Windows 10 To Use Machine Learning in Latest Attempt To Make Reboots Less Annoying (arstechnica.com) 277
The next semi-annual update to Windows 10 will use machine learning models to make automatic rebooting for updates a bit less annoying. From a report: Currently, Windows will detect if you're away from your system (mouse and keyboard idle and not playing video or anything comparable) and perform its reboots during those idle moments. However, at the moment, the system doesn't distinguish between briefly stepping away from the machine to grab a cup of coffee and being away for hours because you've left the office or gone to bed. This has provoked some amount of complaining due to the updates interrupting work. With the new predictive system, Windows will try to distinguish between these two cases, and it will avoid the update if the absence is expected to be short.
How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Insightful)
What if I've left something open that I don't want to lose and leave it open for the night or keep it running overnight while not logged in? Yeah I know, save before you leave the machine for the former, but there are times I don't want to save changes yet and am just too stubborn to save to a temporary file and silly me expects a machine to continue running if I don't tell it to shut down...
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not saving is always self-destructive behavior. There's no excuse for that. Bluescreens are rarer than they used to be, but they still happen. Power outages, bumped cables, other people in the house, who knows. Just save. Even if it's a temp thing.
But there's plenty of other valid reasons for being in the middle of something and not wanting it interrupted. Web pages you're reading, stuff that's saved but open as a to-do reminder, or just the delay of the reboot/login/relaunch everything process, which isn't always ideal.
The system should ask. Always. If it's urgent, it should get more demanding, but it should still always ask.
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many things aren't saveable, e.g. private browsing sessions, and debug state.
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debug state
A thousand times this. I take hours setting up debug sessions to try and find elusive complex bugs, then come back in the morning and the fucking piece of shit Win10 has rebooted itself. And every tip you find on the 'net about disabling it works only for a short while. The only way I've found to keep this fucker from rebooting is to fill the disk with bogus files to 99% and then it has no room to load its update files. This is ABUSE from MS and no surprise that nowadays I have to problem getting people to
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends on your usage patterns...
As a long time unix user in a first world country with reliable power (and also having a ups just incase), i'm used to just leaving stuff running and expecting it to still be there whenever i get back to it. Recently i left my desktop at home running a slow ddrescue operation against a corrupt disk for several weeks while i was away, and it was still happily chugging along when i returned.
I'm also used to leaving all my apps running in the background spread across multiple virtual workspaces, and having to restart everything and get it back where i want it is extremely annoying.
If i found one of my systems to have rebooted itself, and could not account for the outage (eg recorded loss of power on the ups) i would assume the system was hacked.
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Interesting)
It astounds me how much just plain ABUSE users of Windows put up with, since MS released the steaming pile of shit that is Windows 10. I spent a 20 year career supporting Windows as a sysadmin, from Win311 to Win7, but if my job required working with the current version of Windows, I'd quit.. Needless to say, I've been 100% Linux since my retirement in 2010..
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would echo the same sentiment. There's never an excuse for your OS to re-boot your machine without your explicit permission. Everyone else manages to do this properly - why can't Microsoft manage it?
On the abuse front, there's been another story recently about the progress of ReactOS, with a lot of people commenting on how 1990s the interface looks. The thing is - it's infinitely superior to the current Windows 10 interface. Clean, comprehensible, compact.
I've spent some time over the last couple of days trying to assist an 81 year-old lady who is utterly bamboozled by here Windows 10 computer. It baffles me too. So much usability and clarity has been sacrificed in the move to Windows 10, all in the name of the latest fashion. She wants her old computer back, but alas it seems to be broken.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s a lot of work went into trying to create totally consistent user experiences. Now the drive seems to be to move in the opposite direction, and users are paying the price.
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Back in the late 80s and early 90s a lot of work went into trying to create totally consistent user experiences. Now the drive seems to be to move in the opposite direction, and users are paying the price.
Because for mouse and keyboard input the user interfaces of the 90s were just fine, but when you're trying to sell upgrades you have to make it look different so people think they're getting something for their money.
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but when you're trying to sell upgrades you have to make it look different so people think they're getting something for their money.
But the upgrade to Windows 10 was free.
