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Microsoft Delays Windows 10 Spring Creators Update Because of 'Higher Percentage of BSODs' (bleepingcomputer.com) 108
Microsoft has admitted that it had to postpone the release of Spring Creators Update, the upcoming major update to its Windows 10 desktop operating system due to technical issues. BleepingComputer notes: More precisely, Microsoft says it encountered a higher percentage of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors on PCs, the company's Insiders Program managers said in a blog post yesterday. Microsoft says that instead of shipping the Springs Creators Update faulty as it was, and then delivering an update later to fix the issues, it decided to hold off on deploying the defective build altogether. The OS maker says it will create and test a new Windows 10 build that also includes the BSOD fixes, and ship that one instead of Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17134, the build that was initially scheduled to be launched as the Spring Creators Update on April 10, last week.
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Dammit...I hate to read this.
I was on the fast ring. About a month ago I got a BSOD. So I did the smart thing, and I went out and bought a new computer. I was NOT going to wrestle with figuring out how to get a new copy of Windows, etc.
Stupid BSOD.
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Look, I'm a Linux user, but if you've got a Windows 10 resulting from a Windows 7 or Windows 8(.1) upgrade (or the Windows Store), you have a digital entitlement [microsoft.com]. In any other case, you should have a product key. A digital entitlement is (relatively) cool in the sense that you simply boot with the Windows 10 ISO, which you can download directly from Microsoft [microsoft.com], when a product key is asked, you say "skip" and after installation, your copy auto-activates the digital entitlement. This is ev
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Not trolling.
I have one computer at home. My desktop. It bluescreened on boot. Can't do anything. No way to download Windows, activate, whatever.
It was getting old, so I figured "Well, it is about time anyway, this is just the thing that pushed me over the edge to buying a new computer". I bought an inexpensive Dell...which I would recommend that people do NOT do! Only 2 SATA connections, and only one SATA power cable- the other connection is for the DVD drive that I will never use. (I have since bou
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That is fair enough. These are (relatively) good reasons to spend money on a new computer. However, that was besides the point: Your original statement was that you didn't want to wrestle with Microsoft to get a working and activated copy of Windows. As much as I hate to say it, Microsoft finally does the right thing and allows re-insta
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I hope GP reads this as a continuation of yours.
In his defense, installing MS's OS takes more than a couple of hours, few is not a word I'd use in relation to these installs. I do agree with your assessment of a new PC. You never buy OEM bottom of the barrel unless all you're needing is a web browser, email, and perhaps some document editing. In his case he needs Adobe, I'll assume PS at the minimum. For that, I'd have bought no less than a Core i7 with 16GB RAM as a bare minimum. Given that it's a Windows
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I just happen to have installed ... Win10 1709. The exercise ... was 1h30 tops.
Glad to see that MS got down to a mere 90 minutes to install the OS with basic defaults. </sarcasm>
Granted, for many people you can add another couple of hours to setup the desired software and disabling/enabling all stuff Windows 10 gets wrong in the default settings... but, if you're after a working computer, you can get one really quickly these days. We are far far far away from setting aside two days to configure a Windows machine.
So, it's not actually installed yet, it's just the base, now you get to "tweak" all the crap to actually get it to a real working state. And only then would I worry about installing software.
I just recently did a full fresh install of OSX 10.12 on a mini. It took 60 minutes total to install the OS, migrate the old 10.10 system to the new system and then get the latest updates for all software. Fully
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On a decent connection, from PXE to fully installed (all applications included) for Ubuntu is 20 minutes. Been there, done that.
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Yep.
MS wants exactly the right percentage of BSODs.
Not more.
Not less.
the goal for BSOD today is 14.6%.
Re:Thanks Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
I havn't seen a BSOD in Windows in over a decade now myself.
I have had major processes get stuck, slowing the PC to a crawl, forcing me to reboot to fix it. Random bits of hardware not detecting only for me to reenable it (Wi-Fi, Touchscreen mostly).
The last time I got a BSOD was over a decade ago and I think it was on Windows XP.
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Windows XP, Windows 2000 both were based of the NT kernel. Vs Windows up to ME which were still based on DOS So compared to All the consumer level windows versions up to ME. XP was quite stable of an OS, and so was Windows 2000.
But I argue that Windows 2000 was just a re-branded NT 5. As it wasn't really targeted towards the consumer market.
