Microsoft Blocks Windows 10 May 2019 Update on PCs That Use USB Storage or SD Cards (zdnet.com) 140
Microsoft has published a support document today warning Windows 10 users that the impending May 2019 Update may not install on their systems if they use external USB storage devices or SD cards. From a report: The OS maker cited problems with "inappropriate drive reassignment" as the main reason for blocking the May 2019 Update. "Inappropriate drive reassignment can occur on eligible computers that have an external USB device or SD memory card attached during the installation of the May 2019 update," the company said. "For this reason, these computers are currently blocked from receiving the May 2019 Update."
So, there's at least one way to block it (Score:5, Funny)
But, how long will it be before they figure out a work-around?
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Still this may work around as an useful update blocker for people who had to use Win10 on their company PC.... for the time being.
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No, it went into C:\autoexec.bat on DOS / Win 3.x systems.
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Arcane phrases like "SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H6 T6 P330 E620". Definitely a shitty Linux operating system and not Microsoft.
I have never had to do something like that but then again I never have used what I would assume to be a SoundBlaster card.
Normally I just install and everything works. What hardware are you using?
Yes, those 30-minute installs and possibly 30 to 60 minutes of customisation (you do document don't you?) are a real pain. At least I don't have an operating system that phones home.
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So instead, I can type "arcane phrases" into a text file, I can type arcane strings into a binary file, where if I mess it up, can render the system unbootable?
Because "[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup]
"SetupType"=dword:00000000
"CmdLine"="setup -newsetup"
"SystemPrefix"=hex:c5,0b,00,00,00,40,36,02"
tells me everything I need to know. Especially when NONE of it is documented.
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Been there. Done that. Got a SB ISA card on the shelf
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Pfft, Sound Blaster... I'm holding out with my AdLib. FM synthesis forever!
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Yeah the freedom to type arcane phrases into text files to get your sound card working.
That sure beats digging 11 levels into arcane menus via right-click menus, selections from drop-down lists another right-click menu and so on and so on in order to change the arcane setting that makes things work.
Google will show that every such problem has been solved by someone else. With an text file you simply copy the 'arcane phrase' off some webpage, and pastes it into the file and you're done. Windows users still have to traverse all those menus, they must do that work even if they have a recipe on
Re: So, there's at least one way to block it (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, cut+paste is also less prone to error and reading out text over the phone is more accurate than trying to explain navigation through a gui.
It's good to have options, and being able to solve things through textual commands or configuration is usually the best option when it comes to providing assistance to someone else. I hate the current trend of providing instructions via video, as this makes things far more difficult than necessary.
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But, how long will it be before they figure out a work-around?
looks like all you have to do is remove the external storage, install the update, and then plug your shit back in and it should "work" since it won't install the borked drivers by default.
From the article
Fortunately, there's a quick and simple workaround for this issue. Microsoft recommends that users remove any external USB or SD media and restart the May 2019 Update installation.
This includes USB thumb drives, USB-based external hard-drives, or SD cards inserted into card reader devices. Unless users ar
whoosh... (Score:2)
... enough said.
it's like 1998 again! (Score:5, Funny)
Did some fuckwit hardcode "D:\" somewhere again?
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Re:it's like 1998 again! (Score:5, Insightful)
And to this day they still make it awkward as hell to move your personal stuff to a different drive, and even then there are many things which will go to C:\Users no matter what you do.
There are far far too many ways in which Windows still thinks it's a single hard-drive, single-partition file system. It's kinda sad, they really have no concept of anything being different from the one way they know how to do things.
Windows still can't really seem to grasp that, no, not everything is on the fucking C drive, and there is no good reason to keep my personal files there. You can have the C drive for the OS shit, I want my files elsewhere so I can make backups.
After 25+ years of slowly ripping off features from better operating systems, Microsoft still misses the point in a lot of ways. In so many ways, Windows still wants to be a dumb single-user system.
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And to this day they still make it awkward as hell to move your personal stuff to a different drive, and even then there are many things which will go to C:\Users no matter what you do.
There are far far too many ways in which Windows still thinks it's a single hard-drive, single-partition file system.
Is that Microsoft messing up or are those third party software packages? In Windows you can use defines for all the places you need (like %userprofile%) but if one third party app does not adhere to that and hardcodes c:\users, you're fucked.
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After 25+ years of slowly ripping off features from better operating systems, Microsoft still misses the point in a lot of ways. In so many ways, Windows still wants to be a dumb single-user system.
This is just the end result of their anti-competitive behavior. If it were easy for you to deal with the operating system, it would be easy for you to possibly find alternatives.
There is also the "single perspective" issue and laziness involved in this, but the reason it never progressed beyond those issues is anti-competitive behavior.
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You can have the C drive for the OS shit, I want my files elsewhere so I can make backups
Use junctions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
They work across drives.
I don't use them yet in my new system (bigger SSD), but they worked pretty well for 'moving' data directories off of my C drive for things that do not support setting custom directories themselves. Added bonus was that the significant data directories were neatly ordered the way I liked them instead of buried somewhere deep in my user home dir.
