Microsoft Says Windows 10 Spring Creators Update Will Install in 30 Minutes (bleepingcomputer.com) 173
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has announced that the upcoming Windows 10 major feature upgrade -- dubbed the Spring Creators Update -- will take around 30 minutes to install, unlike previous variants that took between one and two hours to complete. This boost in installation time is attributed to work engineers have done on the "Feature Update" process -- the name Microsoft uses to refer to its bi-annual major OS updates. Microsoft says that this Feature Update process actually consists of two separate phases -- the "online" and "offline" stages. During the "online" phase, the user's computer downloads the necessary update files and executes various operations in the OS' background without affecting the device's battery life or system performance.
Amazing (Score:5, Funny)
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Background tasks. If they only execute while on AC power they won't affect battery life. And if they're using the Windows equivalent of the 'idle' niceness setting then they'll only execute when the CPU and IO aren't doing anything else so strictly speaking they will increase CPU load but the user won't ever notice because they'll always have priority.
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If they only execute while on AC power they won't affect battery life.
Thank you captain obvious. Why would they make such an obvious statement? The implication is that they don't affect battery life WHEN RUNNING ON BATTERY, because obviously they wouldn't if you're on AC power. Do'h. Do you think they need to say "our unwanted upgrades won't make your laptop heavier", or "our forced reboot after an undesired update won't make your coffee get colder"?
then they'll only execute when the CPU and IO aren't doing anything else so strictly speaking they will increase CPU load but the user won't ever notice because they'll always have priority.
And that brings us back to the issue of battery life, because even if they execute while the CPU is otherwise idle they'll be us
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Not too amazing, really ... Those boys get a lot wrong, but no harm in credit where it's due.
Yeah, it's not like Macs, Linux, Android, iPhones, and pretty much everyone else wasn't already doing this years ago. And WOW!!! 30 minutes for an update? I'm shocked it takes so long.
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There is times where the CPU is normally Idle, so that is when it can do the update, and normally while the computer is being idle, there is a certain amount of processing that can be done that will not drain its energy. A transistor even giving out a 0 bit is still using energy. That said, The claim that it will not use additional battery life is dubious. It may not be noticeable. If your laptop has a 4 hour charge, it will last 3 hours and 58 minutes. As it may write the data before the drive spins down,
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A transistor even giving out a 0 bit is still using energy.
What passes for nerds today. Really. A static data bit doesn't consume much energy. It is changing ones to zeros and zeros to ones, with the associated charges on the explicit and implicit capacitances of the circuitry that consumes the power. That's why a faster computer consumes more energy. That's why computing something instead of being idle consumes more power.
That said, The claim that it will not use additional battery life is dubious.
It's Microsoft. When is any of their claims not dubious?
As it may write the data before the drive spins down,
Another energy sink: moving the drive's heads for spinning rust. Or writing to an SSD. J
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Ok, it temporarily disables the spyware while it is installing. Net 0 effect.
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Microsoft Says Windows 10 Spring Creators Update Will Install in 30 Minutes WHETHER YOU WANT IT OR NOT!
FTFY
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Nope, they aren't good at all. They are only setting the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\TEMP_DEBLOAT to 1 while the install happens.
Awesome! (Score:5, Insightful)
But more important: How long will the rollback to a usable system take?
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As long as it takes you to install Linux, or at least Windows 7.
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The problem is games. As odd as it may sound. What keeps most people chained to Windows is that their games don't run (properly or at all) on Linux without jumping through more hoops than they can. It's still not trivial to run games on Linux so they "just work". Especially when dealing with some of the more insanely DRMified junk from EA or Ubi.
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Yeah, they kinda forgot to add the "whether you want to or not" disclaimer...
lol "forgot".. yeah, that's it.
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Turned my 8 month old 900 dollar dell laptop into a piece of junk.
What was Dell's reply when you sought warranty service?
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Because that's what Microsoft expects of its OEM licensees.
OEM triage (Score:2)
As I understand it, it's Dell's responsibility to triage problems reported by Dell customers and aggregate them for escalation to Microsoft.
Hard Links? (Score:2)
Sounds like the install process involves changing so many files, that just creating a duplicate Windows folder with hard links to unchanged files and pre-copying the new files would make the process go a lot faster. On reboot, just rename Windows to Windows.old, rename temp directory, and move updated registry and user settings into place.
Why just about every single file needs to be replaced during these upgrades is the real question.
