Bott: New UK-based study shows Win10 Home users are “baffled by updates”

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I can’t imagine why… Ed Bott has a new article at ZDNet that goes over the details users don’t understand how often updates are delivered, nor do th
[See the full post at: Bott: New UK-based study shows Win10 Home users are “baffled by updates”]

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lurks about, Great Lake Bunyip, GreatAndPowerfulTech, David F, SueW, Elly, Geo, PhotM, Karlston

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“I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.”

ROFL… The thing is, the Win 10 EULA prohibits the sort of activities that 3rd-parties use to help manage MS’ direction re: updating (and/or customisation… unless it’s sanctioned by MS).

I use a 3rd-party utility which just stops the nonsense full-stop. I won’t mention it… ‘cos I have no wish for it to be unpicked then blocked by MS.

Yes, I know I’m only ‘licensed to use’ Win 10… but that won’t stop me from trying to change it to an OS that fits MY needs.

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RamRod, Great Lake Bunyip, fk5353, Bill C., Elly, Microfix, woody, Karlston

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It’s like that old George Carlin line:  “Cop didn’t see it, I didn’t do it!”  🙂

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And even worse, they aren’t aware that nowodays there are more updates that can break your computer, if you are not careful enough.

Just someone who don't want Windows to mess with its computer.

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Great Lake Bunyip, Mark, woody

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Zaphyrus wrote:

… nowadays there are more updates that can break your computer, …

Any evidence for that contention?

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You’re being facetious, right?

Windows 10 Pro x64 v1909, Windows 7 Home Premium x64, Windows Vista Home Premium x64

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If you’re saying “more updates” in the sense that there are a greater number of broken updates, I would disagree.

Nowadays there are significantly fewer update – but each has a higher probability of causing problems.

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Great Lake Bunyip, Mark, Zaphyrus

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Simple B, and I have a proof right now, see Susan’s master patch list and Woody’s MSDefcon system?
If there weren’t dangerous updates around we wouldn’t need them

FORTUNATELY, it seems recent patches are stable, but everything can change next month or in april.

and Yes Mr.Woody, that’s what I meant, there is a high chance updates are broken.

Just someone who don't want Windows to mess with its computer.

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A list of 66 updates with a couple of obscure issues between all of them doesn’t prove that more are unreliable than in the past.

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Indeed, I won’t deny that

HOWEVER have in mind that the microsoft that handles Windows 10  isn’t the same that handled Windows 7 when it was in its prime and there used to be a quality test team that made sure updates issues were fewer, Windows 10 doesn’t seem to have that… its home users its beta testers.

disregarding that, what I want to say is that everyone should be careful  and be properly informed when they are  installing updates specially  with Windows 10.

as Woody said, updates have a higher chance to cause issues due to Insiders not properly testing updates

 

Just someone who don't want Windows to mess with its computer.

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Alex5723, Fred

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I dunno, I find it weird that people look back so fondly on Windows 7, like it was some perfect little baby from the outset.  It just wasn’t.  Doesn’t anyone remember the “stability and reliability updates” for Windows 7 anymore? I know it’s 10 years ago now, but there were lots of these.  The “calculator” button on my MS ergonomic keyboard didn’t work in Windows 7 for the first several months until it was patched via Windows Update.

Remember the standard advice of “wait until Service Pack 1”?  Such advice wouldn’t have been necessary if Microsoft had a reputation for nailing the initial release.

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warrenrumak wrote:

Remember the standard advice of “wait until Service Pack 1”? Such advice wouldn’t have been necessary if Microsoft had a reputation for nailing the initial release.

The key difference now is that they’ve made it impossible to wait for the half-baked updates to finish cooking before they’re shoved down your throat.

Microsoft has never had the reputation of nailing the first release.  If other Windows versions had forced you to install every update as it came down the pipe, we would have seen the same sorts of issues then as we do now.

But they didn’t, and we didn’t, and now we can look back glowingly on yesteryear when we actually could choose to wait until the the dust had settled before deciding if we actually wanted anything that Microsoft had added to Windows.

 

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Great Lake Bunyip, warrenrumak, Geo, Elrod, HiFlyer, David F, Fred, AlexEiffel, Ascaris, SueW, Cybertooth, wdburt1, Zaphyrus, OscarCP

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Nailed it.

