Sure, there's usually a setting to disable it, and a popup to delay it, but it's not really enough. The setting appears unreliable at best, and the popup is useless when it pops under fullscreen programs.

It really only takes one ill-timed restart to damn an OS forever, especially when the restart is chased by lengthy (and impossible to decline) downtime while a patch or upgrade is installed. Restarting on someone during a Skype interview or business call is shockingly unacceptable, no matter how sensible the average case.

I've been an enemy of automated updates ever since, many years ago, I went to the kitchen to boil the water for a tea, and there suddenly I heard the PC speaker beeping - oh, Windows decided to count down from "5 minutes" and reboot.

I guess it is easy and tempting to say "just turn it off and on again" on consumer electronics and end user computers. :/

Why would an application become non-functional when an update is pending? Perhaps a critical security vulnerability?

It also has no clue what a server is. Servers with Windows 2012 R2, force the users to reboot. How stupid are microsoft, that they assume that people will be ok with rebooting production servers in the middle of the day.

This! Anyone saying this is new behavior caused by the Windows 10 update has never been booted out of a WoW raid at 3 am because the restart pop-up didn't show beneath the game window. Windows Update has been doing this since XP.

In this case it's Windows 7's Restart logic that is old/bad (and long has been), not Windows 10, but Windows 10 of course is getting blamed for it, not Windows 7.

It's another reason people should stop worrying and upgrade to Windows 10. ;)

I don’t particularly enjoy waking up to all my programs are closed because Windows decided that tonight was the night that it restarted.

It’s slightly better on MacOS, where programs using MacOS-specific APIs can restore their state on startup, but that doesn’t include most of the third-party applications. But MacOS doesn’t force the reboot. Yet.

The complaints about this lifecycle model from app developers is that is hard to program for. Windows 8 was also strict enough forcing this lifecycle (closing out applications sometimes seconds after minimizing and attempting to restore them quickly on window restore) that it showed how bad developers can be at programming hard things like proper app lifecycle management, so they begged Windows to be less strict about it.

(That was one of the magic things about Windows 8 that Windows 10 doesn't quite replicate: minimizing a properly built application and watching the application's memory and CPU usage quickly drop to zero.)

Of course I know the reason - that's because my machine is memory constrained, I routinely run on ~90% RAM usage. But hey, that 8GB of RAM isn't here for vacation, it's to be used.

Personally, I find the mobile app lifecycle - which is where they took the idea from - to be incredibly annoying. I like to have control both when applications die and when they start up (which, on Android, is utterly unpredictable).

I have a "metro" style SSH application, and windows regularly decides it should close it, which kills my active SSH sessions.

I understand that they removed the ability to opt-out to force developers to change to a more appropriate model, but there are cases where a task cannot be suspended (because, for example, it's interacting with another computer). Having to re-log-in to my ssh session the 4th or 5th time in an hour is absolutely infuriating.

The support for background processes continues to improve. Windows 10, for instance, now supports a "single instance" background processing model where background processes can be seen as an invocation of the UI app (if already running) and vice versa (the UI app is presented as an invocation to the background process if that is already running) with hand-offs from one to the other, simplifying the programming of some of the interactions between background and UI for some apps.

Besides, it's a trend that I expect to see reversed soon enough, given the direction in which Linux desktop is heading nowadays.

Edit: empirically, what has greatly simplified my life in this matter is being old-fashioned about partitioning. I keep /home and /opt separate, so upgrading typically consists of saving a list of packages, wiping everything but /home and /opt, doing a fresh install and reinstalling the packages. Depending on what I'm installing (OpenBSD on my laptop, Debian on my desktop) it takes about five minutes of accepting defaults and waiting for progress bars to fill, then another ten minutes until the packages installs (most of those ten minutes is spent on LaTeX, to be honest).

You might want to try a rolling release distro, something like Antergos (Arch + Tweaks)

There's a bunch of stuff that doesn't work on Debian, either, but at least it's the same stuff for about a year or so.

Nowadays I get to write Linux software at work so I get all the bleeding-edge stuff there, and dealing with the latest and greatest breakage is part of my everyday job. I have no desire to do it at home, too.

