Patch Lady – Not enough space to install 1709

Susan Patch Lady here – writing an online letter to Microsoft:

To whom it may concern at Microsoft:

I am concerned that in your zeal to make your vendors happy you are “vista-fying” Windows 10. 

Let me explain:

Recently I purchased a cheap laptop because I needed another one since I am lately using a computer connected to my TV to watch online videos.  Because I still needed a laptop to look up items, remote into computers and various other tasks, I needed a computer – not a tablet or an ipad – and I needed a Windows based computer.  I reviewed my options for a cheap small laptop and I saw one online for a low price and purchased it.  Knowing in advance it had a small SSD drive I figured that I would have fun keeping it updated and keeping the drive cleaned out.  But I’m a cheap geek, and knew I had options so I purchased it.  The computer came shipped with 1703 Windows Home and soon after I turned it on it started attempting to update.

The first thing I noticed after the system started checking into Windows update was how sluggish the machine had become. In reviewing the task manager both the CPU and the drive was pegged at 100% utilization causing the device to respond slowly.  Please ensure that when a machine is first turned on and checking in for updates that sucking up 100% CPU and disk drive isn’t the norm.  I’m seeing more and more people complain about this.  Please make sure that when either Windows update or Windows Defender is operational they aren’t taking all of the resources of the system.

Then you need to make sure that a 32 gig hard drive is really suitable to handle Windows 10 semi-annual feature releases. In my case it’s not and demanded that I have some sort of external storage available to have enough room to handle the update.

Yes, Microsoft I know that I got what I paid for, but my point is like Vista you are causing undo harm to a platform by letting vendors install it on price points and platforms it shouldn’t. When you shipped Vista, the driver ecosystem wasn’t ready and you had vendors install it on hardware that couldn’t handle the operating system. If one installed Vista on the RIGHT hardware it actually worked just fine.

I’m seeing in the consumer space of Windows 10 that multiple vendors have selections in this 32 gig space that will have issues getting any feature update installed.  After I get this laptop upgraded to 1709, there’s an HP Envy tablet that a friend of mine has that I have to help it up to 1709 as well.

I’ll be filing a bug on this, but please don’t “vista” any more vendor offerings. Any windows device should be able to handle a feature update without any external storage – at least in my opinion. And I’ll bet many of your frustrated customers think that way too.

To anyone else suffering from this issue, evaluate your options. In my case I’m ordering a MicroSD card to add a bit more space. For the Envy tablet I’ll be recommending we purchase that as well to give it breathing space to get this 1709 feature update installed.  Remember you can evaluate the files and storage on the machine and even turn off hibernation temporarily to gain a bit more space as noted in this blog post.  Microsoft does make it obvious during the upgrade to 1709 that it needs additional storage space and gives a various obvious GUI interface indicating that it needs more storage space. After the install remember you have 10 days before it automatically deletes the prior version so check your applications to make sure there are no issues.   1709 is now the most broadly released version, but if you are stuck back on 1703, I would recommend going to the Software download site and trying to install from the update now link at the top of the page and have a MicroSD card on hand should you get stuck.