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I'm not defending their behaviour, but the reason they do this is that people were delaying installing updates indefinitely and then getting infected.
So now they just force updates to happen fairly quickly.
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It's mainly because Windows has never developed better technology for doing updates. They don't really have the know-how for this probably. It's been clear for a long time that there are not a lot of people at Microsoft whounderstand operating systems, user interfaces, or software design. So stuff is designed in a simplistic way (unless it's a UI), and requiring reboots is the simplistic way of doing upgrades. Windows is design by accretion.
Also, Windows is a feature driven product and improving upgrade
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The modern Unix is primarily a server OS. Windows is a Desktop OS.
I would be just as annoyed if Windows server did its own reboots without manual control.
However this would be less annoying on a Mac (A Unix based OS)
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MacOS doesn't do reboots on its own...
Just because something is used as a workstation doesn't give it an excuse to be unreliable.
Hacked by design (Score:2)
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Not saving is always self-destructive behavior. There's no excuse for that. Bluescreens are rarer than they used to be, but they still happen. Power outages, bumped cables, other people in the house, who knows. Just save. Even if it's a temp thing.
But there's plenty of other valid reasons for being in the middle of something and not wanting it interrupted. Web pages you're reading, stuff that's saved but open as a to-do reminder, or just the delay of the reboot/login/relaunch everything process, which isn't always ideal.
The system should ask. Always. If it's urgent, it should get more demanding, but it should still always ask.
When working on config files that are write locked but I need to make updates at different points while the program runs, and might have to wait overnight to finish the updates and then save the config after the write lock is released. Yeah I can save the file to another location but I've had reasons why that didn't work well, possibly just being stubborn again :) but I can't remember the specific reasons off hand. I know I've had other things during development where I want to make updates, but not save
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I'm not sure why you posted this in response to me. I clearly said the system should ask first.
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldn't they, ummmm.... ask the user?
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That would give the user and opportunity to say no so obviously that is right out.
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. I'm running late and I need to power down my laptop, toss it in my bag, and run. What are my options?
* Cancel
* Update and Restart
* Update and Shut Down
Fuck off Microsoft. I want this laptop in my bag in the next 30 seconds, not 5 minutes from now when you think you're ready for me to go.
What do I do then? Force shutdown and toss it in the bag. Does that harm it? Hasn't yet. So what's the fucking point of not giving me the option to just shut down now?
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I've had my work laptop go into update mode when I shut down and not realize, or sometimes just hang while trying to shut it down and I've tossed it in my laptop bag. When I get home I'm wondering why my laptop bag feels like an oven...
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shutdown
Can be done from Run, CMD, or PowerShell
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Do what I do: close the notebook (screen) triggering hibernation. The update crap is still there when turning on the machine again so it's not perfect...
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Do what I do: close the notebook (screen) triggering hibernation. The update crap is still there when turning on the machine again so it's not perfect...
I would have to select hibernation from the shutdown menu, or press the sleep button, because one of the first things I disable on a notebook is having closing the lid do anything. I may wish to transport my laptop still running, still connected to the network. It's funny how many people I see carrying around slightly open laptops to prevent them from sleeping. They are less awkward to carry, and less likely to be damaged, with the screen closed.
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They should ask, but have a limit. "Okay, user, you've postponed for 6 days. The system WILL reboot and update tomorrow a 2 AM. Save your work by then or else!!!"
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They should ask, but have a limit.
Absolutely not. The system should wait until the user is good and ready to reboot. I've had my Linux systems tell me that security and other updates are ready to download and install. There have been many times where I had decided that I wasn't ready to install updates for several months, and then installed them when it was convenient for me to do so.
My operating system is my servant, not the other way around.
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They should ask, but have a limit. "Okay, user, you've postponed for 6 days. The system WILL reboot and update tomorrow a 2 AM. Save your work by then or else!!!"
You know they do ask. There's a setting called "active time" which most people never ever set. If you set it for 23hrs, it will wait until that 1hr that's open to popup a dialog saying "we want to install updates" do it now or "reschedule for another time."
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The problem is history has shown that Users will by default say No all the time. Thus a lot of the security problems that use to happen in windows, because of out of date systems.
