https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windows_update_mini...

I'd rather describe this as a mail-in-rebate for the costs of running Windows 10.

We sort of implicitly know there is this need to make the Windows lifestyle more sane, and can rely on tools like these existing.

But the time it takes to research this, track down the best binary for the job (examining the source code is not always easy), makes me conclude that there's a real hidden cost to being a Windows user.

The most impressive thing about Microsoft as a company is the way it single-handedly lowered user expectations to the point where ads, security issues, and critical time-wasting failures are somehow considered an acceptable price of entry, and not evidence of an unacceptably shoddy, incompetent, and user-hostile product culture.

The relevant dichotomy is more like: people who run Windows aren't the buyers. One-off personal licenses for home PCs are more than a rounding error but are certainly not what made Microsoft what it is.

Governments and F500 companies buy Windows and Office for X00,000 machines for X0 years of support at a time. Enterprise procurement teams are the actual buyers whose opinions matter to product managers.

Does MS sell their telemetry data?

> I paid $200 for a Windows 10 pro license because I needed to run a Windows application in a virtual machine.

I think if someone is willing to cheat on the licensing cost 4hey might just as well go with a pirated XP?

Remember that time Microsoft let FTDI brick a bunch of knockoffs through the first party update mechanism? Remember when they locked up a bunch of embedded devices with Windows 7 support nags? Remember when they dropped Candy Crush in your start menu, when they decided local accounts now had to be cloud linked, and when they enabled Cortana by default and made it increasingly difficult to opt-out? When they decided to take 30 minutes of your morning without asking (hope you weren't planning on using the computer for anything important)?

When it comes to high-reliability embedded OSes, Microsoft is a case study in inept paternalism. Updates regularly cause problems. Between updates and malware spreading behind a NAT, I'm not at all convinced updates are the lesser of two evils. Ideally, these applications wouldn't run windows, but since they often do, IMO the best approach is to isolate them to the greatest degree possible which includes blocking auto-update (note: not turning it off, blocking it, along with everything else you can get away with).

I've also rebooted to find out about Microsoft Edge, the new browser that's now pinned to my taskbar, even after removing Edge several times.

MS finished making Windows into a stable, usable OS and then promptly began turning it into adware.

I just installed a new Windows 10 VM last week and there was no option to use a local account anymore. None. No dark pattern menu link somewhere hidden in a corner of the screen with low contrast, only the choice between logging in or creating a new Microsoft account. Which took me longer than the whole rest of the installation, because as it turns out generic addresses like "[email protected]" are already taken and Microsoft seems very anal about certain choice words.

But at the same time they don't seem to mind if I enter a date from 2018 as my birthdate and the calendar dialog includes decades of future dates, but at least they got the forced online account working...

> Between updates and malware spreading behind a NAT, I'm not at all convinced updates are the lesser of two evils.

You can get your answer looking back to events like Nimda and Code Red.

Now I run a rolling distro since 2018. Development got a whole lot simpler, everything is more enjoyable and to date there's been exactly one noteworthy issue which was resolved after a quick search and 10 minutes.

And since then I've never seen a "new update available" popup dialog, no ads, no Cortana, no "smart" features, and most definitely no need to install third-party software to actually have a usable file search. I even update much more frequently than Windows 10 every forced me to, because for some reason I just never have any issues and I can just do it in the background.

I wish Windows would let me treat it like a car.

* I log in.

* I start setting things up so I can start work.

* I'm notified about critical updates. There will be a forced reboot soon...

* I'm watching out in case something pops up while I'm typing and whatever key I was about to press causes the 'reboot' question to be answered - and I wait several minutes and lose flow entirely.

* I log in.

* I start setting things up again as they were so I can start work again.

* There are more critical updates...

Turning off auto-update is not an option, because there are so many security holes and I don't want to end up a victim. I also don't like having to fight to try and keep the OS from doing something it will push against, so trying to creep around letting it do updates when I'm not busy and reboots when I want it to but not asking me - waiting to be told - it's hard work and stressful.

Windows is an amazing piece of tech and gets better all the time, but I find myself much more able to stay in the 'flow' and avoid stress in MacOS or Linux.

