All Linux/BSD systems I've used can update in minutes at the most (excluding the download time); I've long since wondered why Windows update is so much slower? Even binary diffs generally don't take that long to apply in my experience. So where is all the time spent?
Also why does it need to reboot? It is the "hard" file locking that's on Windows?
But if Windows had anything like ZFS, they could apply updates on a fork of a dataset and then reboot very quickly into that dataset. That is the right way to do updates in general, at the price of always having to reboot, but you can do a mix of in-place updates when those don't require reboots and any races are safe, and ZFS-style updates otherwise.
I should point out that this is not actually a blocker, if somebody at windows actually gave a fuck they could abuse winsxs to do blue/green symlinks to get around the file lock issue. Meaning the update could happen in the background and take effect next boot without anything needing to happen at boot time. Most could be done by just restarting the proper system service.
Its just microsoft has decided not to give a fuck. Rather then work on why people want to deferrer and delay updates, they have decided... well, whats that meme? "no its the kids who are wrong".
Quite frankly I find the Linux/Unix-style behaviour of being able to delete/overwrite an in-use file a bit disconcerting, but that might just be because I'm more used to the Windows way.
As for the time, I have no idea. A lot of it’s sitting there doing SFA looking at task manager.
Windows installs and reinstalls take hours more often than not -- just logging in for the first time on an up-to-date Win10 laptop recently took 10 minutes to "personalize" it for me ... and this was on an SSD. I used to have curiosity about how they made it so bad, but these days I've placed anything windows under a SEP field.
I also note that Macs often require update reboots too, which suggests there is more to this.
Some Linux updates also require a reboot on some distributions. Less frequently than Windows, but still there.
But I've never had an issue where something wouldn't work between the end of an update and a reboot, where that does happen on Windows. Furthermore, it has happened to me that after a kernel upgrade (on a system that did require a reboot to make it take effect), I took a couple of weeks before reboot (running long simulations), in which case I was able to apply yet another kernel upgrade or two; but you only ever need one reboot to make the latest-and-greatest take effect.
On Windows, you accumulate reboots if you wait (which requires constantly rejecting the "shall I reboot now" prompts) so you may need many; and I've sometimes needed several reboots even though I didn't delay anything.
The implementation is (IMO) really interesting from a programming perspective (https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/livepatch/livepatch.h...).
Of course, one key difference here is the system never tricks you into rebooting, and rebooting for an update takes just as long as rebooting any other time, so mostly (pending additional work, as usual :b) it's invisible.
I seem to recall Microsoft exploring similar to ostree with some Windows version somewhere, so I'd be curious to see how theirs behaves.
AFAIK the only time this is the case is an update of something that can only be reloaded to get the updated version by rebooting--the most common case being the kernel.
I've been on my work Windows 10 PC for 60+hrs this week, and about the same each of the past four weeks, and five to six days out of seven the past couple years.
And never had it force-update.
You can bet the moment I took this computer home (I won't, but humour me) and tried to watch a movie it would force-update, crash, refuse to boot, and need a full reinstall.
kpatch:
But they naively schedule those minutes immediately after I've logged in, so the CPU and network is pegged and the disk thrashed while I'm sitting there cursing.
If I've logged in, it's to do a task. Not to wait for unattended-upgrades.py to finish its task before graciously handing the computer back to me.
Even waiting 10 minutes after login before checking for updates would be more tolerable.
With desktops, I can tell people that they are supposed to leave their computers on 24/7 but most normal people will use their laptop and shut the lid when done. That’s what they do with phones and iPads and that’s what they expect from their laptops.
That being said, I sincerely detest automatic reboots. It doesn’t affect me anymore because I have an ssd now but an operating system that reboots the computer without explicit approval from the user is trash. There is no excuse for this kind of nonsense.
I like Mozilla Firefox’s approach on my fedora machine. After I dnf update, Firefox refuses to open any more tabs until I close and open Firefox again. However, existing tabs continue working just fine and I can continue indefinitely before I close and open Firefox again. This is actual trust in computing. Trust your users to know best.
It's pretty frustrating, but it's still slightly better than Windows.
I had the same question, so I decided to look under the covers to see what the update process actually involves. I experienced true horror, ran away screaming, and never looked back.
There are panthers in there, lurking in the shadows.
