Microsoft update mayhem delays German basketball game, costs team dear What’s the worst thing that could happen when your Windows update takes longer than expected? Ask the Paderborn Finke Baskets, a German pro basketball team who got relegated thanks to Windows’ sluggish performance. The Spiralling Progress Indicator of Doom spelled the end of the team’s run in Division Two of the Basketball …
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I'm not sure it's an automatic vs. manual download problem.
It sounds to me like the updates were already installed, but the required reboot had been postponed. When it was rebooted, the "Processing Windows updates" happens before log on, so can't be interrupted, short of turning the laptop off. Even then, it would probably just carry on when it was rebooted.
@Electron Shepherd
Yes, the updates had been installed, but the machine not restarted.
But for any mission critical machine you don't have automatic updates in place. You manually download and then reboot, when you have time! You don't let it update before a match and then not reboot it well before tip off!
We have it as a standard procedure, for example, that the PCs in the meeting rooms are manually patched and rebooted after Patch Tuesday, when the rooms are required, so that we don't have any embarrassment when visitors come and the PC takes 20 minutes to boot.
No, for any mission critical machine, you test it the morning of, and probably even the hour before the critical event.
Besides which, there's more to this story. At home I run what is now an ancient quad core PC with Windows 7. It NEVER takes 17 minutes to install updates. Even when there are 12 of them pending. And that's on the shutdown side, not the Configuring after the Shutdown side. I've never seen that take more than 7 minutes, including a reboot in the middle of the Configuring process.
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Yes, my work laptop has the issue as I have Windows 7 and Arch Linux installed on the (single) disk with grub2 as the bootloader. Everytime I boot to Windows it tries to initiates the update, reboots and then tries to install, but fails, so it rolls back. Unfortunately, as the Windows 7 install is a corporate build, I can't re-install the Windows bootloader, not that I particularly want to, so the only option would be to re-apply the corporate image.
Sigh, it's got to the stage where people make uninformed comments about a common sport they clearly know little about to express ridicule of the modern world.
In basketball, even at the lowest school and amateur levels, there are scorers who sit on a table next to the court, they literally do write down the score, number of fouls, timeouts etc. And they do this on paper as this then becomes the agreed record of the game. There is also a timekeeper, who starts and stops the clock.
However, it is only fair to let the teams playing (and the spectators if there are any) to know what the game time is, how many team fouls have been committed, what the score is, etc. At the cheapest level this is usually done with some scorecards and a big clock on the table.
Most places have an electronic scoreboard, operated by the scorer who also updates the electronic board while writing down the score.
As soon as the playing standard gets anywhere near serious, it is considered neccessary to have a multi-function scoreboard that shows the score, game clock, fouls on each player, team, timeouts, shot clock and who the recipient of the next jump ball will be. It's quite a bit of informaiton and I can see how that might end up being computer driven.
Much like golf, there's still a paper record, but the scoreboard is there for everyone who isn't at the scorers table, it's not unreasonable for the league to insist that a scoreboard be working, in the same way they insist on the size of the ball.
The argument still stands. In the absence of a big-screen and laptop, could the home team not have just dragged in a flip-chart or hastily got a marker and forty sheets of A4 (0-9 x 4 = two two-digit scores) to show the score?
I suspect, though, that the teams at the time sportingly agreed to wait for the scoreboard without realising that the 15-minute rule would then apply; only after they lost did someone at the losing club got sour and press for it...
@Kristain Walsh - In the absence of a big-screen and laptop, could the home team not have just dragged in a flip-chart or hastily got a marker and forty sheets of A4 (0-9 x 4 = two two-digit scores) to show the score
But the point I was trying to make in my earlier post is that it isn't just the score that the scoreboard has to display, the game clock is still very important and that has to be accurate and clear to all (plays can still be made with tenths of a second left on the clock). There are many things the scoreboard is expected to display.
In any case, the league the team plays in has standards reflecting the level of competition, that will state what the minimum for the scoreboard must be.
My son is playing sub-16 (and at times sub-18) basket, and around here all the courts seem to have purpose-made consoles for controlling the information. And as pointed out, the information is really important, I have seen the winner change twice in the last 4 seconds of play.
I wonder why they went for the laptop option?
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Unless the person responsible for that had started updates OR they had started downloading automatically. You might not be aware that something had started to downloaded automatically and from then on was going to annoy you with postpone messages, installing on shutdown/turn on/reboot, or other fun side effects that are par for the course with Windows.
PEBCAK.
Running something mission-critical from a laptop is a dumb thing to do. Not being aware that a delay of 15 minutes would cause you to forfeit the game is a dumb mistake.
The blame here doesn't rest on Windows. It rests on a) the manager, b) the person responsible for the IT.
Oh I don't know - being unable to use your PC for 17 minutes due to updates is a serious flaw in the OS design.