Edit: plus, to put it bluntly, it's really no longer fun. When I said goodbye to Windows, back in nineteen-ninety-something, I did it to get away from the mind-boggling complexity and uncustomizable blackbox blurb on my hard drive.

Nowadays, it's an order of magnitude more complex; some of it is unwarranted and much of it just isn't reliable. Windows' and OS X's isn't, either, but at least it's nicely tucked away behind an interface that works, so you're not exposed to the crap underneath. I spend a lot more time wrestling with my computer than I'd like to.

I can mostly navigate through this whole maze of thisandthatkit and systemd-everything, largely because I'm exposed to it for eight hours a day, whether I want it or not, and have seen it being developed. But I don't think it's sustainable, and I have a feeling I'm going to call it quits one day.

End result is that the DE people keep pushing ever deeper in the stack, violating long standing layering, that made it easier to reason about why something broke, in the process.

I have no idea what happened after that but it's really screwed up.

Linux doesn't lock files; instead it creates in-memory copies of them. So the updater can update the on-disk version without any troubles. But if you think about it, it has the exact same problem: until you reboot, your Linux box is still running the known-buggy code.

So there's absolutely no technical reason Windows needs to reboot more than Linux. The only difference is that Linux developers decided "meh, the user can reboot when they want". But unless you reboot after installing your Linux updates, your computer still has the bugs.

This has not been true for some time, and not in any mainstream distributions currently that come to mind.

On Ubuntu, certain packages are labeled as needing a reboot, and when you update them the control menu thing with a gear in the upper-right corner turns red, and the Update utility says you should reboot. Then you know you should, but it doesn’t force you to.

EDIT: There’s also Ksplice, which was going be a standard until Oracle bought it, and Red Hat kpatch. Those allow you to update a kernel without rebooting. Most other programs still require restarting, but Linux benefits from a saner architecture, where the web browser isn’t an “integral part of the operating system,” and the font renderer for the GUI and for printing is not part of the kernel. You need to reboot less.

Jameskegel said that in any "mainstream distributions", after you run an update but before you reboot, the OS is running the updated libraries. I honestly don't understand how that is possible.

> Newly created processes will use the updated contents, running applications will access the old version.

In other words, currently running code is still running the known-buggy version, exactly what I said originally that kicked-off this whole discussion.

And then later in the same post (just so we're clear about what you said): "But unless you reboot after installing your Linux updates, your computer still has the bugs."

Linux does not require a reboot to update.

But this is not what you suggested, is it?

But hey, suit yourself.

If you meant forced restarts at a given time (or whatever windows 10 does) then you're right. For now, and hopefully forever.

Windows 8 was out in 2013, 3 fraking years ago. Even Ubuntu, which is free, has LTS supported for 5 years.

When you pay good money for an OS you use in your business, it's damn logical you want it to last you almost a decade without having to play the upgrade game all over again.

I don't have time for that. I don't have the money for that. And I don't need that. The OS is not a product I want to think about, it's this transparent thing that I'm supposed to forget while I doing actual work.

This Windows upgrade is uneeded and unwanted.

Yet it kept comming back to disturb me in my work with stupid notifications, reminding me that one day, it may reboot my computer at the worst moment, eat all my hard drive space or make me loose hours locking my computer.

What happened ? Well, one day my windows pratition broke for some reason I can't figure out and I got a perpetual guest account. I'm not even trying to fix it. I just stay 100% of my time on my Ubuntu one, because I don't want to deal with it.

The upgrade is free. You are being supported. You can choose not to upgrade (and I think you're wrong, but it is your choice). What I don't understand the mindset behind "no, I won't upgrade, but I want a bunch of feature-change patches without making me upgrade" (as with the assertion that the auto-restart logic could/should be changed for Windows 7, not Windows 8).

edit: regarding downvotes... if the software versioning is mission critical for a system, then having automatic updates and being connected to an external network is a risk to that critical system. I wasn't trying to be pedantic, but was being perhaps more terse than some may appreciate.

this is not a solution to a problem. it's incredibly reductive and close-minded.

Past that, is there a reason that system should be connected to the Internet in the first place?

Much like how cars must be serviced in regular intervals if they are to be operated on shared infrastructure (roads).

