More problems with Win10 FCU – missing icons, no Start entries

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I saw a screenshot of this, but didn’t believe my eyes. From a post by KevinWash1 on the MS Answers forum: I just upgraded to the Windows 10 Fall crea
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I don’t want to accuse anyone of having a messed up computer system before the upgrade, but it’s always possible. Most systems don’t even error-correct their memory accesses. Any number of things could have been wrong with it.

Beyond that possibility, we ARE talking about upgrading an operating system underneath an entire installed suite of software. There is nothing reasonable or right about doing that, regardless of what Microsoft would have you think.

In all my 40+ year career as a software engineer the only systems that ever worked right – really right – were clean-installed and all the applications layered on after. No one who knew what they were doing would in-place upgrade an operating system!

That Microsoft has chosen to build their business model on this kind of activity shows just how thoroughly they have lost their way technically.

-Noel

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David F, AlexEiffel, Great Lake Bunyip, Ascaris, HiFlyer, Elly, Karlston, GoneToPlaid, BobbyB

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I totally agree. Each new version of Win10 is in fact a new OS with the same name — with stuff removed and with new stuff added, and with a plethora of poorly coded changes which cause a myriad of either bugs or outright epic fails. Migrating to a new OS has always been haphazard at best. I have never performed migrations. Instead, I always performed fresh installs of any new OS.

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Great Lake Bunyip, HiFlyer

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As I have said before… W10 2017 FCU has as much in common with the original W10 as a 1964 Corvette has with the 2017.  Effectively, W10AU, CU, and FCU are Windows 11, 12, and 13.  But at least Chevrolet is honest with calling them the 2012 Corvette or the 1997 Corvette; they aren’t still calling them the “1964 Chevrolet Corvette.”

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HiFlyer, Noel Carboni, radosuaf

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It’s clear from a Marketing perspective why they’re doing that… If your brain is burdened with trying to keep track of a complex set of versioning information for Windows, there’s a finite reduction in the probability that you’re willing to embrace the complexity of switching to an entirely different OS.

Their aim is to make it as difficult as humanly possible for you to track what they’re releasing, all in the guise of “as a service”, where you’re incentivized to “just let them worry about it”.

Making life more complicated for no reason other than to make customers more vulnerable is not a good thing.

-Noel

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MrJimPhelps, AlexEiffel, Great Lake Bunyip, HiFlyer, Ascaris, Elly

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Noel Carboni wrote:

That Microsoft has chosen to build their business model on this kind of activity shows just how thoroughly they have lost their way technically.

Not to mention that the way many people got into the Windows 10 stable in the first place was by an even riskier in-place upgrade from 7 or 8.1.  Many of these systems were undoubtedly burdened with malware, remnants of partially-uninstalled programs, disk errors, et cetera– bad candidates for an upgrade, certainly.  Even in the best of circumstances, it’s imperative to have a backup before attempting an upgrade such as this, but for systems that are not in tip-top running order, it’s beyond foolhardy to try it without backup.

Of course, the masses of Windows users who were not aware of this can be forgiven for neglecting this; they had been assured by no less an expert than Microsoft itself that their PC had been scanned and found “compatible.”  Now, to me, “compatible” means “the hardware in question will work with the software in question,” which doesn’t at all suggest that the Windows installation is a good candidate for upgrade.  The average person, though, does not know enough to make that distinction.

For the regular user, a popup saying the upgrade is highly recommended, that their PC is compatible, and that it is fully reversible if they don’t like it, is going to be seen as an unqualified green light.  If anyone thought that this may have simply been a blunder rather than a deliberate action, all he would need to do is consider that the very same GWX program we’re dicussing violated Microsoft’s own UI guidelines, having no “Cancel” button, with only a “Upgrade Later” button in its place.  A reasonable person could easily interpret that as being the same as “Cancel”… much like adware and ad nags on websites that have “Learn more” or “Maybe later” as options.  “Maybe later” means, in that context, “No, but maybe we’ll ask later,”  which is effectively the same as Cancel (which means “Cancel this time,” not “Cancel and never ask me again”).

