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 me.

Windows definitely have to make it better as Troy suggests. The frequency is also costly.

shutdown /r /t 0

AFAIK, this has always avoided updates.

^_^

This can be rather dangerous if your laptop is stuck in a backpack with no airflow on a hot day.

The laptop would be hot enough to toast bread when I pull it out.

If I'm out of town for 2 weeks, I cannot have my Windows 10 machine reboot, it runs the software for my security cameras and that can't start until I log back in. Thankfully, I set up Windows Update to not install updates automatically(Win10 Pro) way back when it came out and it has continued to stick. Major updates are a constant worry that they will finally break this forever when it shouldn't even be a concern in the first place.

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

Is it not still like that? MacOS seems worse to me, since restarting when an update exists isn't sufficient: you have to remember to go back to the update and click 'update & restart'...

Linux handles this best though, by a long shot.

IME OSX is way better, the shutdown update process is much shorter than on Windows (where it is frustratingly long) and not all updates require rebooting.

There is.

In my configuration this is still working. I went to services.msc and searched for "Windows Update". I stopped the service, went to its preferences and selected "Disabled" as startup type.

It works fine.

One of the reasons I choose a PC over a Mac is because I want to decide things for myself. Microsoft's updates seem very Appleish to me.

All they need is large text that says something like, "You are more likely to get viruses, malware, randomware, etc if you uncheck this setting." Heck, make them confirm the choice two or three times. Some people want to risk it, some people need to risk it. Let them, it's their machine and their data.

Implementations actually matter. Hordes of us would jump ship if we could, but convincing vendors to port flagship software, or even do something as seemingly straightforward as a license migration is never easy.

Sorry, I have no sympathy. Look for alternatives, or roll your own. Or find a new line of business altogether. Whining about your OS vendor abusing you is getting really, really old now. Like an abusive boyfriend, they're not going to change, so it's up to you to make a change.

Then one day windows realizes, holy smokes, we have to install those updates now! And proceeds to restart your computer regardless of your update preferences, typically right in the middle of your business day.

Changing the updates to install on shutdown is slightly more challenging than disabling updates (it is hidden in an option about power settings on boot). So guess what people do?

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.

But the problem with this is that people don't treat Windows PCs like always-on devices like they treat mobile phones and tablets. So in those night hours the computer is off forcing daytime updates.

Well, how do Linux and other unices do that?

services: they are specifically designed to be updated and restarted

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

I write plenty of daemons (you call them "services"). What exactly do I write specifically for them to be able to continue to run when a library is upgraded?

From what I know, Windows doesn't allow a library to be replaced until it's not used by anything, which is more intrusive and is IMO the root cause (though indirect) why people hate updating Windows.

I don't think systemd supports what you are asking but it shouldn't be too hard to write a service that restarts other services if their shared libraries change?

    gcc --static

If you never restart a Linux desktop (or at least log out), you will be running outdated libraries, even if you run updates in the background.

(The best solution would be what Android does, where every program is supposed to know how to checkpoint itself, and they are forcefully restarted on a upgrade, transparently to the user. But even there, updates to system libraries still require a full reboot.)

In fact, if you can't afford the restart even when you schedule it, there's ksplice and a variety of similar solutions that can switch to a new kernel without a restart.

I did have firefox behave weirdly once after an upgrade until I restarted it, around v15 or so -- but I believe even that is no longer an issue; at the very least, I haven't had any issue with upgrading firefox while using it, and restarting it a week later.

But whatever windows does is way worse, I dread seeing the "please wait while Windows is configuring your updates" screen. I have an SSD, rebooting Windows takes less than 30 seconds, it's a non issue. But those update installs can take a long time and your computer is completely unusable while that happens.

It's also frustrating when that happens while shutting down because I normally turn off my computer's power outlet when I'm done (it switches off the rest of my equipment) so I have to wait patiently for Windows to allow my computer to shutdown before I can do that.

1) Windows update installed just security updates instead of potentially disruptive crap "features". The epitome of that, is of course forced update to Windows 10. Ads in Explorer is a close second. This would reduce the frequency of updates significantly as well, which would also help.

2) Windows update would use a sane default of not rebooting you while you are in the middle of something.

There's a setting that you can do where windows installs update in the background, with no user intervention, but IFF it doesn't require a reboot, and asks otherwise. But this setting requires Group Policy (or being part of a domain), so it's not available to non-Pro Windows customers (and it's a very esoteric option users won't know about anyway).

You can also reduce the frequency of updates with "install updates for windows only", but you can't really restrict yourself to only security updates (unless you run Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB edition, which you don't).

Actually the best thing for Windows, both usability and security wise would be to make Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB edition the version of Windows people use.

As I said, it is totally feasible because Microsoft is already doing it with LTSB.

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 Microsoft's own bone-headed moves in recent years to install bullshit that the user doesn't want.

I still sort of regret installing Windows 10 to this day because of the obnoxious Cortana bar it foisted upon my start menu that I can't get rid of. And yet not installing Windows 10 would've left me less secure with an OS hitting EOL for security updates much sooner.