(Assuming you run a recent Ubuntu)
(Before these arrived there were already some tool's for it, for some distros. But now everyone should be able to, unless the distro intentionally cripples the ability).
[0] https://lwn.net/Articles/619390/
They've been marching steadily towards forced updates, just they're being obnoxious enough first that people will thank them for cutting the UI noise.
the ability to cancel or ignore updates on a windows machine is relegated to a downloaded tool on the Microsoft site[0].
[0]: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026726/windows-10-...
It's the user's machine to ruin. Tech companies need to stop saving users from themselves when said users have actual informed opinions.
But it's Microsoft's ass that gets dragged through the mud for decades when unpatched Windows machines cause problems for others.
They learned their lesson. Users can't be trusted.
At least now you ARE prompted to reboot if you have used the machine at all in the past 3 days or something. And if you haven't, it will still wait a week.
No one in this thread seems to be up to date on that. Everyone is complaining about the Windows 10 of 3-5 years ago, completely unaware that things have changed a lot.
So yeah I see why Microsoft does what it does, sometimes. The internet won't cut them any slack no matter what happens, so Microsoft do what's best for the user, whether they like it or not. And, again, they don't just surprise reboot anymore if you're on a recent release.
I'm not sure that's entirely fair. But in any case, Microsoft's reputation is certainly being damaged by the long series of failures caused by bad updates to Windows 10.
No one in this thread seems to be up to date on that. Everyone is complaining about the Windows 10 of 3-5 years ago, completely unaware that things have changed a lot.
The important facts haven't really changed. There might be some small quantitative improvements, but qualitative changes are required to fix this problem, and Microsoft is still stubbornly refusing to make them because they don't fit the business model under Nadella's leadership.
Sadly, until there are viable alternatives so a large proportion of Windows users can jump ship, they'll probably continue to get away with it too. The only other potential way out I can see is if governments step in and start regulating because the damage is becoming sufficiently painful that voters/businesses are starting to send a significant number of complaints. I'm not sure we're there yet, even though plenty of people have been stung by a bad update at least once already.
This is exactly why I don't run Microsoft software, even after their rabid tendencies mellowed a bit - providing software the user wants is not their priority.
But neither commercial consumer platform is producing an OS that respects their users - it is one-size-fits-all, you must be an idiot-ware. I don't serve my operating system, it's the other way around. So I'm done with both of them.
Because when you have wide ranging issues like that it takes a lot of time for people's opinion to change. All it takes is for a user to be burned once by this system and they might end up remembering and anticipating these issues for decades. MS reaps what they sowed.
>so Microsoft do what's best for the user, whether they like it or not.
And over the years this builds up an anti-MS/Windows sentiment that will be very difficult to get rid of.
I tried running a weaker machine on Windows for my parents. They ended up not using the computer at all, because every time they started the machine it would do something update related. Even just the things in the background made the computer unusable. There aren't prompts for things like that. They would rather go and pay their bills in person than use the computer because of the updates. I didn't know it was that bad, but actually trying to use it myself I understood.
If it helps, you can use "powercfg /lastwake" at a command prompt to find out why the computer last woke from sleep. With that info you should be able to put an end to those unrequested wakes.
Charitably that's only half of the story. Their security model was ... not great in the past.
If as you claim their security PR problems were all due to poor decisions by users then where are all the people slamming Apple for all the vulnerable systems caused by postponement of updates? What about Ubuntu, Fedora, etc?
My xps notebook with windows 10 OTOH, well, it's actually close to a nightmare. I bought it late 2019 and had multiple on occasions the machine decided to WAKE UP from sleep a hour after midnight and running the update Procedere without shutting down. If it was in the sleeve I was greeted by a very very hot notebook at the morning with almost no battery left.
It took a while to turn this of.
For the record; I tried lots of stuff but I think this german post was the solution: https://www.computerbase.de/forum/threads/universal-orchestr...
If you're able to walk them through it, automatic updates can be disabled.
mac updates do take a while, but unless i'm misremembering, they're less frequent. and some windows updates take absolutely ages, too. the difference for me is that windows update keeps breaking stuff, like bluetooth drivers -.-
How does the Windows UI encourage shutdowns?
I only shut down my windows and mac machines. Windows is at least weekly, mac is about 2-3 times per month.
