Windows 10 in head-on crash with Nvidia drivers as world watches launch Microsoft's automatic updates feature in Windows 10 has collided with Nvidia's driver system, sending the new operating system off the rails as it launches. Early adopters are experiencing glitches (particularly in multi-monitor setups), and in some cases crashes, all triggered when Windows 10 automatically updates its …
People want Microsoft to release another shit, unready version of windows for the same reason the tories want labour to elect corbyn as a leader. We're dealing with juggernauts here, and the unfolding inevitable car crash could well mean a spectacular end to both organisations.
boltar,
What do you mean? MS aren't writing those drivers, they're only pushing out Nvidia's own updates. If Nvidia have given stuff to Microsoft that is buggy or updating the wrong kit, then again - that's Nvidias stupid fault.
Also, the article states that Nvidia's own update software was downgrading the drivers in use to whatever they'd last downloaded, and creating the problem. They've had months to adjust that update software, knowing what Win 10 was going to do.
I remember this with Vista. Which apart from being slow, and a bit ugly, was mostly OK. It was much more secure and less crash happy than XP. But as I recall a of its early problems, and crashes, were down the new driver model - and the vendors not keeping up.
From memory MS had public alpha code around in at least Jan/Feb (I assume earlier for their hardware partners), and the public beta started in late March, with code complete in August for business launch September and the consumer launch being actually after Christmas. So MS gave plenty of notice. But I remember getting a new PC in May with a Creative sound card and the drivers weren't even ready until 3 weeks after I'd bought the PC - so my 5.1 card could only do stereo on the shipped drivers. So while MS changed a lot, they gave plenty of notice and plenty of warning, and you've got to say the hardware vendors deserve plenty of the blame.
Cut to this. MS have made no major changes in the underlying OS, it's still basically Windows 7. There's been a public beta kicking around for 5-6 months, and there was a fully public alpha too. They said updates would be automatic ages ago. And yet in all that time Nvidia didn't think to make a simple update to their driver software to make it compatible with the new Windows version?
And somehow this is Microsoft's fault?
There's a perfectly fine argument to say that techies should be able to override OS settings if they want to. But given that most users are totally clueless, Microsoft are right to make updates compulsory, and surely we should be blaming incompetent vendors for screw-ups like this!
Everyone screws up updates. Let's hope MS have planned for dealing with this - although they already do tens of millions at once, so they must have. I still think it's better for ordinary users to risk that, than for them to risk virus infection. I've never had a Windows update screw up my PC in 17 years of running 98, Vista, 7 and 8 - nor any of the company PCs I support, or had to fix one for a friend. So automatic updating is a small risk I'm personally willing to take for the extra security.
I do agree it should be possible to disable. Perhaps only on powershell, so ordinary users can't do it by accident.
Perhaps they can scan user comment forums for people who are rude about them, trace back the IP address (or just cross reference with the typing logs they can download from everyone's PCs) - and make them the guinea pigs to get updates before everyone else does...
"At some point they're going to screw up literally millions of machines overnight."
Not just "going to", _they already have_. With _every version_ of windows, earlier.
With this track record it is painfully obvious that they will screw up, probability is exactly 1.
One fuck-up big enough and every windows 10 machine needs a re-install from scratch as you can't remove the "updates" forced on you.
Once you've done a re-install, the machine happily does automatic update and is borked again.
Nice idea, MS. Obviously they believe their own capability to make no errors, ever. No-one (outside fanboys) else believes.
"And somehow this is Microsoft's fault?"
They _know_ that vendors (and themselves) are lazy and _still_ they push _anything_ they make to your machine. On purpose. That is Microsoft's fault and no-one elses.
" But given that most users are totally clueless, Microsoft are right to make updates compulsory, and surely we should be blaming incompetent vendors for screw-ups like this!"
Vendors and Microsoft will always be incompetent and pushing crap by force is always a very, very stupid idea, no matter how high ideals there are behind it.
Also, the law of numbers: Few un-updated machines versus millions and millions screwed users. That will happen again and again and again. People like you in Microsoft will never learn, it's not _their problem_: Blameshifting with full force. And users are screwed.
