Microsoft Fixes Point of Sale Bug That Delayed Windows 11 Startup For 40 Minutes (theregister.com) 46
"The Register reports Microsoft fixed a Point of Sale bug that delayed Windows 11 startup for 40 minutes," writes Slashdot reader ellithligraw. "So much for the express lane at check-out." From the report: A fresh Windows 11 patch slipped out overnight as an optional update, but contains an impressively long list of fixes for Microsoft's flagship operating system. One bug addressed in KB5012643 could leave Point of Sale terminals hanging for up to 40 minutes during startup. Microsoft stated, "We fixed an issue that delays OS startup by approximately 40 minutes." "Microsoft described the fixes as 'improvements' [and chose to highlight the fact that temperature would now be displayed on top of the weather icon on the taskbar]," added Slashdot reader ellithligraw. "[Y]eah, Windows 11 is great as a PoS."
POS (Score:5, Funny)
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Say it Stupid; It's Broken. (Score:5, Interesting)
If your car didn't start for 40 minutes, a reasonable mechanic probably wouldn't try and bullshit you and call that a "startup delay".
If Corporations are People, it's rather pathetic that "person" just can't say the damn word broken.
Stay it, stupid. Honesty gets more respect than you assume, and this IS why the world generally hates lawyers.
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We found that Innovation was the primary driver behind creating jobs in the 20th Century.
Now that we've allowed Greed to decimate ingenuity with patent and trademark, Corruption creates jobs in the 21st Century.
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My guitar amp takes 10 minutes to warm up. Perhaps Windows 11 is simply vintage.
there are no stupid questions, only stupid people (Score:2)
If warm up time was the selection criteria for a guitar amplifier, then yes it would be a failure. But in the real world that's not of a primary concern.
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Respect the tubes.
Who was using as PoS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which muppet of a CIO thought "Yeah, lets roll out new terminals all with a brand new(ish) version of Windows which always take about 6 - 12 months to shake down serious bugs"?
Just what kool aid did the Redmond salesman give him over lunchtime drinks?
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Which muppet of a CIO thought "Yeah, lets roll out new terminals all with a brand new(ish) version of Windows which always take about 6 - 12 months to shake down serious bugs"?
Probably the same CIO who saw NewModel, NewModel, or NewModel to choose from at the store of Forced Obsolescence.
A "serious" bug? You mean like a zero-day that comes at any time, no matter how old the OS is? This is Windows we're talking about here.
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Fair enough. I should have said 6 - 12 months to shake down obvious bugs like this.
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Why would anyone use Windows for a PoS terminal? Rather than a stripped down, minimal Linux system.
Re:Who was using as PoS? (Score:4, Informative)
- one single, easily identifiable, company to deal with when it comes to issues related to the OS
- one single, easily identifiable, company to deal with when it comes to documentation about the OS
- the risk that someone suddenly drags you to court for something you might or might not have done is, in the eyes of the corporate lawyers, lower. This assessment may or may not be correct, but if the lawyers say "Avoid FOSS" that is what the developers will be told to do
- no need to worry, correctly or not, about possibly having to reveal your source code
- your developers only know Windows
There may well be other things that make the POS manufacturer choose Windows over anything else.
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In business as in life, a fool and his money are soon parted. Buy MSFT.
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Simple: Because the customer must be ripped of as much as possible, so people that understand Linux are too expensive...
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A few reasons. The main one is probably that their custom PoS software is written for Windows, and there is no reasonable business case for porting it to Linux.
They probably already have a big Windows network that they manage centrally, and staff who are familiar with Windows systems. Using Linux would mean finding ways to integrate it, manage logons, keep it patched and up to date etc.
The hardware they use may also be Windows only, in terms of driver support.
Why did they use Windows in the first place on d
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There's just one reason, the industry standard software is all windows-only... except MICROS for Linux, which is owned by Oracle. So if you don't want to run some weird-ass nonstandard PoS then you are pretty much stuck with Microsoft or Oracle... or both of course
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If you are massive enough then this is a reasonable way to save money. You can do your own support. McDonalds was on Xenix and then SCO Unix for ages.
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In the Mom & Pop SMB scene, there is a reason why most POS vendors are primarily targeting iOS. One hardware vendor, one software platform to program for support.