It’d be easy for Microsoft to release a LTSC version of the full 1809 product for all customers.  People could verify and onboard on their own schedule, with the confidence of knowing that no big changes are coming down the pipe.

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That is my dream, for LTSC to be available to the public, I would happily buy that.

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“The single biggest complaint about Windows 10 is its approach to security and feature updates”… then no mention whatsoever of Defender updates (and how/why – if you disable Windows Update [shame on you!] – you also lose updates to Windows Defender protection?)

Is Windows Defender (and its updates) not considered as part of Win 10’s security?

Curious as to MS logic…

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Rick Corbett wrote:

“The single biggest complaint about Windows 10 is its approach to security and feature updates”… then no mention whatsoever of Defender updates (and how/why – if you disable Windows Update [shame on you!] – you also lose updates to Windows Defender protection?)

Is Windows Defender (and its updates) not considered as part of Win 10’s security?

Curious as to MS logic…

Has Microsoft recommended disabling Windows Update somewhere? Otherwise I’m curious as to your logic.

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warrenrumak

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Of course, the talking heads would never tell anyone that restarts after Windows updates can be disabled while a user is logged on. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-restart has the details.

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Yes, but that’s only for Pro and Enterprise – and only if you do it in advance.

OK, Home users can change the Registry. Which is something Home users really, really want to do. 🙂

I think.

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fk5353, HiFlyer, OscarCP

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Most Home users don’t even know what the Registry IS, much less how (and what) to change it..

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Geo

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Most home users just want a computer that works. Its probably fair to say MS want to give it to them by making the update system function with no user input. Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men… The silver lining in the gap between intentions and delivery creates employment.

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I think PKCano is right about the registry for most home users. However, I also think that a lot of people who frequent support forums are needlessly frightened off amending the registry.

I think a lot depends on the quality and detail of instructions (including not making assumptions), hand-holding and encouragement plus information about undoing registry changes.

I get the impression that many people assume Win 10 is less customiseable than earlier versions. Whilst it’s certainly true (IMO) that MS is gradually reducing the means to customise Windows, there’s still an enormous amount of scope left, particularly if you just follow the lead of others who have gone before you… and that includes dipping into the registry. You don’t really have to understand it… but just know how to change it safely.

Hope this helps…

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Woody, Sorry, but that works for Home as well.

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But not for Home edition, which this article was all about?

(And you have to be careful with that “No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations” setting as it disables a bunch of other update scheduling policy settings.)

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Given how I’ve had programs break after installing updates, I’d like to see who would honestly be *that* trustworthy of Microsoft updates. Especially given how my computer forcefully reboots itself to install them… sounds like what malware does to me. Would people still be singing Google Chrome’s praises if Google made it so that Chrome would restart itself halfway through whatever it was you were doing to update itself?

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Every Windows 10 update allows the user to schedule the restart any time in the next week, or outside active hours if unattended.

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I think anon means about the reliability of updates not about installing them.

Just someone who don't want Windows to mess with its computer.

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My trouble with the idea of “active hours” is that, outside my personal “active hours” the computer is switched off at the power outlet.  So, on next startup after an update download, Windows wants to restart and update itself (which may or may not work, and in any case delays my intended use of the machine that morning…)

HMcF

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Cybertooth

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W7 home user.  The only way I’m switching is if my old  desktop  doesn’t work anymore or  until they  revert back to  a  simple OS for home users we’ll call it W11.  They are too busy trying to crash W7 and are neglecting W10.

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PDX5802, Demeter, OscarCP

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Ditto, Win 7 Pro, SP1, home user. Not thrilled at the idea of Win 10 and it’s many variations from what I’ve read in this venue. I do know what the Registry is, but stay out of it. Messin’ with it is way above my pay grade.

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I like the updates to appear in a list and let me pick which I want, or for simple people to pick all and deal with the mess.
This worked nicely in Windows 7, but it’s a lot more forceful in 10.  In 10 Pro, I can see what updates are requesting to be downloaded and installed, but cannot be selective about them, without going the manual route of downloading them from the catalogue and installing each one myself.
In 10 Home there is no way to stop these updates, except for disabling windows update service whenever the machine is online.  Then going through the same manual route as for 10 Pro, but after downloading the chosen updates, taking the machine offline to re-enable the windows update service, install the updates, then re-disable is again.

It’s utterly ridiculous.

