Microsoft says Windows 10 April update is fit for business rollout Microsoft’s decided that Windows 10 version 1803, aka the April Update, is now fit for consumption by business users or indeed anyone or anything capable of running Windows 10. The company’s declared the updated OS is now “fully available for all compatible devices running Windows 10 worldwide”, including business PCs. Have …
Business Ready? Windows 10 is like living in an area prone to severe earthquakes, resulting in a catastrophic one, the "the big feature update" every six months.
If you get through it, you're mostly fine, but you never quite know you will and you always know the next one is just around the corner.
I was, kind of, hoping for the next Windows (I passed Vista, and I passed W8 and W10). Unfortunately, my expecations appear totally outdated: I want an OS that does not FORCEFULLY spy on me, and does not FORCEFULLY update itself. Unfortunately MS are going exactly the opposite way, and next OS one will be even more "fuck you, cause we love you" so, I think I'll die with a W7 disk under my tongue :/
Surprising that the article doesn't actually mention the main content of the Microsoft blog post that it links to. That Microsoft is using AI to deploy Windows 10 updates:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to be a key area of investment for Microsoft, and we’re pleased to announce that for the first time we’ve leveraged AI at scale to greatly improve the quality and reliability of the Windows 10 April 2018 Update rollout. Our AI approach intelligently selects devices that our feedback data indicate would have a great update experience and offers the April 2018 Update to these devices first. As our rollout progresses, we continuously collect update experience data and retrain our models to learn which devices will have a positive update experience, and where we may need to wait until we have higher confidence in a great experience. Our overall rollout objective is for a safe and reliable update, which means we only go as fast as is safe.
"Our AI approach intelligently selects devices that our feedback data indicate would have a great update experience and offers the April 2018 Update to these devices first. "
So, basically it collects all the data on the PC, hardware and installed software and checks to see if there are any "gotchas" and either does or does not give you the update. Where's the AI?
"So, basically it collects all the data on the PC, hardware and installed software and checks to see if there are any "gotchas" and either does or does not give you the update. Where's the AI?"
Presumably mostly in sifting "all the data on the PC" times tens of millions and working out what the "gotchas" are.
which is unfortunate given that Windows 7 ends security patches Jan 2020 (same month as Python 2x, hopefully a sheer coincidence).
https://www.lifewire.com/windows-7-end-of-life-4161085
I wonder why so many here proudly say “I’ll upgrade to 7” if it is dying.
Stick it to The Man? Jousting with windmills? Surely, a noble activity, but not at the cost of shooting your own security in the foot, unless it’s air-gapped.
I have no real recommendations you haven’t heard: Linux, macs? BSDs if you’re into exotica? Or maybe you expect MS to relent and de-telemetrize Win 10 in 18 months? Install Win 10 and defang its telemetry, possibly by blocking associated IPs at the router level? Bring a GDPR violation lawsuit against MS telemetry not having optouts, assuming that is applicable?
But sticking to Win 7 is not a particularly secure way ahead, IMHO.
Or did I miss something?
could this be that the last few, it was everyone plus his dog complaining, for this update, they no longer count the dog .....................................
shouldn't complain, just had to go full on W10 mode to get daughter online for her first 'real' PC, so hoping the updates are actually going to BE updates, and not road blocks from now on :o)
It is false logic to equate lack of complaints with lack of flaws.
Perhaps people are so used to crap and Microsoft ignoring complaints, that they don't bother complaining any more?
I haven't come across any flaws yet on my little W10 tablet. But then I don't trust it to do anything other than playing children's TV, so I'm unlikely to come across the sort of things that would make businesses despair.
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"Lack of complaints may be caused the number of people (and companies) which upgrade as late as possible to avoid at least some problems."
If you read the linked blog, its been deployed to ~250 million devices, and the stats are based on that.
Companies do get up to 2 years from pre-release / 18 months from GA to remain supported. And builds will get fixes / security updates during that period.
more likely because with each update a whole bunch of machines get their windows installations destroyed to the point of needing to be reformatted or trashed
those machines are now either on the junk pile, or have fresh windows installs where updating is less problematic.
it isn't a sign of the quality of this update, it's just the problematic machines are being weeded out / forced to pasture each time.
I just upgraded to Linux on yet another windows box (Lenovo Yoga 900) since MS trashed my installation with the upgrade to 1803.
