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Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

troyhunt.com

531–540 of 567 posts

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

#531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you trying to excuse Microsoft's behavior here? Who could have predicted that Microsoft would have actually done what they did and forced the Windows 10 update on everyone?

You may generally disagree with their update policy, but even in the worst scenario it's as much his fault as theirs. And yet he wants to completely blame them.

No, it's definitely Microsoft's fault. Even Home users should be able to have the expectation of controlling when or if major OS updates are applied. It's not like "doesn't automatically update to Windows 10" is an advertised feature of Professional.

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

#532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you trying to excuse Microsoft's behavior here? Who could have predicted that Microsoft would have actually done what they did and forced the Windows 10 update on everyone?

You may generally disagree with their update policy, but even in the worst scenario it's as much his fault as theirs. And yet he wants to completely blame them.

[deleted]

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

#533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how that would solve the problem; Apple is hardly a great friend of user choice compared to Microsoft.

It's not a good solution, but it's the only one that capitalism really provides - switching to the competitor to pressure the shitty company to stop being so shitty.

But this is like deciding apples have too much sugar and buying cake instead.

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

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also for forcing restarts for everything. And not restoring jack shit. I wouldn't mind Windows Update so much if it could competently restart my applications and restore my Explorer windows, but the only thing it does every fucking time is make the taskbar icons disappear until I force-restart the Explorer process. Though I would still mind it a lot for the insanely slow and unhelpful update process at shutdown, ev…

God, it's even worse for academic / engineering use. Nothing is better than running a simulation for twenty hours and waking up to a nice blank desktop. /s

Why are you even using Windows for this?

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

#535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of those are products that are not expected run over night in batching mode. I'll be sure to let them know that long-running computations deskside are now only an experimental feature /s In all seriousness though, we've managed over a decade without the need for dedicated compute nodes along with the costs that would entail. The only case I can make for that right now is that current Windows now ships with unp…

The good part of this is that I prefer using Linux for these things anyways and the instability of windows has forced both our government clients and our office to focus half our efforts into supporting Linux correctly.

Good luck if you're in a branch which has Windows-only software, such as 2D/3D graphics. Blender is definitely offering some good competition, but as I hear it from CG artists, it's still not quite there yet for most projects. If your pipeline is dependent on Adobe software such as Photoshop, Illustrator or After Effects, then you are also stuck with Windows. Rendering (2D or 3D) jobs can often take days if not weeks to finish.

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

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment you're replying to points out a lot of obnoxious "We know better than you" flaws in Mac OS X that the user has no power to override. I don't see how that's a defense of Apple.

What are you and harrygeez talking about? In System Preferences -> App Store I can uncheck the box that says "Automatically check for updates". It's trivial to override these perceived "flaws" in OS X. Try doing that with Windows. The best you can do is peruse some lists that people maintain in places like Github. Maybe those work, maybe they don't. Consequently I've avoided Windows for well over 10 years now (except…

> but Microsoft's heavy-handed bundling

> Microsoft abused the update system to download an entire, multi-GB OS (Windows 10) on systems running on Windows 8, "just in case they will want to upgrade".

Just pointing out that Microsoft is not alone with the above practices? It's not a question of whether you can disable it or not, it's that ALL companies do this. I don't necessarily like this but I empathize, general consumers don't know what's good for them, and Microsoft's reputation for security is on the line here.

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

#537
post #160

I wish they didn't push updates as I'm trying to shut the PC down. That has to be the most irritating time to do that.

Aren't you bothered that they push updates as you try to turn the PC on ? Or have you not experienced this part of windows update ?

Oh yes indeed. ;) I suppose I'm happy to boot up a machine and go and make a coffee while it goes about its business. But when shutting down a PC, people are usually trying to leave it. (OK. Or reboot it) ;)

[Ex daily Windows user for 10 years+ now]

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

#538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So, no offence, but this reads more like you and your colleagues destroyed a multi-million $ project by trying to save a few dollars by using Windows Home instead of Enterprise? And you're pissed at MS because of this?

None taken, but you obviously didn't even read the post.

These project machines are shipped (or physically hand-carried) by grad students from random universities all over the world. They come from who-knows-what IT department running who-knows-what software packages, often cobbled together JUST enough to get it working because they're so budget and time constrained that's all the resources they had to throw at it. So the lab is full of bespoke machines running a variety of very obscure software, much of it on tailored Windows boxes.

So no, "me and my colleagues" didn't "destroy a multi-million dollar project by trying to save a few dollars."

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

#539
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

4 years NSA, 14 years Army Signal Corps (routers/switches/radios) with multiple overseas tours, now working in an enterprise financial data center with CCNA/CISSP and a TS/SCI with full scope poly would put me a little ways out of the "completely incompetent IT staff" category.

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

#540
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My PC is not a toy, and is owned by me, not by you. * Don't reboot it without my consent * Don't install/run advertising without my consent * Don't install/run spyware without my consent * Don't keep interrupting my work to nag me for my consent Wrong: you are implicitly agreeing to the above 4 behaviors if you willingly use a Microsoft OS. Any time you select a vendor, you implicitly agree to their business practic…

I don't know why you are getting downvoted. If people want to reclaim sovereignty over their computers while also using proprietary operating systems, they will need to get laws passed. Right now, your only right is to buy the hardware you want. From there, that hardware can deny you the right to install another OS, deny you the right to change the hardware, or deny you the right of knowing how the hardware works. Wi…

I'm getting downvoted because this site is full of Microsoft sycophants. It happens every time I say anything about Microsoft here. I'll get a few upvotes from people like yourself who agree with me on issues like the one here, but then I'll get swamped with downvotes from the MS lovers.
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