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There is no revenue in it. They'd rather you use OneDrive, under subscription, or rather, use the free OneDrive and then get Office 365 as the straight-up OneDrive price is a bit rich.
Windows is a full multi-user OS, under the hood.
Unfortunately, something like Aster is required to allow the user to use it as such, and that program is not compatible with the Windows license (should that bear any weight on you). Some DRM also tends to fail pretty hard, i.e., Steam.. but
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I can't remember exactly what it was, but I had problems with something that wouldn't run if the pc had two hard drives and so the cd-rom was E:
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I think TA Kingdoms does that. I know I couldn't get it to run in a VM because it didn't recognise the drive. I think there's a no CD hack somewhere, but it's not my top priority right now.
The thing I originally had problems with wasn't a game, it must have been something work related because it was my work PC (as in not actually mine) that had the two HDs.
Like you say, it's shitty coding.
A Great Way to Dodge a Bullit (Score:3)
Sounds like an easy way to keep M$ from tinkering with my system.
I'll just have to have an SD card in the adapter slot, and it will keep the update at bay until they fix whatever is wrong with it.
Simple, really.
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Until they ignore the policy and update it anyways.
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No. Because they won't fix it. You'll potentially miss the May update which will be inhibited due to the drive letter FUBAR. But when the June update comes around (with no drive letter bugs) it will try to install. Maybe it can't, due to a dependency on the May update. Maybe it gets halfway before it halts on the dependency and borks your system.
Are you feeling lucky?
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Maybe it gets halfway before it halts on the dependency and borks your system.
So you're saying that this "problem" may do the exact same thing as any other update they've put out in the last decade. Situation normal, all fucked up.
Better they block it than to break stuff.. I guess (Score:3)
I mean on the one hand.. better they block the fix while external drives are attached than to screw up drive assignments, but on the other hand.. I'm curious why they don't just .. you know.. make the update not break drive assignments....
I remember years ago the nightmare of working on someone's C drive.. mout it up on my PC to scan/fix stuff from a working OS only to find that Windows decided the new active drive was the boot drive and kind of intermingle my windows with theirs... (yeah yeah this was before there were easily available PE builds to do the work from, and I was .. less experienced and less cautious)
Point being, depending on how deep the rabbit hole goes, I really would prefer to avoid unintended drive reassignments - especially if it messes with the Winderz system drive. That's a whole lot of no fun.
I'm still using Win 7 on my work PC and win 8.1 / Server 2012 .. no Win 10 boxes for me .. though I'm sure I'll end up with it at some point when there aren't other options... not really looking forward to it as I'm bad with certain types of change and Win10 has not really impressed me as having much in the way of good changes I find worthwhile.
Still, good to know: temporarily remove all external drives, do the update and then hope it doesn't also bork those when putting them back.. Always love it when the procedure uses the words hope/pray ... ugh.
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Because they're following the "move fast break things" philosophy of Agile programming methodology. Agile is one of the worst things foisted on developers, and IT people in general, since the open floor plan.
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They have existing customers pretty much locked in, if customers can't change easily to a competitor then what incentive do the incumbent have to provide a decent product? They can provide a shit product and still generate sales, so they will as its much cheaper and therefore more profitable to do that.
I hope they fix the keyboard (Score:5, Interesting)
My keyboard / trackpad stopped working following a Windows update.
And it works fine in Linux, in the BIOS, or when booting the Windows installer from an USB thumb drive, so it is not defective.
Oh and it is a Surface Pro. I thought a Microsoft OS on a Microsoft PC wouldn't break something as important as the keyboard.
Re:I hope they fix the keyboard (Score:5, Funny)
wouldn't break something as important as the keyboard
Just who do they think they are? Apple?
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Remember, on a Surface Pro it is easier to replace the Keyboard.
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Yes but my keyboard is not faulty, why would I replace it? I did try another keyboard and it had the same issue, as it is a software bug.
USB keyboards and mice works fine.
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My point was that you cannot easily replace the keyboard on the Macbook Pro while it is a "snap" on the Surface Pro. Of course the butterfly keyboard problem only affected a "few" users.
For what it's worth, the newer ThinkPads that I use around the lab have terrible problems with the Touchpoint with Windows (especially when scrolling). After switching to RHEL the same laptops work very well---especially the Touchpoints. Go figure.
I'm not getting warm fuzzies (Score:3, Insightful)
If this were any other company I wouldn't update - but I don't have that choice (yet). Moreover, I'm stuck with this insipid subscription model where they're constantly re-working basic features that should be long hardened by now (Y'know... like DRIVE LETTERS) I'm not sure what's Microsoft's working theory here. Obviously they want to eventually charge for the subscription model but they've shown that it's not worth the money to pay for it.
(And I'm STILL waiting for them to fix the WiFi after sleep bugs that still persist on the SP4 - subscription model indeed)
we have found the #1 source of malware.... (Score:2)
... Windows updates.
