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Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

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Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#311

Post by cm2187 »

blep-arsh wrote: post #211
ragequitta wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is horrifying though. No regular user ever updates their stuff unless they're forced to, and in a world of increasingly horrifying botnets that can cripple the world economy on command, I can see why having the average user update automatically is necessary. Note that the average user (even myself, who is fairly good at keeping the latest version of everything installed) wouldn't have this problematic…

Major Windows 10 releases continue to receive security updates for quite some time after a new release drops, so force-feeding major releases to home users is not even necessary to keep users secure. As for warnings, as soon as the update is auto-applied you lose the ability to reboot without having your OS replaced and possibly rendered inoperable. Security updates are quick and mostly painless, on the other hand, b…

I thought the model was 18 months of support now:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifec...

Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#312

Post by Razengan »

lowlevel wrote: post #302
Razengan wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I installed Windows most of the greeting messages came off as patronizing or subtly sinister, like that one. Throughout Windows’ history, even before I had ever used Macs, it has felt as if someone at Microsoft keeps having the wrong idea about what people adore about Macs, and tries to imitate that in a “we can do it better” way.

Don't worry... your files are right where you left them. As long as they're not in Documents...

I can’t help but read that message in a “Would be a shame if something happened to them..” tone.

Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#313

Post by arthurfm »

StreamBright wrote: post #134
arthurfm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, if you had switched to a Mac sooner you may have been affected by Apple's data loss/corruption bugs. [1] [2] Regardless of OS it's always a good idea to have backups of your important data. [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2018/02/19/apfs-bug-macos-data-los... [2] https://www.iezzi.ch/leopard-1051-massive-data-loss-bug/

Unironically, I am in control of when and if any update happens on my Mac. Also unironically, the described bug has not happened as a result of an upgrade, it was not forced on any user and definitely was not affecting the whole desktop. From the articles you linked: "The images get corrupted on copies to the USB attached external drive. " "However, as Bombich notes, ordinary APFS volumes like SSD startup disks are n…

> it would have been obvious that these are not the same by volume and severity.

If users don't have backups, any unintended data loss caused by an operating system bug is bad because it can be difficult or impossible to recover the affected data. Would you not agree?

You may not have been affected by the two bugs I described above, but some people would have been (more so with the image corruption bug).

> the described bug has not happened as a result of an upgrade, it was not forced on any user and definitely was not affecting the whole desktop.

If you go back further in time, there actually was a bug that resulted in data loss during an OS X upgrade.

https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/exclusive-oxford-semi-fi...

Oxford Semiconductor has issued a statement with regard to the emerging Panther and FireWire data-loss debacle.

The company says: "Oxford Semiconductor has been investigating reports that some FireWire 800 drives have lost data after an upgrade to the Mac OS X 10.3 Panther operating system is installed (released late October).

"Currently we believe this issue relates to a change in the way Panther uses FireWire that affected version 1.02 of the OXUF922 driver software. A new version, 1.05 was issued by Oxford Semiconductor to the manufacturers of external drive products in early September."

As Macworld UK first reported yesterday, users installing Panther while having an external FireWire drive connected to their Mac have seen data loss; similarly, users with FireWire drives connected to their systems have seen data loss once they reboot Panther. At this stage, it appears that the problem is confined to FireWire 800 drives.

In 2001 there was also a bug in iTunes 2 that caused an entire hard drive partition to be deleted if the volume label was prefixed with a space.

https://www.wired.com/2001/11/glitch-in-itunes-deletes-drive...

Some Macintosh users who rushed to download the latest version of iTunes – Apple's popular digital-music player – were singing a song of woe on Friday. A bug in the installation procedure caused the application to completely delete their computers' hard drives.

The bug seems to have affected computers with a very specific configuration: people running Mac OS X who had "partitioned" big hard drives into several smaller ones, and who'd typed a space at the beginning of the drive name.

For example, if a Mac had a drive named " music" instead of "music," it might have been deleted by iTunes.

Tom Fisher, a computer repair technician who lost about 100 gigabytes of information during the installation, said that people often include a space in the drive name to ensure it shows up at the top of the list when they examine their drives.

According to Mac experts who examined the code of the buggy iTunes installer, the problem arose from a very tiny programming mistake – a forgotten quote mark.

Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#314

Post by AnaniasAnanas »

msaharia wrote: post #290
bArray wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly one of the main reasons why I switched to Linux, it doesn't do anything unless I let it or ask it to - with few exceptions. My anecdote: I was about to have an important meeting and needed to print off some sheets from my Windows-based netbook. The power was low ( FYI the Linux experience has been mostly great. There's been maybe a problem once a year, with some driver or package issue - but most of t…

I shifted to Linux full time this year from MacOS. The only thing I desperately need is a replacement for is MS Office. Any ideas? I'm a power user, which Google word is simply not good for.

May I suggest org-mode? It can act as a pretty good replacement for Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and even FrontPage. You can even use latex inside org-mode documents and it has an integration with gnuplot.

Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#315

Post by finchisko »

kens wrote: post #115

I'm a tolerant person, but recently I switched from Windows to Mac because the forced Windows updates kept messing me up. One time I left a long simulation running overnight. In the morning, I was greeted by a computer that had automatically rebooted to install updates, killing my simulation. Another instance was my daughter's birthday party, where she wanted to show a movie. The computer decided to spend an hour doi…

I wouldn't mind these forced updated, if they took seconds like on Linux. Why are Windows updates so slow? And why I cannot use my computer when updates are running (like on Linux). Part of the problem is that Windows locks files so they cannot be deleted/replaced when full blown system is running, but it has to be more I don't know about the update mechanism.

Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#316

Post by paul-sebastianm »

Just yesterday I was commenting about how Windows developers are still adjusting to the corporate's latest business idea, rolling releases and hopefully TDD. Now I'm sorry to have been so kind. This kind of shit shouldn't escape testing. Touching files that shouldn't be touched? Really? Is that how much Microsoft cares about the safety of their user's data?

Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#317

Post by Tempest1981 »

arthurfm wrote: post #64
user3359 wrote: post #7

They're absolutely garbage at this. When I was _forced_ into the windows 10 update, it went through the process and appeared to finish but didn't put my desktop back. No problem I figured, they put it somewhere. So I did a file search, found the desktop in a folder, moved it back to the desktop. A day later it self-restarted and _completed the update_, replacing the desktop with the now empty desktop folder. I went t…

Ironically, if you had switched to a Mac sooner you may have been affected by Apple's data loss/corruption bugs. [1] [2] Regardless of OS it's always a good idea to have backups of your important data. [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2018/02/19/apfs-bug-macos-data-los... [2] https://www.iezzi.ch/leopard-1051-massive-data-loss-bug/

And you need to notice that files are missing before the backup history disappears.

Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#318

Post by finchisko »

warent wrote: post #118
kens wrote: post #115

I'm a tolerant person, but recently I switched from Windows to Mac because the forced Windows updates kept messing me up. One time I left a long simulation running overnight. In the morning, I was greeted by a computer that had automatically rebooted to install updates, killing my simulation. Another instance was my daughter's birthday party, where she wanted to show a movie. The computer decided to spend an hour doi…

I'm by no means a low-level OS developer but I can't help but wonder, wouldn't it be possible for Windows to partition off part of the disk to copy system-critical files and then quietly stage updates in the partition (all of this with minimal thread priority so that if some other process demands resources/threads, it will pause/defer itself!). When the staged update is complete, it gives you a friendly notification…

Or maybe they can implement some overlay FS and updates will be stored in FS overlays. Writing to overlay would be possible even when Windows is running. Effectively shortening time when computer cannot be used due system updates. Basically the only disrupt would be just simple reboot to activate the FS layer due Windows file locking.

Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#319

Post by Farradfahren »

avip wrote: post #287
warent wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm by no means a low-level OS developer but I can't help but wonder, wouldn't it be possible for Windows to partition off part of the disk to copy system-critical files and then quietly stage updates in the partition (all of this with minimal thread priority so that if some other process demands resources/threads, it will pause/defer itself!). When the staged update is complete, it gives you a friendly notification…

This is how embedded devices do firmware upgrade - I'm not aware of any other sane & safe way to upgrade.

Oh there are, but they are not safe and sane- they are basically network corrected viruses, overwritting the image they where started from like a virus. You do not want to disturb this or deprive it of its lifeline over the phone.

Re: Microsoft suspends Windows 10 update, citing data loss reports

#320

Post by Farradfahren »

Razengan wrote: post #312
lowlevel wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry... your files are right where you left them. As long as they're not in Documents...

I can’t help but read that message in a “Would be a shame if something happened to them..” tone.

Have you ever considered buying some Ankh Morporkhian Fire insurrance?
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