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Insightful)
step one: gather information about everything the user does on the computer
step two: broadcast that information back to MS HQ (because the ML happens in the 'cloud')
step three: if anyone's still annoyed, blame the lack of ML input data, and increase step one.
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:5, Insightful)
What if I've left something open that I don't want to lose and leave it open for the night or keep it running overnight while not logged in? Yeah I know, save before you leave the machine for the former, but there are times I don't want to save changes yet and am just too stubborn to save to a temporary file and silly me expects a machine to continue running if I don't tell it to shut down...
It baffles me how people tolerate their OS doing things they don't want it to. If my OS just up and decided now was a good time to reboot, I would ditch that OS in a heartbeat.
This is not a Windows bashing or Linux advocacy post, this is just my opinion on how ANY OS should work.
I don't know, maybe you can turn that option off in Windows. I haven't used Windows since 7, and I know I could back then. Has MS removed that from Win 10?
-- Brian
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What if I've left something open that I don't want to lose and leave it open for the night or keep it running overnight while not logged in? Yeah I know, save before you leave the machine for the former, but there are times I don't want to save changes yet and am just too stubborn to save to a temporary file and silly me expects a machine to continue running if I don't tell it to shut down...
It baffles me how people tolerate their OS doing things they don't want it to. If my OS just up and decided now was a good time to reboot, I would ditch that OS in a heartbeat.
This is not a Windows bashing or Linux advocacy post, this is just my opinion on how ANY OS should work.
I don't know, maybe you can turn that option off in Windows. I haven't used Windows since 7, and I know I could back then. Has MS removed that from Win 10?
-- Brian
Mostly for me because I'm not thrilled with the price to value of most Macs (at least from what I've seen shopping around) and Linux has too many compatibility issues (though is close enough to usable to really annoy me). For example my college uses Google drive. I've gotten that working in Ubuntu but only in streaming mode (IIRC) which had LOUSY update performance to the point of basically being unusable. So for my use, Windows is the least painful option, but not by much.
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For example my college uses Google drive. I've gotten that working in Ubuntu...
I'm a little confused. I have Google Drive pinned in a tab in a browser on my Ubuntu box. What's your use-case where you need it more like a native file structure rather than just using it through the browser?
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For example my college uses Google drive. I've gotten that working in Ubuntu...
I'm a little confused. I have Google Drive pinned in a tab in a browser on my Ubuntu box. What's your use-case where you need it more like a native file structure rather than just using it through the browser?
I never really thought much of using the web apps rather than desktop applications. Most office stuff is there. How about visio diagrams or opening text documents into a spreadsheet so they the data from a command line run can be graphed? Looks like Lucid chart may be a good Visio alternative. Not having offline access to the files can be a bit of a problem. I should see how Matlab is working on Ubuntu, looks like it is pretty compatible these days. Skype on linux has been problematic at times too tho
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Maybe the site AlternativeTo.net could help you out. For example if you want Visio alternatives that run on Linux [alternativeto.net]. But it depends on your needs.
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I totally agree. Also, honestly, I don't see a good reason why the OS itself should be running machine learning. The OS provides the layer between the hardware/firmware and the software applications, that allows you to run the software applications. An OS doesn't need to do anything except allow access to the hardware, and enable apps to be run. Then applications should do the things that you want done. The OS should be trying to do as little as possible, and get out of the way as much as possible, so
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The big problem is the huge amount of (l)users that refuse to install security updates, often people that "know better" and never scanned for viruses as they "obviously" haven't been exposed.
This solution is of course not ideal and a PITA in more ways than one. The best would be transparent security updates done in the background with a few seconds switch (with preserved program state) to the updated code when finished - but that isn't generally backwards compatible and potentially a huge PITA for programme
Re:How about not blowing away work? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, you can't turn the option off, though you do can set a time window of something like 8-12 hours per day where it won't do the upgrade/auto-reboot.
The best workaround I've found so far is, if you are always using a Wi-Fi connection, is to set the connection to Metered Connection, and Windows won't download the updates. When you want to do updates, turn off Metered Connection, download the updates, let them install and reboot, then set the connection back to Metered. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, but it puts the power of when updates happen back into your hands.