There is no, and can't be, any justification for fucking every user just because some users won't update: The real reason is somewhere else.
And I see the path Sony has already gone: Feature disabling by "updates" and forced adware/malware/spyware installations. As those make the money MS is losing by pushing the 10 for free.
We already have a preview of that model with Freecell and Skype. Both force installed with 10, no doubt about that.
If you aren't the entity buying, you are the entity being sold. Economical reality is as simple as that.
Oh, are we on Register time again? This story would have been current on Sunday morning. Possibly.
These days it's mostly fixed. And there's a tool you can use to stop any specific device's drivers from auto-installing.
This information will be downvoted by people who really really want Windows 10 to fail.
I would argue it was somewhat pedantic to complain about two days delay myself, regardless of your feelings as to the success of any given operating system. The article does repeat Microsoft's statement as to having fixed the issue. The issue being discussed is not the relative merits of Windows 10, but rather the risks of enforced updates, which could yet be removed from Windows 10.
You mean they've made the Windows Update show/hide update control panel available as a separate download in response to an update borking the system? This is progress and will surely be useful when an update goes wrong and you can only boot in safe mode and then realise you've got no network. So you download it on your phone and realise you've got no bluetooth or phone drivers. So you use USBOTG to transfer it from the phone to a USB memory stick... you have actually got a USBOTG cable, haven't you? Etc etc and bloody etc...
Your post will be downvoted by people who realise that until home versions of Windows work as reliably as an appliance it should not have the associated debugging tools removed and enterprise versions should never have them removed.
How many average uses (not the geeks who inhabit this place) would even know about what drivers (they drive cars don't they?) are, what might cause trouble when updating and the existence of this tool.
Somehow, I'm getting the impression that MS is trying to make their system fail for the majority of its users.
A company the size of MS and with such a market presence should know and do better.
There is an old saying that Redmond seems to have forgotten.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Like a good many readers/commentators here I'm staying well away from W10 for at least 6 months in the hope that by then MS will have seen sence and made their product a bit more user firendly for the majority of users. By this I mean the average joe/joanne who wants a PC/Laptop to do stuff on.
But isn't Windows a major revenue stream for MS?
So if they stop punters (muppets?) giving them more money for what is after all just an OS, they will be broke, so they better fix us.*
* By us I mean the muppets referred to earlier.
Guidance: upvote if you think Windows is crap. Downvote if you have seen the light and know Linux is better.
This is a problem that will keep happening again and again until MS back peddle on this idiotic idea of forced updates or at least allow competent users the ability to revert to alert but don't download and hide updates.
I can see why Microsoft have done this but I can't help feeling that the only reason for making updates (as of reading this, it appears that "security" updates are still compulsory) is because the problem needs to be addressed that users don't habitually update their existing systems unless pushed.
The idea of making the updating of systems compulsory in this case, however, especially given the poor record of testing by Microsoft (let's not beat about the bush, if it is part of the Microsoft Update, it should be tested by Microsoft properly. Blaming third parties is just stupid) is just a lazy way to confront a problem that has been around since Windows Update was first incorporated into the system. Even WSUS is a bit of a cop-out as it puts the onus on the licensed company to do the final testing.
Last time I looked Win10 was still offering me the 64bit Pinnacle 7010ix driver that won't work on 4Gb+ machines and the WiFi stick driver that causes instant kernel panics. Windows should NEVER automatically update drivers, the quality control on Windows Update is pathetic and drivers can render machines unusable.
Nvidia are even more of a fustercluck. I abandoned their products long ago due to the regular removal of features or hardware acceleration in new driver updates. Last Nvidia GPU had 2+ year old drivers before I binned it, they were the most recent that worked properly with my hardware. But at least I could control which version was installed, which bugs I'd be living with.
Giving back control needs to be built in to Win10, not a badly publicised patch many/most users will never hear about.
I agree with you there buddy. I have been on the Insider builds for a long time now and its getting better and better with every build but its still not quite ready yet. Its ok for power users but once every day Joe gets upgraded I can see loads of problems on the horizon.