I think MS's focus groups are people that _might_ install 1 or 2 non MS apps. I install a ton of FOSS and paid subscription apps that require re-downloading/installing/registering/customizing.
It's time for the MS/CPM PC model to die completely.
"That's because everyone downgrades to Win7."
Apparently circa 700 million users have not.
Windows 10 has better performance especially on crappy hardware and is way more secure, so If you want Windows why not just run a relevant app to disable the spyware if not happy with the built in options, and install a Windows 7 start menu app if you hate TIFKAM would seem to make more sense to me. Or don't use Windows.
in the time it would take me to update win-10-nic (from start of downloads to final reboot), I could download the latest source for FreeBSD, do a build/install world+kernel from source (while the system still runs like normal), reboot one time, and THEN have it all back up and running without any "super+new+shiny features" to get in my way and FORCE me to "re-learn". I might even have to do LESS work.
As per /usr/src/UPDATING, you shouldn't run installworld prior to booting your new kernel. The recommended process is:
1) make buildkernel buildworld installkernel
2) Reboot to single user mode with new kernel and old world
3) "mergemaster -Fp" to prepare /etc changes
4) make installworld
5) "mergemaster -Fi" to apply /etc/ changes
6) "make delete-old" to remove old files
7) Reboot to your fully updated system
Also, since this isn't 2008 any more, you could also just run freebsd-update(8)
"Windows 10 is faster at installing too."
That is hilarious - while you are of course wrong - Windows Update isn't fast at anything, and the installation requires 32GB of disk space and uses 20GB. I don't care if Windows is optimised by the Patron Saint of Speed, that is never going to install faster than an OS that needs 10% of that.
The other factor to consider is that Windows Update locks you out of your PC with pointless full screen blerbs that tell you nothing useful. So you're sat there waiting for 15-30 minutes wondering what it's doing. Linux on the other hand, lets you use your PC through the entire update process and never forces a reboot - do it when you're ready (just like the updates).
"That is hilarious - while you are of course wrong - Windows Update isn't fast at anything, and the installation requires 32GB of disk space and uses 20GB"
Installation actually requires a recommended minimum of 16GB for 32bit or 20GB for 64bit. Windows 10 itself uses about 10GB on a clean install. The main additional space eaters are page file, hibernation file and of course future Windows updates.
If you have a <= 32GB device then commonly you run out of space for major updates and it's majorly sucky that Windows doesn't have built in intelligence to deal with that.
Hopefully it helps a few people to know that disabling the Hibernation file on such a device will usually free up enough space to update. You can do this from the command line via POWERCFG /hibernate off
"The other factor to consider is that Windows Update locks you out of your PC with pointless full screen blerbs that tell you nothing useful. "
You do get the option for restart or restart and update these days. The are also plenty of options to defer if you are logged in and at the screen. And you can set active hours when updates wont install. However once pre-installed they will still prompt for a reboot during active hours which causes the common misconception that active hours isn't working. You can repeatedly defer the reboot.
"So you're sat there waiting for 15-30 minutes"
For build updates (~twice a year) it is installing a fresh copy of the OS, so yes it isn't as fast as a patch. However the range is more like 5 minutes (NVMe) to 30 minutes (laptop with spinning rust).
<FTFY>
Redmond’s advice comes after over 250 million users installed the OS and gave it a thrashing. Those efforts produced data that Microsoft said shows a twenty per “reduction in system stability issues” and the same reduction “in operating system and driver stability issues.”
</FTFY>
I'd say that the above edit is probably the real story.
It’s a common trend in proprietary OS’s lately, even macOS has had a load more of fairly unsanitary bugs (or maybe they are just reporting more publicly).
I have computers at home with Windows, macOS and Fedora and Fedora has been the only consistent experience :-/
Putting Windows 10 aside, did Microsoft thought when a casual user broken their pc they would call Microsoft for support?
It's obviously no. It takes extreme effort to find a number or email address in Windows to call for support. Most of them would bring in their not working pc to a pc repair shop and hope one of those guys would fix it. Only those who at least know a thing about Windows license would try to call Microsoft support.
So while the number of installation increase due to increase in causal users, the number of semi-knowledgeable users who try for Microsoft support stay the same. Putting it in statistic, the rate of users using Microsoft support would decrease. So Microsoft is straight out lying with the statistic.