But XP based off NT... But targeted towards the Desktop Home user. Had a lot of problems especially early on. Compatibility problem with old DOS and Windows 16bit apps
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I've seen the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL every now and then.
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...which is usually a sign of faulty hardware and/or drivers.
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Yep, probably the Soundblaster XFi. I am too cheap to replace it with something better, but too spoiled for the onboard sound.
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Don't replace it with one from the Asus Xonar line, they (and even more their drivers) are about as crappy.
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Thanks for the warning - the Xonar line was the only reasonable alternative I had in mind.
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I have one. It's ok, it works, no BSODs, but the drivers are bulky, unwieldy and don't really deliver anything beyond basic functionality. Their 5.1/7.1 functionality is a joke compared to the SB XFI I had before.
Then again, at least the Xonar is stable, so...
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If the latter is the case, then I need to reconsider my hardware choices...
Unless of course the hardware is MS branded, in which case I REALLY need to reconsider my hardware choices...
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This is probably because the new default is to just reboot when Windows crashes.
tl;dr: Windows doesn't "BSOD" anymore unless you explicitly ask it to display the BSOD screen.
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No BSOD and no crash here since forever. Last problem: graphics driver, second to last problem: graphics driver. Don't remember when that happened, 6 or 8 years ago perhaps?
Graphics drivers still partially crash from time to time but killing the program (game) and then restarting it works fine without rebooting.
Oh, there is one other hardware related problem: since a BIOS update (well, UEFI...) there are some power management problems. Solved by changing some Windows settings so that it uses traditional hib
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I havn't seen a BSOD in Windows in over a decade now myself.
While rare, they aren't quite that rare. Though I did see a Windows 10 BSOD for the first time a few months back. They have QR codes now... for some reason.
As for Windows XP being the last I call shenanigans, or were you mysteriously in a coma from January 2007 to July 2009? ... Or more likely PTSD has caused you to wipe Windows from those 2.5 years from you mind.
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The default in Windows now when it BSOD's is to reboot. Of course, if it just boots up into another BSOD, that's how you get the reboot loops. If it's more of the random fluke BSOD, you just come back and see your computer restarted (oh, must have been Windows Update...again....). That's how people claim that they've not seen a BSOD in years. You can turn that nonsense off if you want, though I wouldn't trust Windows 10 to not ignore it and do whatever it wants regardless of the setting.
Deploying bad releases? (Score:2)
I find it quite disturbing that they were even considering releasing this obviously faulty build and fixing it later. Do they not care about the name brand? It's already got people pissed off as it is.
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Well Microsoft haters will hate. Chances are this BSOD is a fairly rare condition, and sending out an update at would introduce the BSOD vs the additional benefits of the update is a decision that will need to be made.
For all products there is a point where someone will need to say "this isn't perfect, but it is good enough". Because the cost of the flaw is minor while the improvements are great.
So Microsoft did the responsible thing Considered releasing a product that could possibly BSOD, or make people w
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> Well Microsoft haters will hate.
Re:Deploying bad releases? (Score:4, Informative)
Wouldn't surprise me if it's related to driver rollouts. There's a lot of complaints in the fast and slow channels over MS once again deciding to force driver updates on everything. Not only was windows rolling back drivers in some cases, but rolling out drivers that people were using that made their system stable and then overwriting newer signed drivers with MS 'certified' drivers like on a new OS install. It's the biggest thread in the driver section and has been for quite awhile.
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Yes. With each new twice-yearly release, all the Microsoft drivers have their dates bumped to match the OS build date, even when nothing is changed or fixed. Even if you block/hide a particular driver via Windows update, the "new" driver from the next build gets auto installed again.
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That is why Microsoft decided not to push the update.
It it was 0.1% chance then you would likely have 2 workstations. Or if it were 0.05% then you would have one.
That is why Microsoft evaluated the risk.
However lets say you have 40 work stations you need to fix. And the patch fixes that problem. So you are down to 20. Wouldn't that be a better solution.
The point was the poster was complaining how bad Microsoft is for even considering not holding off the update. My point is there are factors which could a
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Well Microsoft haters will hate. Chances are this BSOD is a fairly rare condition, and sending out an update at would introduce the BSOD vs the additional benefits of the update is a decision that will need to be made.
For all products there is a point where someone will need to say "this isn't perfect, but it is good enough". Because the cost of the flaw is minor while the improvements are great.