They should wait a few more months for drivers and other compatibilities to be ironed out and for the metro apps to finished properly before they roll it out to everyone via update.
You beat me to it. That is what I came here to say. In computing the word "Experience" now means "bloated tracking crudware from the marketing team".
I did have that GeForce Experience tool go totally batsh*t mental on a client's PC once. It seemed to be intent on finding an nVidia shield in the house. Which did not exist. Was totally messing with the PC until it was removed.
I do get worried by this plan of Microsoft to auto-update drivers. Especially on OEM machines. Things like sound cards get pointless tweaks from some OEMs that mean the generic drivers then break the audio. So Microsoft does an auto-update and kills the audio. I've also seen similar with video.
It is *really* helpful that we have now had this silly nVidia Driver dance during testing. Hopefully this will make them think a bit harder about letting some of us have some control.
You beat me to it. That is what I came here to say. In computing the word "Experience" now means "bloated tracking crudware from the marketing team".
Dammit! You've blown their cover!
Now we just have to wait and see what the next marketing term will be for stuff we wouldn't actually want if we knew what they were peddling.
In fairness the NVidia Experience stuff is nothing compared to AMD's versions of the software. I was impressed that it autoupdated my laptops graphics chip drivers and told me that the Intel drivers were out of date (hybrid graphics) .. until it started showing me adverts and saying I could use a weird sign in feature to connect to other gamers etc.
Nvidias stuff isn't doing THAT at least, so AMD managed to impress me and annoy me within the same 5 minutes :P
But that just takes you into a rather contrived updates management routine, after installing that KB, then install a tool to remove the offending update, then run an 'over-the-air' cab to TEMPORARILY do a 'hide' on the update, once it presents in the list of available updates....
This is going to be quite an issue, not just for Nvidia but lots of other software and hardware drivers, in its myriad configurations, out there in Windows desktop land.
Obviously your average user will find such a procedure a cinch to execute... For each 'offending' update... I'm sure they'll relish and praise Microsoft for allowing them to spend time acquiring systems administrator skills, rather than using their machines to run the applications that are the true raison d'etre for having their machine(s)....
Remember the early days of Plug and Play? AKA Plug and Pray...?
Nowadays, of course, no one knows what an IRQ is or how it's supposed to be eaten (that's what you do with one, no? Or maybe it's something you'd look for in an atlas...?).
What I'm trying to say is: teething problems. The pain will pass.
"Thank you for reminding me when things were harder, puts it all in perspective."
The good old days when you had to set motherboard jumpers to get software to work and your drawer contained what looked from a distance like hundreds of little black bugs, that were actually jumpers.
On the other hand, BIOS in EPROM. See how you like that, NSA!
You should remember even further back - 'cos it's the Intel mobos that sit around with limited IRQ possibilities.
The 'real-deal' PC would have had a 68000-family CPU with quite a few 68k peripheral chips, then we'd have had a 'proper' PC AT, gone on with clones, and then further into better machines.
Nice lots of IRQs at different (programmable) levels, and (gosh!) LOADS of nice linear address space... none of this segment rubbish.
Pity that the right people weren't around at the right time (and don't tell me Apple were, their market approach was 'different' shall we say).
Remember the early days of Plug and Play? AKA Plug and Pray...?
Oh yes - and not only on ISA. I still remember the trouble making the FAST AV master card working with some hardware. A PCI card, but It needed it's own unique interrupt vector, otherwise the system would just crash. Drivers available only for Win9x and WindowsNT... For a while I kept an old PC with Win98 around, just for keeping the card alive, but at some point analogue video editing became quite pointless.
The good/bad old days... Proprietary hardware and bad driver support are luckily a thing of the past now.
Oh, wait...
Forced updates are something I just refuse to accept. There is a long history of bad updates in windows, so frequent that it's just kind of...expected to happen now and again.