While not really wanting to start a pointless OS willy-waving competition, I still ought to point out that other OS can updated without needing you to stop and more critically, for updates that actually need a reboot such as a new kernel, its just the usual 30 seconds or so to restart.
All possible because the new files were already in-place earlier as *NIX style file systems allow an atomic in-place replacement of files, but still allows an open file handle to continue using the previous on-disk data until the last handle is closed (i.e. on shut-down for the kernel or similar).
All possible because the new files were already in-place earlier as *NIX style file systems allow an atomic in-place replacement of files, but still allows an open file handle to continue using the previous on-disk data until the last handle is closed (i.e. on shut-down for the kernel or similar).
Which, of course, also allows users to have updated Firefox to version 36, but still be running an instance of Firefox 25 that has remained open for the past 12 months, running a 12 month old version of the Flash player plugin, even though they updated Flash Player only yesterday.
Atomic in-place replacement of files is awesome, but there are some updates that I would personally want flagged as "the system will close all instances of this to ensure the patched code is being used" because otherwise end-users (and not just the less experienced ones) can end up running old, potentially vulnerable code without realising. MS forcing reboots, for things that shouldn't actually require reboots, is one (ill-advised, irritating) method of mitigating that.
Best practise would be to take the best parts of both approaches, of course, even if you would be borrowing far more heavily from one than the other ;)
Firefox warns you it needs restarted, so unless you really hold the browser open for days on end (just how much RAM do you have?) that is dealt with.
Also any new instance of a call (e.g. starting flash for a new video) gets the new version, so unless you are watching the same compromised video for weeks, same applies.
Its not perfect, but it seems a better approach than Windows where you cant replace an open file, so all sorts of stuff has to be done on shutdown/restart.
>All possible because the new files were already in-place earlier as *NIX style file systems allow an atomic in-place replacement of files, but still allows an open file handle to continue using the previous on-disk data until the last handle is closed (i.e. on shut-down for the kernel or similar).
BS, NTFS allows atomic in-place replacement of files. It is the crappy file locking in the Win32API that does not allow you to replace open files. OS X, which allows you to replace open files, now also goes into some "update" mode to install updates, WTF ???? ... I used to be able to install updates and continue my work on OS X and, "best of all", reboot whenever I wanted ... a week or two was usual. No "two postpones, then I simply reboot" on enterprise-class OS'.
No Linux OS I know of randomly installs updates and reboots your machine in the middle of a working day.
With Linux you install updates *then* reboot, with windows you install updates reboot - it installs more updates whilst shutting down and starting up (whoever thought that was a good idea?)
With Linux 4.x you will not have to reboot at all soon for ANY updates...
For the kernel maybe, but what about the cluster-fsck that is systemd?
Well good news in this specific case - Systemd will soon include not one, but three German-Basketball-Scoreboard modules. All more or less complete and functional, but Lennart Poettering will leave the actual debug-and-testing to others.
</snark>
<bitter>
Agree on the Linux comments, but you could still probably get stuck waiting for a disk check ("this disk has gone too long without being checked"...). Probably won't take 15 minutes, especially on a laptop, but it goes to show that Linux isn't totally immune from "randomly" locking you out of the machine for several minutes at boot time.
Kind of off-topic: kexec support in Linux kernel is cool, particularly on machines with very slow BIOS startup (eg, my old Dell PowerEdge)
"get stuck waiting for a disk check"
That is not too long if you use ext4 (default these days). E.g. my PCs typically take 10-20 seconds to check and that is with spinning rust HDD filled with 100+GB of crap I could probably safely delete.
Still, if you ever had to wait for the old non-journalled systems like ext2 to fsck then you have reason to be concerned.
A complete aside, but that really is an ugly acronym. I've always preferred PICNIC: "Problem In Chair, Not In [Code/Computer]". Not only does it sound nicer, you can easily slip it into conversation with the end user - usually a management type doing a corporate feasibility study for the Peter Principle - and damn them to their face. "My works laptop broke after I turned off the company firewall so I could visit my porn sites, can you fix it?" "No worries, it'll be a PICNIC".
Is everyone else missing the point?
If that laptop was the only one capable of running the scoreboard, what if they'd dropped it or it had been hit by, say, a flying basketball?
The problem is not Windows Update being enabled (although that's dumb on a machine doing one job), or the guy rebooting it, or the wait, it's that there was NO real backup.
If someone had just been able to say "Oh, go and get the other laptop while we wait for this one", then it would have been much easier.
But, that aside, who the hell uses a FULL PC just to run a basic scoreboard?
No, you are, the point being all non techies believe Windows will do everything easily and they can rely on it.
The truth is it can do most things, but is usually not the best, even when it is the only option such as businesses are lazy and develop for the common platforms, and you cannot guarantee that it will do the same thing, the same way, twice.
"contracted out to some outfit located in India, who in turn subcontracted to some Arabs in Germany for the actual installation."
