Patch Lady – seriously Gordon, Windows 10’s aren’t dropping like flies

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2020/04/12/microsoft-windows-10-warning-crashes-boot-internet-connection-slowdown-problems-upgrade-windows-10-free/#5e04f7ed3d69

If you read Gordon’s post you would think that I was typing up this post from my iphone because all of my Windows 10 machines were blue screening on me and were not functional.  While I am an advocate of not installing updates on the first day, the reality of updating is that while SOME people will have issues the vast majority of us will be fine and see absolutely no side effects whatsoever.

I’ll even take Mayank to task in his article… https://www.windowslatest.com/2020/04/06/windows-10-update-kb4541335-is-wrecking-pcs/

“Windows Updates have a dreadful track record of late, with almost every single update causing users some serious problems.”.    Again, I skip all optional updates, only install the main updates, and not right away and all of my machines are just fine.  There are some people having issues, but it’s not ALL of us having issues.

Here’s my recommendation to not do a Gordon on your Windows 10 machine.

1. Stick with one antivirus.  I’ll even go so far as to recommend the native Defender.  I often see browser brick ups, issues and oddities with any number of third party antivirus vendors (just saw one yesterday related regarding Symantec).  But if you have multiple a/v, or multiple anti spyware, please, don’t.
2. Don’t use cccleaner.  Registry cleaners do more harm than good especially on Windows 10.
3. Really really old software should be installed on really old systems.  Meaning that if you install something where the drivers aren’t signed, or you have to jump through all sorts of hoops of application compatibility to get it installed, that’s not a good sign.
4. The optional updates are not, nor have they ever been mandatory.  If you aren’t directly impacted by that VPN connectivity issue, don’t install them.
5. Know how to boot back into your machine and restore from a backup.  Not just uninstall the update, but truly to reboot a pc back and restore it.  Often booting from a flash drive is the most horrific experience on a pc.  You often have to google up the specific instructions for a pc to figure out how to ‘catch’ it before it boots to get it to grab the flash drive.  You want to make sure you KNOW that exact sequence and have tested it out.  Personally I find Surface devices the most fiddly as you often have to find the specific info for that specific version and press the up down buttons a certain way to get it to grab the flash drive.
6. Ensure you have bootable flash drives and external hard drives.  Here at the office I even keep a spare SSD drive because so often they can just die spontaneously.

Don’t install updates right away tomorrow, but seriously Gordon, that article isn’t helpful.