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Sounds like the install process involves changing so many files, that just creating a duplicate Windows folder with hard links to unchanged files and pre-copying the new files would make the process go a lot faster. On reboot, just rename Windows to Windows.old, rename temp directory, and move updated registry and user settings into place.
Why just about every single file needs to be replaced during these upgrades is the real question.
Monolithic build..
Microsoft has an impressive super sized monolithic code base.. It is engineering wise impressive they can make it work, and impressingly stupid they are still doing it that way.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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10 is no better than 7
10 is worse than 7 for even reason you listed above.
There is no point installing 10 unless its force upon you.
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There is no point installing 10
FTFY
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Actually, Win10 introduced one useful feature that made me update both my computers for: the Linux subsystem. I use it all the time for Python and (La)TeX. Yes, Python and LaTeX run under Windows, but having the Linux utilities (grep, sed, make,...) just makes it so much easier. I used to use CygWin, but this is just better.
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Guess I'll have my work cut out for me then... (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows 10 Fall Creators Update has so far managed to completely brick (no kidding!) 6 of my 9 computers (with genuine windows).
Only 3 of them has not received the unfixable* blue-screen-of-death when installing the Fall Creators Update.
(*Yes, unfixable, the update destroys the partition, and there's no way to get it back, you can fake-create it back, but the update then destroys is again, and again.)
I've had to roll back 3 of them to Windows 7, and 3 of them is still broken, since I haven't had the time yet to complete reinstall everything on them. I'm thinking "Linux", and throwing away my Windows licenses.
So... Now you're giving me "Spring Creators" you say?
Lovely.
I thought the flu season only happened once per year.
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*Yes, unfixable, the update destroys the partition
Haven't seen that. Have seen drive letters get swapped around, USB keyboards and mice stop working, and all sorts of other things. Most I've seen were eventually fixable - but involved manually uninstalling updates using DISM in the preboot environment.
Do you dual-boot? GPT or MBR? Any strange hardware? Genuinely curious.
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No, no dual-boot. Most computers were upgraded from Windows 7 at some point though.
When I've been googling the errors, if I remember correctly it's around 2-3 different 0xCODEs you get, I've stumbled upon forum-posts upon forum-posts discussing this. I'm not alone. I guess there's more than 1 million people affected, probably, world wide. They all seem to eventuelly give up at some point, and format the harddrive and just install from scratch - which I've done one of my sons the computers, and the shit upda
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Just to clarify. Most of the issue seems to be with the partition being in GPT, and with a special "size" of the rescue- vs. os-partition.
I'm a programmer myself. And if my shitty install couldn't handle a special situtation I would probably try and identify it BEFORE doing the installation. I guess I will never work at Microsoft.
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Most of the issue seems to be with the partition being in GPT, and with a special "size" of the rescue- vs. os-partition.
Have seen this, but with earlier releases. If you could roll it back / repair and make the system partition at least 500MB using something like GParted it will usually upgrade just fine.
Yeah, I think they just plain assumed that nobody installed Windows 7 in EFI mode because the hardware support was limited when 7 first came out. Because 7 only made something like a 100MB system reserved partition when it partitions the drive.
Re: Guess I'll have my work cut out for me then... (Score:1)
One time I actually managed to repair with the repair utility, and one time it actually booted by itself and repaired. But the others, not so lucky... Iâ(TM)ll reinstall.
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On the same subject, I've seen what you had with OS X. The computer had no recovery partition, so it somehow decided to wipe the main OS/user partition and replace that with a recovery partition during the update. And overwrote user data. And then couldn't find anywhere to install the OS update. Had to use data carving with PhotoRec just to get their photos back.
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Amazing you even made it that far after an upgrade from 7. Of most of the computers I've dealt with, a clean install was required around the first anniversary update because it would fail to ever install - but not break anything.
Buying a new computer would be silly, since a clean install would also fix it.
Re: Guess I'll have my work cut out for me then... (Score:1)
Yes, but a clean install takes time. You accumulate programs and their settings during a couple of years, and files thatâ(TM)s you perhaps havenâ(TM)t backed up.
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I wish I've also owned that same horseshoe factory. Didn't know that was a requirement though.
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Same experience here, but I grow clovers. The four leaf kind.
You're an idiot (Score:2)
No your computers were not "bricked". Unless you had to remove the flash chip or hook up the JTAG programmer your hardware isn't even remotely bricked. Sounds like you are better suited to iDevices.
