[rant] - Windows 10 upgrade 1703

[sfx2000]

Would have been nice for them to actually ask... HP Stream 11 on Win10 1607 updated in the background...

When one has a 32GB SSD, the update basically fills the drive, and then eats itself and the existing Win10 install...

Grr...

 

[sfx2000]

Yeah. and some folks might chuckle about me using a Stream 11 - it's got a really good keyboard, and I use it a lot for writing, as it has good battery time...

(BTW - my Stream 11 is the blue one, not the purple one)

 

[rototiller]

I like the pink Stream 11

 

[sfx2000]

I like the pink Stream 11

Hehe - even in Pink - it's still a good keyboard - HP does good there on the low-end...

Anyways, mine is the old one from 2014 - still works fine, funky colors and weird broadcom NIC (most shipped with realtek, my luck in the lottery was a low end broadcom chip for the WiFi - better for Bluetooth, not so much for WiFi)

I have a Lenovo Chromebook N22 that I've been tinkering with - nice when one has WiFi, but not so much when one doesn't... and there, something like Win10 is useful...

I also have a Macbook Air 11 - they're all about the same size, but these days, when flying, I'd rather have a toss-away device... the Chromebook and Stream 11 kind of fit into the role - e.g. I could leave it with BCIS, and not miss it...

The MBA is a lot more expensive there... it's also much more capable, and I use it much when I'm local and not in the home office.

 

[RMerlin]

This whole thing of cramming down their updates down our throat without real control is complete BS. So far, every new Windows 10 releases has caused issues of some sort with some of my customers (least of it being the fact that a lot of settings simply get reset to factory default values, confusing the hell out of average users).

What irks me even more is how everyone complains, and MS is barely giving an inch here and there. "Oh, you want to control when updates are installed? Here, we'll let you chose a 12 hours window during which not to install" "Not satisfied, here, we're feeling generous, we're increasing it to 16 hours!" How about they just give us a f*****g "Never automatically install or reboot" setting, and stop treating us like a bunch of idiots?

Microsoft is going down the Apple path these days, where they think they know best than everyone else, and screw the advanced users who want to retain control of their own installation.

Seriously, I have a 70+ years old customer who got completely lost when her start menu had labeled items replaced by cryptic icons with 1607. "I can't turn off my computer anymore, can you help me?" If any of the brainiacs at Seattle are reading this, these users DO exist. These kind of users don't give a damn about Cortana, Live Tiles or the fact that you can now turn your display into Night Mode. They just want to double click on a familiar icon, and be dumped directly into Outlook.com or Facebook. She's just want to keep the same familiar environment for the years to come, like she did with Windows 7, or her previous Windows XP computer. She doesn't want to have to call me every 6 months because a new Windows 10 release suddenly moved her icon to a different location.

 

[RMerlin]

Yes, for me this whole update thing is a sore subject. Some time ago, I was sitting on the couch with my laptop, working on my development VM that runs on my desktop, connected over SSH. Suddenly, SSH connection goes down. I go to the other room, and find that my desktop had decided that now was a good time to reboot and install updates. When the PC came back and I booted my VM, the file on which I had been working at the time had been lost, and my git history was corrupted. I was forced to restore my VM from an Acronis backup taken during supper, and to redo most of the work I had been doing that evening.

Since that, I've fiddled with Group Policies to tell my computer to never reboot if there is a local user logged in. But you shouldn't have to mess with gpedit for such a no-brainer option. It should be exposed right at the UI level, just like it used to be with Windows Vista/7/8.

 

[FBIcaught]

I dont usually have problems with updates. Id list my devices but theres a judge browesing try to falsify that Im a rat in place of PTSD. So ill do it to him.... The Microsoft mini update server on for like a proxy has been troublesome though. hes been ignored.


-------------------------------------------
Its only the begining.

 

[Cake]

Had to use windows 10 last week for 10 minutes or so. First time for me using the latest from MS, I thought I was installing win7. I was so confused and couldn't wait to shut the VM off and delete the drive. I don't understand why nobody values their privacy.

 

[RMerlin]

I don't understand why nobody values their privacy.

Because the whole issue has been overblown.

 

[sfx2000]

Because the whole issue has been overblown.

No doubt - and we don't hear a peep from many here on what might be worse for privacy - Android Devices, Alexa, and Chromebooks...

 

[System Error Message]

thanks to the wannacry malware, forced updates now have a reason to be. However on windows server 2016 it does not update and reboot randomly, it does forcefully update but only when you next reboot windows server. You can use windows server 2016 as your desktop but as shown by some it is not as good for gaming and some programs will refuse to run properly because you are using a server OS, teamviewer will only allow commercial license for instance.

Regardless windows server 2016 tends to suffer from performance issues in a workstation, this is with GPUs and such even much worse than windows server 2012. The problem is with windows drivers for certain things like NIC teaming (you can verify this with a dpc latency checker). In my experience server 2016 was horrible after i updated it, freezing for a few minutes everytime i tried to do something that involved some sort of hardware related function from booting to opening some programs. On windows server 2012 C++ runtimes refuse to install despite having the required updates and installing AMD GPU drivers will cause bluescreen.

While windows desktop OS works quite well it tends to lack some things like NIC teaming and in general windows hasnt been great for anyone doesnt matter if its the desktop or server variant. I prefer to use windows 7/server 2008.

 

[RMerlin]

No doubt - and we don't hear a peep from many here on what might be worse for privacy - Android Devices, Alexa, and Chromebooks...

Or the fact that virtually every store you walk in will have cameras filming you. Been the case for years, yet the privacy advocate never had a problem with that, where they can see what shelves you browse, which product you take and put back, and which ones you put in your shopping card. However they do have a problem with their ISP potentially seeing what DNS requests they make, or with Amazon seeing which product page you browse.

If you're going to be an activist about privacy, then at least be consistent with yourself.

 

[sfx2000]

Or the fact that virtually every store you walk in will have cameras filming you. Been the case for years, yet the privacy advocate never had a problem with that, where they can see what shelves you browse, which product you take and put back, and which ones you put in your shopping card. However they do have a problem with their ISP potentially seeing what DNS requests they make, or with Amazon seeing which product page you browse.

Yep, and the store scenario is more than just cameras - BTLE nodes are silently pinging devices, same with WiFi (MAC randomization does help, but there's problems there with many implementations).

Out here in Cali - there's a trial program where they're monitoring road traffic with antennas that, guess what, ping the bluetooth in the phones that everyone has...

 

[sfx2000]

thanks to the wannacry malware, forced updates now have a reason to be. However on windows server 2016 it does not update and reboot randomly, it does forcefully update but only when you next reboot windows server.

And for good reason - could you imaging being the unfortunate Windows system admin that has to sort out a production system after an unscheduled force reboot?

Fortunately, that wasn't a problem I had to face (I was mostly RHEL in the data center, with a couple of legacy Solaris boxes in the mix), but one of my team members had to manage a platform built on .net/c# technology, and had to wrangle with over 160 windows servers, poor guy... he used to really hate patch Tuesdays...