Clearly, this was a very deliberate attempt to deceive people into agreeing to upgrade later when they thought they were canceling.  Given that, it seems equally as likely that Microsoft’s “your system is compatible and it’s completely reversible” message is meant to make the in-place upgrade seem safer than it really is.  Had Microsoft simply taken the extra step of telling the user that, in a minority of cases, an upgrade attempt will render a PC unbootable into either the old or the new version of Windows, so it’s important to make a backup, then people who decided to proceed anyway will have been doing so with informed consent.  People are entitled to take risks with their own PCs; it’s one of the benefits of ownership.  Microsoft, though, is not entitled to take risk with other people’s PCs.  It’s one of the limitations of not having ownership.

That is the problem.  Microsoft did it anyway!  They refused to give their users the opportunity to give informed consent, and instead sought the much more easily obtained uninformed consent, obtained “consent” which was actually an attempt to deny consent, or even bypassed the idea of consent entirely and just made the decision themselves (for which one person at least has successfully brought suit against MS).

It looks a lot more like malice and cynicism than buffoonery to me.  I think Microsoft is perfectly aware of the risks of so many in-place upgrades.  It’s not that they don’t know it’s a risky idea; it’s that they don’t care.  Breaking some of our PCs to further their agenda is just a risk they’re willing to take.

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MrJimPhelps, David F, AlexEiffel, Great Lake Bunyip, Sessh, Cybertooth

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So the conversation boils down to whether the powers-that-be at Microsoft are fools or knaves. Should we feel saddened, or outraged? What a choice. And yet, that’s what it’s come to.

 

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

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Woody quotes:

I just upgraded to the Windows 10 Fall creators update after the update I now have missing icons for some of my store apps they are completely gone from the start screen and if I search through Cortana they do not come up

That sounds like an improvement to Windows 10 and not a bug. Let’s hope that it spreads far and wide!!  😉

 

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

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HiFlyer

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“There are some solutions proposed in both of those threads, but nothing seems to work.”

Ain’t that a riot?

It would seem that Microsoft has now shot Creating Anything in the foot, just as they have shot the Windows Cash Cow multiple times in the feet and with full blast broadsides during the past four years, and yet they keep pumping blood into the Windows Cash Cow in hopes of reviving the Windows Cash Cow, without realizing that it is Microsoft themselves, and not declining desktop and laptop sales figures, which is killing the Windows Cash Cow. Microsoft is responsible for the declining desktop and laptop sales figures — starting with Windows 8. Yet Microsoft in their blind ignorance, refuses to acknowledge this since after all, Microsoft is ALWAYS right. Microsoft’s track record has repeatedly proven them wrong, and yet nothing changes with Microsoft to this day. Microsoft is the next Chrysler.

The upshot is that, once again, Microsoft’s advertising hyperbole touted the Fall Creator’s Update as that next Great Thing. And as usual, we are now seeing a new flawed Dodo.

Ah, when will this ever end? It is like watching a really bad movie, yet being trapped in the movie theater with no escape.

 

 

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dononline, HiFlyer

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Ponder on this.. something for nothing usually comes at a cost later on…Yes that’s W10.

Apple have this framework/ model and it works, that’s not to say they didn’t have initial problems also. Apple is in a much better position with this framework due to the fact that apple have their own proprietary hardware and software which IS completely catered for and QA tested (a smaller footprint for the upgrade process iOS and OSX and less to go wrong).

Hey, at least we have W7 and W8 to rely on, shame about the quality/reliability of patches.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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HiFlyer, Cybertooth

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Windows 10 Home and Pro (and S etc) are not yet “free” in the strictest sense, but I foresee a day when they might become no-cost to the end user.

To some extent already, and certainly when/if that occurs – it serves us well to remember that when we are not the paying customer, we are the product.

The most justifiable rage at MSFT right now is over the fact that their OS is not yet “free” but they are still adding features that make us their product – even though we paid for the OS.

This is why I am encouraging my clients to buy the ENT versions – or (we hope) as applicable the new Workstation version.  The control over privacy and senseless apps is already far better in ENT, and I expect it will remain so (or a lot of large businesses will revolt- and their money is indeed heard by MSFT, oh yes.)