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Heck, 2017 was a great year for Linux, only 400 security bugs.. lol
You do know that if you are basing security on the number of bugs in CVE: Windows 8.1 [cvedetails.com] and Windows 10 [cvedetails.com] combined to have more 400 bugs combined in 2017. That doesn't include all other versions of Windows like Server 2012 (235), Server 2016(252), Win 7(229) ,etc. But please feel free to laugh at Microsoft.
Re: You're an idiot (Score:2)
Re: You're an idiot (Score:1)
Oh, sorry that I used that word, since it upset you. I didnâ(TM)t mean the hardware was bricked. But for me, a computerâ(TM)s hardware is worth around 6-8 hours work time. And completely reinstalling the computer, installing all programs, finding their licenses, setting everything up, tweaking, logging in to all relevant services, etc. Well, yeah, no thank you. It takes me around 2-3 days before Iâ(TM)m up and running again. 3 of the computers belonged to my sons, and they didnâ(TM)t eve
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I finally had to install Fall Creators update last night and my Start Menu is configured with garish tiles that I don't want and that I cannot delete. The database of tiles is 'corrupt' and the repair tool refuses to fix it.
I want Windows 7 back not Spring Creators update. I want to get work done not be 'Creative'.
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Thank you Anon, I will try it.
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Not worth it (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking for myself all of this downtime for no tangible benefit isn't worth it nor is constantly dealing with the aftermath of what broke or changed behind your back this time. Computers are supposed to be tools.. vehicles to get shit done yet vendors seem hell bent on wasting everyone's time with nonsense.
I must say being impressed with 30 minutes of downtime in the age when production systems can be migrated across physical systems with seconds or less of downtime is like being awarded a medal for crossing the finish line hours after everyone went home and roads re-opened to vehicle traffic.
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Define 'minutes' (Score:3)
Re:Define 'minutes' (Score:4, Funny)
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Same two hours. (Score:2)
Amazing technology!
LOLZ (Score:1)
No it fucking won't.
Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a machine I serviced that would not install the fall creator's update, with a non-specific error message.
I was both impressed and horrified to learn that that fall creators update would searched the *ENTIRE* hard drive for incompatible software. It was failing because it located an old copy of the Netware client Installer, in "C:\Old_Computer\Documents and Settings\User\Downloads\Novell". This software wasn't even installed on the computer; just present in that directory. The built-in updater failed w/ a general error, and the downloaded copy of the update claimed "You must uninstall this incompatible software", which, again, was not actually installed, just present on the hard drive.
Now I know *why* Windows takes forever to install updates :(
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Well, you can't trust the "Programs and Features" listing to include all of the software operable on the machine, much less that some software hasn't been installed with a slight error in its registry entries for installation/uninstallation that gets blown out by a "cleaner" program, so if you want to avoid the corner case of some user crying to the world that you've br
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Well, you can't trust the "Programs and Features" listing to include all of the software operable on the machine . . .
Well maybe Microsoft should fix that since they created the OS.
The general error nonsense is maddening and stupid, but the refusal to upgrade makes reasonable sense.
It makes it less reasonable in my opinion. It means I can't update a current Windows computer to 10 that is being used as a network drive for other software because MS finds incompatible even though none of the software is actually installed.
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As if Linux or Max OS X are any better in that regard.
The software doesn't have to be "actually installed" in order to be run, and if you're using a Windows 10 client as a network drive server for incompatib
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As if Linux or Max OS X are any better in that regard.
Have you used OS X? Applications that are installed are in folder called Applications. As for Linux there is the distinct separation between system and user applications with applications being put into certain folders.
The software doesn't have to be "actually installed" in order to be run, and if you're using a Windows 10 client as a network drive server for incompatible versions of windows, you deserve any difficulties that you get.
That's not what the poster said. He said specifically that the Win 10 install refused to work because another software's installer application was located in a folder. It had not been run. Win 10 objected to the mere presence of a file that didn't affect the operation of the machine.
Knock off the stalking behavior - it's creepy.
Jeez you
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Yes I have, and nothing prevents you from downloading an application file into an unusual folder and executing it. There is not enforcement of applications being put into certain folders, it is a convention, just as it is a convention upon installation to list programs within the "Programs a
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Yes I have, and nothing prevents you from downloading an application file into an unusual folder and executing it
Er? You do know what installing an application entails in OS X right?
There is not enforcement of applications being put into certain folders, it is a convention, just as it is a convention upon installation to list programs within the "Programs and Features" registry entries in Windows so that they can be uninstalled.