(where is the technical users you ask? they debug Microsoft problems and fix most of it themselves or among their techies. Microsoft "customer" support is mostly pointless to them anyway.)
While I entirely agree with your general point about users not contacting software companies for support, it's not like these support options are hidden from them:
Google "Microsoft customer support", click the link to support.microsoft.com. Either of the top two links from my results brings you there. From there, it's pretty quick to get to an IM chat with a support rep.
Hardly an "extreme effort".
That said, my personal experience (as well as that of friends who write consumer software) is that customers are very reluctant to directly engage with the publisher/author. I once had a small mobile app with a couple of thousand customers, and I'd see people bitching on Twitter about problems or bugs, when they'd never contacted me with their question first (which they could also have done via Twitter by tapping a button right there in the app)
I had to use MS support on one occasion, to fix a licence. It was all done through IM, the rep was quick on the uptake, diagnosed the issue and then (after a bit of a 2FA to-and-fro to verify that he was actually from Microsoft, rather than some scammer) he remotely fixed it. Can't fault it, really. This is on the standard Home version of Windows, and as I've only been a Windows user since about 2012 (was exclusively MacOS and Linux until then), I'm not relying on some long-standing knowledge here.
"Do try to get them done at a convenient time, people, because the download is at least four gigabytes and Windows installs usually take at least 30 minutes and require multiple reboots! "
A convenient time? People get to pick a convenient time? fvck that! I walk away for a bite to eat and the sneaky bastards say now's a good time... and after it's finished I get to reconstruct my working environment over much longer than 30 minutes... Oh the hatred!
What really annoys me is that each evening as I grab my laptop when going to bed, Windows asks if now is a good time to deploy updates - the computer has been sitting there, on (I know, I know), for the past 20 hours and you didn't notice that it was sitting there doing nothing but the moment I move the mouse it's all
"Ohai, I can has update lolz?"
Thinking about it, I would probably have one laptop fewer if that were the actual message.
"Please IT depts, why won't you just hit the roll-out button on WSUS? By the way, you've got another major roll-out in about another three months which will need this update to be installed first(because rolling them up together is toooooooooooo hard)."
Or the above...?
"Please IT depts, why won't you just hit the roll-out button on WSUS? "
Because WSUS is a crock of shit that downloads the whole universe, depriving you of your internet connection for a week, and then stubbornly refuses to make any of the updates available to your clients, leaving you unpatched for your troubles?
Ah, yes, that would be why.
"Because WSUS is a crock of shit that downloads the whole universe, "
It only downloads what you tell it to - which is pretty granular by product and OS.
"depriving you of your internet connection for a week"
It only downloads it once. Better than multiple clients all downloading the same thing.
"and then stubbornly refuses to make any of the updates available to your clients"
Works just fine in everywhere I ever used it. You do have to use group policy to point your clients at it and set an update policy.
because the download is at least four gigabytes and Windows installs usually take at least 30 minutes and require multiple reboots!
Is that not cause for a complaint in itself. My last major update was well under 250MB. Even a total reinstall of linux of any flavour complete with office suites and 20000+ apps and utilities is just over 1GB.
"because the download is at least four gigabytes"
It kind of makes you wonder.. 4 gigabyte update...
So, updates typically are not introducing new features, updates remove older functionality and older drivers - why so big?
I guess collecting more telemetry and fixing security bugs would be the majority of 4GB of updates. That's a lot of fixin'... Either way it's not a good thing.
One wonders where this is will be in a couple of years. What's good enough for MS, for an OS? MS still says Windows version 10 is the last OS. How much is our personal data worth to MS & their customers? Is MS's collection of data about everyone worth more than Google's or Apple's or.. Amazon's or.. Netflix's. Me thinks at some point there will be a saturation and at point, these companies will start charging hard currency for access to their systems.
Want to create a Word doc? - 15p per doc or .01p per each word in the doc. Spreadsheet? - 0.1p charge for every cell used. Database? - 0.1p per row of data. 1p for each field. Talk via Teams? 1p per conversation...
Every aspect of every person's life will be owned and we'll have to pay to do anything/everything.
They're already controlling (via fines) water consumption in Ca. If someone can figure out how to control the air we breath, they will.
Just because you don't agree with the conclusion, doesn't mean it can't happen.
""because the download is at least four gigabytes"
It kind of makes you wonder.. 4 gigabyte update..."