But that is not the world we live in, and those are not the rules in play, and even if they were, forcibly updating people's machines against their wishes would not be the solution.

There's literally no way they can win this. If they force updates they're evil for rebooting PCs. If they don't, users don't update because it's always inconvenient and then they blame MS on malware.

Windows has actually gotten better at this over the years, but it's still nowhere near every other OS in the world.

When?

That they are running software on thousands or hundreds of thousands of machines that was advertised as an update but is instead advertware is a crap move on their part. It's probably not a strong legal argument, but IMO they should be paying me to use my system to run software of their choice, much in the way that I would pay to use Azure to run software of my choice on their systems.

That said, I'm kind of with GP, I'd rather have most people updated to the current windows, spyware issues aside, it's better for stability/security.

Never. Microsoft has lost my trust forever with these issues.

I may upgrade when the OS is "finished." For now, though, I think I'll let others trudge through the mud of a forced public beta.

Maybe, just maybe, I might take the plunge when the video games I built my PC for actually require me to.

Until then? No thank you.

I'm not shy about installing updates, but if I'm busy working I would delay it a couple times. Then I'd not use the laptop for a few days (with it in sleep mode), by then I'd have forgotten about the update. I was bitten by forced reboots in 7 many times.

8 added a "Your PC will reboot in 15 minutes" and that was so much better from a laptop perspective. W10 insider builds currently tell you to set "inactive hours", and this works fairly well for both phone and laptop. My phone updates while I sleep, my laptop pings me to reboot at my leisure, for it is never awake & inactive.

Anecdote: When I worked dispatch, the local Network Operations Center pushed out an update that forcibly rebooted all of our Windows workstations...including the machine that ran inbound emergency calls. The admins at the NOC didn't think that anyone would dial 911 at three in the morning. No malfeasance, but a simple lack of foresight.

In the 3am 911 case, those admins could EASILY have cost LIVES with their decision. If that inbound call handler's machine had updates waiting, or more especially had any difficulty installing those updates, you could've had HOURS of downtime in a scenario where MINUTES mean life or death!

I guess my main point is that naivete like that is called criminal negligence and is punishable under the law in many cases. There may have been no malicious intent, but in a case so potentially catastrophic, it hardly matters, and if those admins didn't get into DEEP TROUBLE, they're either very lucky or your administrative discipline system is VERY broken.

And Microsoft is straying into similar territory with this whole thing.

And that's why a liaison from the "business" side of the organization should be in those meetings too.

This problem isn't new with Windows 10. It could have just as easily upgrade to a new Windows 7 patch which broke the product.

Every grantee and science group is different, and builds their boxes back in the States with varying levels of IT competence. Being a wizard in geothermal imaging doesn't mean you're a wizard in building Windows 10 boxes.

So there's all these varying groups (we support over 20 different science groups on our station alone) building their custom boxes on a variety of OS's and hardware to support all their strange sensors and equipment, and many of them are so specialized that no one is allowed to touch them. Nearly all science systems run Windows 7 or some flavor of Linux, and because there is literally YEARS of work leading up to one of these systems appearing on station, we are loath to touch them for fear of breaking some long-running or fragile science project.

In this situation I used my best judgement and determined that blocking Windows 10 would prevent more problems than it would cause for this group, and fortunately I was right.

The point I was trying to make is that the problem you're seeing isn't specific to Windows 10; it could have easily happened on Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 instead.

Our commander talked to their commander, I'm sure at least one finger was wagged at them in disapproval.

If a computer system is so mission-critical that it should never updated, well, Windows has a setting for that-- so turn it on!

Also, restarting to install updates while in the middle of a presentation at work was disrupting and humiliating. Happened to me.

On this laptop I actually had it download Windows 10 but I wasn't ready to upgrade so I held it off for another week. I still had to press something to get it to start.

Now there are reports that Windows 10 is installing when you click the X in the title bar. I have not seen this happen. Maybe this does happen, but on the other hand, I always see people closing dialog boxes without fully reading and comprehending what they say. With the scheduled install option, your unwitting “choice” could even have been days ago.