Microsoft definitely shares some of the blame for this precisely because they have automatically "opted in" their users to stuff they don't want during past updates. Stop the bullshit, Microsoft.

The attack could come from the internal network (it spreads first via email). Also, don't forget the upnp shenanigans

No, unfortunately not - it spread using SMB internally on LANs, but travelled internet-to-LAN by "regular" phishing. It downloads its payload off the internet, but most good firewall would allow that (was the WannaCry payload detectable by virus scanners at the time of the infection? A "good" firewall might be one expected to intercept and scan all downloads).

> A legitimate reason like "this Windows runs on a medical/factory/etc. device that CANNOT go offline to install updates willy-nilly".

"Cannot go offline" implies that it's operationally critical. If you operate such devices, it is an absolute imperative that you have a procedure for taking them offline regularly for updates (not "willy-nilly" and anyone using that word about running a two-year out of date OS on a critical device is objectively not qualified to run them - and anyone buying such a device that can't be upgraded isn't qualified to buy them (and anyone making such a device...)).

In some contexts that simply isn't a viable strategy. As an extreme example, consider something like an implanted medical device that needs to run 24/7 for the rest of a person's life, which can only be replaced via surgery under hospital conditions, and for which any failure is already a life-threatening event. Of course that kind of device probably isn't going to be running an OS like Windows, but it makes the point. In fact, the USSS has reportedly had the standard wireless update facility disabled in such devices for prominent public figures who might be at risk of being attacked that way.

Some equipment used in hospitals or to run other essential infrastructure might be within the realms of running a "normal" OS like Windows but still be in a position where any time out of service is extremely expensive in one way or another, so routinely disrupting operation to apply updates still isn't acceptable. There are also contexts where the device is regulated and making any change at all requires re-approval -- a legitimate and serious conflict when faced with this kind of security risk if the situation when a regulated device goes out of spec can also be serious.

You need different security strategies for this kind of environment, which rely more on external controls. You can't just say everything must be able to come out of service at frequent intervals for security updates, and you can't just handwash the problem away by calling people who understand the issues "unqualified". It's a far more complicated problem than that, and often there are no completely satisfactory arrangements.

Also, those $100m devices aren't in service 24/7/365. No-one takes an airplane out of service in mid-flight to apply a security update.

> No-one takes an airplane out of service in mid-flight to apply a security update.

No, not mid-air, but close to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_airworthiness_direct...

The folks at hospitals are not going to fight with such an expensive machine, not even for updates - if something goes wrong, they would be to blame, they can live without that.

Then spend an afternoon going through each option, setting enabled/disabled for everything you don't want or don't recognize.

You can easily disable entire subsystems like Cortana, tips, telemetry, camera, biometrics, error reporting, games, Homegroup, Defender, Windows Store, and a whole bunch of other garbage.

So, this should work - but only in the pro Version.

When 7 goes end-of-life, I'll be 100% Linux.

I've heard this setup be described as a Wintendo. Not sure why, but that cracks me up.

GPUs' memory management isn't exactly security friendly.

-> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1305.7383.pdf

But then i get myself thinking of Gnome, and how i have seen similar tools sprout for tweaking it in recent years...

https://gist.github.com/alirobe/7f3b34ad89a159e6daa1

Ms is trying to turn Cortana into the Google play services of Windows So they can consensually(forcefully) collect data from every windows device.

Some years back Google went through a period of trying to hitch every new, and a bunch of existing, services to Google Plus.

It just so happens that the guy in charge of G+ was a former MS exec. And over at MS it was typical to attempt to hitch your project to any other project coming down the grapevine (the Google people actually called this "cookie licking" on stage after he had left the company).

And if you look back you could see this going on with .NET, you can see some semblance of this with Surface, and now with Cortana.

I guess it can be seen as some kind of in-office bandwagon politics.

I see apparently there are workarounds to get Cortana in all regions but most people aren't going to bother. If we're getting degraded local search because of where we live that seems pretty dumb.

I never use the "Windows Search" anymore, i hate it. It's slow and useless. I always disable the service. Then again, searching with standard windows search is probably my biggest annoyance on Windows

IIRC there were other tools: regain, lookeen, ...

[1]: https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack [2]: http://www.voidtools.com/

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?

Moving all my photos and ebook .pdfs off did alleviate the burden somewhat, but hasn't completely solved it.

My current workaround for very large apps is to uninstall, redownload, install. Apparently, holding both the update and the installed app uses much more space than doing a fresh install.

Then apply that to a local copy of the previous APK.

If that goes well, it attempts to install the new APK alongside the old install.

And if that works out, the user data is switched over and the old install and APK removed.

So at certain points during the install you need to have enough space for two full installs of the app, and the APKs they came in.

Or just leave them all on the internal system, until a system utility wakes up to the fact that there is not enough space, and suggest moving apps to the sdcard. After few rounds of updates, rinse and repeat.