The 64 bit update 1803 ESD / ISO download is about 2.9GB and 32 bit is 2.2GB containing all versions of Win10 except enterprise. For instance 64 bit US English:
http://fg.ds.b1.download.windowsupdate.com/c/Upgr/2018/03/17133.1.180323-1312.rs4_release_clientconsumer_ret_x64fre_en-us_8483d330ba2e42d8e0a2bdd377074358afb0c864.esd
And its a similar size for the update because major Windows 10 releases effectively install a fresh copy of the OS and then transfer your configuration and the fastest way to do that is from a complete OS image.
Its actually quite clever how effective the deduping is in wim files.
Although it 4 gig cause it isn't an update its a full reinstall. Its very clever, the trickery with winsxs etc.
But by far the cleverest is the standover tactics to force you to cloud services. Cause you just don't know when your number is up. Is your PC a brick this update or the next.?
I deal mostly with small businesses where the only thing the customer knows is that "it's done another big update - took ages". What Microsoft don't realise is that at the user level, they couldn't give a fetid dingo's kidney about these updates, only that in an office with, say, 10 PCs of different provenance, there's at least one PC doing a large update every week or so, with a user completely unable to do any bloody work at all for 2 hours (if their computer has spinning rust inside). And that takes us almost half way to the next 'big one'.
We have a few customers who are financial consultants of sorts, and they love to use fast desk scanners with USB connections. Without exception, something to do with scanning broke in the 1803 update, causing the scanners to maybe work once, then need a power cycle. This has affected epson, fuji and brother scanners, and with no update coming for older scanners (some of them have a driver dated 2016), there's not much hope for them.
I'm sure other people have similar stories of other things MS broke, but that's all people see - things breaking. The "improvements" are largely cosmetic (or so it seems) - anyone use the 'people' button on the bottom right?
I can see thing are probably improving, but when are MS going to make this thing called Windows reliable?
I had the same thing happen at a small business that I do the odd job for.
We tried everything so in the end, I bought a Raspberry PI and set it up for them along with detailed instructions of how to scan and transfer the docs to their work PC's.
Then last week, the owner returned from a trip to the Bank with a smile on his face and a package under his arm.
"Can you set this up to run the scanner?"
He revealed a secondhand MacBook dating from 2016.
"I got it in settlement for an invoice," he said.
An hour later, the scanner was working fine when connected to the MacBook and we'd mapped the shares of each of the Office workers to it. Everyone is happy.
Now he is thinking of moving the rest of his Office away from Windows.
It is the little things that really turn people off of Windows. No OS is perfect but TBH, the more I see of Windows 10, the more I think of Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
I'm so happy that I retired before W10 became the [insert swearword of choice here] it is now..
Everyone in my street, me excepted, runs Windows and every time Windows decides to pull shit like this my grumbleflick takes 14 hours to download. Then for the next five days I cannot get down the shop to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels without one of the neighbours ambushing me from behind a garden fence or hedge to fix the resulting mess.
@RyokuMas
If our estate here is anything to go by, you've a 50/50 chance of:
Update works just fine.
Update doesn't happen at all and it sits on "Downloading, 0%" until someone/me manually intervenes.
Not that I expect it matters but the userland stuff is entirely lenovo thinkpads of various flavours.
@rmason - never had a problem myself, but as I'm a) paranoid, b) stingy and - apparently - c) cursed*, I prefer to wait it out and see how others get on first...
* Any time I Try doing anything related to updating/changing/re-installing something at system level, I end up with a dead PC. A few years back, I rendered a laptop capable of doorstop duty while trying to install Linux. I've also bricked my mother-in-law's laptop trying to fix a Windows driver error. And this is just the tip of the iceburg - so these days, I'll stick to just being a programmer and end-user.
On the plus side, none of my friends and relatives bug me to fix their machines any more "because I work with computers"...
"I've also bricked my mother-in-law's laptop trying to fix a Windows driver error."
Unlike previous Windows versions, with Windows 10 you can do an in place update from a USB key even if it wont boot the install you want to recover. See
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/videoplayer/embed/RE201WL
I must be the only fan of Windows 10. Apart from a few problems with the microphone in my Yoga 710, Windows 10 is very very stable. You kind of forget it is there.
Handling multiple displays could be better - perhaps there is a keyboard shortcut to switch between extend and only on 1 screen?