The thing that pisses me off the most about it is that all I really ask for is that it not reboot until I can make sure everything that was running is safely shut down. I run a few different OSes in VirtualBox that are usually running at all times, and have had a few borked because VirtualBox does not shut the VMs down cleanly during the auto-reboot.
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But if the update is put off long enough, Windows will forcibly update at the least convenient time for you. I've seen it happen during presentation. You can see videos of a local news weather forecast green-screen background being interrupted by Windows doing an upgrade.
Microsoft hates you, and knows better than you when it should upgrade. The fact that you didn't immediately stop everything and upgrade when commanded to means you're disloyal and disobedient and so it will punish you for this.
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It baffles me how people tolerate their OS doing things they don't want it to.
Your ID is low enough that you have no excuse for this. Think back to all the stories of XP hosted botnets and the near-unanimous cry of Slashdot was "DON'T LET REGULAR USERS REFUSE PATCHES!!!"
Well, this is not letting users refuse patches indefinately. You got your wish, now stop whining about it.
Interesting, I am fairly certain that advocating for forced patching is nowhere in my post history. I have advocated for ISPs to cut access to users that have infected machines. If you can't keep your machine clean, then you don't belong on the Internet. I don't even like applications that auto-update. If I get something setup the way I like it, and it does what I want, no one needs to patch / upgrade / re-install / etc, but me.
-- Brian
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I was using the Internet at a hotel connection to download a rather large file that I NEEDED for work the next morning.. Windows 10, despite me disabling everything I could possibly find for automatic updates (including registry edits), decided that it had to update about an hour after I fell asleep. It totally fucked my day. I ended up having to pay for increased data on my cell phone provider to complete the download - and my project didn't get finished on time.
Microsoft has an attitude problem. Every use
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Saving for me isn't the issue. Sometime in windows world, I am running a long running SQL Call where the PC isn't doing much except for waiting a response from a server. Or on a remote system where a disconnect will log me out while something is processing.
For some people they actually want to leave the computer while it does its thing like in the good old days.
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Talk to me about this. At the 3 letter agency where I work, we had to completely disable remote reboots because of user complaints.
This means that I now have to wait for government shutdowns to do my updates to our user workstations at the last government shutdown wasn't long enough for me to proceed so our workstations are still unpatched for more than a year but we do not use encryption. View my video about this on my highly ranked YouTube channel to learn more about this very important issue
. --
Dwayne Johnson's Rampage As A Kaiju ("Weird Beast") Monster Movie [youtu.be]
Queue the update and require mandatory daily/weekly machine resets that trigger the update to run. Then if they don't reset for a week or two after a critical update, automatic e-mails to bug them and their manager every day. Eventually a non compliance mark against their work record. Not saying this will work with everyone, but should cover a good number of people.
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Not going to work. My users are ex-military buddies and they don't care much about non-compliance or anything else.
I need longer government shutdowns.
--
Dwayne Johnson's Rampage As A Kaiju ("Weird Beast") Monster Movie [youtu.be]
Sounds like a good application of the policy, any machine without given critical network update has no network access other than to IT until the update is made. OK, probably not practical but...
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Strange, I've never seen that happen on this machine. OTOH I've seen the computer turned on by itself without updating anything which is irritating - perhaps due to some bug that fails to start the update.
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I turn my computer off when I'm doing using. As in powering it down. Not power down via the "shutdown" button only, I kill the power to the power strip as well. Which means it cannot upgrade at 3am. So if I happened to be dumb enoug to use Windows 10, it would insist on forcibly upgrading itself after a day or two.
I have seen more than one person on an MMO go link dead for a half hour (during a raid) who then come back cussing out Microsoft because Windows insisted it was the correct time for their extr
Machine learning can do anything (Score:5, Insightful)
40 Minutes! (Score:2)
THEN it takes 40 minutes to reboot!
One whole hour of you ay GONE!
Why not only install updates late at instead? 3 AM would be good.
Re:40 Minutes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Or there's this idea:
"Hey, there's updates to apply. Is now good, or please tell me when it would be best for you (ask again in 1 hour) (ask again in 3 hours) (ask again in 6 hours) (ask again tomorrow)"
Why is "machine learning" needed, unless the learning just involves asking the fucking user?