What to do? Upgrade the hardware. It's not supported anyway. Modern Android devices which have updates published do not have this problem anymore.

A Moto G 2015 has only 8GB storage.

Even mid-range devices sold today only come with 8GB storage, of which 6GB are used by the OS.

The Moto G 2013/2014/2015

https://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Moto-3rd-Generation-Unlocked...

> And what price range are you using to define mid-range?

$200-$250

> Is there even a low-range (lower than 8 GB) if 8 GB seems to be the absolute minimum, since the OS won't even fit on something smaller?

See above.

The only Moto G model that doesn’t offer 8GB anymore is the 2017 edition.

I suspect this is an artifact of using the Linux kernel. As said kernel puts a focus on IO ops, and the EXT file systems spend a whole lot of time looking for contiguous free space before committing a write.

Thus if your app do a bunch of writing (say syncing local data with the cloud) at start, it will start quite slowly on a near full Android device.

Apps take up 6.32 GB of storage on my phone. The remaining space is taken up by the app cache. This isn't useless information like you'd expect, but it turns out it is data that is vital to the operation of my apps. I clear it fairly often, but it fills right back up again within a day.

Luckily I have an SD card slot, so I have space on my phone, but Google does not like expandable storage. Probably because they are a cloud organization or something.

I personally like to stay on a fairly new phone, but I think it is stupid that your phone can become obsolete within a few years. If the radios are still compatible with the cell towers, manufacturers should be obligated to support them. If you can't support your phones, don't churn out so many crappy phones.

I know times are different, but I used a Motorola Razr V3 from 2004 to 2011. It worked just fine for the entire time. Obviously internet sucked, but I was going to school in a place where the internet barely worked anyways.

If you just want a phone for texting, calling, and maybe as a GPS here and there, there is no good reason to buy a new phone other than planned obsolescence.

Outside of the app binaries and such you have their core data, stuff that gets generated or downloaded on first run.

Besides that you have a cache directory pr app that is housed outside of the tree location of the binaries and main data.

More recent Android versions have introduced yet more complications on this via the storage access framework, by providing APIs that give apps limited RW access to "external" storage areas without having to request the related permission.

And that's without going into the whole history of just what "external" means when dealing with Android file storage.

Microsoft needs to deliver updates in tiers in order to regain trust. Simply dividing it up into mandatory security updates, optional bug fixes, and optional feature upgrades would go a long way to addressing that even if the default is for all three tiers.

And when you do get one, you don't lose sight.

(My favourite complaint is Windows replacing GPU drivers with MS approved broken ones on major updates.)

Except that there were demonstrated cases of MS inserting the "brainwashing drugs" on the updates. Many people had legitimate copies of Win XP bricked by XPA, MS alti-malware broke install a couple of times in Win7 (and off-line machines were bricked by DRM more than once), and, finally with Win10 we've officially got the spyware and adware coming through updates like people were long expecting.

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, every update requires half an hour of shutdown as the machine does who the fuck knows what with an unhelpful throbber telling you it's at 30% of some arbitrary process you've no idea about and which looks exactly as if the entire thing had crashed.

Nothing is better than running a simulation for twenty hours and waking up to a nice blank desktop. /s

In a similar vein, imagine that you're ill-advisedly using a Windows server to host your node for cryptocurrency mining, and then it restarts when you're not around. You could lose serious amounts of money from that.

Vaccinations are awesome, but Microsoft's heavy-handed bundling is similar to how the CIA was using vaccinations as cover to collect DNA[1] samples in Pakistan. This inadvertently led to a distrust of vaccinations[2] which harmed the efforts to eradicate Polio (or biological WCry, if you will).

Additionally, 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". This was very expensive for people on metered bandwidth. Microsoft should separate critical updates from the less critical ones and give users the ability to opt-in for critical updates only.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vacci...

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/cia-vaccine-ruse-in...

If we want people to regain trust in auto-update there need to be something that prevent abuse. If that is regulations, liability laws, or just industry practice will be up to the future to decide. Until then a person will have to rational decide on auto-update as past people did with the uncertainty of not know what is snake oil and what is real.

You are far too confident in current medical practice.

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 by 20-sometings that loath working on "old" tech. The epitome of this is the FOSS world that goes through a wrenching rewrite churn every 5 years or so as new heads take over "old" projects.

For all their antics, one reason MS is still top dog is that they support APIs and ABIs first introduced with Windows 95 (or even older, if you manage to do a 32-bit install).

Never mind that MS did offer XP updates, for a price. One reason the NHS got hit hard was that some penny pinching bureaucrat decided they could not afford to pay said price.

Disagree thoroughly. The reason why people push shit through the security-updates channel is because of money and structural pressure from management to ensure adoption of the company's new $THING.

It's a big problem in tech, trying to get people to update. We might like to think of ourselves as progressive, but a lot of people in our world tend to be very conservative and resistant to change. Microsoft knows that as well as anyone else. The only way to ensure people are using the latest version is to stop giving them a choice. You can't always rely on people making the best choice for themselves.

