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Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

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Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#151

Post by nmstoker »

These speed issues are annoying but the thing that kills my experience is the lost clicks - and when one is missed, because it's quite common that Windows is just being its usual useless self, you then don't know for sure if it really missed the click or not. Invariably the time you think "it did miss it, try again", you'll click again only to find that now your slow Windows machine is stupidly struggling to do the damn task twice!

The other issue doesn't sit completely with Windows: in a corporate environment, there are numerous remote activities that get hooked up without much thought or care and it only takes an occasional slow response with one or two of them for Windows to become unusable.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#152

Post by RamRodification »

ergot_vacation wrote: post #81

Over the past decade, software updates in general have mostly become another form of malware, as software makers care more about extracting money from their users or adding pointless shiny features than actually making their software fast, stable, or better able to serve the user. As a result, my default policy now is "If it ain't broke, NEVER fix it." Install, then disable all updates, forcibly if necessary. On Wind…

I can never relate to these posts. I always update all my stuff pretty much immediately when I see an update available. I run Windows, so I'm talking Windows Updates, browser updates, drivers, anything and everything. It actually gives me a pleasant feeling knowing I get bug fixes, security fixes, maybe some new feature every now and then. I'm definitely naive enough to hope for performance improvements rather than worry about performance regressions. Historically, it's extremely rare that an update messes something up for me.

Maybe I'm not as quick to update as I think I am, giving vendors time to fix broken updates before I get them? I dunno. I'm also privileged in that I update my hardware quite often. Maybe that hides any worsened performance from my perception.

I'm not sure if I understand your strategy correctly, but disabling (security) updates on Windows and browsers sounds like a recipe for absolute disaster. To me that sounds waaay more risky than any risk taken when installing (potentially broken) updates from MS/Mozilla/Google

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#154

Post by bruce343434 »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #128
ergot_vacation wrote: post #81

Over the past decade, software updates in general have mostly become another form of malware, as software makers care more about extracting money from their users or adding pointless shiny features than actually making their software fast, stable, or better able to serve the user. As a result, my default policy now is "If it ain't broke, NEVER fix it." Install, then disable all updates, forcibly if necessary. On Wind…

I used to find new technology to be exciting. Now, new technology (speaking about more than just software here-- appliances, cars, etc) causes me to instinctively respond with "What features, capabilities, ownership models, etc, are being taken away from me with this new thing?" I assume it's a function of my getting older (44), to a large extent. It can't all be about me getting older, though. I can't be alone in th…

I'm young (20) and I already have this negative view. I used to be excited about how fast computers would be. How good graphics would become.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#155

Post by einr »

nycdotnet wrote: post #109
brudgers wrote: post #68

Some remarks: I used Hyper-V as the hypervisor of choice That is not how most end user installations are configured (aka, not as a virtual machine). 32GB fixed disk for each build. That is much much less than the typical Windows 10 hardware. the fast boot feature has been disabled for the purposes of this measurement. That is not the default and not reflective of most installations.

4 GB RAM seems impossibly tight as well. I'm not sure if 4 core and 4 GB was ever a common or representative setup for PCs; perhaps 2 core and 4 GB in the Vista timeframe...

There were plenty of Core 2 Quads and Phenom X4's with 4 GB RAM around 2009.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#156

Post by HeckFeck »

MereInterest wrote: post #140
Hammershaft wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people still expect modern software to run at incredible speeds on hard disk drives? Modern software usually doesn't run at incredible speeds on an nvme drive with top of the line hardware. Modern software is often just slow. What can I do on a modern operating system today that I couldn't do on a predecessor released 20 years ago? What justifies that Windows 10 feels slower to use then Windows XP while Wind…

Exactly. I am of the opinion that anything that was possible in computing 15 years ago should be perceptibly instant today. There are obvious exceptions such as cross-continent communication being limited by the speed of light, but as a general rule. Instead, we get software that's written as if Dennard scaling were still occurring.

When I was a child, I had a reverent wonder for technology and all it might do in the future. Realisations like this replaced that with a dry cynicism. My inner child is disappointed.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#157

Post by stronglikedan »

windowclenaer wrote: post #147
ncann wrote: post #24

I can't remember the last time I used Windows search because it's worse than useless - there have been multiple occasions in the past where it can't even find a file in the current folder right in front of my eyes. Nowadays I just use Everything which I think is one of the best piece of software ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_(software) https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=590 This is closed source software (Freeware) as far as I can tell. I realize you're already on MS Windows, but downloading a binary blob from some third party that's reading all files on your system seems a little too trusting.

Everything has become ubiquitous enough over the many years to be completely trustworthy for most Windows sysadmins. Additionally, I agree with OP that it's one of the best pieces of software ever.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#158

Post by bruce343434 »

asciimov wrote: post #98
smoldesu wrote: post #25

One time Windows got a "feature update" that made it not boot. Apparently it was an issue with Lenovo motherboards that is still not fixed to this day (afaik). In any case, that was the kick in the pants I needed to switch to Linux. Everything has gone swimmingly since!

Just wait, one day you will have an update to linux and suddenly your whole system wont boot. This doesn't happen often, I've only had it happen 2 or 3 times in 10 years. It is good practice to have a restore thumbdrive around ready to go just in case.

The amount of times that my manjaro installation broke itself after a "full" system upgrade lacked appropriate gpu driver updates... From an OS that supposedly uses upstream Arch repos as a sort of guinea pig and waits until the dust settles upstream to roll out the updates. After a while it gets old to have to press shift and advanced-boot-options my way into the older kernel.

Both Windows and Linux are not perfect. With windows it feels like you have to fight to keep control over your computer. With linux it feels like you have to fight virtual poltergeists.

Re: Did Windows 10 slow down with each feature update?

#160

Post by KronisLV »

yabones wrote: post #115
ergot_vacation wrote: post #81

Over the past decade, software updates in general have mostly become another form of malware, as software makers care more about extracting money from their users or adding pointless shiny features than actually making their software fast, stable, or better able to serve the user. As a result, my default policy now is "If it ain't broke, NEVER fix it." Install, then disable all updates, forcibly if necessary. On Wind…

In that case, install Debian Stable and stick to Firefox ESR. Nothing will ever change without warning, and you will have the most blissfully boring user experience.

Debian is great, personally i favour it most with either the LXDE or XFCE desktops - they're blissfully boring and functional!

I would have perhaps recommended Ubuntu LTS to some folks previously because of the long release/support cycle (even if you only decide to install security updates), but i guess with software packages like snap infecting the OS i can no longer make that recommendation.

Previously i would have suggested that some folks also look at CentOS because it's wonderfully stable and releases are supported for ~10 years, but i guess all of that was ended by Red Hat with CentOS 8. Maybe Rocky Linux will once again provide a stable RPM distro for free, without resorting to using Oracle Linux, but only time will show that.

Is it just me, or have many once stable OS releases have been killed off in one way or another in the past decade, either forcing people to migrate to paid projects, forcing automatically updated software that cannot really be controlled easily (snaps) upon them, or doing other shady practices for no discernible reason?

That said, i personally also only update software (like Nextcloud, GitLab, OpenProject etc.) manually between larger releases when i have made and re-checked backups of all of the data, before archiving the old versions and then migrating over a copy. I'm not sure whether i could live that way with OS updates or versions, though, without absolutely minimizing the attack surface - maybe with something like a locked down Alpine Linux.

Either way, it feels like perhaps automatic updates that can't even be controlled being forced upon users are the inevitable future. It's nice that there's Debian, but my question would be: "How long before it goes the path of Ubuntu?"

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