So I only do updates once a patch has been out for at least a month. I'll eventually have to switch to windows 10 when DX12 games become the norm, but by then hopefully someone has created a work around - and if not I'll just firewall the bugger
Surely Nvidia are at fault here, they are the ones who wrote the driver sent it to Microsoft for release via Windows update but didn't also add it to their own, pointless, update routine. Also it's their pointless update routine that was automatically downgrading the driver. If it had been the other way around with the Nvidia software ahead of Windows update there would have been no issue. Windows update would have ignored the driver release because the installed version was a later release.
Of course whether Microsoft should be automatically updating driver software or not is another matter entirely.
I would agree Nvidia aren't blameless - on the information we have available and my experience:
On an old XP system, I've had to disable Nvidia update checking, as Nvidia GeForce Experience insists there is a newer driver version, but the version it wants to install isn't compatible with XP (I know because the solution was to totally uninstall Nvidia in Windows safe mode and reinstall the XP compatible driver from the Nvidia website).
So if MS is forcing updates on me, are they also going to pay for my mobile roaming charges when using my laptop overseas and it forces some mega-Mb update to download?
This is the most stupid idea since.... oh, i dunno.... since Windows 8, maybe?
Yes, i do know about their tool - but if we read the support article it allows you to uninstall an update, not prevent them being installed. Quote
"If a driver or update you are being offered is causing system crashes or instability and Windows was operating correctly prior to that update, you can follow these instructions to prevent the unwanted driver or update from being installed:"
Notice the "... and Windows was operating prior to that update". It just means you can uninstall it and flag it as not to be installed again. Doesn't mean I can block any future updates cos I'd incur mega-bucks worth of mobile data charges.
""If a driver or update you are being offered is causing system crashes or instability and Windows was operating correctly prior to that update, you can follow these instructions to prevent the unwanted driver or update from being installed:""
It seems that Microsoft is channelling Apple OS 8 and 9. Managing extensions was such fun...
I haven't checked Windows 10 yet, but at least in Windows 8.1, you can set any WiFi connection as a metered connection. You cannot set a wired 802.3 connection as metered though, and unlike recent Android, Windows 8.1 isn't smart enough to set a connection to an SSID with the word "Mobile" in it as metered automatically.
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In the final version that flaw would never get past the fast ring of insiders, and even if it did it would be caught by slow ring insiders before it every got close to touching the fast ring of final users or the slow ring. If anything this should show that the update tracks and rings , which weren't being used worth build 10240, are necessary. Learn the facts before you deem an unfinished product a failure.
"Learn the facts before you deem an unfinished product a failure."
The fact is that MS has always published seriously flawed updates and forced them to customers. Nothing you can say will change that.
One case more surprises no-one. And it's the reason why forced updates are a very, very stupid idea.
Microsoft loads the latest certified Win 10 GeForce driver from NVIDIA.
Which NVIDIA's optional driver management tool doesn't recognize and attempts to roll back --- and this is a Win 10 problem because?
Uninstall the NVIDIA app and the problem disappears.
This scenario won't be unfamiliar to anyone who has ever used multiple apps and sources to manage drivers.
The naïve user who lets the OS manage driver updates may not have an optimized system with all the latest tweaks ---
but the odds are pretty good he will have a stable system that performs quite well.
I think the point is, if Microsoft are going to force updates on people, they need to be damn sure those updates are not going to break any of the myriad of configurations out there.
When there's an ability to disable and vet updates (i.e. < Win 10), you've some scope for saying "95% of systems handle the updates fine", because the other 5% can disable automatic install and perform due diligence.
When you're insisting that updates install automatically, you have far less wriggleroom to be able to justify not making sure 99.999999% of systems won't get killed by your updates.
"Seeing as that would likely require breaking current asymmetric encryption techniques and spoofing SHA256 hashes to"
I'll bet it doesn't require anything like that at all, but is, in reality, trivial. Once someone bothers to find out how it's done. So far the need has been quite low as there are enough holes elsewhere.
MS is using in-house code for using these and that means they are as full of holes like the rest of their code.
MS has really extensive track record on lack of any real security: Just marketing and buzz words.