That sounds super authoritarian, sure, but the nice thing about technology? Microsoft isn't the only game in town. They can do whatever they want with their platform and you're free to leave. You don't need a passport, or any more money, or really even any additional knowledge at this point. You're only locked in if you choose to be locked in.

*with "everyone" being the typical Internet strawman that only actually exists in a random selection of HN comments.

Agree with the first part, the second needs a very twisted definition of best or themselves.

Offer something people want and they will upgrade. This alone tells very much about the win10 situation. Microsoft game is lock-in, if the cost of leaving their garden is trivial they are doing something wrong!

I have a friend who buys $500 laptops. They last him a year, and then he has to buy another laptop. He laughs when I buy $1000 laptops, but those $1000 laptops last me three years. Over that three year period, he's spent $1500 on laptops and I spent $1000.

I have a friend who uses Windows XP. Windows XP is better, it's faster, it's leaner, Aero is garbage, Metro is garbage. DirectX 12 is just a scam to get you to upgrade, there's no reason Windows XP isn't the best. But once a month he's calling me about some kind of virus he's gotten even though he runs Symantec every day.

Relying on an outdated piece of software is never the best decision. If Microsoft's updates bother you that much, stop using Microsoft software. Microsoft can't lock you in to anything, and there's very little that Windows offers that OSX, or to a lesser extent Linux, doesn't offer. The arguments against switching come down to "I hate Apple/Linux", in which case you've locked yourself into one vendor for irrational reasons, or "Apple is too expensive", in which case you have to wonder if that's actually true considering you're spending hours complaining about Microsoft updates, or the worst one, "I'm a Windows developer", which... why? If you hate Microsoft enough to want to switch but Visual Studio is the only thing holding you back, I don't feel bad for you. The only slightly legitimate complaint is the lack of games, but there are a ton of games for Mac these days and consoles do exist.

It's not really lock-in if you choose to be locked in.

The arguments against switching come down to "I hate Apple/Linux"

Not at all. Many people are forced to use MS software, they don't have a choice. Not just running Windows, but using various MS Office apps, formats, Skype etc.

Also, there are others (mainly elderly) who are only familiar with Windows, learning another platform is not a freebie for everyone.

Most apps people need have alternatives on other platforms, but there are many - besides games, that target Windows only. Well, VS being the bloatware it is, not one of them of course.

You've identified a source of inefficiency in his workflow. If he really hates everything after XP though, maybe it's better (more efficient) to handle a big problem once a month than a dozen little problems (disliking aspects of the tool he's using) every day.

> "I'm a Windows developer", which... why?

That seems like an easy answer, though. Because someone's paying me to work on the technology that they want to use, which may be very different from the technology that I decide to use on my own time. Things can be personally suboptimal, but professionally useful. You don't hate it, but you don't love it as much as the things you use on your home machines.

> Relying on an outdated piece of software is never the best decision. If Microsoft's updates bother you that much, stop using Microsoft software. Microsoft can't lock you in to anything, and there's very little that Windows offers that OSX, or to a lesser extent Linux, doesn't offer.

Using software that actively works against your best interests, even while acting in your best interests in other ways, without a way to separate the two...is never the best decision. Microsoft can't lock you in, but platform choices of other developers can.

On a separate point about OSX: One thing it won't ever offer is the ability to run it on my hardware of choice. I happily pay Apple-like prices for hardware configured in ways that Apple doesn't offer.

> The only slightly legitimate complaint is the lack of games, but there are a ton of games for Mac these days and consoles do exist.

Games aren't fungible. Mac and Linux support lots of games, including what I was playing last night. Sometimes, what I want to play is limited to a single platform, and that platform is one that I wouldn't choose for general-use. C'est la vie.

> It's not really lock-in if you choose to be locked in.

That sounds like one of the arguments I've heard to justify things like TSA searches, or the various statements from politicians saying that internet access isn't a necessity and shouldn't be considered a right. "You don't have to fly! You can drive! No driver's license? You can bike!" Well...right. You don't "have" to use Windows, because you don't "have" to make software that works with Windows. It's your own choice to target customers using the most-used PC OS in existence.

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 can do at the individual contributor level, and if you know you are in a "oh shiny" management situation there is also no incentive whatsoever in spending time making sure you think about the future when developing, since you're going to have to throw everything away anyways in a few months or a year at the most.

It's all about "being nimble" and "velocity" and "being innovative", where all of them are more or less shorthands for "churn things quickly until something sticks". Stable, reliable, dependable software is unsexy, if the company you work for is large enough you might be able to find a team that works along those lines and be happy, otherwise it's fighting fires all the time.

But maintaining code (especially shitty code) gets you much fewer rewards and recognition than writing new code from scratch (including shitty code) -so that may be a better explanation of why most people don't like being "maintainers".

