On the eve of Patch Tuesday, Microsoft confirms Windows 10 can automatically remove borked updates Microsoft has quietly updated a support document to let us know that Windows 10 will have a crack at uninstalling borked updates – just in time for patch Tuesday. Windows 10 endures enjoys a near constant stream of updates and patches to, as Microsoft put it, "keep your device secure and running at peak efficiency". This is …
Additional. OK I was a bit biased against Mint 19.1 because of its piss-poor performance in a Virtual Machine. Your post prompted me to go one step further on a Dual-Core Toshiba Satellite laptop and upgrade from 18.3 to 19.1.
I had no problems doing it and I find that the resulting performance is quite acceptable. I'll still stick with 18.3 on the others for now, but at least I know I can move up should the need arise.
well last I checked Libre Office didn't CRAM forced updates at you, either. I typically just install whatever I downloaded before and to hell with feature creep.
Unless there's some compelling reason to get a "bleeding edge" version, you can go with a "known good" release if you have trouble. Last I checked they're keeping old install images around [unless that changed for some reason]. And worst case you can try www.archive.org to get an older image
unfortunately, NOT an option for Win-10-nic itself...
@Version 1.0
Windows 10 has had that ability right from the start and that was one of my concerns with the technology (not to imply that MS are planning/want to do it); it becomes all too easy to abuse ("accidentally" remove LO or any other (undesirable by MS) program?) whilst having plausible deniability.
See https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2016/05/17/microsoft_windows_7_and_81_fixes_now_rollup_bundles/#c_2868324 and https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2016/05/02/desktop_os_market_share_april_2016/#c_2853826 in this regard.
I always keep downloaded install images in a safe place NOT that's writeable by a windows OS. So it'd be a pain to re-install, but CERTAINLY I wouldn't put it past M-shaft at some point to even CONSIDER this (we had to remove "XXX" because of "update install problem") even if it's M-shaft's fault to begin with...
However, with so many people scrutinizing their update process [due to last year's total pooch-screw updates], I doubt they'd get away with it.
heh a downvote - not sure why you'd downvote THIS particular pithy wisdom, but in case you were wondering...
from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_code
In a 1980 publication by the United States National Bureau of Standards, the phrase spaghetti program was used to describe older programs having "fragmented and scattered files"
In the 1978 book A primer on disciplined programming using PL/I, PL/CS, and PL/CT, Richard Conway used the term to describe types of programs that "have the same clean logical structure as a plate of spaghetti"
So, like THAT. Then again, a downvote probably came from a member of my "fan club" and was probably directed at me personally, and not at the content
*kisses* heh heh heh
But surely, the original code was designed, written and tested by developers who were safe in the knowledge that they would NEVER! HAVE! TO! TEST! IT! AGAIN!!!... right?
"when you install windows (and, other OS's) on an SSD, it disables the pagefile/swapfile - among other SSD specific tweaks"
You're wrong.
Win10 doesn't disable pagefile or the hibernation file upon installation on an SSD. Windows just enables TRIM when the system has an SSD and that's it really.
It's true if you're doing a lot of hibernating each day. If you look at the 250GB Crucial MX500, it has a 5 year warranty, and a limit of 100TB written (TBW), equating to 54GB a day.
For a badly mismatched laptop with a lot of memory, a small SSD, and a lot of travel this could be an issue if the laptop is kept for years (although SSDs commonly considerably exceed their TBW).
The windows hibernation file is compressed so the storage impact normally isn't a worst case scenario. I suppose you could also be much more clever and not store bits of memory loaded unaltered from files, but that would most probably involve a large effort for little payback.
For most people hibernation is not going to be an issue.
That would just mean the warranty ends sooner. That's what the TBW rating is primarily used for, as you hint at with the reference to the length of the warranty period for the drive in question. The actual hardware endurance is much higher than this, as you also noted. This contradicts the statement that "hibernate is very bad for SSDs." More accurately, it would be that "hibernate may somewhat shorten warranties on some SSDs."
Most people who travel a lot still don't do it every single day, so even if the 54GB allotment per day is exceeded on any given day, it probably won't average out to more than that over weeks, months, and years. Five years is a long time for a frequently used and travelled-with laptop to be in service... travel is rough on gear, and a standard 2.5" laptop HDD is probably about ready to give it up at five years even on a laptop that just sits on a desk most of the time.
that "hibernate should just be removed" thing really annoys me. On every Ubuntu, Mint, Neon, etc., installation these days, the first thing I have to do is re-enable it. They disabled it supposedly because it is too buggy, but for me it has always worked fine once I get it set up, and that's across a pretty wide variety of hardware. Just because one person dislikes a feature doesn't mean that it should just be removed! Don't use it if you don't like it, but also allow me to make the choice that fits me like you made the choice that fits you.
If everyone who used a given product got to specify one disliked feature to be removed, it would end up without any features at all. There's no doubt that someone out there hates your favorite features on something!
