Basically, a computer running Windows is actually owned by the Microsoft overlord who can do whatever the hell it wants to do. Occasionally it allows you to use the computer at its mercy.
It seems the decision was forced down by management. I hope someone up the chain realizes how much its cost to the actual users.
There was a joke at MSFT "you don't become a VP without making the company lose a billion dollars"
I think it still applies today.
Personally, I don't understand computers well so thus might be misguided but what I want is something similar to se Linux or jails but every application stack lives on its own and does not share libraries with anyone else. The idea us upgrading one application should not break another.
But can any of it overcome worse-is-better? Are these things really that desirable for a personal computer or are they more suited to production servers? I've been using Gentoo as my main OS since 2007, on my current rig that I put together in 2009, and I wouldn't be that surprised if I'm still using it in 2027. Even knowing about other systems' advances I'm still using my own preferred set of compromises.
Laptop decided it had to update while i was also updating security settings on my wifi.
both laptop and network were unable to reboot on their own.
luckily i also have wired network and other computers. so, i was able to recover; network didn't take too much to come bac k up. needed to create and use a recovery drive for the win10 laptop.
By contrast, every single Windows Update that I deal with (a) requires a restart for seemingly no reason, (b) slows down the shutdown process immensely, and then (c) goes through sometimes multiple long installation processes, during which I cannot use my machine.
Of course, as a casual user, I would find Windows Update annoying enough to want to disable it. More so when my computer decides to restart of its own accord, sometimes right in the middle of me actively using it.
(Obviously, I am security conscious enough that I don't really disable Automatic Updates on my Windows boxes, and instead just remember to reboot my machine once in a while so it goes through them on my schedule.)
Could switching the Windows Update UI to a scheduled weekly reboot + updates (call it "Maintenance" or something) be useful? Would fewer people see the need to try to disable the updates if they could control exactly when they would happen, consistently?