So let me understand you correctly: To address your own point that Windows doesn't know for sure what Programs are installed in their own OS and that is something they could fix, you then try to bring up OS X and Linux as a red herring. The last time I checked all my complaints about my Honda should not be directed towards Toyota. Also you failed to acknowledge when pointed out that OS X and Linux do in fact does this better.
That does not change my point, which that the installer could be run from that location and the user might complain about the fact that it could not. The installer is an application as much as any other.
Then that make
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Non-denial #1. Nothing stops you from downloading a BSD-compliant application into /Users/UnknowingFool and executing it.
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Non-denial #1. Nothing stops you from downloading a BSD-compliant application into /Users/UnknowingFool and executing it.
Bahahaha. So this is your deflection again. You brought up how Microsoft cannot know which applications are installed yet when pointed out that they are in full control of this you try to deflect that criticism by talking about OS X and Linux. In Linux and OS X (derived from BSD), there are distinct separations of user applications and system applications. While a superuser can always do things against the convention in any system, regular users cannot. Whereas MS has never really enforced any convention fo
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No deflection. In Linus and BSD there are supposed to be distinct separations, when you follow customary practices, just as in Windows there are supposed
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No deflection. In Linus and BSD there are supposed to be distinct separations, when you follow customary practices, just as in Windows there are supposed to be distinct separations between system applications, user applications, and user data, when you follow customary practices, but in all three you can put an application in an extraodrinary place, i.e., not /usr/bin or its analog, and installed application list will not reflect it. Prove it false, or move on.
First of all, how long have you used Windows? The distinctions that you list are very recent and not always enforced as of today. Second, why again are you talking about Linux and BSD when Windows is what we are supposed to be talking about.
I didn't make a complaint - you've lost track of the thread.
To refresh your memory: You said: "Well, you can't trust the "Programs and Features" listing to include all of the software operable on the machine, . . " to which I responded Microsoft should probably fix that. That sounds like a complaint to me. Then you started to try
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I tried 1.01 on my XT-compatible. I ran 3.0 on my 386SX. How long have you, youngster?
Says you. You don't dictate what we are "supposed" to be talking about, and I certainly didn't agree to anything of the sort.
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I tried 1.01 on my XT-compatible. I ran 3.0 on my 386SX. How long have you, youngster?
I was laughing at people who used Windows back then. Multitasking, multi-user environments, what's that you say? If only VMS and Unix machines didn't exist so that people know what real computing entailed.
Says you. You don't dictate what we are "supposed" to be talking about, and I certainly didn't agree to anything of the sort.
Of course, you want to deflect again. You're losing the argument badly and changing the subject is the only way you might have some points. The problem is that you'd still lose the argument after you switch subjects as I've previously noted.
As the one who wrote the words, I can safely inform you that you're wrong. You can tell because you dropped "so if you want to avoid the corner case of some user crying to the world that you've broken their software setup you have to treat every executable/application as if it is used" and "the refusal to upgrade makes reasonable sense." Which is not a corner case specific to Windows.
You sound like someone who has never worked in a corporate IT envi
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"Knock off the stalking behavior - it's creepy."
You must really not know how slashdot works. All I have to do is go to my comments posted page, and I can see if you replied, thus giving me an option to reply back to you that way instead of hunting down through a conversation.
OTOH, if you want some real creepy stalking behavior, I've already figured out who you are and could just dox you right here on the site. Would that make you feel better and justified in making your stalking statement?
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*Eye-roll*
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Dude, finding you isn't hard when your comment history reveals all that's needed to know. With that failure of an IP law firm you run.
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*eye-roll*
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It also runs around DELETING files on your system. Upgrade from windows 7? That first update will wipe out the Windows.old directory where your old Win7 Stuff went. It will also delete music players it detects and replaces them with Groove Player (this is the 3rd time I've dealt with Microsoft uninstalling and replacing AIMP.)
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Consider yourself lucky. When I evaluated Window10 on a test system and installed the free update, the installer outright DELETED any application that it deemed incompatible. It didn't tell me this would happen until the damage was done.
No warning... no asking for permission... no opportunity to update the application to a newer version. 11 applications just entirely wiped out. Ironically, while it was working the installer gave me regular assurances that "all my files would be exactly where I left them
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After 49 tries, Windows 10 Fall Creators Update has not installed on one Windows 10 computer. Twice it has exited to " we are restoring your old (Version 1703) Windows system". No reason ever given. Just the 'try again' screen. Windows 10 machines kept as teaching computers with no programs other than Windows 10 do update regularly even if slowly.