I just wish the ENT version was available for outright purchase instead of the subscription model.

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AlexEiffel, Cybertooth, HiFlyer

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I’m waiting until were at Level 3 before I install new updates including the Fall Creator Update if possible.

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Thus far I have avoided W10 and nothing that has transpired the last few years dissuades me from that decision. MS has with W10 created an unpredictable and technically unstable computing environment which cannot be improved very much because MS has based the W10 operating model on assumptions that were, ab initio, poorly reasoned and automatically dubious. The problems reported on this and other sites will repeat in various incarnations as long as MS persists in this manner. I will hang on with W8.1 as long as possible or until there is a discernible course change, which I do not expect soon. So sad!

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Karlston

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What were MS’s poorly reasoned and dubious assumptions? Not that I disagree (I’ll probably agree enthusiastically), but I’m curious what you have in mind.

 

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

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Amongst other things, MS with W10 ignored almost all historical experience regarding the technical problems involved in doing repetitive in place upgrades of an OS versus fresh installs. They compounded the problems by assuming the integrity of their future patching efforts would be nearly flawless when in fact anyone familiar with the tortured history of MS patches would have known the future would probably rhyme with past experience. Windows had to function in an open hardware environment with multiple OEM providers of hardware and software adding complexity to existing installations and yet MS decided they could employ a push OS update strategy similar to android/iOS just because they were chasing the idea that they could ‘bigfoot’ Windows onto smartphones and tablets. Now that Windows has failed in mobile computing, they are trying to put their apps onto mobile devices through cloud based implementation. Unfortunately, the PC/Workstation environment is saddled with the detritus of the ‘mobile first, cloud first’ mantra that everyone at MS had to recite when they swallowed the crazy pills. I could prattle on, but what’s the point as the damage has been done?

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AlexEiffel, Cybertooth

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The thing is, in the past, if you did an in-place upgrade after owning your cheap PC for 3-5 years, lots of people if they had issues just bought a new computer, because they thought the computer was old and slow and broken and what else.

Try to make people swallow that after 4 months, 8 months, 12 months… hummm. They will now get it that maybe their hardware is not the issue…

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Ya know I read the article about the Fall creator update you get through if you choose to install updates automatically. I have my windows update when getting Updates on Manual. And I checked the Windows Update Hide program and I got the 1703 cumulative update for the month ALONG with the average updates. No 1709 or Creator update. I don’t even open the windows upgrade assistant.

 

I should be safe since I’m on manual.

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I just upgraded to the Windows 10 Fall creators update after the update I now have missing icons for some of my store apps they are completely gone from the start screen and if I search through Cortana they do not come up some of the icons on the task bar are missing however if I click on the missing icon blank area I get a highlight under mouse and the app launches all of the missing apps on the start screen do show up in the apps list when I go into settings so they are on the computer if I go to the store and search for the missing apps I get the prompt saying they are installed and when I click launch they will launch properly from within the store, but that is the only way.

Whew. That’s about the longest sentence I have ever read!

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Cybertooth

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Relevance (if any) to other issues mentioned here is difficult to determine, but it may be worth noting that upgrading to Windows 10 v1709 sets up a scheduled “WaaSMedic” operation and may delay (block) its implementation for several days following installation of that W10 version. In my own case, for example, implementation of “WaaSMedic” has been blocked until “2017-10-28T08:57:00Z”. Individual settings can be seen under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WaasMedic\State and its operational logs are maintained in the C:\Windows\Logs\waasmedic folder.

I should also mention that the scheduled item itself is described as: “Helps recover update-related services to supported configuration.” I suppose the essential point is that the normal and usual installation processes for W10 v1709 do not themselves necessarily complete all steps required for supporting all system configurations and related updates. Apparently some further “delayed medication” is also needed, whatever that may imply for usage during the interval.

Regards to all,
“Arvy”

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I still haven’t got around to trying out the Windows 10 FCU on a spare SSD just yet (had a busy week).

But, looking at all the problems that people seem to be having, I’m not being inspired with confidence.

Well, at least it will be a clean install so hopefully I won’t have too much trouble. It will just be a matter of swapping out the SSD (back to W7) if anything goes pear shaped.

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