So Microsoft did the responsible thing Considered releasing a product that could possibly BSOD, or make people wait for a big set of improvements which could allow people to hack into their systems, or break something else. They figured the BSOD condition was common enough to not release it.
The cost of the flaw is not minor to the poor sap whose computer is screwed with an update they aren't allowed to block even if they KNOW their computer will be affected by it. Give the OWNERS of the computers back the CONTROL of the computers which is theirs by rights as the OWNER of that machine.
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Higher than normal means that they pushed out earlier releases, despite causing a fair number of BSODs. The number of errors is just much higher this time around. The high number of issues caused by an automatic update should be near zero, even after accounting for third party software. And that really was the case for service packs in all earlier releases of Windows.
The new updater constantly makes bad assumptions, especially regarding the layout and size of EFI system partitions. The number one cause
Well, That's Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile, the update that I got about 10 days ago broke the ability of this computer to do the "no password required" bootup. It would give an error message and tell me unless I logged out and then logged in myself, my creations wouldn't be accessible in the future. Or something like that. Ran a few diagnostics / fixes such as scannow and it passed fine. So now, rather than run around and try to find the cause, I'm just waiting for the next update to fix it. The laptop is working fine, no problems with no-password bootup. Its just that a month ago, while on a cross-country trek from Virginia to Arizona, something happened (probably another update) and the keyboard and touchpad stopped working. Then, 2 days later, it magically began working again. (Probably another update.) Win 10 computers are getting to be really unreliable because of the updates dicking with them all the time.
Re:Well, That's Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure if sarchasm or an actual story. I like the comment either way. The fact a W10 computer can start updating itself without prompt or UI, when connected to whatever network (which might be a Starbucks for all we know), is one of the most scary things ever. And I don't mean security-wise, I mean: "here I go do my once-in-a-lifetime presentation to the money suits with my Windows laptop. YAY! FINGERS CROSSED hoping the fact I'm in a different time-zone with different busy hours, and the fact I didn't set this new WIFI to metered can doesn't get me a reboot, or that Delivery Optimization doesn't resource hog BITTORRENTING updates just as I'm about to seal the deal".
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Both of my Win 10 problems are absolutely true, and I even forgot one. There was another one a few months ago with the laptop, a Surface Pro 4 that I bought last summer, that all of a sudden booted up with a completely black screen. Since I bought it at Best Buy last summer and also bought a 2 year "extended warranty", I just took it to Geek Squad and let them wrestle with it. They had it fixed in a few hours, so I picked it up that night. But the tech said that yes, another update went south, and cau
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The fact a W10 computer can start updating itself without prompt or UI
It can't, and hasn't done so since the first Windows 10 release. What will happen now is that you set active hours during which it will never restart, you also tick the notification box so all you get is a notification telling you that on your next restart it will update, and that will also tell you the exact time it scheduled for the out of hours restart, and even provide you with an option for delaying it, which you can for up to a month.
Seriously if your presentation is interrupted due to a windows updat
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So, this prosaic "presenter" will 90% of the times have a managed PC with Win10 Pro, and as likely have an enterprise management suite (e.g. Airwatch) enforcing policies through Administration Templates for Windows update and whatnot, which the user can't control. He won't be able to set any of those policies, and he won't ever get a prompt to an update his company doesn't even know might happen, well, "because Microsoft".
And the way I talked about higging by p2p updates is pretty fair - if you don't know h
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Funny your complaints are the same about my remotely administered Windows 7 machine. Just because you may not be the one who doesn't know how to use the settings in their computer doesn't mean that someone else isn't a complete buffoon. The problem is the same, you're effectively complaining about not knowing how to use settings which have a full paragraph dedicated to explaining each of them.
Also the way you talk about CAs just shows you have fundamentally no idea what you're talking about, especially when
Windows 10 Spring Creators Update 2018 (Score:5, Funny)
Windows 10 Spring Creators Update 2018:
Coming the Winter of 2019.
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Well it's marked funny but if MS actually took 18 months to release a truly polished build...I for one would be okay with that.
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Giving a whole new meaning to the meme:
Brace yourselves
Winter is coming
Microsoft's software quality dropping fast (Score:5, Interesting)
The only way to fix it is a reboot!
Microsoft - we updated your computer while you slept - figure out what we broke today! What fun!
