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Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

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Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#41

Post by throwanem »

setq wrote: post #31
txmx2000 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are driving down the interstate, message pops up saying it needs to refuel, you don't hit the button fast enough, your cars shuts off, and you spend the next 15 minutes parked in the middle of the road with cars honking behind you. Or you wake up, get dressed for an important meeting, unlock your door, and suddenly realize you're going to be late because your car decided this was the best time to finish refueling…

This has never happened to me unless I've actively ignored it and I sit in front of a Windows PC for 12 hours a day and have done for 19 years.

How nice for you! Having active hours be ignored, and the machine update itself in the middle of a workday, has happened more than once to me. (Once would be enough.) It's happened more than once to a lot of other people, too. How far do you expect to get with this argument by implication that that's not the case, and we're all just full of it?

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#43

Post by pawadu »

vezycash wrote: post #16
kristianc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article points out that you can set hours when Windows will update.

What if Microsoft instead fixed the need to restart for almost every update?

For that matter, why are we seeing so many updates? It seems 1/4 of my CPU cycles are used to keep the system up to date.

ChromeOS updates the system once every 6 weeks and still has a far more secure system.

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#44

Post by Already__Taken »

Jonnax wrote: post #17
chrisacky wrote: post #2

I was on a internal Slack call with team the other day, I ended up having to restart to Windows to do a screenshare and switch to Skype. I ended up having to delay my working day by about 45 minutes while Windows decided to do a mandatory update without any granularity of choice on when is convenient for me. That's what is frustrating. I ended up being unproductive for a whole hour because Windows forced an update on…

It's an interesting problem. Live updates without requiring a restart is going to be a complex task, how do you reload a library in use by a program without crashing it? Especially when Windows has a decade+ of software compatibility. Their current solution is scheduling updates to periods when the computer is not in use. I think recently they added an option for you to define a set of hours where updates take place.…

Skype crashes quite regularly so I think we've a lot of ground to cover before "reloading software that never stops" is a problem.

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#45

Post by retox »

madiathomas wrote: post #12

I would like to keep my Windows Update on, but I just can't afford it. Data bundles are too expensive where I live. I can buy a week's worth of groceries with the amount I spend buying just 2GB data bundle. Not everyone lives in a country with cheap data bundles.

I believe at one point the windows 10 complete installer was downloaded to everyone, 'just incase' they decided to install. Really narrow-minded behaviour.

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#47

Post by simias »

jamespo wrote: post #13
kefka wrote: post #9

And the reason why people were suggesting to turn off Windows Update was precisely because of malware payloads directly from Microsoft. "Do you want to upgrade to Windows 10? Press the hidden button to cancel, otherwise upgrade commences." This is how malware works.... But published and pushed by MS's own channels. And his jab at people who say that turning off WU is similar to anti-vaxxers is completely inane and fa…

No, most people turned it off because they didn't want updates interrupting them. You are vastly overestimating who cares about "MS malware".

I'm still inclined to blame that on MS really. Poor ergonomics. I can understand the OS telling me to reboot if I haven't restarted the computer in a few days after an update took place but there's no reason to harass me immediately after an update got installed (unless it's a critical 0-day patch I suppose).

But really, it's getting worse. I remember seeing a bunch of articles last month about how to preemptively defend against the "creator's update" because it came bundled with a bunch of software people didn't want. They use windows update as a trojan horse to install new applications, that sets a very bad precedent.

I've even stopped urging my friends and colleagues to enable auto-updates because I'm worried that they'll end up having windows auto-update to a new version and break something and then I'll have to help them through it. I just can't be bothered anymore.

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#48

Post by pawadu »

dozzie wrote: post #36
Jonnax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting problem. Live updates without requiring a restart is going to be a complex task, how do you reload a library in use by a program without crashing it? Especially when Windows has a decade+ of software compatibility. Their current solution is scheduling updates to periods when the computer is not in use. I think recently they added an option for you to define a set of hours where updates take place.…

> It's an interesting problem. Live updates without requiring a restart is going to be a complex task, how do you reload a library in use by a program without crashing it? Well, how do Linux and other unices do that?

software: can upgrade binaries and libraries without affecting already running programs

services: they are specifically designed to be updated and restarted

kernel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#49

Post by noja »

CydeWeys wrote: post #4

I love the way he's compared the people who tell you to turn off auto-updates with anti-vaxxers; it's quite an apt analogy. Microsoft shares part of the blame here for pushing features that the user clearly doesn't want through updates (especially to the major OS version). Look at the recent ads in Windows file explorer for one example. A lot of the advice to turn Windows Update off is a misguided response to Microso…

> I love the way he's compared the people who tell you to turn off auto-updates with anti-vaxxers; it's quite an apt analogy.

This is a good analogy, but does it work in different circumstances? (Apologies for the derail)

Over on Android, the apps have got so big (and the storage was until recently so small) that automatic updates _cannot_ be installed - the new apps are too big, the phone is full. What do we do then?

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