There appears to have been a selection of Raspberry Pi projects on this theme for a year or two; ask your fave search engine about raspberry pi basketball scoreboard.
Acquire a TV the size you want. Spend £50 for the computer and a few recycled peripherals.
Job done, reputation no longer at risk.
Problem + Clear Thinking == Opportunity.
[Other non-Wintel systems are available]
The laptop is used as a tool to control something familiar, it's just that thing in a bag over there. It's easy to forget that everyday folk have no idea why a machine would do these "updates" or even why the hell it even needs to reboot.
But people like us who have become used PCs for a while now have got so used the the old reboot procedure, letting it do certain things, and letting it boot/reboot properly way before anything important.
Microsoft never seems to understand its own public, who don't give a damn about what a 'Microsoft' even is, let alone which version of OS is running on it. Why should they, it's just a tool. And probably the only thing that runs their off-the-shelf scoring software.
I think the MS process is them trying to ensure updates get delivered and people who are not too sure don't leave an unpatched OS lying around. Of course, it is a simple option to switch off auto updating so you can do them under your own control but I guess that a basketball team doesn't employ an admin for that kind of thing.
Kind of like last week when I needed to take my laptop with me and leave in a hurry, I was met with "Installing update 3423 / 35434564564654 Do not switch off your computer. Mea culpa.
The laptop is used as a tool to control something familiar, it's just that thing in a bag over there. It's easy to forget that everyday folk have no idea why a machine would do these "updates" or even why the hell it even needs to reboot.
Or why it would even need to be connected to the internet (unless, of course, the scorer would find the need to watch pr0n between games or at halftime...)
I run national and international competitions that require a computer that can run a timing system precisely and absolutely must not be interrupted, using a Windows system was not even considered as you never know what the f*cker will do next. I want to control my system, not be at the mercy of some dumb f*ck of a programmer that thinks its a good idea if the system goes off and does stuff for itself.
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'If you run international competitions with "a" computer, you're just as guilty as that guy.'
Yeah, fair point - of course I have a back up - that doesn't run Windows either. The system has to run for ~7 hours off a 12v battery and inverter in the middle of a field, so far Mint11 on an eee900 has never missed a beat in the last 4 years, and whatever mad animal version of Ubuntu before that for the previous 3.
Back up batteries, back up inverters, back up speakers, backup microphone.
"I haven't seen such a thing for over 20 years."
The IE 10 browser gets close. Running it as an independent object you have to use "silent mode" to suppress various messages like javascript errors that lock the inter-application object interface. It takes some experimentation to work out when to set that mode for it to actually have any effect.
However - even in that mode there are still some messages that pop up and lock the object interface. Usually something like "you need QuickTime to see the video on this page - download and install?". Which also locks the calling application with a modal message warning that the object application is taking too long to respond.
Running Windows 10 Technical Preview, and Windows Update is as bad as ever.
Rule 1. Don't switch from Fast to Slow Releases.
Rule 2. Stay on Slow.
10041 has just spent the last two days attemping to install 10049, and downloading 9GB of data in the process, yet has failed everytime, luckily I'm not using 02's Giffnaff at 20p per MB.
The new start menu is 10041 is back to the Windows 8.1 'modern' like crapness too. It was looking promising, now its looking like a Microsoft Power struggle of teams - Modern v Classic. In the meantime, the technical side of Windows Update is the same clunky shit as ever.
Its as though, someone high up in MS Dev was sidelined / left at Christmas, and everything since is downhill, towards 'modern'.
Microsoft really need to start using the Fedora / Red Hat Model, (Experimental - Cutting Edge / Mainstream - Conservative). Messing with the MS Crown Jewels like this is making them look like a laughing stock, compared with say - iOS / Yosemite releases. (and they aren't great of late).
I love all the "every chance you get, bash Microsoft" except this one is pretty blatant and obviously the IT person or laptop owner's issue! The moron that didn't make sure the laptop was ready for the game deserves what happened! Nice try haters but the Easter egg is on you!
Leaving aside the backup and checking beforehand issues in this instance, the Windows Update behavior on shutdown and startup is an occasional major annoyance on a laptop. I take an old T41 to work on some jobs (only sometimes used for work) and I've been bitten several times when I shut it off to leave and get the "configuring updates" msg. Sometimes my fault but the last time I had gone through multiple reboots and checking for updates a few days earlier. There are times I need that laptop to work immediately and to shut down immediately.
I've just reset an HP Compaq laptop back to factory settings (Windows 7). I turned off the automatic updates - 'notify me when updates are available but don't install them' - Windows ignored me, peice of f*cking shit. And why does it take all afternoon and evening to get a fresh install of Windows up to date? I installed Mint 17.1 along side, in and updated inside an hour with no reboots - and most of the programs I need are already installed. Another hour to get Windows secure and useful even using ninite!
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