Windoze 10: New levels of tedium reached with latest Insider build while 'stable' release still a bit wonky

Welcome to another look at recent happenings in Redmond, starring Visual Studio, Windows 10, Azure bots and that 20 year anniversary of the anti-trust case when Microsoft realised that breaking up was hard to do. Wake us up when Windows 10 has new toys Another version of Windows 10 hit the Fast Ring for Windows Insiders last …

[RM Myers]

20 years since Microsoft monopoly trial

Also, 20 years since tech companies learned why you spread political donations far and wide, in the United States and elsewhere, and to politicians of all persuasions, if you aspire to be a monopoly A lesson that Google, Apple, Facebook, et.al. took to heart, as well as the current Microsoft. The old MS made a point of not donating to politicians, and thus had no political shield from the antitrust lawyers.

Google is probably the best example of this, with their monopoly on online advertising. Lots of hand wringing and finger slapping by regulators, but no meaningful antitrust action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 2004. Certainly seems a bit wonky + Older Nvidia Driver Workaround.

Windows Update is blocking the feature update to Windows 10 2004 where the laptop/desktop uses NVIDIA drivers older than version 358.00.

For those wanting to use the Windows 10 2004 ISO to force the update, removing the Nvidia Drivers so that the graphics reverts to a basic Microsoft Display Driver before attempting the update using the ISO, then allowing Windows 10 2004 to install the driver-post install, seems to work, but have a good backup before trying this. Slow animation of the start menu, seems to be an old bug that's back.

Other Issues: The new fangled Windows search box on the taskbar crashed/disabled itself, and this prevented searches in Windows Explorer too. (unable to type in the search box or access items from the start menu by typing the name of the program. As you can imagine, pretty unusable.

Didn't find a solution other than reinstalling Windows 10 2004 over the top of Windows 10 2004, which seems to have fixed things (for now).

Saying all this, it still feels more polished. :)

(Feels like too much time/effort for very little gain in terms of productivity)

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Windows - seems a bit wonky

Nowt new there then. It has long been a war between MS and the Graphics Card makers. I really don't know why MS can't test for an Nvidia or AMD driver and just not replace the far superior drivers with their bit of tat. But no... you gotta do it their way or not at all. Nowt new there then.

[David 132]

Re: Windows 10 2004. Certainly seems a bit wonky + Older Nvidia Driver Workaround.

What annoys me is that if modern Windows Update detects a blocking condition that prevents an update, it doesn't tell you what it is, and simply fails to show the update. Unless there's a logfile somewhere non-obvious that I'm unaware of?

I finally managed to get 2004 installed on one of my PCs last week; what had been blocking it was a long-forgotten copy of an old, out-of-date version of VMWare Workstation that was buried somewhere under c:\Program Files (x86). It wasn't even installed; the files were orphans from some backup.

Grrr.

[big_D]

Re: Windows 10 2004. Certainly seems a bit wonky + Older Nvidia Driver Workaround.

I've been running it for 2 weeks on my ThinkPad, only for Lenovo to announce yesterday that you shouldn't update your ThinkPad... My T480 is running fine, even though it is listed as not recommended.

I'm guessing it has to do with the Thunderbolt problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Windows 10 2004. Certainly seems a bit wonky + Older Nvidia Driver Workaround.

Just to update:

The start menu broke completely after applying the latest update through June 2020 Windows Cumulative Update:

"2020-06 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 2004 for x64-based Systems (KB4557957)"

There is a PowerShell script to restore a broken Start Menu, but it only remembered that afterwards, so unsure if it works or not.

Again, didn't find a (quick) solution other than reinstalling Windows 10 2004 over the top of Windows 10 2004, which seems to have fixed things (for now).

I still find it odd that the least damaging way to repair a damaged version of Windows 10 2004 using an in-place "over the top" upgrade using the Windows 10 2004 ISO, is still not part of the OS. (it keeps personal info, most toggle switch settings except Cortana, saves having to lock down Privacy settings again and keeps current installed apps). Even better, would be to be able to do the same type of repair, from outside Windows in safe mode, by booting the ISO. (setup has to be run from Windows itself still).

It may not (yet) be on par with Windows 1909 in terms of the worse rollout yet but it's up there (and that wiped the contents of 'my' "Documents"), which was a shock to see an OS upgrade could still do such a thing, again only saved by a good backup beforehand.

I dread to think the numbers of people Microsoft screwed over during the 1909 update episode, that got no recompense, for those who didn't have a good backup).

This really isn't software as a service in any shape or form, Software as a disservice more like.

[a_yank_lurker]

History Rhymes

It seems like I read the same article just a few weeks ago with only details changed. So the question is can the Rejects of Redmond really change?

[Carl D]

You'd think that 5 years after the general release of Windows 10 Microsoft would have most of the 'bugs' ironed out by now.

The one (new to 2004) where Defragment and Optimize Drives "forgets" that it has been run after a reboot - actually, I've heard that if you wait a while it "forgets" even without a reboot is a particularly interesting one. If Windows 10 "forgets" something like this, what else is it "forgetting"?

I know its been said many, many times over the past 5 years but Microsoft need to stop this insane 6 month release cycle and concentrate on giving us home users a single, stable version of Windows 10 with a major new release every 2 years or so. Perhaps they would have more time to devote to this if they spent less time trying to cram more and more unwanted (cr)apps and ads into Windows 10.

[David 132]

If Windows 10 "forgets" something like this, what else is it "forgetting"?

Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!

Your preferred default browser?

Your privacy settings?

That you disabled Web Search from the Start Menu?

That you don't want it to spontaneously uninstall any of your applications it takes a dislike to, whilst silently shoveling a load of Candy Crush Soda Clash Dolby Disney XBox turds onto your start menu?

[Carl D]

Have an upvote on me :)

Actually, I'm waiting to see if my 2 printers are "forgotten" and disappear from Printers and Scanners in Settings as well as Devices and Printers in the 'old' Control Panel in 2004 after about a week of not having them turned on and using them like they did in 1909. The drivers and printer utilities were still there and both printers would "reappear" by turning them on (Windows 10 would "helpfully" change the default printer back to Microsoft Print to PDF when my 2 printers "disappeared", of course).

Someone on another forum suggested leaving the printers turned on all the time - nah, never done that and I don't see why I should have to. I only turn them on when I need to use them and turn them off when I finish.

Been over a week now on 2004 (clean install) and my 2 printers are still there. Fingers crossed.

Oh, this never happened in any previous version of Windows before Windows 10 as far as I'm aware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not forget the time when Windows 10 1607 Update got the 'deferred update' toggle switch the wrong way around. Those that set 'defer updates' immediately got the update, those that didn't 'defer updates' didn't get offered the update until they toggled the 'defer updates' settings.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft??

Oh, you mean Micros~1