Gave up on Microsoft and moved to Linux about 6 years ago.. ended up on Ubuntu-Mate, best of breed at the moment. Even they don't auto-force updates. Gives users autonomy to choose to hang back to see if issues develop, as they sometimes do. The last remaining windows machine I have is on Windows 7 and is always about 1 week behind in updates, so I don't get caught by issues.
Windows 10 launches for consumer PCs and tablets on July 29th. That's tomorrow at the time I'm writing this (Wednesday), not Friday. As for the Microsoft Cock up with automatic updates, I hope they have a mechanism built in to manually update. I'd hate for this auto update feature to cause similar problems in the future, particularly as regards problem hardware drivers.
It's already been fixed the same day (July 28th) that you posted this Click Bait Alarmist piece.
Nvidia and Microsoft fix Windows 10 problems
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphics/38331-nvidia-and-microsoft-fix-windows-10-problems
This site turning into a Joke site like S|A.
Really, you would not say that if a update caused your computer not to boot up...
It has happened in the past from Microsoft, but now you have no choice to have updates installed. Think about it for a minute.
Remember the Windows 8 update that sent your computer into a constant update loop. Only way out was to wipe and reload the computer, but now you would be forced to have a buggy update. It can happen and it will happen.
That would be a major issue for all Windows 10 users, a really major issue.
"The problem was fixed before todays Windows 10 launch so yes it is already fixed."
False logic. A bug making a non-booting machine is not 'fixed' by releasing another version: The machine is still not booting until you somehow install the fixed version into it.
Won't be easy as it's not booting.
But of course in the fanboy -land already broken machines never exist, "just install The Next Version(TM)".
"Nvidia and Microsoft fix Windows 10 problems"
Irrelevant: That's a problem that should never get past quality control at Microsoft. And MS, by pushing those, is the first responsible, always.
This just shows that they have none and anything is just pushed to users with no-one bothering to do even basic smoke tests on it.
Non-booting machine won't be fixed just by downloading a patch. And MS is notoriously bad at offering any help (or tools) to 'no boot'-situations.
Seems like Nvidia owns this issue as well. MS and hardware providers will need to work closely to ensure updates don't cause problems. This is something that should already be happening folks..it's best for consumers and internet users as a whole. The cry-babies are the techies who want complete control of everything on their system and I get that but auto updates are necessary to protect us from the internet nasties...the other 95% can't be trusted to patch on their own.
"...but auto updates are necessary to protect us from the internet nasties."
The law of numbers: Few unpatched machines are always better than _all the rest_ broken. And it's not a question about if, but when that will happen.
Regardless of the necessity the choise taken now is even worse. And those aren't even excluding choises as we already know from windows 7 or 8.
Agreed. My main Linux box is using that crappy Nouveau driver since the last time I tried the nVIDEA driver package, the whole X11 system borked!
However I can honestly say that what we have here isn't anything new. Windows 95 had driver issues on release and most versions went the same way at some point. That's why some folk hang back from the bleeding edge - we hate the sight of blood!
Well, actually... not so much. I remember compiling webcam drivers waaaay back in 2005/2006 to support USB cameras on diskless Fedora boxes booting over the network from a CentOS server via PXE, it was a pain back then (it isn't now) but everything worked quite well.
I haven't encountered a driver issue in Linux (fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, Mint etc.) for YEARS; it all "just works".
Actually I switched to nVIDEA from ATi years ago because an ATi card I got screwed up my WIndows system. That was an XP machine. I've rarely used ATi/AMD cards since at home though I did use the inbuilt ones on the HP machines I used in a couple of workplaces.
Generally speaking, I've heard all sorts of horror stories when it comes to graphics systems over the years from both of the big names. It seems that neither of them really consider the systems they would be likely to be working on, regardless of the OS or the architecture.
I told Microsoft about this issue WEEKS AGO... And I was ignored, it is a very serious problem. What happens if Microsoft release a update, which is bugged. Remember the update we had with Windows 8. That left many computers in a update loop.
Only now, if that happens to Windows 10, oh you cannot stop the update from happening, you are forced to install the updates. If you want it or not!