That's why I favor lots of configurability and options in software, in defiance of the trendy minimalism that has infected everything these days. Not everyone loves a minimalist piece, and even of those that do prefer a minimal interface, the odds are they wanted a different set of minimal options than the ones you would have chosen.
Offering a lot of options increases complexity that might confuse some people, but that's a necessary evil, I think, and a less objectionable one than trying to dumb everything down to the level that a complete neophyte can understand and declaring that to be optimal. We need more options, not less!
I have always considered hibernate as terribly bad. Sleep mode isn't any better.
I have found that whenver Windows goes to sleep or hibernate, any files that are 'Locked open' on a server or shared resource can be put into an unstable stat when the server thinks the sleeping/hibernating computer is turned-off.
Worse, manufacturers don't know how to implement sleep properly. I have a laptop and a tablet (different manuracturers), that do not wake up an SD card when the rest of the computer awakes. The only way to wake up the SD card is rebooting the device. I doubt the issue is caused by Microsoft Windows as I then installed Linux and had the same behavior. I had to bypass the automatic sleep switch in the laptop to fix the issue. Even setting the laptop to not go to sleep didn't help because the firmware would shut-off the SD card when the lid was closed, even though the operating system didn't let the rest of the computer go to sleep.
So no, I don't generally use hibernate or sleep.
I can't vouch for the validity that hibernate is bad for SSDs. I have to plead total ignorance on the processes involved that hibernate would impact the life of SSDs.
"without installation delays during takeoff."
"Stewardess my computer is installing updates"
"Let me see" - takes laptop, throws it out the door, shuts the door. "OK, anyone else unable to shut down any personal electronics?"
(At this point you see a number of people just pulling the batteries out)
You can make a pretty good impromptu knife by snapping a CD or DVD, too. A laptop is useful for that. Or just bludgeon people with the thing.
Remember the "prove this is a real laptop by turning it on" piece of security theater from some years back? Like no one could fit a bomb into a working laptop, particularly back in those days when most of them had swappable-drive or second-battery bays.
Most air-travel security, at least in the US, has always been a chaotic mix of theater, cargo-cult prohibitions, and rules tweaked to minimize the irritation to people wealthy enough to matter, but not wealthy enough to travel exclusively by private plane. Of course, the "turn off your personal electronics" rule predates the GWOT and is ostensibly a safety rule rather than a security one. I suspect the FAA has kept it mostly to get bulky laptops put away so evacuation is easier.
All very clever, but how will Microsoft's happy operating system actually KNOW that it's been a failed startup? We've just had the 1809 update at a site where domain-joined machines DO start up, let the user log in and then endlessly flash the task bar on and off. I bet Windows won't realise that that counts to users as a failed startup. We're about to have 1903 as well. I don't have much faith in this.
Yeah, upgrade to 6G and just have a winterm boot image in firmware, all the rest in the MS cloud.'
Ridiculous-number-G aside, I wouldn't be surprised to see some organizations do this. The last time I taught a university class, a few years ago, the classroom still had Windows desktop machines that PXE-booted off the network and downloaded everything fresh when they were rebooted. While you wouldn't want such machines downloading full Windows installation images on each boot from a non-local source, they could be set up to clone a standard image from a local server and then pull updates from Microsoft.
Of course 90% of the students came to class with their own laptops and ignored the classroom desktops. Had it been a private university, that number would likely have been 100%.
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That immediately reminded me of one of the Monkey Island games, and "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"
Anyway, I'm pretty sure this will be replacing MS's previous magic bullet that never worked, the much vaunted but utterly useless "Last Known Good Configuration."
Wow, so rather than fix the actual problem, eg that their testing systems suck / don't really exist, by bringing back proper testing in house and crucially listening and acting on reports from external testers (for instance when an update breaks things despite people having already alerted them to the problem), they're working around it by just undoing the screw ups! What could possiblty go wrong with that? Place you bets on how much actual testing has been done on this new "feature"!
Just how much testing are you proposing?
There was a case, I believe it was last year, of some laptops where the OEM had decided to write a keyboard filter driver for their keyboards. Which invokes (at least in me) a certain "why, oh God, why?!?" reaction.
If such a useless device driver then causes problems for Windows Update, are you really expecting MS to catch that..? They'd have to stock several warehouses full of crappy laptops and do the rounds...?
IMO it is better to crack down on OEMs and force them to colour within the lines. Maybe start a shame-wall website with detailed write ups of the top ten offenders.
I have three computers in my little office at home. One runs just plain Win10. One is on fast ring and my laptop is on the slow ring. I've been downloading test builds for two years or so. Never any issues. I do however install Windows from scratch, thus wiping any trace of the OEMs mishaps right at the get-go.
