be done soon' and it took a few minutes.

33 points by pdeva1 11y ago

It's not clear how this is more than FUD based blogspam.

rwmj 11y ago

As a virt developer I spend a lot of time installing Windows and various Linux distros, and Windows (all versions) has terrible installers. However I'm also not surprised by this: almost no end user needs to run the Windows installer since the main way they get Windows is preinstalled on their PC.

donniefitz2 11y ago

I have updated several machines and had no problem at all.

jmgrosen 11y ago

Getting that dreaded "Something happened" error on my machine... very annoying.

binarycrusader 11y ago

Barely three paragraphs of text, not much background, and a bordering hyperbolic headline. Not the sort of "article" I would hope to see.

minimaxir 11y ago

I just did a factory restore of my Windows 7 PC last night in preparation of the Windows 10 update. After finishing 4 years of Windows Updates (eventually), I wasn't offered an opportunity to upgrade to Windows 10 via Windows Update. Apparently, it's given out at random and you can't manually request it. In order to manually update, you apparently have to download the Windows 10 ISO (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I... ) and create a boot media? And some are saying that this doesn't count as an "upgrade" for the Win7/Win8.1 Product Key. Maybe. The Windows 10 upgrade path is more confusing than it needs to be.

mmozeiko 11y ago
I had Windows 8.1 (non-OEM version) installed. Yesterday I created Windows ISO from that link. When booting from this ISO (on USB stick) it allowed me to upgrade existing Win8.1 installation. After upgrade I did clean install using same ISO. During installation I skipped entering windows key. Then at first boot it activated Windows automatically.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
mikehodgson 11y ago
I updated this morning using the installer tool available at that link. If you're running the tool on the computer you want to upgrade, you don't need to create any media. It will do everything automatically, I think I only had to answer two questions. edit: Forgot to mention I was also on Windows 7
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- minimaxir 11y ago
  Will give that a try. Thanks! :)
JohnTHaller 11y ago
Run the appropriate tool and select upgrade. There's no need to create boot media in terms of an ISO or bootable USB. You shouldn't be prompted for a license key.

kefka 11y ago

That's strange. We have a pile of the new Intel Compute Sticks, HDMI windows 8.1 x86 devices. They're pretty slick. So, I threw Win10 on them. My big complaint is that the install took 2.5 hours. That sucked. And then it came up. Like a charm. Super smooth, responsive and it just worked. Admittedly, I didnt have a firefox window to surf the web whilst being installed, but this was a 1 time affair. I'm rather impressed with Win10 so far.

chroncilinks 11y ago

Here's a helpful link http://www.howtogeek.com/190217/10-alternative-pc-operating-systems-you-can-install/ http://www.howtogeek.com/190217/10-alternative-pc-operating-...

GodKronos 11y ago

No offence to the poster but stealing images from a Reddit mega thread, one of which is an outlier error and the other being 2 lines of text that wasn't changed in the "help" text, does not a terrible installer make. The same thread has hundreds if not thousands of posts indicating how easy the install was, only a few people are having issues which is to be expected on a product launch. Also if you say, " I cant remember an instance in the last 10 years when it just failed on me randomly while updating Windows", I really can't take you seriously, especially with the qualifier: that Windows updater is a "rock solid" platform.

scott_karana 11y ago
> The same thread has hundreds if not thousands of posts indicating how easy the install was, only a few people are having issues which is to be expected on a product launch. It's not "having outliers" that is a problem: it's how you treat them that matters. "Something happened" is not useful a useful message to anyone: not the end-user, nor Microsoft. Imagine being the poor dev having to troubleshoot problems based on that message alone.
- GodKronos 11y ago
  I agree to certain degree that it is how you treat the outliers. However 1) they are outliers for a reason: they happen to a very small subset of users. Its not as if every other person is having this error, that particular image was up-voted because it is a hilarious error to have not because it was happening to the majority of people. You can't plan for every eventuality which brings me to point 2) it would ludicrous to assume that every single issue is taken into account and that every install will go exactly as planned. With something as big as a new OS launch things are going to go wrong, that's just the way it works. If you can find me a company that has everything exactly perfect at launch with a product as big as Windows 10 with no errors I would be very impressed to see it. I'm not trying to Microsoft "fan-boy" or come off in that manner, it's just silly to me that people are bashing Microsoft (or any company) for things not going PERFECTLY on launch day. It comes off as childish IMO.
  - 11y ago

kirk21 11y ago

Installing was a piece of cake. The only thing that annoyed me slightly was a dialog that said 'We will be done soon' and it took a few minutes.