We run Windows 10 and the lastest Windows server on all our machines and don't have problems because we have good, in-house, local IT people and also good security on the edge routers.

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 for XP in a VM, which I use for playing Freecell).

> 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.

I also far too often see this logicaL fallacy being used. I was recently railing against MS and someone said, "well I'm more worried about facebook, what about them?" Your comments about OSX and Chrome have almost nothing to do with the the current discussion topic which is MS updates systems. I wish people would stop doing this equivicating, it's tiring and logically fallacious.

A person can call out any company they want for anything they want on the merits of their argument without it having to turn into a major company comparison.

All that said... gnu+linux actually allows the user control, and things like this can be stopped.

Bottom line is this, either the user controls the program, or the program controls the user. Google, Apple, and MS have all shown they are more concerned with controlling the user than giving them freedom. GNU+linux or really just GNU, is the future of freedom, and until people start understanding how inherently political software is, and stop basing their software choices purely on pragmatics (but mah lozedoze gaming!), these types of problems will continue to happen and have things written about them, but the solution is already here.

Stop using closed source proprietary systems.

Here's a better analogy: suppose you were pushed to get a vaccination, but the vaccine company secretly added a virus to the vaccine which alters your DNA so that your hands turn into claws and you grow antlers, because they thought this would be a great idea somehow. Then after word gets out about this, they say anyone who doesn't get this vaccine is an "anti-vaxxer" and "ignorant". That's basically what Microsoft did.

(reference for the body modifications: http://dilbert.com/strip/2004-04-18)

Why should they do this? And why should they care at all about people on metered bandwidth? What are Microsoft users going to do if they don't like getting a huge bill for downloading Win10 unexpectedly? Stop using MS? Not likely.

When are people going to wake up and realize that Microsoft has absolutely zero incentive to worry about keeping their customers happy?

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)

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 Rs2 and provide feedback if there is something you do/don't like. MS listens.

The problem are not (security) updates themselves. The problem is the intrusive update process and non-security updates bringing "features" nobody asked for.

I'm not sure where these absolutely incorrect assumptions are coming from but they're entirely false. Windows believe it or not is community driven these days. MS is delivering features for its "enterprise insides" and for its "xbox insiders" and for its "windows insiders" and this is a HUGE community.

Because all in all, Windows is getting less and less useful and more and more annoying. No, you don't need to stuff Cortana, Onedrive or whatever new initiative you have. If I wanted it, I would sign up by myself.

In my case, after I disabled the infamous KB 3035583 update for N-th time and it was back again, I lost my patience and switched the platform. I'm too old for such games. Some of my colleges still need win32 specific apps, but you can be sure, that as soon as they will be able to replace them, they will jump too.

I have no idea what the KB 3035583 problem is.. everyone makes mistakes. My mac had failed updates where I had to reset, my iPhone has had bad updates, my kindle fires have been borked, my android phones have been bricked, my wifi routers have been bricked.. I just take the time to learn and move on.

People are obsessively convinced Microsoft is bad, for no other reason that they're not giving them another chance yet the world turns a blind eye to very similar issues across the board.

Software isn't perfect. You don't fix software by never updating it. We're used to updates on Mobile/Tablets - many people are used to updates on PC/Tablet/Desktop but there are people who continually beat this non sequitur horse that PCS can't and shouldn't be updated.

Software is eating the world. If people want to compare MS to google - Google updates their shit all the time - does hundreds of releases a day. Now so does Microsoft. But hot damn, if MS does it they're "Evil" and "pushing crap or features no one wants" when we full know that is BS.

If Microsoft has feedback hub, throws parties, online meetings, etc., then they are very good at ignoring the feedback. Did they fix the privacy issues with Windows 10? Did they re-enable end-user control over updates? Did they stop resetting user preferences after updates? It's not that they are not aware of all of these.

The problem with KB3035583 (gwx - Get Windows X) was, that no matter how many times you have hidden it (to indicate do not install), Microsoft un-hided it, and several times it has flagged it as security update, which caused for many people to install it automatically. It definitely wasn't an mistake, it was clear intent, to make target figures with Windows 10 upgrades. It is one of the biggest reason why people were turning off windows update!

> People are obsessively convinced Microsoft is bad

You know, I'm some 25 years in this business and there are many reasons why they are right. Microsoft worked hard to earn this reputation. From "knifing the baby" to their today's attitude regarding privacy and pushing their services.

> Software isn't perfect. You don't fix software by never updating it. We're used to updates on Mobile/Tablets - many people are used to updates on PC/Tablet/Desktop but there are people who continually beat this non sequitur horse that PCS can't and shouldn't be updated.

As I've written elsewhere, existence of updates is not the problem. The update process (hogging up entire core with wsupdate service? No problem! Installing updates for 30 minutes? No problem either!) is one problem. The shoveling of unwanted stuff into updates is another. Compare that to apt/dnf on Linux side or App Store on Apple side - they are as unobtrusive as possible.

> Google updates their shit all the time - does hundreds of releases a day.