I'm just a dumb user. I loathe my WIn10 home PC. Just opening one email in my outlook inbox - MSFTs own proprietary email app that should be seamless - takes 10 seconds or more, and if the email has images embedded, some dont ever load. And on days ending with "y", connectivity to my default HP printer disappears and I have to set up the printer again. Now imagine a Tesla-like future (its here now) where car makers wirelessly send SW updates to your car. Cant start your car to get to work because of a 2 hour update, or a broken startup cycle requiring a week of interaction with the helpdesk to fix (that was my first win10 upgrade) ? The howls of protest from the media and consumer orgs would drive the car maker to the wall, or at least force compensation. Meanwhile. MSFT flip us the bird.
Reading emails , without making a cup of tea while each one opens, requires a laptop less than 3 years old does it ? Puh-leeease.
There are no compute or graphic-intense apps on my 5 year old, stock samsung i5 processor laptop - the win10 upgrade mess wiped them all off, i had to install the OS from scratch and work with the helpdesk to get out of the reboot cycle. Now the laptop is no use for anything much, i keep my accounts on it, but mostly do email and itunes on an ipad. MSFT single-handedly killed off any desire to invest in another WIN machine ever again, so no, i wont be resolving this problem by spending more moola on the latest laptop only to have MSFT bork it 2 years later.
Whether the PST is 10 gigs or not shouldn't really matter at all. I have crazy clients with over 70 gigs in their OST file and everything works as smoothly as ever.
Yeah, they're the fun ones when they get corruption. We limit mailboxes to 5GB. For most that prompts more intelligent decision making in what to keep and what to archive, and for the few holdouts we then extend the available quota.
Got sick of Outlunk going into white freeze all the time, opting to boot itself on startup and losing all its GUI elements and just sitting there without being able to display anything. This is on a mobile workstation with 32gb ram and a Quadro so go figure. The final straw was the USA corporate nightmare I do some contract lecturing for (ok at least they pay for O365 so I don't have to) deciding that Outlunk now has to 2FA all the time, providing it unasked with my mobile number and won't check other accounts till it gets its code. All problems instantly solved by dumping it for emClient.
Do the same with Wi10... err I wish.
it should be known as the "Sinofsky/Larson-Greene" maneuver, where you take a perfectly good software product (Windows 7) that the customers like, and THEN turn it into a grotesque monstrosity that angers a good number (if not majority) of your existing customers and gives them NO CHOICE AT ALL but to use this, uh, *THING*, in spite of that.
And you do it ALL in the name of "providing updates" that ARE ONLY NECESSARY SINCE YOU COULD NOT GET THINGS RIGHT THE _FIRST_ TIME AND DID NOT TEST ENOUGH!!! And you sneak in "feature creep" while you're at it, INSTEAD of fixing the problems!!! And occasionally, you BREAK THINGS EVEN WORSE.
*cough* - I guess that covers it.
I expect that if Update KB 911 666 does get reverted, but then "engineers" fix and re-release it (either as shown, or as KB 911 667), then the "fixed" patch will be applied as an immediate update without the 30 days wait. (Unless the same thing happens with this one as well.)
But it doesn't say that?
How about Microsoft just swallows their pride and say that anything not written for W10x64, will not work for any future version of Window,s strip out all the old crap code from Win 1,2,3,4,95,98,ME,2000,XP,Vista,7,8 and give us the clean, stable, fast 64-bit Windows we want. If software houses don't want to play, screw em !
I installed virtualbox on my Win 10 laptop and then created an Ubuntu (other distros are available) virtual machine on it which I do all my work on, I use portable apps to backup that virtual disk to a USB drive so when my laptop borks after an update or just overheats because Windows defender has gone mental, I just get a spare off the desktop IT guys, install virtualbox and carry on. It's a great way to isolate yourself from a lot of problems and makes the device you're working on disposable.
You should probably do that the other way around. Install Linux on the machine and not have the Windows issues. Install a VM with Windows to do the few things you need Windows for.
As a bonus, that makes it trivially easy to prevent updates from downloading (and thus installing) unless you want them to.
Yes, I wish I could figure out what goddamned update screwed my headphone jack. Windows 10 doesn't seem to think there's such a thing as a "headphone" output device any more.
I normally use wireless headphones, which is why it took me a while to realise there's a problem, but it's pretty fundamental that connecting a piece of physical hardware to the appropriate socket should do something appropriate. And yes, even after installing new chipset and audio drivers. It's driving me nuts.
These monolithic updates give me the utmost sh*ts.
Yes, I wish I could figure out what goddamned update screwed my headphone jack. Windows 10 doesn't seem to think there's such a thing as a "headphone" output device any more.
Ah, is that the one where installing headphones into the jack marked 'headphones' prompts Win10 to go bing and ask you what audio device you just installed? With no choice for 'headphones'? If so, you're not alone. And possibly not alone in pondering the fecklessness of yoof who aren't familiar with 3.5mm jacks, and assume everything must be connected via USB.
(which would probably mean a different message saying it's unable to find a device driver for your hardware, so would you like to 3-D print another wall to use as a head restraint?)
Install. Uninstall. Reboot. Repeat. Is that a play on the rave mantra? Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.. well, you get the idea.
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