Pff! Sounds like an unfounded rumor! (Score:3)
I've been using the latest Win10 update and my computer is justttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
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Don't leave us in suspense.
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Patience young Jedi, it takes a few hours to re-install Windows 10.
Bullshit (Score:1)
What broke is the user tracking software. That is why they are delaying it.
That's sort of the question, isn't it? (Score:3)
What happens when they have buildings filled to the brim with software engineers working on projects/components, but each new component has a small chance of adding a new bluescreen on a subset of machines?
The whole point of Windows 10 was supposed to be that it was the end-state, the stage where all further upgrades would be updates to this. But lashing another sail onto the boat doesn't seem to be adding the thust expected, or bring the income desired.
They really wanted the Windows Store to be the future too - just like Metro was going to be the perfect union of touch-phone interfaces and desktop interactions (well, by forcing everything to just be touch-phone, and insulting anyone that disagreed).
But no one uses Windows Store. It most certainly is not an improvement on the flawed Apple store or other marketplaces.
Then there's the data gathering. I'm sure they market that information to folks (in aggregate) - but I'm also pretty sure that they aren't going to see the returns they might dream about for selling access to that information, compared to their dreams of being some super-Google.
Probably the biggest source of instability has been the DRM and protection systems. Locks and keys designed to, well, lock things up on anything being off tend to... lock things up. And there's teams of teams constantly working on those.
Windows is still a money machine. PC sales aren't at peak at the instant, but there's still mountains of money for selling OS licenses on most new systems.
So, they bounce between ideas still - cross compatibility with XBox game images - but they link it with Windows Store, so it's basically like signing a cult marriage contract. Strait up ports of some games, but the same Store logic kills that idea. Tools to help manage things - but they keep making the interface Metro compatible, so folks drop it as soon as they can find a better tool.
The overall story is that they still have folks there dreaming that their failed pet ideas are still the future, an unlimited income stream that just needs tweaking. They need to identify that, and get past those folks - especially if they're managers.
Then be OK with just making the best OS they can, without trying to loop everything back into some infinite income stream. The golden goose is good enough - work on the nest, NOT a butcher shop.
Ryan Fenton
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Amen!
Poor Quality By Design (Score:2)
At least Microsoft learned from the botched deployment of RS2 (aka Redstone-2, or the "Creators Update") which didn't work well on anything older than Skylake for several months. Looks like it is going to take them similar amounts of time to stabilize RS4 (Spring Creators Update... I wish they would just call it RS4 instead of coming up with meaningless marketing names) but at least they won't hold people's machines hostage in the meantime.
This is a natural consequence of the new world order Microsoft estab
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I have Windows Enterprise.
It's just as shitty as my Pro computers. Half the "privacy" features you think you can disable, break other essential parts of the operating system... like Windows Update.
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So, the more you pay, the later you have to install their software.
Odd. In most other markets, you'd pay a premium to be first.
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They're following the antivirus markets - free/cheap users are guinea pigs.
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I've never even seen the term RS2, but I much prefer the simple version numbers like 1709 with the month and year, even if the month code is a lie.
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At least Microsoft learned
But did they? You're talking about a supposedly tested release that pasted through the insider program was designated as RTM and then pulled on the day of public release.
It doesn't sound like they learned anything. It sounds like they majorly dodged some bullet and their QC process is still as fucked up as it has always been. No surprise mind you. It took them close to 14 months to fix the problem turning on their own premium Surface Pro 3 computer when a Surface Pro 4 keyboard was attached, a device they n
diversify (Score:2, Funny)
This is why I have Windows, MacOS, and Linux computers at home -- hopefully at least one group of them works at any given time
Thinking back to (Score:2)
When they laid off most of their QA folks [zdnet.com]
I get end-user testing, early preview releases are a good thing, I preach it and live it but frankly these wholesale massive semi-annual fuck-overs to add one or two "features" is annoying as fuck. Every time there's hardware compatibility problems, delays in releasing them because they're refreshing the whole fucking planet. I get that they want to unify frameworks, that's good but for god's sake stop with this 1GB+ downloads and installs that fail over and over aga
Am I the only one who thinks "agile" is stupid on (Score:2)
It's supposed to be stable. How does this benefit Microsoft?
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You know Microsoft (Score:2)
Blue Screen Returns (Score:1)