I think I get it why it wants to reboot: not only is it probably somewhat safer in terms of not screwing anything up in running session, but you can't be sure some running application or service isn't still using an outdated version of a library until you've restarted it. (Not to mention that the Linux kernel updates every week or so nowadays, but those are definitely not the only ones that trigger an update [edit: by which I of course mean "trigger a reboot"].)

I tend to not use the graphical software updater and just ignore its notifications instead, and just update from the command line and reboot when it suits me. That does allow me to not have my workflow interrupted but it doesn't change the fact that I still do get notified of updates that require some kind of action pretty often.

On the other hand, checking for those updates doesn't burn minutes on end of CPU time every time the OS is booted, as it seems to do on Windows 10.

But no, obviously Fedora doesn't force a reboot, nor does it give a prompt you can accidentally reboot through.

However, a part of the complaints (which I fully understand) seemed to be about the frequency of the updates, and in the name of honesty I just wanted to point out that's not really just a Windows issue.

I have said it before, but around half of the machines in my estate are macs, and I have many more reported update problems from them. I think a lot of it is caused by inconsistent updates.

I've been running one at home since the first TP in 2006, and I don't spend any time thinking about or maintaining them (running on Debian)

I wish that was the case.

It may not be a perfect situation but I don't find it to be quite as dreadful as many make it out to be. FreeBSD is my other OS and I'll be honest, I dread doing those updates much more.

Windows 10 hasn't always warned you about an update. Once I lost a half days work while visiting family. I had been doing some genealogy work, when some small kids come over, so I put my laptop asleep (shut the lid) and went about my day, not thinking to save. The next day, opened my laptop and was greeted with the "Hi! We are setting things up for you" screen. Was very upset to have to redo the previous days work.

You may not always be at the computer if you're waiting for some kind of a long-term process to finish.

No store, no advertisements, no telemetry, Edge optional, all Enterprise features enabled, security updates only (defer fully configurable), out of the box.

I use it at home and with my family members.

We have to trick our immune systems because we didn't design them.

An OS is, obviously, designed by humans. So we shouldn't have to trick it.

Of course, you're not the only one with this issue. There used to be an option in "gpedit" to disable this, but I can't find it anymore. I suspect that this is because there is now an option in the "advanced options" of the "Windows update" menu, called "restart this device as soon as possible".

It's very SV-bubble to assume that Microsoft's security needs are more important than him getting his work done.

As he stated, he missed a critical deadline. What if the client cancelled the contract because of that, causing him to go out of business? How does trying to sympathize with Microsoft feed his family?

No, the tech bubble is not more important than things that happen in the real world. Windows has security problems? Sure, all operating systems do. But Microsoft shouldn't shift its problems onto the users. That's just bad business, and bad ethics.

I don't like the automatic reboots, and I'd agree it's not a good solution and I probably wouldn't have implemented it if I were making the decision, but I don't really see how finding reasons for why MS might reasonably want to do it is a SV bubble thing.

The bubble isn't a geography, it's a mindset.

Once a month I update my work PC and three home PCs, all on the same day. Easy to remember, saves surprise updates and reboots.

Similar to how getting a vacination is not only good for you, but also for the rest of society.

Mind you, I'm saying this from a perspective of someone who uses his machine to perform nightly jobs (learning models, ontology alignment, etc) So it's not like I haven't shared your pain =)

Thanks for the explanation, but I'm well aware of malware. I wrote my own boot sector viruses back in 8-bit days.

But the point still stands: Microsoft's practices stop him from doing his work, and could cost him his livelihood because it assumes that fixing its failures are more important than his work. What's the point of even having the computer if it can't be relied upon to do complex tasks?

I tend to agree, but I have difficulty when you scale the problem. No individual person benefits from having their computer rebooted enough to counteract the issues, but might everyone collectively? The utilitarian calculus becomes difficult.

Though parallel solutions: better security testing or a capacity for live updates without a reboot, may be an answer.

Same as you, I periodically turn off the metered connection toggle and then run updates. It saves me a heap of angst.

[1] https://ameliorated.info/