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"Hey, there's updates to apply. Is now good, or please tell me when it would be best for you (ask again in 1 hour) (ask again in 3 hours) (ask again in 6 hours) (ask again tomorrow)"
Or better yet, do what Kubuntu does: put an icon in the system tray alerting the user that there are updates pending. Then the user can click on the updates whenever he decides to do so.
It's an EXTREMELY simple problem with an EXTREMELY simple solution that seems to continuously elude Microsoft.
It's also somewhat amusing that Windows users are so used to being shit on by their operating system that they propose solutions that involve further shittage from said operating system.
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What I don't understand is why they don't just use the existing functionality since Windows 7 (at least) which installs the updates but then doesn't reboot automatically until the user opts to. The exception for this would be if no interactive user is logged in, then the system will reboot immediately after updates are installed.
This is how we manage WU on our corporate computers and it works well.
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Well, the problem here is that updates are not just for you. They are for everyone. To be anti-updates is sort of like being an anti-vaccine person.
The updates to your machine will help it stay closed to low hanging fruit exploits.
Now... I think the simple solution is to set the default to auto-updates but then allow users to turn them off via something advanced like a registry tweak or config file update. That will allow advanced users to get what they want while protecting the vast number of the herd...
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Have you tried the "Active Hours" setting? it seems to work for me most of the time, the machine still reboots but at least it's in the middle of the night not when I'm using it.
Making reboots less annoying? (Score:5, Funny)
Making reboots less annoying? So Microsoft is taking on Hollywood now?
Windows 10 updates are a plauge (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Windows 10 updates are a plauge (Score:5, Informative)
With Windows it seems like they are creating more and more patch points just to annoy people. Previously you would see the patches loading. Then installing. This gave users some decent guideline of how long a computer would be down.
Now you might not have any idea that patch is downloading in the background. Until Windows halts everything to force a reboot. After abruptly saving your work, you wait till they install. After the install, it should be a quick reboot.
Oh no. After you've been logged out, some patches still need to be applied before the reboot. But you may not have any idea of how long as the handy timer is gone and replaced with a percentage that seems stuck at 38% for 10 minutes. Then it reboots.
But wait! You're not done. There are patches after the reboot that you have to wait on. So after what may be an unexpected hour down, you can finally login to your machine. Only to have Windows prompt you to reboot again because one patch has to be applied after another patch. Screw you, Microsoft.
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It is even worse than that. Due to bad luck I ended up as an early adopter of Win10 in our organization. I had Windows 10 Enterprise force-reboot me in the middle of work with no warning to save. I had to force IT to create policy to explicitly prevent this from happening again.
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You have no idea how many people there are out there that have let their AV expired and never get updates until something like the Blaster worm hits. Given the chance to decide whether to let the updates reboot the pc or postpone it indefinitely many will just postpone it forever.
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I hear you, and it is probably a good thing to eventually force these people to update. However, I am clearly not these people, yet Windows 10 abuses me as a serial misuser by trying to yank the carpet from under me while I work.
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Even waiting until log-off isn't a solution some of the time. As I posted above, sometimes I need to shutdown, grab the laptop and go. When my only options are Cancel, Update and Restart, and Update and Shutdown, Microsoft has decided that their time is more important than mine. I just force shutdown at that point.
The biggest issue is that Windows updates are inexplicably resource-intensive and disruptive. Updates on my Linux boxes don't noticeably impact performance, and don't generally disrupt work and re
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Updates on my Linux boxes don't noticeably impact performance, and don't generally disrupt work and require multiple reboots and inexplicably long boots/shutdowns.
And it's going to get a whole lot better in the near future, as nondestructive kernel updates become the standard in Linux. At that point, not only will system updates have a negligible impact on performance, but reboots will become even more unnecessary than they are now.
If I remember correctly, my last several dozen updates required reboots only because of kernel upgrades.
I have a better solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, you know, you could dump Microsoft entirely and get Linux, and take back control over your hardware.
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Chuckle (Score:5, Insightful)
The next semi-annual update to Windows 10 will use machine learning models to make
...spying on users more effective.