I think the situation is sort of bad, but the situation started sort of bad. "No software project is ever done, so you are always really buying a subscription, and the sooner you realize it, the sooner you can act like it." - Neal Ford. More to the point, Windows was never yours. It was always Microsoft’s. As long as you are using something that is not yours, it’s advantageous to use the latest, best-maintained version that you are able to use.

I don't run my main source of income on Firefox or Android. I didn't pay a licence for a browser or a phone OS. I can't find a quick alternative as quickly for my dev laptop as I can for those.

Hopefully I got a dual boot and make sure I don't boot Windows anymore, otherwise it would be really dangerous, as I could be giving a training and suddenly get my machine locked for some undesired upgrade in from of my customers.

For me, OS doesn't matter one bit. Sure, one could be more convenient with certain features, but in the long run, everything I do at work depends on the browser, and specifically depends on Firefox. The application I support at work is programmed to work on Firefox and it's the only browser it's tested on. If Mozilla made some breaking change and I was automatically upgraded, my work comes to a screeching halt. Maybe I don't even notice something is broken until I'm giving a client demo. Pretty embarrassing, huh?

So yeah, I can compare an OS to a browser, because the same purpose that the OS serves for you, the browser serves for me. I can't just switch browsers with a click of a button. I can't find an alternative. It's Firefox or nothing, a supported version of Firefox or nothing. Funny how some people have different needs, and funny how some people can dismiss those needs without even a thought, just because they may not apply to themselves.

But luckily my work controls what version of Firefox is released to our PCs. It's not pushed to our internal yum repositories until it's been tested. And funny enough, if your business really depends on a stable Windows environment, you have the tools to do the exact same thing. I recommend you use them.

There is no such thing here. You are on your machine, minding your own business on something you have paid, expecting support for it. You are harassed with an upgrade you don't need and you refuse. Then you are updated against your will, sometime it reboot in a moment you need it and lock your machine for some time. And then if you do accept the upgrade (out of "I don't have time for this s*"), you don't know what's going to break. Your scanner ? Your drawing tablet ? Personnaly, my login broke, it's in a state of a perpetual guest session.

Now compare that to Ubuntu, luckily on my second partition. It's supported for 5 years despite the fact I didn't pay for it, and doesn't force me to upgrade. Oh, and it's not full of spywares.

Granted, they've never really done a "chrome 2" style of upgrade, and I'm curious how they'll handle it.

Sneaky of Microsoft, but I'm having trouble buying these tales of the OS going rogue. I just haven't seen any way for that to happen.

However, consider it also from the user's POV. The update will download gigabytes of data, will do everything possible to get anything from the user that can pass as "agreement" and then update the software. Then it will reboot machine and present the new EULA.

If the user disagrees with the EULA, it will restore the original system - but not right now. It will take tens of minutes (not everyone has SSD) and during this time, the users is practically locked out of using the computer. If you are small entrepreneur, this is basically time when you cannot work and it's not your fault. Some of these folks cannot afford to wait a hour or so for the system to restore.

And this will be not final - who guaranteed that the windows update will not try again in a few weeks, once Microsoft steps up the campaign again?

If you can't reboot your computer for over two days, you may want to rethink your workflow... I tend to completely shutdown/restart at least every night/morning, and if I had critical pending updates, would probably let them run at lunch, just closing everything before that. This happens maybe once a month, and is just the cost of having a computer...

"Oh man, I have to stop my car and turn it off to get gas once a week. Or when I get my oil changed every few months..."

Edit: On Windows I often run jobs overnight that take 6-7 hours to complete. It's annoying to discover in the morning that Windows aborted my job to install some update, and I have to restart the thing for the next night. This never happens on Ubuntu.

That computer hosts a Linux VM which I connect to remotely from work and use for most of my development efforts... I use it every day without fail, yet Windows thinks my computer is "idle" simply because I'm not physically sitting at the terminal moving the mouse and keyboard.

I realize that's a perfectly reasonable heuristic for your average desktop user; but something about the messaging and voice of Windows 10 just really rubs me the wrong way. Previous versions of Windows seemed much less chatty, whereas now everything feels so presumptuous and autonomous all under the guise of "Cortana knows your habits better than you do."

I get that volunteering to beta-test comes with some pain, but I literally went to go use the bathroom mid-day, and I came back to Windows 10 reverting to an older build. Bizarre.