Windows 10 is great and 99% of the time it just works, just like Windows 8 and Windows 7.
Multi screen support could still be improved, especially if running old games on your main monitor - everything else gets shunted along due to low resolutions, but it's a lot better than Windows 7's multi monitor support I find.
But then, I'm one of those hopeless mutants who liked Windows 8.0 and didn't even care about the removal of the start button.
perhaps there is a keyboard shortcut to switch between extend and only on 1 screen?
There is. Windows+P cycles between "main display only", "extend desktop", "mirror displays" and "external displays only"
And, while I'm here: you can use Shift+Windows+CursorLeft and Shift+Windows+CursorRight to move the currently-focussed window between screens, and Windows+CursorUp to maximise the current window to full screen size.
Every time a mobile telephone gets an update tons of things get forced, we were given Samsung phones and I will now have to root it.
Last update
Force installed no uninstall Facebook
Force installed no uninstall, no disable, no icon delete, have to force stop EVERY BOOT, Samsung pay
That is two of us at work now who will refuse to accept another Samsung phone
"That is two of us at work now who will refuse to accept another Samsung phone"
Just install a custom ROM and your worries are over.
That said, I think you're thinking too narrowly. My personal policy is that I refuse to accept anything that forces updates or telemetry. If it's something that I otherwise need, I'll use it as long as it's possible to block the updating or telemetry. If that's not possible, then I just don't buy or use it.
The biggest complaint i hear is how every time this rolls around, they cant work for nearly 2 hours while it does whatever it is doing.
Android figured out how to do seamless updates (it does an update, boots into android then completes in the notification bar). Why Microsoft hasn't tried to do the same since XP on is crazy.
If you're of a sensitive nature may I suggest you don't read this comment...
I do find all the people who claim to have stopped using "windoze" years ago commenting on how shit it is very amusing. ( not just the article BTW but on any article relating to "windoze" )
I do find all the people who claim to have stopped using "windoze" years ago commenting on how shit it is very amusing.
No version of WIndows has gotten any better for several years. All of them are demonstrably worse (7 and 8.1 because they had telemetry added and have been moved to the monthly cumulative rollup system, and 10 gets worse with each new build) than they were in late 2015, and 10 is worse than any version of Windows that preceded it, so there's absolutely no irony in stating authoritatively that Windows sucks and that you haven't used Windows in years. If it sucked years ago, in a given person's opinion, it sucks much harder now.
The places I use Windows most often are my ancient laptop and a VM running on one of my Macs. The laptop got ‘upgraded’ to 1803 very early on. I didn’t want it to be ‘upgraded’, but Redmond insisted. The VM, which I _wanted_ to be ‘upgraded’ to test the bloody thing, is still at 1709. In fact, just about the only Win10 installs around here, not just the ones I use a lot, which have _not_ been ‘upgraded’ to 1803 are running in VMs. Gee. What a coincidence. At least one VM is still running 1607. Hmm. Now, it’s true that I have taken to controlling the Internet access on Win10 VMs, but the bloody things don’t ‘upgrade’ even when Internet access is turned on. Hmmm.
I wonder why I’m just not feeling any Redmond love right now...
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I had 8 computers of various ages and manufacturers in my store with borked 1803 updates. A few were just missing drivers or had applications disappear. The others had non booting Windoze and rollback was not working. After several level 1 support conversations and a couple of Microsoft missed level 2 troubleshooting appointments, they’re grand fix to the problem was a clean install.
Yes, that fixes the problem, but doesn’t endear Microsoft to their customers when they realize that it’s going to cost a bunch of $’s to get their fix implemented. When I told them that their fix was an unacceptable solution to the problem, the rep told me that the customer could call them and they’d fix the problem for free provided that the customer had another computer and a flash drive. Yea, like that will really work, someone with a heavy accented voice telling a person who can barely turn on their computer how to fix it.
A few of my customers ended up getting new computers when I explained that dumping that much money into a computer that was as old as theirs was wasn’t a good idea. Since I don’t sell computers any more, I helped the customer (for a fee) select a new computer and then transferred their data and reinstalled their application onto the new one. The ones with newer computers or ones who just wanted theirs fixed wanted to know where they could send a bill to Microsoft for reimbursement of the repairs. I told them lots of luck on seeing any money.
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