At least with things in this method, when I choose to do the updates, I factor in that the machine may need a reboot or two, so I am fine with that, or postpone a few days until I can administer the updates.

Linux Mint behaviour, and I guess Ubuntu too, has that update shield icon, and a list of updates, explains what they are and categorises by security or just updates and includes installed software.  It’s a nicer and neater solution.  Full control in the form a check box for what updates you want.  Change the settings to only show security updates and just install them when it asks, real easy and powerful for those who want it.

I suppose I can’t comment further on Win 10 Home as that is used offline and really only used to make Foobar2000 work in it’s native environment.  Windows updates are disabled and so is the network device.  No more issues there, but that solution is only going to work for offline work.  This machine dual boots into Linux Mint as a daily online and general purpose OS.

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doriel

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y7u wrote:

I like the updates to appear in a list and let me pick which I want, or for simple people to pick all and deal with the mess.

This sounds good in theory, but in practice it has caused massive maintenance problems, which is why Microsoft has moved away from piecemeal patching.  Most other software vendors never adopted piecemeal at all, preferring to use simple version number bumps to denote any kind of update, whether it was a new feature, bug fix, or security update.

Like…. does it sound reasonable that in software package XYZ, that you would demand the contents of version 1.4.7, but without the contents of version 1.4.3?  That’d be a weird thing to ask for, right?

Understanding this problem requires understanding software development.  Consider: If two different security fixes for Windows need to touch the same piece of code, what should the result be if you only install one update or the other?  What if you really need fix #2, but implementing it correctly depends on fix #1 from a few months ago, but you refuse to install fix #1?

Would you expect Microsoft to maintain a separate code tree of Microsoft Windows for every single combination of security and bug fixes?  We’re talking millions and millions of possibilities here — and only one of them would actually be secure.

People routinely criticize Microsoft for not doing enough testing of their fixes. What you’re proposing would guarantee complete impossibility that your particular special-snowflake combination of patches would never have been tested.

That’s probably not what you want.

 

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warrenrumack ” This sounds good in theory, but in practice it has caused massive maintenance problems, which is why Microsoft has moved away from piecemeal patching.  ”

This looks good on paper, but my long time personal experience says to me that, while patching “piecemeal” as offered through Windows Update, and, or from the MS Catalog, as I have done it, first for my Win xp PC, and still do now for my Win 7 PC, I have never, since 2005, when I got the XP machine, had a single problem caused by any patch I have actually installed myself. And I have always had Windows Update set to “check for updates, but let me choose when to download and install them.” One reason for that might be that, being an individual (not an “enterprise”) user, I can, and do, take my time, looking around for reports of problems with specific patches, before doing anything. While individually installed patches can be individually removed if they proved troublesome, the same cannot be done with an unpickable “rollup”, or “incremental system update.” You either keep the whole thing, or else try to get all of it, the  good along with the bad, back out of your machine. (Or crosss your fingers, awaiting the arrival of a fix, probably in the form of another rollup or incremental upgrade, with it’s own bugs and assorted problems.)

One reason for my being a staunch Group B-er (since years before there was a “Group B” here at Woody’s) is, not only that I am concerned, somewhat, about avoiding “telemetry” (as I doubt this is entirely possible, these days), but also because I am more concerned about the Blue Screen Of Death.

Finally, to correct something that I have seen written repeatedly: I doubt very much that MS is deliberately trying to poison Windows 7 PCs with bad patches. It is my own considered opinion that they deliver bad batches, simply because they are not very good at making them. Exhibit A: the topic of this very thread. MS definitely would like everybody to use Windows 10. so why put them off it if they can avoid that by doing better? Answer: because they can’t.

Group B, Windows 7 Pro, SP1, x64, I-7 Quad CPU.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Elrod, Fred, Cybertooth, wdburt1

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Since 2012, we have been using Windows Media Center on a Windows 7 machine that has received no Windows updates at all in five years. The reason? We used to accept every update that came down the pike. Then almost every month, some Windows 7 patch or other would break our system to the point where we could no longer watch cable on WMC.

Patching Windows became a white-knuckle affair as to whether the system would still work afterward. Month after month after month, I’d end up having to call the cable company to re-pair the CableCARD to the tuner, or re-running PlayReady, or sometimes even going  through the entire WMC setup rigamarole all over again. A major [annoyance], time-consuming as all he!!, and most of the time the CSRs had no idea what a CableCARD is so I had to keep dialing until I finally reached one who knew what I was talking about.