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Why would anyone use Windows for a PoS terminal? Rather than a stripped down, minimal Linux system.
Probably because the underlying OS is completely irrelevant and Windows 11 unlike a stripped down minimal Linux system can be serviced by any highschool kid.
I'm sure you'll find stripped down minimal Linux systems around though, it's a great way to lock in expensive support contracts.
You insensitive clod! (Score:2)
What are you trying to do? Kill off The Register's ongoing series of Borked terminal articles?
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Why would anyone use Windows for a PoS terminal? Rather than a stripped down, minimal Linux system.
Hardware drivers. Many hardware manufacturers just don't make Linux drivers available.
When you are buying PoS systems (which are tied to accounting and inventory control systems as well) you find that some have wide compatibility, and some don't... so you buy the one that says it will work with everything else you have. It just happens to be windows based.
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So.. this is a good question, and I'd say it all depends on what company you are.
So Linux is great and the biggest advantage it has is cost. So if you are a large retailer this is going to be a bit more important. if you have 50 POS systems the cost savings are not that big.. but if 50,000 it's a bit different.
Linux is great because you can make a small secure system, specialized to your needs.. Lot's of other neat things like containers etc .. But again you need a nice set of people who know how to use all
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Probably the same one that just got a bollocking for still using XP on the company's product line.
Honestly, why anyone builds Windows into anything at all is beyond me. It's utter shit compared to the alternatives, and on a PoS terminal the use-case is so limited that the alternatives are considerably better. Well, 40 minutes start up times is what you get for picking a crappy OS and having an even crappier patching regime on your customers devices.
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The underlying OS to a POS system is completely irrelevant, not only in terms of support, but also in terms of security. Many POSes still run frigging Windows XP.
But to answer your question: A CIO who probably uses Windows 11 at home, who unlike you has enough actual experience to show that everything /. bitches about when it comes to Windows 11 is completely irrelevant providing the PoS software is displayed on boot.
Which it is, minor bug recently fixed aside.
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Which muppet of a CIO thought "Yeah, lets roll out new terminals all with a brand new(ish) version of Windows which always take about 6 - 12 months to shake down serious bugs"?
There was no indication, in the summary nor the article, that Win11 has yet seen any significant adoption for POS. (My suspicion is that the bug wasn't considered important-to-mention precisely because of negligible adoption of Win11-POS). I'm not sure what's substantiating your outrage.
The closest indication we got to prevalence of Win11-POS were these sentences in the summary: "although the bright point for some sellers will be that they haven't yet updated to Windows 11 – as we pointed out last wee
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New and improved (Score:2)
I think many bank ATMs and on-ship systems use Windows XP: I wonder how many upgraded to an OS with a new, improved defect?
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Do you like your new job working in PR for Microsoft? I hope you do because I don't think that it will last very long.
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They are slipping (Score:2)
Proper MS crap will delay tings like that at least for a day. Seems MS cannot even produce true trash these days.
I have a different acronym (Score:2)
Microsoft refers to Point of Sale as "PoS". I have a different acronym for Windows 11. It's definitely a PoS, no matter where it's installed.
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Microsoft refers to Point of Sale as "PoS".
No, everyone refers to point of sale as POS and has for decades.
NCR has a branded system called "RealPOS" which makes me laugh every time I see one in the wild.
Well (Score:2)
If you're stupid enough to use Windows in an application like this you deserve whatever happens to you. There are plenty of better alternatives. I just feel bad for the cashiers who probably ended up being the real victims, but hopefully the vendor lost a ton of business due to this.
not seeing the problem here (Score:2)
if the system works, it's a PoS, if it doesn't work, you still have a PoS
either way, you have a PoS
How many? (Score:1)
So how many installs did this actually affect? I'm betting not many, since nobody sane would install a POS like Windoze 11 on their POS.
40 minutes is rather arbitrary (Score:3)
I would love to know what kind of bug results in a 40 minute system startup delay. Seems like a new class of bug and possibly an exploitable security vulnerability.
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Not necessarily. Could be something that happens 8 times during the boot process with a 5 minute timeout. Long-ish timeouts for things that should work immediately but in rare cases always fail (such as a misconfiguration) can add really add up.
Of course, people who use Windows, especially recent versions of Windows, in situations where things have to work or you lose money deserve what they get.
Why POS (Score:1)