back to article Incoming! Microsoft unleashes more fixes for Windows 10 October 2018 Update

Users of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, rejoice! Microsoft has slung out a hefty patch to, er, fix a whole bunch of stuff that was broken in the Update of the Damned. Released last night, KB4469342 is packed full of updates, with two notable changes lurking at the end of the list of tweaks. The failure of mapped drives to …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    For shame!

    Windows 10 ate my hamster

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    SaaD - Software as a Disservice

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      SaaS - Software as a Shitshow.

      1. Fungus Bob

        NUT: SaaCK - Novel User Torture: Software as a ClusterfucK.

  3. Lee D Silver badge

    Yeah, tell me when they at least bother to put out an update without any "known issues" (documented or not).

    Then I might look at testing it.

    Until then, my decision to stay as far off Windows 10 as possible seems to have been worthwhile. I might have to deploy it next year. If so, then this issue might (finally) be fixed by then. But likely I'll still have to do everything in my power to stop updates deploying without consent.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Trollface

      Don't worry, Microsoft will be sure to cook up some brand new issues just for you.

  4. a_yank_lurker

    IaaS - Incompetence as a Service

  5. BobChip
    Holmes

    Incoming....

    Incoming. Take cover! Enemy missile approaching. WILL do serious damage on impact.

    Yeah. Seems about right..

  6. Cavehomme_

    Defer 365

    I've got all my Win 10 machines to defer all version updates by 365 days, should be enough to fox most bugs by then. Security updates are delayed by 1 week. Fingers crossed.

    1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

      Re: Defer 365

      You should defer your security updates by at least 365 hours.

  7. martinusher Silver badge

    Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

    We've all been there, hopefully not personally for many years, but the general signs of a programmer in trouble is when they go into 'gopher bashing' mode where fixing one bug invariably breaks something else. They'll tell us "Its all very complicated" but that's unfortunately the job -- we have to design to reduce complexity to manageable levels so if the code is truly incomprehensible then its effectively unusable and needs a redesign.

    I know how this can come about, though. I have occasionally to work on a piece of embedded code that's insanely complex, it was written by someone who embraced object oriented programming without first learning about what objects are, how they're used and how to design with them. The result is an astonishing pile of spaghetti, random interactions and variables all over the place, which has driven many a competent programmer to seek employment elsewhere. (You can't critique it because you're obviously old-fashioned and don't understand proper programming techniques so you just leave it to the genius that designed it and have as little to do with it as possible.) Now I'm not saying that this is the cause of MSFT's woes but I'd guess that there's a failure of software design methodology somewhere because they're struggling with what should be trivial bugs, they've not managed to compartment their system but at the same time they're trumpeting quite trivial changes as major improvements. This is a very large red flag for anyone who's had to manage software projects.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

      There might also be another thing at work : all the old timers that made Office and Windows the two breadwinners for Microsoft have now left. Their knowledge, the care they took to not disrupt the user experience too much, and the rules they had set down to keep things smooth went with them.

      Now Microsoft probably has scores of youngsters who are certainly very Agile, but not Thorough, and the result is Microsoft is starting to get a shade of a bad reputation.

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        Childcatcher

        Re: Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

        Now Microsoft probably has scores of youngsters who are certainly very Agile,

        Agile at putting everything but the simlest problem on the Technical Debt list marked as 'THTF' (To Hard To Fix) and then forgetting about them.

        As a Software Developer, I'd be ashamed to admit that I had ever worked for MS on Windows 10.

        There we were thinking the Visa was as bad as it could get as far a MS Operating Systems went. My how wrong we were.

        1. NeilPost Silver badge

          Re: Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

          AasS: Agile as a Service

      2. Adrian 4

        Re: Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

        Worse still, they might be Keen.

        Add that to inexperience and you get a very bad result.

      3. jake Silver badge

        Re: Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

        "Microsoft is starting to get a shade of a bad reputation."