For a while, I would try painstakingly troubleshooting the patches, uninstalling patches in turn until I pinpointed the update that broke WMC. But this process took an absurd amount of time: life is too short. So I stopped patching altogether, and the system has been stable as a rock ever since. Had the current Windows 10 “patch or else” regime been in place back then, we would have had to give up on WMC long ago and submitted to an inferior alternative such as streaming or a cableco DVR.

Now this doesn’t say much for the goodness of the patching process back in the Golden Age of Windows 7. However, it does say very much about the goodness of being able to pick and choose the patches that you will accept, even to the point of none at all.

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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SueW, HiFlyer, wdburt1, OscarCP

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Like…. does it sound reasonable that in software package XYZ, that you would demand the contents of version 1.4.7, but without the contents of version 1.4.3? That’d be a weird thing to ask for, right?

Haha the hypothetical patch or software version 1.4.7 could be fixed because some amount of code for version 1.4.3 caused the problem. Software bugs are like that can of snakes prank, not funny and waiting to spring out their container.

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People routinely criticize Microsoft for not doing enough testing of their fixes. What you’re proposing would guarantee complete impossibility that your particular special-snowflake combination of patches would never have been tested.

At least Microsoft seems to be testing some of these snowflake patches they are putting out now.

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warrenrumak wrote:

This sounds good in theory, but in practice it has caused massive maintenance problems, which is why Microsoft has moved away from piecemeal patching.

This method was used for several decades before the “massive” maintenance problems got to the point where MS was motivated to do anything about it.  Now that they have, the cure is worse than the disease.  I’d rather have the “massive” problems with the individual updates than the massive problems we’ve seen with the rollups.  Now if there is a problem with one of the many patches that have been rolled into one update, the user has to either tolerate the problem or revert the entire rollup, security updates and all.  It would be nice to be able to back out the problem update without having to forego an entire month’s worth of fixes!

Rolling them all up into one package means that quality assurance is more important than ever, since any one glitch in any one of the updates spoils the entire thing, but the introduction of the rollups has coincided with the elimination of most of the QA department, and that’s where it becomes an issue.  If MS delivered top-notch updates time after time, it would be a very different story… while the unrequested updates to new builds would still cause their share of angst, the updates in between would be non-controversial and well-accepted, since everyone likes bug fixes and security updates (as long as that’s all they are).

The problem of maintenance, at least in MS support terms, could be fixed quite simply… MS could simply require anyone seeking assistance to apply all the updates first, unless the inability to do so is the actual problem for which they are seeking assistance.  People who want to skip certain patches can do so, but they’d know that if something goes wrong, MS won’t be of any help until all the current patches are installed. They could still seek help from askwoody.com or any of the other non-MS help sites out there, but if they want MS help, they have to install all of the MS fixes first.

There are a number of ways I can think to implement this, even going as far as having build numbers that are not based on the installation of a given feature build and rollup, but that instead reflect a bitmap of the updates that are installed, providing a quick snapshot of the update state for the tech support staff.

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Great Lake Bunyip

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If MS will put enough effort to make system that actually works and knows what it wants to be, there can be “selective” type of upgrades. But today W10 is hybrid inbetween CLI and Windows. They just run so many projects at the same time and my opinion is, that nothing is released fully tested and functional. Maybe Azure, because it is their flagship. This all comes from Mircosoft’s greediness. I am using Fedora and Linux Mint for a years without crash or need to reinstall. Everything still works after hundred of upgrades (some I refused, some I accepted – if they were important. Watch and learn, Microsoft!

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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two different security fixes for Windows need to touch the same piece of code

Shouldn’t be necessary if OOP was implemented correctly.

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The other behavior I have noticed about Linux Mint updates is that, when I apply them, they don’t break other things in the system.

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You’ve been fortunate then, judging by the list of known issues and recent problems:

Release Notes for Linux Mint 19.1

Linux Mint Forums > Main Edition Support > Installation & Boot

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I walked outside today and was not hit by a meteor.

That was fortunate.

Posting a link to a list of known issues with a release or to a support forum doesn’t tell you a thing.  Or do you mean to imply that Windows has neither known issues nor support forums?  (Hint: You’re on a Windows support forum now.)

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Ascaris wrote:

I walked outside today and was not hit by a meteor.