Google updates do not make your machine unavailable for 10-30 minutes at the most unfortunate times in the day. Ever been to ambulance, where the nurse has lined up patients, because her computer doesn't work right now? Guess which fault it was, Googles or Microsofts?

I'm pushing 41.. I've been into computers since i was 8. I've been through wishing OS/2 would win, Hating on Windows for years, begrudgedly using WIn95 OSR2.. I was the first BBS in Houston to offer Linux to download on 8 floppy disk images, i was the first to mirror a larger FTP site for Linux distros (ygdddrasil), I use Linux on THOUSANDS of computers - i work for a larger internet company running 10-s THOUSANDS of servers running Linux.. sometimes i wish they were all solaris since that was what really grabbed my hart but guess what - things change - systems change - people change - companies change.

Today i sport a Surface Pro 4, an iPhone 7, a MacBook pro and a Ryzen 1700 as my primary compute/phone devices.. I use them all. Windows 10 on my Surface Pro 4 is the best mobile experience I've ever had. i have Ubuntu/Suse/Redhat as bootable native shells, i have a web browser with extension support, gesture support and great experience, i have power shell, i have hyperv if i need it, i have docker - the experience in windows 10 lately far surpasses the experience of say - docker on OSX which has always been very goofy until recently and now with docker on windows i can run windows or Linux native containers.

MS is not only providing lots of open source code but they're a HUGE sponsor of the Linux foundation - a SUPPORTING member - the biggest you can achieve.

As for update times, you can schedule your updates. If you need to upgrade your android phone, you're not going to be able to use it during the upgrade - same with your PC, if you have pending updates - just schedule them when you need them.

You're still defending everyone else for facing the same problems MS does and for some reason, still hating MS for solving problems that need to be solved.

I for one am SO FREAKING GLAD windows doesn't fester for years between "Service packs" that then took years to get released because people had it in their goofy heads that people actually tested them for them.. i'm so glad that windows finally releases iterative updates on TUESDAYS and everyone in the world knows when PATCH TUESDAY IS if they run windows.. if you KNOW patch Tuesday is coming up, reboot when you're done patching on TUESDAY.

It really isn't as hard as everyone is making it out to be.

Now that I've written all this, its laughable how hard people are making this appear to be.

I hope the responsible people at Microsoft are better at receiving and processing the information regarding their products and the problems with them.

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 traction. All of those are the point. No amount of listening will fix this.

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?

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.

Apple actually fights to protect your privacy, when you pay them money for hardware they just try to make it work well for you, not advertiser. And their updates/reboots are optional.

MSFT takes your money, then doesnt protect your privacy AND sells you out to advertisers.

Microsoft offers a very similar ecosystem.. You can use office online, One drive, bing.com, skype, Cortana, Outlook.com and many services free for use with advertising (or no advertising)

MS doesn't "take your money" either, you buy something with Windows 10 on it or you buy a mac with OSX..

iOS updates aren't usually optional, as they quickly spam the crap out of you to upgrade and stop allowing publishers to post apps for the old release ergo "forcing" upgrades.

Android has the inverse problem.. handsets never getting upgrade so people flock to versions that do and happily upgrade away..

which is why I don't understand anything you have said. :)

oh and MS doesn't sell your privacy data to advertisers..

Microsoft does take my money--just because the cost for the OS is hidden in the hardware doesn't mean some fraction of that money isn't going to Microsoft, i.e. in the end I have to pay to use Windows. Windows 10 was not free either as advertised, since it required an older version to upgrade from.

Compared to Google's and Apple's offerings, Microsoft's do kinda look shitty.

[1] https://products.office.com/en-us/compare-all-microsoft-offi...

As far as product comparison, I prefer Office over google docs (And the link you posted is about their commercial offering).

office.com offers the online versions of office (web like google docs) and its as feature rich.

Also, lets be real.. You can get office 365 for up to 5 pcs for 99 a year and each account you link to it gets the extra benefits such as terabyte of onedrive and such, its not a bad deal at all.

That was the only part that was correct. Apple reminds users of critical updates, doesn't force. Apple allows every publisher to upgrade their apps (I'm an IOS dev), just don't try to link with outdated APIs. I have iOS 6 apps that still run fine without changes.

And you don't know what MSFT sells to advertisers.

MSFT does spell out what they share with advertisers the very same way Apple and Google do.

https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

https://www.apple.com/privacy/manage-your-privacy/

https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/

This isn't true for many of us that build our own computers. I bought a boxed copy of Windows and installed it. It certainly didn't come with or on anything.

30 bucks in most stores..

or get licenses through visual studio benefits, schools or transfer from another PC you may be shutting down. It's not rocket science to save money if thats your biggest concern.

> This is now fixed..

Once bitten, twice shy.

Most if not all of the non-tech people I work with would respond to this with "yeah, well, I don't care, I don't want to take the chance it reboots during a presentation/webinar/demo/etc ever again".