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If you'd like to know why this happened, the reason for the upgrade failure should be in
C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\Rollback\setupact.err
or
C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\panther\setupact.log
The former is created if it fails and rolls back, the latter if it doesn't get that far.
Whether you want it to or not. (Score:5, Insightful)
> Microsoft Says Windows 10 Spring Creators Update Will Install in 30 Minutes
Whether you want it to or not.
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This sound more like a freeza threat than anything else.
"You dirty damn monkey! in 30 minutes the update will be installed and you will die!"
So... (Score:3)
Yes I read the article... (Score:2)
Credit where it's due (Score:3)
Look, I'll be the first one to say that Windows Update in Win10 is basically indistinguishable from malware at this point. The forced updates are written with the assumption that the user wants them, that the software is an improvement over the old, and that the user's time is better spent waiting for the update to complete than whatever it is they would otherwise be doing with their computer.
All of these problems need to be solved. However, I will acknowledge the intermediate step being taken here. The amount of time an update takes to install is a major part of the problem here. If the monthly updates took five minutes and the semi-annual updates took 30, instead of the hours they currently take, I think it would go a long way to solving the other issues.
The massive question mark here is the hardware being used to make these claims. "a current-gen i7 with 32GB of RAM and a high end Intel SSD" taking half an hour? That's crap. "a six year old Celeron with a 5400RPM, 250GB laptop drive and 4GB of RAM" taking half an hour, on the other hand, is pretty impressive.
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Look, I'll be the first one to say that Windows Update in Win10 is basically indistinguishable from malware at this point.
At this point? People were joking that Windows is like malware back in the mid-1990s.
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If the monthly updates took five minutes and the semi-annual updates took 30, instead of the hours they currently take, I think it would go a long way to solving the other issues.
Would it solve the issue of a forced reboot three days into a four day model run? Really?
Will faster updates fix the issue of broken software? Really?
False headline (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft Says Windows 10 Spring Creators Update Will Install in 30 Minutes
No, they did not say that. They said the "offline" part of installation will take 30 minutes (down from 82 minutes for the Creators Update and 51 minutes for the Fall Creators Update). They are just moving more of the install to the "online" phase. Total time should be about the same. The only advantage is that you can still use your computer during the "online" phase.
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30 minutes? not a lot of time to back up my Linux (Score:2)
How about a longer lead time for a heads up Slashdot? If I hadn't read the article when I did I would have been surprised by the update when it rebooted my computer. And I don't even use Windows! Whose decision is this?
BOOST in installation time? (Score:1)
Babysitting the updates (Score:3, Insightful)
So when is Microsoft going to fix the problem of having to sit through the hours-long update process and answer wizard questions HALF-WAY-FUCKING-THROUGH it? Put the stupid questions at the beginning of the process so I can answer them and go home and have the update finish on its own overnight.
Or better yet, stop making Windows version updates a separate process from Windows Update.
Well whoop-de-doo (Score:4, Interesting)
It'll be a story when they let me decide which 30 minutes.
And after that, plug and pray (Score:2)
Re:other OS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:other OS (apt-get dist-upgrade) (Score:2)
restart services only (Score:2)
I'm trying to recall if there is anything I have to do after a dist-upgrade on Ubuntu once it reboots,..
And sometime you don't have even to reboot.
Have a look at 'needrestart' package. It's a plugin to dpkg that can automatically identify which services use files (such as libraries) that got overwritten during the upgrade, and give you the possibility to restart them.
So if it's not a big upgrade (like between two refreshes of the same LTS on Ubuntu, or a point release of Debian stable), you might postpone the reboot.
openSUSE has the ' zypper ps' command doing a similar detection (but you have to type the 'sys
Re: restart services only (Score:2)
Going from 17.10 to 18.04 does, which would be the equivalent of Fall Creators to Spring Creators.
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It is Microsoft and Windows. This is the ONLY operating system from the ONLY vendor where a program can be "running" yet doing zero I/O, consuming zero CPU, and having no detectable peripheral or internal usage whatsoever (ie doing nothing with memory either) yet take forever to get anywhere (as in, installing ANYTHING on Windows, where it will sit "doing nothing" while it is "getting ready to install", sometimes for hours).
I wish they would do away with all this crap and just make the update work properly
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Maximum time to do an update on my i7, 16GB RAM machine, has been 37 hours! version to version 1703.
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It's not the worst product they've ever put out. Not by a long shot. See: Windows ME.
At least Windows 10 is useable and functional at what it's designed to do. And yes, it's designed to spy.