That was fortunate.

Especially if lots of other people were hit by a meteor.

Ascaris wrote:

Posting a link to a list of known issues with a release or to a support forum doesn’t tell you a thing.

They told me quite a few things about Linux.

Ascaris wrote:

Or do you mean to imply that Windows has neither known issues nor support forums? (Hint: You’re on a Windows support forum now.)

I wasn’t implying anything about Windows, only that Linux Mint has plenty of problems with updates.

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@ b

All things being equal wrt buggy updates in Win 10 and LM 19, the BIG difference is that LM users can manually update, eg not install any update, esp buggy updates; while Win 10 users cannot manually update, ie forced auto-update.
……. A buggy update will hit Win 10 users sooner or later, especially the unpaid Win 10 Home beta-testers. LM users can avoid being hit by such a “meteor”. Win 10 users cannot avoid being hit by such a “meteor”. For Win 10 Pro/Ent users who defer forced auto-updates, they are forced to trust M$ to fix or pull out her buggy updates in time, eg within 30 days for buggy cumulative updates. Otherwise, they too will be hit by such a “meteor”.

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But people are choosing to install Linux Mint 19.1 anyway despite all those issues, so not much difference in practice apparently.

Windows Updates can be easily uninstalled if necessary, but the 17 automatic updates I’ve received for Windows 10 version 1809 in the last six months haven’t caused any issues to make that necessary for me.

(Automatic updates on Windows 10 aren’t “forced” as they’re delivered with consent.)

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Well. There’s more than one significant detail to this…

1, Linux distributions still do granular updates. It’s quite simple to also downgrade one component to an earlier version in most cases.
2, forced reboots on Linux are REALLY uncommon, typically a distribution will nag you to reboot though
3, update and bugfix transparency is at a whole different level…

Now for “home” users, number 3 above is of a very limited benefit, but still an improvement if anyone even tries to track the fix to a specific bug; 1 is somewhat limited…

lurks about wrote:

There is no centralized patch management software built into Windows to handle the OS and installed software. So some software gets patched while other never gets patched.

Well yeah. Linux distributions usually do have one of these… sometimes more than one. And there still is software that doesn’t integrate into them, just less of it.

However, third-party solutions for this *have* existed for at least some Windows versions in the past, so it’s definitely not an unsolvable problem… at least for Microsoft, if they’d just choose to fix it.

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Rick Corbett wrote:

“… then no mention whatsoever of Defender updates (and how/why – if you disable Windows Update [shame on you!] – you also lose updates to Windows Defender protection?)…

Actually you don’t lose any update capability.  You still have access the the Microsoft Update Catalog.  You can download any Defender updates through the Catalog.

Windows 10 Pro x64 v1909, Windows 7 Home Premium x64, Windows Vista Home Premium x64

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I’d sure like an opportunity to sit down with those people. And carry a big stick.

Those people are being pay by MS to give a good review. My family in UK got $50 from MS to write about four reviews. If MS pay them, than they must have paid others as well to get better result from the survey.

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How would Microsoft know which 93 users to bribe?

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Simple. It is easy to find people taking part of survey. There is no privacy anywhere.

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Before they took the survey?

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My cousin got pay as well. The person mentioned to contact this person at MS before fill out the survey and would get pay for it.

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Neilson Ratings (or agents contracted by them) long ago used to cold call households for the purpose of participating in keeping a favorite watched television show logbook with time stamps to collect measurements for audience demographics.

If the allegation is true, maybe Microsoft used a random site survey style method of finding those people, sent out random mailings to households or place an obscure advertisement?

Although perhaps people would have disclosed this kind of payola before now?

Like you I await better proof…

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After they took the survey?

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Another thing Nielsen used to do is mail out the log book to a household with 2-3 new, crisp, $1 bills in it.  Yes, they were bribing you before you took the survey.  The idea was that it didn’t cost them all that much to include the dollar bills, but it set up an implied obligation once you had opened the envelope with the book in it.  OK, technically you don’t owe them anything.  But what are you going to do, throw the money in the trash?  Of course not.  And now that you’ve taken the money…heck, how hard could it be to fill out the book and send it in?

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Encouragement to complete the survey then, but not bribery as to the results.

Participants in the current study were paid 2 GBP to complete the survey.