I have already had issues with Windows 10 update system, esp when I am playing a game. The updates still install, and at one point crashed my computer... The update system is the only major flaw with Windows 10. They need to give control back to the user, after all they are our computers aren't they????
It's only a "laudable aim" if driver updates were known to be 100% correct every time. Since they aren't, and have in fact caused some rather catastrophic issues, some of us prefer to let the so called "bleeding edge early adopters" do the bleeding when drivers are broken. Forced updates? No bloody way! Looks like i won't be "upgrading" to Windows 10 for a long, long time.
The storm of updates (or update checks) that accompanies a Windows boot has been inefficient for years; it's something Linux does very well, and to a lesser extent OS X; although in the latter case applications still deliberately break out of the App store, for example Adobe...
Nvidia's application has been a shitfest forever.
This has been resolved, why all the negativity? ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Nvidia released 353.62 this morning which resolves the issue, if you have half a brain you can easily uninstall the corrupt driver using safe-mode I believe there is a key combo you can use to boot directly to safe-mode. Uninstall the old driver, install the freshly downloaded 353.62 and viola!, make sure you turn on shader cache, you can also reroute shader cache to a SSD drive using directory redirect, it's a neat trick I found to get a few extra FPS out of games or to improve performance while rendering scenes in solidworks or autocad.
"if you have half a brain you can easily uninstall the corrupt driver using safe-mode I believe there is a key combo you can use to boot directly to safe-mode. "
Assuming the system boots. That's an big assumption and obviously the writer hasn't tried to do so as he's not using Nvidia drivers.
If you are giving instructions you'd better try them first, on a machine which has the fault the instructions are trying to fix, otherwise they are and will be false.
Windows Update is installing the current driver while Geforce Experience is trying to downgrade it.
How can anyone construe this as microsoft's fault is beyond me. Nvidia should have for seen this. In fact with updates being mandatory now they should probably just take out the driver update functionality from experience and let windows handle it.
As a side not. I'm sure many of the readers here must have seen this as a valid reason to move to Linux.
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Adware at its purest.
Skype and Freecell already have a ton of ads (unless you pay a monthly fee of $10, forever) and every time there's "an upgrade" one software more throws spam on you.
That's why you can't stop updates: It's all about ads and money.
If you aren't the buyer, you are the object being sold, in current software/service environment.
OSS being an exception, of course.
I'm not sure I'd trust MS with my graphics card drivers... the fact that on their RTM they fucked it up isn't surprising, in my time I've had to dance between specific old versions of nvidia, current version and experimental versions for some games. Pretty sure most people that play games have done at some point.
Not sure MSs patch or die path is sensible, having encountered their people at conference a number of times their blind insistence on ever marching forward and their intentional refusal to accept sometimes it isn't easy to upgrade things is irritating.
I remember a discussion about legacy accounting data... weird people. This is just another example of that "push forward and damn the consequences" attitude
Doesn't help, unless you have a enterprise edition.
Otherwise _everything_ is sent to MS (and NSA of course as from privacy point of view they are one entity).
See for yourself: Here's a screen grab of so called "privacy" settings:
https://narf-archive.com/pix/f5d49abe402d1a1bb8202ba6298455ab737c82ba.jpeg
Anyone can see that those are 'no privacy whatsoever' settings in reality. _Everything_ is sent to MS/NSA.
The latest windows 7 update borked my machine, could not even get to safe mode, I had a black screen and a mouse cursor that still worked and absolutely nothing else. Fortunately a dual boot machine, so a bit of research latter and a system restore to kill the update and then permanently shutting down windows update, I can see what I am doing again.
This is not a driver screw up, as the driver was most definitely no upgraded, this is an OS screw up clashing with older NVidia cards and their drivers.
So windows 10 absolutely no bloody way and I am not paying $99 dollars extra just to avoid M$ update screw ups, not now, not ever. There is absolutely no way M$ was not aware of the problem as the borked windows 7 update occurred a couple of weeks before the Windows 10 release, they simply did not give a crap.
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