The only things Microsoft has to do to make reboots less annoying is 1) ask first and 2) let you postpone the reboot indefinitely. They don't need machine intelligence, they need human intelligence. Only, let's face it, they're not even trying to give the users what they want any more, since that includes not being spied upon.
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It's a solution looking for a problem.
Or, rather, more spyware looking for an excuse.
Also need full active hours control on server (Score:2)
Also need full active hours control on server and for this.
Need be able to set active hours as high as 23 hours a day maybe even have a way to set M-F 24 hours a day and open S-S.
Now an idle moments system can work on a server but it need a lot of admin control (in a easy way) and nice to have hyper-v smarts as well.
What about making server more like Linux with less reboots needed?
Seems like a much easier solution could be (Score:2)
Want Happier Customers? Stop Forced Reboots. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the most obvious solution to the problem is to have stable software that doesn't require reboots when an update is provided.
I can see needing updates for AV tools (ie Windows Defender) which should be updating signature databases as well as maybe Edge updates which would require the browser to end and restart. If other aspects of the software requires updating, there should be approaches to allow it without causing a reboot.
I've always found Microsoft's update process to be quite annoying with what seems to be two out of every three updates resulting in a reboot. Ubuntu, on the other hand, seems to require a reboot once every 5-10 times.
I think Microsoft has grown too accustomed to accepting reboots after updates and maybe looking at it from a different perspective (ie Reboots are bad, not something we need machine learning to schedule) would be a win-win.
Wow, super impressive (Score:2)
I thought there was no way to make Windows updates more annoying, but they managed to figure out a way!
Nothing like stepping away to make tea or lunch and come back to just see it slipping into an update reboot...
Or as others have said, wake up to find something crucial gone because it choose to reboot while you were asleep. That includes paste buffers too you know!!!!!
AI Just For Reboots (Score:2)
Your computer is not your own (Score:2)
You do not own anything on your computer. You lease it. Software, OS, music files - none of it belongs to you.
Given this, why should you be allowed to control when the actual owners of your bits and bytes decide to reboot the machine? What business of theirs is it if you're tanking a raid or in the zone writing your novel?
I literally just can't believe the insensitivity of those so privileged to be allowed to lease software and operating systems from such benevolent folks. Why do people insist on being
Not good news (Score:2)
In my opinion, this is not good news.
I mean, yes, reboots are annoying and it'd be good to improve that process somehow. However, my concern would be that using machine learning to control the process could have the effect of making it even less predictable. Frankly it was easier when I could tell users, "Your computer will reboot at 3am every Tuesday. Save your work Monday night." Then they changed it so Windows just sort of reboots your machine... whenever. A new patch comes out, and if Microsoft de
Machine learning ... seriously? (Score:2)
I don't believe that machine learning has a snowball's chance of assisting in something as chaotic as user behaviour. My routine can stay the same for extended periods and then suddenly change because of an urgent deadline or another emergency. No amount of learning can equip a machine to know that. The update is almost guaranteed to occur when I can least afford it, i.e. when I am not working to my usual schedule.
If MS was honest (Score:2)
There would be a simple solution: Ask the user. Inform the user that a reboot is required, preferably with an estimate how long the reboot will take on the average machine so he knows whether he can get a cup of coffee or whether he should rather only do it when he leaves for the day 'cause then it might be ready when he comes back the next day, and let the user decide when that reboot fits best.
This is the solution for the problem you allegedly have.
Since that solution is SO blatantly obvious that even a C
Cant figure out reboots without updates either (Score:4, Informative)
Not surprised. Don't get me started on how many times I have needed to do a reboot immediately before a presentation and purposefully choose "restart (only)" and not "restart and update", only to watch it run updates anyway. Several times I have been late to present because the system was still running the updates I didnt tell it to install when the appointment time arrived.
How about... (Score:4, Interesting)
How about:
(1) Giving users a choice of which updates to install. If a home user doesn't want UI changes crammed down their gullet, it should be their right. There should be a "security updates only" option for all users.
(2) Allowing users to schedule update times manually. Give a time window, but allow users to delay the update even in that window if they click a dialog.
Microsoft should stop abusing their customers.
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A LOT of us who *used* to use (and support) Windows KNOW this will NEVER EVER happen, so we've left the MS ecosystem, and now life is beautiful and we reboot our systems ONLY when we want.. Its called Linux.. Thank Linus for Linux.....