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Yeah we also received such a mailing and it was fun to participate for a while…

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Mark wrote:

Rick Corbett wrote:

“… then no mention whatsoever of Defender updates (and how/why – if you disable Windows Update [shame on you!] – you also lose updates to Windows Defender protection?)…

Actually you don’t lose any update capability. You still have access the the Microsoft Update Catalog. You can download any Defender updates through the Catalog.

Windows Defender for 8.0 Pro and 10 Pro (1709) separates Defender updates from Windows Updates.  I have had Windows Updates disabled completely on both machines since I bought one Nov/2012 and the other Dec/2017.  I get any updates I want (EXCEPT Defender ones) from the Microsoft catalog for the Win 10 computer and did the same for the Win 8.0 computer (and deliberately never added SP1).  The Win 8 Pro computer gets Defender updates STILL via Task Scheduler once every evening.  The Win 10 Pro computer doesn’t like Task Scheduler so I simply put the Defender icon (Security Center) on my task bar and first thing every morning I click on the icon which (like everything with Windows 10 meanders about but eventually takes me to the update page after several mouse clicks) and it takes just a few seconds to update Defender.  Defender then usually updates a second time on its own in a given 24 hour period. (Of course, if there was ever a sudden, severe threat Defender might update many times in a 24 hour period).

The above all happens with Windows Update completely locked down via group policy (locked down so tight that Microsoft failed last summer in its attempt to force update to 1803).  Windows 8.0 Pro also has Windows Updates securely locked down yet, even as “out of date” as it is without the service pack, it still gets daily Defender updates.  IMO, this behavior is Microsoft being realistic and prudent in having Defender update even when Windows Updates is tied down and even when the OS, in the case of Windows 8 Pro) is out of any sort of support because it lacks SP1.

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Mele20 wrote:

Mark wrote:

Rick Corbett wrote:

“… then no mention whatsoever of Defender updates (and how/why – if you disable Windows Update [shame on you!] – you also lose updates to Windows Defender protection?)…

Actually you don’t lose any update capability. You still have access the the Microsoft Update Catalog. You can download any Defender updates through the Catalog.

Windows Defender for 8.0 Pro and 10 Pro (1709) separates Defender updates from Windows Updates.

Mele20, what you said is true, but you can lock it down, it just takes a bit more work.  That said, I work with PCs everyday that are not connected to the internet, so I do know that you can download the Defender definition updates through the MS Catalog.

Windows 10 Pro x64 v1909, Windows 7 Home Premium x64, Windows Vista Home Premium x64

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W10 People I’m aquanted with, report no problems, at all. Bearing in mind, they’re non-techy. They’re all ‘Group A’, let MS Updates self install, in the middle of the night. They certainly aren’t conspiracy theorists. They don’t comb the ‘What’s Going To S***w My PC Today Blogs’. Computing, at tool to make your life easier; certaily, don’t want to know how they work, as long as they function. The folks that MS Survey.

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I suppose it’s only human nature, that people only usually post on computer forums when they want to moan about something, rather than praise it. W10 has certainly copped a lot of flak for its use of the Home version owners to be unpaid guinea pigs, and quite rightly so, but it’s nice to see someone not slagging off W10.
The reason I say this, is that my 10 year old 8.1 gaming rig is reaching the end of its economic life. There is always some new piece of kit that is needed every 6-12 months, to keep my system up to spec for gaming, but the time comes when it is a better economy to stop applying sticking plasters to a creaky old system, and instead splash the budget on a new all singing all dancing, bells and whistles rig that is future proofed for a few years or so.
The problem of course is that a new system means W10, but if I go down this route, I will buy W10 Pro, in order that I can control the updates.
I’ve been a B group patcher for 8.1, but if I can hold off the updates until Woody or Susan gives the all clear, then W10 needn’t be the big ogre that some people paint it out to be.
I have a laptop and an ipad for non gaming internet use, so does anyone else think that providing I use the Pro version, life might not be that bad after all?

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Using Windows 10 Professional can be less irritating because there is more control of updates and there is a working Group Policy editor! Woody, PKCano et al. have demonstrated settings for long lasting effective deferrals for Windows 10 Professional.

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Windows 10 Home, the way it operates, is functioning as intended with the patching process for users who don’t care about how it updates, just that it updates. The sin here is that as we all agree are that Home users are treated as BETA testers, so that other higher paying customers can benefit from them and their potential woes. This in itself isn’t too bad, what makes it bad is that MS is “charging” people for a license to use the BETA software. Windows 10 Home should be FREE, not associated with any particular hardware, just free. If your using someone to test your software, you have no right to charge them for that use.