The other fun thing is that if you run into a complex problem, there’s no scenario where it will get fixed for you. For some products, there is literally a two week window before they freeze changes.
There is no escape — this is the new way. Apple is even worse and more unpredictable.
Vulnerable to what, exactly? That is also the other part of the problem with these "security updates" --- if you look at the details (when they are provided, which seems to be diminishing too) the vast majority of them are local privilege escalations that assume the attacker can run arbitrary code on the machine; IMHO if an attacker can do that, you already have a much bigger problem to worry about!
While I do prefer the update mechanism under my choice of Linux distributions, which allows me to initiate an update then cancel it if it looks like it will affect software currently in use, it is not suitable for most people.
That's a rather broad brush you got there.
Windows users probably gained the reputation for being update-adverse when Windows decided it owned the computer, not the user (me) who paid for the electricity that the computer definitely needs.
That in and of itself wouldn't be a thing except windows updates on multiple occasions have broken stuff and restarted computers on people in the middle of their work.
How dare MS add their own timer to MY computer. It's their software, but after Windows 8.1 (the last OS that actually passably pretends to obey me), I'm done and going to Linux. Mint or Fedora. Xfce. I may not drink much of the FOSS first cool aid, but its time.
Windows 10 (non LTSC) hates me, and the feeling is mutual.
It is also possible to argue that Microsoft became more aggressive with updates because people were not updating their systems.
I do not agree with many of the decisions that Microsoft made with Windows updates. For example: I am of the opinion that they should have made security updates mandatory and let people decide whether they will accept feature updates. Yes, there would still be issues with that model but at least they can legitimize it. They can legitimize it since we live in a networked world that has to be treated as hostile.
As for your transition to Linux, I would highly suggest finding reasons to embrace Linux rather than treating it as a means for ditching Windows. One of those reasons includes the FLOSS "kool-aid" since the less restrictive licensing model has many benefits that trickle down to the end user. Having positive reasons for using Linux will also make it easier to stick with it when you do come across aspects that you do not like, because you will come across things that you do not like.
And please stop bad mouthing Windows. Quite frankly, a lot of Linux user look like idiots since they spout outdated information. Just as Linux has improved over time, Windows has done the same. Within a few months, there is a solid possibility that critiques of the platform will become irrelevant. Within a few years, it is virtually certain that the critiques will be irrelevant.
Really? So you're saying Driver Signature Enforcement will suddenly disappear I can run unblessed by Microsoft drivers again so I can maintain the capability to keep my out-of-support hardware configurations running?
Oh wait, that's not going away... That fix wasn't even really for me. That was so the media distribution industry could sleep well at night, and who cares if it makes a bunch of User's hardware unsupportable?
Windows will stop running reams of telemetry, and stop pushing all their Cloud offerings on my users so that they actually know where their things are? They'll stop with their user hostile UXconfiguration so I can just present them an interface that mostly workswithout having to rejigger things after every update?
Windows will stop taking a sledge hammer to my EFI partition every damn time I let it update, resetting itself as the primary boot option until I go in and reset things manually?
It is so difficult nowadays for me to get across to kids just how different computing is now and how even if you do have more "stable" or "resilient" systems, how much more difficult it is to actually be able to figure out what is going on beneath the hood because of the encroachment into the computing industry of every special interest industry or some programmer looking to obfuscate their shitty software because those sniveling lusers should be happy they're getting a machine that does anything at all!
It's no surprise at all to me that encouraging computational literacy is such a challenge, because the entire industry has gotten so bewitched by capitalization and innovation (not of computing itself but) of applying computers to enable previously practically infeasible business models that I've grown to hate the behemoth the tech industry has become.
Half the time anymore, I can't even justify to myself going to the latest, greatest, computer hardware anymore, or checking out that new game, because every damn time I look into it, the majority of the damn thing isn't about doing anything better for the user, but providing some hook through which to monetize the user.
Sorry, but I can't take these sorts of "it's not that bad. " posts seriously. Excessive compute has largely just enabled the vices of those who build things in the first place. I see programs that fulfill the same end user use cases as programs we had 20+ years ago, less efficiently, with greater bloat, more 3rd party info leaks, superfluousnetwork connectivity, anti-user nannies/safe-guards which are less about the user's safety than aboutenabling someone else to extract rent.