It still gets me... (Score:2)
The number of programs (not just MS updates) that say, "We must reboot to finish this install".
I'm like, "You're keyboard software. The keyboard is working. All the lights on the keyboard are working. You obviously ~don't~ need to reboot to finish this."
It all goes back to MS being sort of crap at OSes in general, I suppose.
Truth (Score:2)
Nothing could be more true than this: https://twitter.com/iamdevlope... [twitter.com]
Basically Microsoft added "if idle > X time", and that was it?
I am amazed (Score:5, Interesting)
Missing the target (Score:2)
I want how it worked with Windows 7: let me configure how updates are done (Notify but don't download unless I give the go ahead, and let me decide when to apply them). Actively removing any mechanism where I can set that is asinine.
I have my Win10 Home box "hacked" to prevent auto-updating (essentially, setting the wired network to be metered via the registry), but I don't get the notifications like I used to from Win7. It did nag me after installing 1803 about being behind on updates, so maybe that will
How about not rebooting? (Score:2)
Here's a crazy notion. How about designing the system so it doesn't have to reboot? I know crazy right? Now like those unix folks have figured this out or... oh wait.
My operating system shouldn't have to reboot except on VERY rare occasions - typically major operating system upgrades. Microsoft has people trained to think this is somehow normal and/or necessary.
and what if ... (Score:2)
What is the machine provides life support? Oh wait, you'd be mad doing that with windows, ok carry on!
Obligatory MS trying-to-be-less-annoying reaction: (Score:2)
Its a Service boys not an OS (Score:2)
It was just fine back in Windows XP/7 (Score:2)
Windows XP and Windows 7 applied patches on a schedule and rebooted on a schedule. This was just fine. Yeah, sometimes I left an app open and I came in during the morning with the "do you want to save?" prompt up and the patch not applied. No problem, my bad, I'll save before I go to bed tonight then I'll get the patch.
Windows 10 now has 3 different places to configure the schedule, and most of the patches ignore it anyway. Automatic updates has a configurable time in the system control panel, then ther
Quick way to take control now (Score:2)
It's actually quite easy (for us at least) to control the updates for Windows 10 computers. Run gpedit.msc and set "Configure Automatic Updates" to level 2. This forces the Windows update to always ask before downloading an update. This let me delay the 1803 feature update download until I was ready and could do a pre-reboot first. The downside is you have to allow defender updates each day but that only takes a few seconds to hit the download button.
Find it under Computer Configuration, Administrator Temp
Re: (Score:2)
What's wrong with downloading the updates, then telling me you want to reboot and letting me decide when the reboot happens? Yeah, I get some people will never reboot. Fuckem. I'll reboot, but it might take me 3-4 days depending on what I'm doing.
Of course, then MS will have to grow a set when users complain they got hacked. They'll have to say "that got fixed 6 months ago and we've been asking permission for a
Just an activity timeout (Score:2)
I think it is funny they are calling an activity timeout "machine learning". I guess 30 years ago when they implemented screen savers with a timeout, little did they know that was "machine learning".
Kill automatic reboots (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do we need machine learning for this? Just give users the option to decide when they want to reboot.
Anyway, to those who haven't figured it out yet, there's an easy way to stop this behavior.
Visit C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator.
Delete the file named "Reboot". This is the scheduled task that actually fires off the reboot after an update.
Create a folder in the same place named "Reboot". This prevents Windows from automatically re-creating the file that you deleted.
Done.
I'm confused about the problem (Score:2)
A long time ago, I pushed the update button, I pushed the reboot button, or I waited and pushed the reboot button later.
Not so long ago, I disabled updates until I didn't mind the distraction.
Today, windows is configured to reboot only after-hours -- I choose the hours -- and to avoid updates altogether for a month.
Seems perfect to me!
I don't worry about updates happening during intense work days, nor while on vacation. When I decide to allow the updates, I wake up to a fresh reboot, or I push the reboot b
Learn this, you assholes (Score:2)
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I don't know about that.
I wish it could find a way to stop this site giving me a GPDRS popup (or whatever it's called) every two clicks or ten seconds, whichever comes first.
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