 

My two bits.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Mark, doriel

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Rock, I agree with you 100%.  I would gladly put a PC on the “gimme all you got” update schedule if that is what they did.  Heck, I’d even give MS reviews on what isn’t working (and what is) if they operated that way.

Windows 10 Pro x64 v1909, Windows 7 Home Premium x64, Windows Vista Home Premium x64

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I really can’t understand why anyone would WANT to use that method.

On W7 I have it auto-check, but not download. Or I can just check manually.
If it finds updates, I hide any I don’t want, and download any I do. Simple!

That’s literally it. I don’t have to worry about ANYTHING else.
For my tech noob dad, I just set it to “Auto download and install”, and will worry about removing any dodgy ones later.

Why is it so complicated now?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Cybertooth

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BobT wrote:

Why is it so complicated now?

Quite simply, and obviously, Microsoft does not want Home users to have much control over what updates are installed on their PCs.  The question as to why MS does not want Home users to have control is somewhat more debatable, though in my opinion, it’s pretty obvious also.  How can they make you beta-test the build they want tested if you have the option of saying no?

Updates were, and are, simple for Windows versions prior to 10, as you state.  Now it’s a convoluted labyrinth of active hours, metered network settings, and deferrals, with exceptions for “seekers” and when MS thinks an update is important enough to override your metered setting (not when you think so, of course).  It gives people levers to pull and knobs to twist in the hopes of having some level of control, but it also serves to confuse and bewilder those who truly attempt to gain an understanding of what their PC is actually going to do at any given moment.

The goal of this strategy seems quite obvious: To mollify those people who would be alarmed by having a total loss of control, but without having to really give them any say in the matter.  It’s like the old trick of presenting a person in charge with two options that are both acceptable to you… if you give someone the illusion of being in control, he’ll most often play your game and pick one of the two rather than try to think about whether a third option might be a better idea.

Microsoft is using the same strategy with regard to telemetry in Windows 10.  There are pages and pages of options to limit what data is sent back to Microsoft, far more than in any prior version of Windows (the lone radio button for CEIP being the only one that springs immediately to mind), but even with all of them set to not send data, more data is sent than in Windows 7 with CEIP off.  The data they really want the most is going to be sent, whether you want it to be or not.  They’ll give you some levers and buttons to play with, and hopefully they can fool you into thinking that more options than ever before means less data collection, and that will provide nice cover for taking the data they really wanted in the first place (for which there is no switch, unless you happen to be an enterprise customer).  If they can make you throw up your hands and give up as it grows to mind-boggling complexity, all the better.

The lesson you’re supposed to get from all of this is not to worry, but to let Microsoft handle everything.  They’ve made comments to this effect in the past… you don’t need the kind of control over updates that you used to enjoy with prior versions of Windows, because now the patches are so much more reliable, you can just relax and let MS do it for you.  Apparently, canning all of the QA testers, which happened right before the blurb I’m paraphrasing made it to print, has done wonders for the quality of patches!  (You can’t make this stuff up.  We’ve fired all of the beta testers, and now patches are more reliable than they have been for all those years when we had professional testers!)

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Elly, SueW, Cybertooth

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If you think of it as moving to Microsoft365, though, it makes sense.
You rent everything from Microsoft (Windows, Office, whatever third-party apps they allow) and it runs on a VM on their servers in the Cloud. You have no control over what they add/subtract from the OS. Your machine becomes a dumb terminal.

The only ones with any parcel of control will be Enterprise/Education with their special needs. The rest will just be the Beta testers of Microsoft for rent.

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doriel, Elly, RamRod, Ascaris, columbia2011

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Many ordinary users usually had a friend or relative manage Windows updates for them. So the updates would be done, just not right now, when they could get together. While some would never update, mostly the totally clueless, I wonder how much of the problem is really due to the difficulty of keeping a Windows box fully patched including all the installed  software. There is no centralized patch management software built into Windows to handle the OS and installed software. So some software gets patched while other never gets patched.

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Ed Bott concludes his recent article with this statement:

“why not offer the option of an annual schedule for feature updates? Maybe two feature updates a year is just too many.”

1 user thanked author for this post.

Cybertooth

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