I don't want to have to tweak my fucking operating system to remove ads!! Also, I think we're asking too much of the average user. It's not obvious how to do most of the tweaks, so your random older/casual user won't do them, or maybe even realize that such a thing might be possible and go off to look up how to do it. They're more likely to just turn off updates.

I am slightly bemused we're making excuses for people not trying anything.. especially when computers these days are all about "Expressing yourself" and "identity"..

Presumably some freak compatability issue (I've noticed ads always appear when I open files using a certain program).

if we're playing this game, we should play it fairly.

What i do see is that when i use outlook.com it doesn't pop down telling me to switch to Edge, but when i use Gmail its always telling me to switch to edge.

Have you actually used MS products in comparison to google? didn't think so..

Windows is the paid one here.

YouTube, Gmail, Google et all have a dropdown advertisement asking me to switch to chrome no matter which browser I user that isn't chrome..

Lets also not forget that MS apps show up on google store, apple store and are fully cross platform whereas google is selective in what it supports. We're at a day and age where Microsoft has Cortana, One Drive, Office, Bing, Skype, Photos and so much more on iOS, Windows, Android and people are telling me that MS is bad when google is good (and is far from as cross platform as ms is) I just say use whatever, but if people want to nit pick about "Ads" that everyone does without knowing how everyone does it, that's lame. MS has a TON of "Free stuff" that isn't always dropping toasts to switch browsers, switch to chrome so on and so forth..

If people have so much energy to hate on something, that should be directed at sloppy companies like Yahoo that actually are detrimental to security/safety..

With the Microsoft services, the crucial difference is, that "Cortana, One Drive, Bing, Skype, Photos" is stuff that Microsoft is pushing on people, not stuff that people asking for from Microsoft. It is me too solution, it is Microsoft's version of Google+, except that Microsoft didn't learn their lesson yet.

Out of this, Office is an exception. iOS and Android users would not give up their platform, but they were willing to use another lite office suite. On a platform, where there is not a such threat, such as desktop Linux, there is no Office port. Even the macOS port hasn't got feature parity with the Windows version. Google is treating Windows Phone exactly the same way Microsoft is treating other platforms with Office.

If you consider this hate, maybe you should also consider whether it is deserved. There's no reaction without action.

People are asking for these services.. just because you don't run them doesn't mean no one does. Skype is still the largest voip network, bing is slowly still growing against goole, onedrive is huge for private and corporations, Cortana ins on over 600 million devices..

As for office on OSX, it is updated all the time and feature comparable if you bother to run 2016 with updates enabled..

THe hate is far from deserved, its misguided.

Microsoft is so cross platform Visual studio for OSX is full RTM, Visual studio code runs great in Linux/windows/OSX, they're writing Linux drivers, they have the Linux subsystem for windows that runs native windows apps, they're a core supporter of the Linux foundation. .net is cross platform now too and they're starting to merge xamarin/XAML/xml forms so apps can be written once and run everywhere..

doing more for software and systems than google is but people will continue to have this misguided hate

If you claim people are asking for these services, then what about not showing them down the throats of those who didn't ask for them? Seem simple, right? If they are so popular, why piss off those who don't care about them? Why do I have look after every Cmd-O at Onedrive file chooser, when I'm never going to use it and there's no option "do not bother me with this again?". I'm sure that Cortana might be on 600M devices, but there are not 600M active users... more likely users what resigned on looking for a new ways to turn it off. See the difference?

Office for Mac 2016 is updated every month indeed, but it is still missing features. For example, everything that starts with Power (PowerQuery, PowerPivot, PowerMap), or Inquire. The Mac version of Office does work with exactly 3 ODBC drivers. It doesn't work with exactly the same ODBC drivers, that the Windows has no problem with (PostgreSQL, for example - it crashes).

There was a lot written about Visual Studio for Mac and it being a rebranded Xamarin. See past discussions here, at HN.

And let's go back to the Office for Linux, shall we? That's the Microsoft prime lock-in device for many. Drivers for Hyper-V or Linux subsystem for Windows help Microsoft, not Linux.

BTW, i never see any ads/popups other than after a fresh install when the guided tour is starting up so i have no clue what people are flipping out about.

VIsual studio for mac is a re-write of xamarin, that doesn't change anything - xamaerin/visual studio/c# are all converging to offer a unified platform.

And i'm so glad you seem to know everything about everyone. THe same "billion google now" users probably only 1% USE it day in/day out.. but we're just going to be blindly bashing windows..

please, do us a favor and get over yourself. We get it, you don't run/don't like windows... so just stop wasting energy hating something you really don't have any clue about or care about.

The "ads" are recommended software. It is annoying that you get a toast notification asking if you want to use office online just as its annoying every few weeks my iPhone asks if I want to buy more icloud.

But what is really happening is that anything with an app store is tracking you to build a marketing engine that recommends other apps to you. The fallacy is that Microsoft is the only one doing this, the truth is that everyone is doing this.

