Windows Server 2016 Has an Update Problem, Users Say 79
madsci1016 writes: Frustrated with how long my Windows Server 2016 Essentials was taking to apply weekly updates, I turned to the web. A quick search revealed that I'm not alone. Many people are reporting similar experiences across the web. All sharing stories of weekly patching taking hours and sometimes ending in hung welcome screens. Some of these threads started a year ago and are still active, with no response from Microsoft addressing the issue. If you use Server 2016, have you experienced this problem?
easy peasy (Score:1, Informative)
10 sec google search and... https://www.thegeneralistit.com/blog/2017/10/28/fixing-windows-server-2016-update-error-0x800705b4/
Re:easy peasy (Score:5, Funny)
5ms google search and... https://www.ubuntu.com/server [ubuntu.com]
Re: (Score:1)
You forgot apt update and apt upgrade. Oh, and apt autoremove.
Seriously, Windows is broken by design. MS should consider writing everything from scratch. For all we know we've been running broken, bad designed architecture code from the 00's or even earlier.
Microsoft really should try something new. How about kissing NTFS goodbye and finally do a new FS? Come on MS, quit being lazy fucks.
Re:easy peasy (Score:5, Insightful)
Got a decent (that is, less awful to set up, configure, and administer) replacement for Exchange/Outlook?
I mean, MS is trying to make this easier for us by having Windows Server and Outlook constantly get worse (our two most common platforms are Mac OS X and Android; Outlook is half-assed garbage on Mac and a complete joke on Android).
My yearly search for a decent email client always leads me back to Thunderbird, which is fine, but the mess of ultra-complex garbage suggested to replace Exchange is insane. We've got a hosting company to look after AD and Exchange for us, so a replacement has to be easy.
G-Suite might do it, but we need self-hosted, we don't want Google reading all of our email and whatnot.
Re: easy peasy (Score:2)
Re: easy peasy (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If only that worked
The only thing I have found that will fix it (at least until it decides to say fuck updates again) is manually install the old update it says it needs, manually reset windows update, and then it will usually update normally for a month or two until it breaks again
This issue has caused our company to no longer deploy server 2016 and fall back to 2012 R2
Re: (Score:2)
They no longer have a drawing board. They sold it, and used the remaining room for Marketing's Jacuzzi (because that was deemed more important).
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Exactly. Needing reboots for most updates is plain f*ed up.
Ubuntu wants to update 1-2 times a week, and always wants to reboot after. Of course, most people simply ignore that, and mostly get away with ignoring it, but still.
Re:easy peasy (Score:5, Informative)
Ubuntu wants to update 1-2 times a week
True enough.
, and always wants to reboot after.
Not so true. It needs to reboot after kernel updates and a few other obscure cases. That's more like once every 2 or 3 weeks.
But more importantly, with Linux, it's just a normal reboot. With WIndows, they put you in a special update purgatory for some unpredictable amount of time both before and after the reboot, possibly well over an hour: "Windows is doing updates XX% done. Do not turn off your PC".
It's frigging 2018, and they've never figured out how to fix this despite pocketing countless $Billions peddling this OS. WTF?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think complexity is a beter term than sophistication for windows update. I use the word sophistication for the simplicity of apt.
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Yes! I mostly maintain CentOS but last year we needed AD so I added a few Server 2016 machines. They aren't all that bad, especially since by default you don't need to install the GUI, but the primitive update process is baffling. You have no idea how long it's going to take for the machine to come back once you start the reboot. Luckily I only have a few to deal with. It really makes you appreciate yum or apt.
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Sure, but as a user I reboot Windows once a month, on a predictable day, and Ubuntu twice a month somewhat randomly. Definitely room for improvement there.
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Gosh, if only there was some way to restart a process without cycling power
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How about no, this doesn't apply at all to the question as it was asked. Dishonor on you, and dishonor on your cow.
Linux. (Score:2)
Use.
Linux.
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Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The problem is a bad signature for Windows Defender, you need to check Advanced Options > Load Updates for other Microsoft products
nothing new here, has been a solved issue for desktop OS for a while
fwiw, this is what happens when you try to deliver secure products, some people would rather have easy than secure
Re: (Score:1)
That's one of the errors, the other hundred ways it can fail don't have a simple solution.
Sorry, try again, better luck next time.
WHAT? (Score:1)
Shocked! I am absolutely shocked to see that Windows is undependable. I had thought its reliability could be trusted for all my business interests, but now I see it only wastes my time to provide excuses for my minimal work output.
Well... (Score:1)
You're using Windows, from the makers of Microsoft Bob, as a server OS... What do you expect?
Windows. has an update problem (Score:3, Insightful)
And it's been that way for YEARS. They have yet to get updates right. It's one of the reasons I would NEVER consider running Windows as a server OS. No thanks...
Re:Windows. has an update problem (Score:5, Informative)
I found a method that's worked every time on >250 servers since I found it a couple of months ago. Before that, I used to have interns just hit retry over and over and over again for days. That was dangerous since we have to give them admin access.