        Starting? How far back was your time machine set?

      4. Someone Else Silver badge
        Alert

        @Pascal Monett -- Re: Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

        [...] and the result is Microsoft is starting to get a shade of a bad reputation.

        Starting?? Starting to get a bad reputation?!? Dude, these fuckers already had a well-earned bad reputation in the late Eighties!

      5. Terje

        Re: Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

        There's also the possibility that as the codebase grows older it gets harder and harder to maintain as there are fixes changes redesigns and tweeks all over what in the beginning was nice clear and easy to understand code. I guess a large part of the windows codebase could realy do with a rewrite, sadly you tend to never get the time to do that as you need to get new shiny feature (that makes the code even worse) out to make the beancounters happy.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Facepalm

      Re: Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

      @martinusher “The result is an astonishing pile of spaghetti .. I'd guess that there's a failure of software design methodology somewhere

      I suspect Windows is designed using such spaghettilogical methods to make it difficult to clone.

  8. zekepliskin

    Woah boy. And in 2006 we thought Vista was a complete pile of s**t. Seems like Microsoft's worst OS was still yet to come. Nothing is tempting me away from Win7, better a relatively stable OS with the odd security hole unlikely to be exploited than rolling updates on Win10 which break basic functionality seemingly at random.

  9. jake Silver badge

    Anything but ordinary. Indeed.

    On the bright side, Win10 is the last version of Windows many (most?) people will ever use. Don't blame me, it was Microsoft's idea. Be careful what you wish for ...

  10. Skribblez

    Hustle as a Shitshow.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Crap like this is and Vista is why my company is still on Windows Server 2008R2.

  12. the Jim bloke

    TITSUP

    Total Indifference To Supplying Usable Product

  13. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Windows

    Well I'm

    off to apply to m$'s new quality control department

    Just need to learn howto write using crayon to sign off the QC report

    And spell 'tested' correctly

    Apart from that.... I've no other software qualifications........ just like m$'s current kwality control department...

  14. chrisw67

    Drive mapping issue?

    Win 10 arbitrarily deciding that it could not connect to drives you used just minutes ago, while still connecting to others on the same server, predates the October update. Happened to my Win 10 1803 build in the last few days... unless, of course, it is a new and exciting issue they added to the October debacle and subsequently fixed.

  15. fridgemagnet

    Microsoft - pushing products that nobody wants, while destroying products that everyone likes.

    The business model of the insane.

  16. thomas k

    Finally safe to download 1809 then?

    I've just been clicking "remind me later".

  17. jms222

    W7 drive mapping

    Now that drive mapping has come up I wonder if the problem my W7 virtual machine has gained this autumn is related. It comes up asking something about restoring drive letters in the background and no matter what I do it shuts down or reboots again.

    No network drives or anything like that in use on the VM.

    I have reverted to a good September snapshot several times but can not successfully apply newer updates.

  18. howieb2001

    I have been a linux user for many years and abandoned Windows completely when mobile phone apps replaced my occasional need to use it. Just out of interest I thought I'd install Windows 10 on an old Dell XPS13 which will be running Ubuntu. What an eye-opener. I've hardly been able to use the laptop as it feels like every time I turn it on it's finishing an update which had already taken hours to download and install. When one of the updates finally worked it tried to change all the settings I had meticulously answered "no" to Microsoft defaults.

    What has happened to Windows since W7 which was a very good OS. Where did it ll go wrong?

  19. lukewarmdog
    Joke

    Rimjob

    "1809 is going to RP today and will be critical for helping kick start servicing"

    That there's the problem, they've sent it off to Role Players and they all inconveniently took arrows to the knees and couldn't do any proper testing..

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows 10 will be the last version of windows, because it will take them until the next millennium to make it work correctly....

    1. Tom 35

      They have 2 guys fixing stuff and 3 guys sticking random bits on. It will never work correctly.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like