Frankly, the same thing goes for most tech companies nowadays. Even some of the notable FOSS ones, who insteadofrentseeking in the traditional sense, fight over "developer mindshare".
Might have overshot my intended message, but God bless, it needed to be said.
Get off my LAN, and never darken my ports with your packets ever again!
But plenty of us do know better than Microsoft. For example, I'm typing this on a Windows PC with no telemetry and no forced updates. I'm perfectly OK with determining that I don't need those privacy, security and reliability risks without any help from Microsoft.
Its not the users that are bad at updating. It is Microsoft.
If you want to get it, I recommend the Microsoft Action Pack - you get a lot stuff for the money, including multiple Windows 10 licenses, 5 O365 licenses, Visual Studio subscriptions, Azure credits... It's amazing value really, but seems to be relatively unknown.
For many practical purposes, the higher Windows 10 tiers such as Enterprise and Education are a different product to the lower ones such as Home and Pro.
Microsoft isn't stupid and knows that professional sysadmins at large organisations would never surrender control of their corporate networks and the devices on them to an external party, so Microsoft doesn't try to push much-criticised aspects of Windows 10 such as mandatory telemetry and upgrades in that market.
If you want to get it, I recommend the Microsoft Action Pack
Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any legal method to acquire Windows 10 Enterprise without signing up for all the other enterprise junk that no small business wants to deal with. The Pro edition of Windows used to cater to the small business and power user market, yet bizarrely in Windows 10 that edition seems to have been heavily downgraded and is now little better than Home in the negative aspects we're talking about here.
> Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any legal method to acquire Windows 10 Enterprise without signing up for all the other enterprise junk that no small business wants to deal with
Not sure if there is a misunderstanding here, but you're replying directly to my comment that explains how you can get the Enterprise edition without a volume licensing deal or any other "enterprise junk".
https://partner.microsoft.com/en-GB/membership/action-pack
That is immediately full of buzzword bull about partners and subscriptions, which is exactly the sort of enterprise junk I was referring to before. Notably missing however is any straightforward way to buy a legitimate copy of Windows 10 Enterprise, or anything resembling instructions for doing so or pricing information.
If you have indeed found a legitimate way to just buy a plain copy of Windows 10 Enterprise for use on a business PC without further strings attached, unfortunately I wasn't able to find it from the information in your previous comment.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/mpn-get-acti...
Yes, they make it harder than it needs to be, but it's not particularly difficult either. And you're not just buying Windows 10 Enterprise, which is why there is no "Buy Windows 10 Enterprise now!" button - it's a subscription to a veritable trove of software and Azure credits.
1. Sign up to join the Microsoft Partner Network 2. Buy the Action Pack
Since Windows 10 Pro isn't really a Pro edition in the historical sense, we're just looking for a suitable replacement in the Windows 10 generation. That would have to be Enterprise as things stand, because no edition below that would currently be acceptable in terms of having full control of our own systems. But Microsoft doesn't want to sell us anything close to a like-for-like replacement to the Pro editions we've used for many years with previous Windows versions, so we won't use Windows 10 as our main desktop OS.
There are none, you're looking too hard for road blocks! All that stuff only comes into play if you become a "real" Microsoft partner by paying them lots of money and attaining one of the competency tiers; for the Action Pack, you just give them $400/y (or whatever it is, I don't recall precisely).
I do appreciate your time writing these comments, but unfortunately what I'm seeing so far doesn't really look any more promising than anything I've come across in any previous discussions on this subject. If Microsoft ever decides to offer a simple licence at a reasonable price for a fully controlled edition of Windows 10, and if we haven't already got everything we need from the combination of six other platforms we currently use at my businesses anyway, maybe we'll take a look. For now, it seems their business model doesn't include having businesses like us as customers, and we're certainly not going to go out of our way to work around that and give them money anyway. After all, why on earth would we?
Worked in enterprise, windows computers there only update on the week end or when the administrator decides to force an update overnight (they send a notification firmwide that all computers will be rebooted).
Looking at the way MS365 does it for different SKUs makes it obvious. Less money means more frequent updates.
What are the tactics Microsoft uses to deal with computers that are offline? Can those tactics be circumvented?
My assumption is there's someone at Microsoft who gets a bonus as long as they keep presenting update graphs going up and to the right, and they don't care how much they mess up the user experience in the process. Microsoft should reassign that person.