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/2d191bcd-3308-4edd-9de2-88dff796b0bc [microsoft.com]
Install the PowerShell module then run:
Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll -KBArticleID KB
Updates like KB4088889 that would usually fail dozens of times, always work using that method. It's just too bad that Microsoft can't have Windows Update do what that PowerShell module does so well.
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I wondered how far down I would have to read to find a post by an actual sysadmin.
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We're in Seattle and bought a company that has a 25+ year old Microsoft app with an almost twenty year-old web component. You try finding enough good Java or other developers in this area to rewrite a large 500+k line legacy system.
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Frequently you have updates which are shown as installed, but manual checks reveal they aren't installed fully or correctly...
Take a large network with WSUS updating everything where wsus reports everything is up to date, and do an authenticated patch audit with a tool like nessus (which manually checks the files and doesnt rely on the windows update apis), you'll get discrepancies.
Windows is such a Garbage OS (Score:3, Interesting)
Honestly, I can't understand how anyone can feel at ease storing anything of value on Windows.
It wasn't *always* this bad, but now it's a genuine nightmare. What if you need to travel on short notice during an unscheduled half-day-long update? One you didn't want in the first place? Can you imagine typing up or contructing a whole bunch of stuff, for days or weeks only to have it unaccessible when you need it? Waking up to discover the multi-thousand-dollar machine you bought has suddenly broken itself, by some feat of magic? or maybe suddenly decided it doesn't trust your hardware. Somewhere, during the night, your Personal Computer has become suspicious of you, or your setup. Because it thinks you *might* be trying to prevent Microsoft from collecting maximum revenue.
This is what it's like to run Windows in 2018.
Re: (Score:2)
wasn't always this bad?
you just described windows how it has always been. it's been a pos for as long as i know it.
Yes (Score:3, Informative)
2016 definitely has patch speed issues, with the same set of patches taking roughly 20 mins on 2012R2, vs 3+ hours on 2016. So far, this does not appear limited to any particular circumstances, so Essentials suffers the same as Core and Desktop, etc.
One thing that helps speed it up a little is to manually grab the latest cumulative from the WU Catalog, but this still takes a while.
Windows 10 Desktop Has a Similar Problem (Score:3, Interesting)
This issue does not appear to be limited to the Windows Server 2016. I have observed 4 hour updates on my wife's Windows 10 desktop and on mine also.
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The problem is essentially this: (Score:2)
Windows Server 2016 Essentials
It has just the essentials, so Microsoft doesn't consider it essential.
It's the switch to rollup updates (Score:5, Informative)
30 second guide to troubleshooting Windows Updates (Score:5, Informative)
PSA/Community service:
Here's the missing quick reference card for Windows updates.
If the problem is detecting or downloading the updates, run the powershell command get-windowsupdatelog to make a human readable log file on your desktop. (That half-grumbled thought that just went through your mind.. I agree.)
If the problem is installing an update, the Content Based Servicing (CBS) logs in c:\windows\logs\cbs contain literally insane amounts of data including occasionally a useful error. These are big enough that they choke some text editors. Notepad++ handles them well. (Protip:I grep -v ", Info " to get some idea of what I'm looking for, then dig in with the editor.)
If the problem is installing a driver, those errors end up in c:\windows\inf\setupapi.dev.log.
If the problem is with a feature update:
C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\panther\setupact.log
C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\panther\miglog.xml
C:\Windows\setupapi.log
If you get an error code like 0x80070005 that you want to decode to a human readable message you can try Err.exe, the "Microsoft Exchange Server Error Code Look-up" tool. e.g. running err.exe 0x80070005 tells me that winerror.h defines this as E_ACCESSDENIED.
HTH.
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Bastards, copying Lennux again.
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Why the hell should I need a separate tool just to convert an error code number into an almost helpful string? What on earth is wrong with the Windows dev team?
Literally everything. They are incompetents who are led down idiotic paths by management. You know IBM has the same kind of error codes, but actually prints what they mean when they display them? When even IBM can manage something and you can't, you know you're a fuckup. Oh, but that's the other thing wrong with Microsoft. They don't even know they're fuckups. They think they've really created something wonderful, and not a Frankenstein horrorshow.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If you don't want to download a seperate tool to decode error messages, you can use certutil:
C:\>certutil -error 0x80070005
0x80070005 (WIN32: 5 ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED) -- 2147942405 (-2147024891)
Error message text: Access is denied.
CertUtil: -error command completed successfully.
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and they say linux is the OS that is not user-friendly.
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Windows QA is just terrible these days (Score:2)
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It seems they're too busy earning money with their cloud services to do Windows right anymore
Anymore? When have they ever done Windows right? NT 3.51, I guess?
Cumulative update have serious problems (Score:3)
There appear to be several problems, not just one. But the biggest on the two Windows Server 2016 that I manage, cumulative updates downloaded with Windows Update definitely have issues installing and more often than not fail, if they fail to install I've found the workaround is to manually download the update from the MS website and install it using the stand alone installer. So far I've found this to work if the Windows update fails.