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Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

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411–420 of 567 posts

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

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly MS is hardly the first to have done something like that, but they are the biggest and most prominent name right now. People avoid doing firmware updates on various devices for the same reason, as there is no indication what will change or go missing (never mind that it likely will reset the device, and thus require a full reconfigure before being useful again). The basic problem of our world is that it is ruled…

> The basic problem of our world is that it is ruled by 20-sometings that loath working on "old" tech. disagree completely, it's not the 20-somethings that come to you and say "the budget we have is limited, and we have to prioritize, feature X might get us more exposure, so work on that and it doesn't matter if it breaks backwards compatibility, users will adapt" If upper mgmt goes after "oh shiny" there's not you c…

Then why oh why do i keep seeing FOSS projects with limited to no commercial interest keep doing rewrites with the latest "shiny" in mind?!

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

#412
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taskbar > Context menu > Cortana > ( Hidden / Show icon / Show search box )

Just include disabling it in the script you run after install https://gist.github.com/alirobe/7f3b34ad89a159e6daa1

This may work for highly technical users who also don't mind putting lots of configuration work into their Windows OS, but for the rest of 99.9% of home users out there, it doesn't help.

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

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the reason why most people (non tech savvy) look to turning off Windows Update. Most people don't know/care about Windows Update pushing features. However most people DO care when their computers spontaneously reboot themselves with no warning (sometimes even in the middle of "active hours"!) which is what msft has set by default (and indeed has/had no UI to modify in some versions of Win10)

"Active Hours" is such a stupid idea, too. I'm perfectly happy if my box has to reboot at 3am for updates, but I do actually make use of it in the morning as well as into the night, and as it shares some home-fileserver duties for the rest of my family, it gets used sporadically throughout the day. In its infinite wisdom Windows won't let me set "7am-11pm" as active hours - it caps it at either 10 or 12 hours. So no…

yeah for me it was 10 hours. I just checked and with the creators update it now lets you set to 18 hours, but seems there's still no explicit way of "ask me to reboot"

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

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the reason why most people (non tech savvy) look to turning off Windows Update. Most people don't know/care about Windows Update pushing features. However most people DO care when their computers spontaneously reboot themselves with no warning (sometimes even in the middle of "active hours"!) which is what msft has set by default (and indeed has/had no UI to modify in some versions of Win10)

This is now fixed.. But inversely, i'm annoyed that this "upgrade phenomena" seems squarely targeted at Microsoft when people who run Linux or OSX upgrade the second new shiny comes out. I'm not ranting here other than expressing a curiosity of culture that leads to cultural problems lingering much longer than they should. Windows 10 is awesome.. the experiment with "ads" sucks but its all tweakable.. just jump to Rs…

At least with Linux I can choose to install and whenever I want to install it. I don't get that freedom with windows, and it packages it's system with advertisements

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

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Active Hours" is such a stupid idea, too. I'm perfectly happy if my box has to reboot at 3am for updates, but I do actually make use of it in the morning as well as into the night, and as it shares some home-fileserver duties for the rest of my family, it gets used sporadically throughout the day. In its infinite wisdom Windows won't let me set "7am-11pm" as active hours - it caps it at either 10 or 12 hours. So no…

Upgrade to RS2 and select "pause updates" and just check for updates yourself as you're finishing up schedule it at your own time.

Yes because humans should work for computers not the other way around.

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

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Didn't recognize the username at first. I still have some doubts, but I do remember you talking about going to Antarctica in the Tron subreddit. I recently used Tron, and I hope that there isn't some undocumented part of the script that is disabling automatic updates. I have some doubts about this story... The forced Windows 10 update was only sent to non-enterprise versions of Windows. I highly doubt any of th…

> I have some doubts about this story.... I highly doubt any of these experiments were running the home editions of Windows I guess you've never worked with budget-constrained grant projects before. > I do remember you talking about going to Antarctica in the Tron subreddit 7 months on ice. > I hope that there isn't some undocumented part of the script that is disabling automatic updates. Tron doesn't perform ANY und…

>I guess you've never worked with budget-constrained grant projects before.

Unfortunately that also comes with completely incompetent IT staff.

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

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upgrade to RS2 and select "pause updates" and just check for updates yourself as you're finishing up schedule it at your own time.

Yes because humans should work for computers not the other way around.

computers are customizable for a reason and software always requires human interaction to be updates/useable.. most people are OK with their iPhone updating itself and its apps and showing related apps -not sure why that's so hard for windows users to adopt.

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

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this is configurable now.

So if I fill out the paperwork in advance Microsoft won't ruin my night? How generous of them. I'm really glad that linux gaming is increasing year over year, because gaming is about the only reason I still use windows at home.

again, this is another attack without much merit. Lots of windows users want the updates because they're asking Microsoft for them. If you want to run Linux then RUN Linux.. you don't need to rain on the MS parade for no other reason than a an apparent lack of empathy for what other human beings want to run.

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

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess in the same way a farmer might listen to its cattle? A nasty disease or two would get fixed, nice food to keep them fed, but if they're telling the farmers "don't eat me" I can't imagine the farmers would be very receptive. Likewise. Stop spying on me, stop advertising to me, stop pushing products I don't want on me, stop treating my computer like your personal playground. None of this is going to gain tracti…

It is fixed. When you upgrade to RS2 it asks you about the services and you can disable them and you can disable automatic updates. BTW, this isn't unique to MS.. phones update all the time and the concept of the phone is going to change.. soon you will have just one device that does everything. Are people going to complain that MS can't then do what Apple/Google do in regards to spying, updates & patches?

...soon you will have just one device that does everything.

That's already true, for people who only have a phone. In the long term, it's completely wrong. Today's "super"-devices will explode into a constantly-changing constellation, as soon as personal networking is ironed out. Future generations will laugh at caricatures of people today, who constantly tend to and obsess on one hunk of plastic to the exclusion of the wider world.

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

#420
post #26

That article would be more believable if Microsoft (as well as other companies) hadn't slipped all kinds of stuff in earlier updates which are not on the interest of the consumer at all. (Starting with annoying UX changes and A/B tests, to telemetry, to advertising, to removal of user software and DRM) Oftentimes it looks suspiciously as if the (rightful) need for security and quick responses is used as an excuse for…

Interesting tidbit from the bottom of this thread [1]: Windows actually has a pretty clear distinction between "security" and "crap-no-one-needs" updates and even offers a way to restrict to security updates only - in the LTSB version which is exclusively available to enterprise customers [2].

I take that as a proof that the whole discussion is more about pushing Windows-as-a-service than about actually caring for security.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14340449

[2] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/w... "Long Term Servicing Branch"

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