There are ways around this in OSX and Windows.. you don't have to use the store, you can still download stuff and install away and you can still enable developer mode and side-load anything you custom write if you want to use the new API features.

I don't like it when I choose to use edge and every time I go to gmail it asks me to swtich to chrome.

I don't like it on my iPhone that every time I use gmail it asks me to switch to chrome even though I selected the checkbox to use safari.

I'm tired of this conversation being so one sided and biased as it is doing the world a huge disservice.

Ads for apps are ads, no matter how you spin it. People don't pay for android, they pay for windows. A pay OS/platform shouldn't force you to disable ads. Gmsil/Chrome are free apps.

Apple doesn't track you. On installs it asks if it can collect usage info, but you have to agree, and it's one time. They don't show you ads in either OS. They don't track your personal info. They don't give government agencies backdoors like MSFT got caught doing. They go to court to fight illegal searches of your devices.

Its painfully apparent you really hate Microsoft for your own deply personal reasons. I'm not changing that. But I will stand up and say that what you have said is not true and not the case of Microsoft today.

I'm not saying you have to change but we must be clear that you are speaking from perceived history rather than current day times.

Google android is "Free" as Windows 10 is free.. you paid for it with hardware... now if you could build your own handset you could install android but it would NOT be the official "google" android because reality is - hardware companies still have to license it in such a way to get the official apps. But again, we're not going to talk about this in apples and apples, you're only framing it in your obsession of fear/doubt/hate against Microsoft. And again, that's ok, I really don't give a hoot.

Apple does track you. The Apple Privacy statement is almost exactly the same as GOogle and Microsofts. https://www.apple.com/privacy/manage-your-privacy/ - they all enable services and warn you about services that provide value add in some cases but can seem in violation in others.

Its up to YOU to understand what you want to share, enable/disable what you want to share and understand how changing that changes the system you're running in.

But its up to you to use what YOU want to use and respect others for what they want to use.

Spending so much energy spreading FUD does nothing.

Chromebooks aren't free, phones aren't free, tablets aren't free, Apple/Google/Microsoft all provide app metrics to all their respective app stores and all go above and beyond to try and make them secure (google actually having to struggle with this compared to the other giants)

This isn't true. I had to explicitly go out of my way to pay hundreds of dollars for a Windows license for my computer, which I assembled from components. It's not possible to pay money to anyone for Android; it's gratis. Google makes money on ads, not on selling Android.

unfortunately i can't find any cases that show how much of the estimated ~60 dollars per handset is licensing costs for the google apps (as some have been licensed to mfrs) or patent / indemnification agreements needed that google doesn't offer but still are a cost to selling android handsets.

I know google makes a LOT more money on ads.. but lets be real, while android was open source its current incarnation is nowhere to be found and his hidden behind represive agrements, advertising, and marketing and android phones in the end are no cheaper than any other phone price wise..

When i buy a surface/tablet/oem pc it just comes with windows.. When i build a PC i buy an OEM license for 30 bucks.. if you know the platform you're running you can know how to save cash and make the best of it.

So you're suggesting I avoid Microsoft then? Because that's the only way I can control it, otherwise I'm only an OS update away from MS re-enabling features I explicitly disable.

Microsoft is 100% responsible for this malware, they trained users to turn off updates by making them unbearable.

I have a MacBook pro, a surface pro (windows 10), a gaming pc (windows 10), a Plex HTPC (windows 10) and an iPhone.. I'm quite happy regardless and I find all ecosystems have their +/-

I clicked the option to disable this when prompted when I upgraded. It was easy and I've moved on. Life is great, i'm back to playing games, watching content and enjoying my device without it asking me if I want to upgrade office.

(but my damn iPhone keeps telling me to upgrade icloud)

Users have been very very vocal about dozens of things that Microsoft refuses to stop. What about all of the forced upgrades to Windows 10 without consent? For the longest time Microsoft just denied that they were even doing it. Then they just tried to justify it with marketing B.S. about how "Windows 10 is great, so no one should be complaining."

Then there's the embedded spyware in Windows 10 that's not able to be removed or disabled. Even just the adware, it should go without saying that no one wanted ads to show up in their OS. This shouldn't be something I should be forced to opt out of, it shouldn't exist in the first place. I shouldn't have to deal with Microsoft installing crap like candy crush on every windows PC on the planet.

Microsoft categorically doesn't listen to their users. Can you name a time when Apple or a prominent Linux distro has pulled any of this crap?

Yes, unfortunately. Ubuntu served Amazon ads in the dash search. No idea if they're still there (I use Fedora) but it's not like they had to ask anyone what they thought of it to be well aware that the majority of their users would think that sucks.

Apple? Well now- that's the company that continuously tries to force its users to run only the apps it choses, isn't it? Apple sucks as much as MS in the way it treats its users.

As for Apple though, I disagree with a lot of their design decisions but Apple hasn't introduced Spyware, Adware, and Malware into any of their products. Their walled garden philosophy is crappy but they aren't doing what Microsoft has been doing.