Re:DOS drive assignments (Score:5, Interesting)
The sad part is that drive letters exist because they copied it from the shit OS called CP/M. In typical MS fashion bought Quick-and-Dirty DOS [wikipedia.org] (QDOS) for $50,000 and renamed it MS-DOS!
Even my Apple 2 used volume names AND the forward slash as a path separator for floppies with ProDOS in 1983!
Re:DOS drive assignments (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that Windows has standard drive names isn't strange or "wrong". *nix has sda1 after all. Having standard volume names, drive letters or otherwise, is a good thing. The problem, like most annoying and persistent issues with Windows is that the implementation dates all the way back to the DOS and in this case the CP/M days and hasn't changed because of backwards compatibility. The good of course is that I can be reasonably sure that a lot of old shit will just work because Win32 is a stable API (stable in that it doesn't change). The bad is that I'm stuck with any limitations or bugs associated with those old systems.
Contrast with Linux userland which not only varies in massive ways between distributions but also can vary between releases. This breaks things and sometimes they don't get fixed. So pick your poison I guess.
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Sure, if you like telling somebody to type a slash, and then asking them to remove it and use the other slash 50% of the time.
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Who is this General Failure and what is he doing reading my hard drive? :-)
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/Oblg. Not sure if stupid or trolling...
You DO realize there are TWO slashes right?
\ Backslash [wikipedia.org]
/ Forward slash [wikipedia.org] also called a fraction slash or division slash.
And of course Unicode has to invent another yet-another-fucking name: Solidus [unicode-search.net]
Not everyone is smart enough to know that "slash"refers to the forward slash hence it is better to be explicit and avoid confusion regardless of your pedantry.
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Your way of thinking isn't any less valid, of course, but it turns out I draw my slashes from the bottom up!
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Unicode didn't invent that name. That is the traditional name for a slash.
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
A way to block automatic updates.
SEE... (Score:1)
As I said years ago, they are going to try and force everybody to use their online storage, next they will be modifying the EULA so they have the right to review and harvest data from it, and eventually they will become the "owners" of it all. It's all about them getting control. This is why I do not use ANY Microsoft products any more. I am 100% Linux and have been for about five years.
Seriously, they don't get UUIDS? (Score:1)
Under the hood I would have thought NT by now did something to uniquely define drives rather than by port order or spin-up race conditions ... jeez Linux/BSD solved this years ago. Guess MS really has driven out all of their experienced devs.
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Except only part of the boot process uses the GUID of the drive and then the very next step switches to drive letters. I had this on several computers where the system would not boot after the 1709 update until I went in and reassigned the correct drive letters to each partition.
What a dumb fucking stupid fucking company (Score:3)
Are you fucking serious? Have a USB key, cannot install Windows Updates. Who the fuck didn't test that?
I'm so glad I only use Windows 8.1 anywhere I can and Windows 10 only where I have to. Yeah, they'll sunset Windows 8.1 updates eventually, but hopefully by then we're finally able to swear off Windows for good. I'm only on Windows for games anymore.
Idiots
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Are you fucking serious? Have a USB key, cannot install Windows Updates. Who the fuck didn't test that?
Possibly it's an attempt to prevent users from finding out what's in the update. Or, a less paranoid guess, in their testing it turned up that they were accidentally making some kind of changes to such storage devices during the update, and rather than fix their update, they decided to make the update require that such devices be removed instead because it was cheaper. Microsoft clearly doesn't care about whether they're perceived as competent.
Shitty OS relies on CP/M style drive letters (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe they will fix it with new diversity hires.
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So, we're getting worked up about buggy betas now? (Score:2)
Is this how we're desperate we've become to feed our addiction to negative news?
Windows 10 May 2019 Update is still in beta testing -- they've given out ISOs to developers for testing purposes, but that's it. Microsoft already said the release date is the end of May. And besides, they've also said that they've fixed this bug.
But nah, nobody's mentioning that part, are they? The tech media needs to get people worked up about bugs that've been fixed in order to drive advertising revenue, and you're fallin
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This is a pretty egregious bug to have made it to beta. Having worked since I assume ever, what kind of major change introduces this kind of behavior? And to get into a public release?
Microsoft QA has gone down in flames and deserves to have as much attention as possible.
And no I didn't click the article so no advertising revenue was gained. Neither here, JavaScript is disabled.
Great! (Score:1)
Can they fix USD storage handling in-general?? (Score:2)
Honestly one of the recent (like last 6 months) updates caused all of my external storage devices to have a variety of instabilities. Anywhere from transfer speeds being wildly erratic to complete drop of service (transfers that give you microbursts of transfer amidst seas of no transfer; devices that regularly appear and disappear to the host; data loss!) I can't remember off hand exactly what update that was but all of this behavior started very distinctly after a particular windows update session.
Micros
so (Score:1)
Poor move by Microsoft (Score:1)