Microsoft Admits Normal Windows 10 Users Are "Testing" Unstable Updates

Megalith

Megalith

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A Windows executive elaborated on the OS’s monthly security and quality updates in a blog post this week and revealed that some of these are still in the testing phase. There are three types of releases, “B” (“Patch Tuesday” updates), “C,” and “D”; the latter two are releases that “provide visibility into, and enable testing of, non-security fixes.” While “C” and “D” are “optional,” they will reportedly download and install for any user who hits “Check for updates” button.

As Chris Hoffman at How-To Geek points out, "at the very least, Microsoft needs to provide a warning before Windows 10 users click the 'Check for updates' button. Don’t warn people in blog posts that only advanced users will read." This option simply shouldn't exist unless users go through a carefully-worded opt-in procedure for these "C" and "D" updates, complete with explicit warnings.
 
What do you expect for a free upgrade? I have a hard time being surprised by this.
 
once a certain majority of people stop clicking 'Check for Updates' they will find another way to get these beta updates installed on your system...I only click 'Check for Updates' during a fresh install...after that I don't touch it
 
PeaKr said:
Don't click 'check for updates' and use stop updates tool.
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Huh. I always viewed the "check for updates" button as just a way to manually force an update check. It shouldn't be any different from the automated checks.

So what are you supposed to do if you need to make sure you have the latest patches and dont want this beta shit?

I really need to find a way to get an individual license for the Enterprise edition. Enterprise users wouldn't put up with this shit.

One of the many things I hate about Windows 10 is all the behind the scenes automation that I don't know what it does. I feel like I don't control my own computer anymore. I'd like to return to the days where my computer does NOTHING unless I explicitly tell it to.
 
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I have no issue at all with the way they are doing it. However, I do think a yearly release would be a much better option, perhaps every June or October? It would then give them more time to develop the things they want in a feature release and not have to remove them at the last minute because they were not ready.

Oh, and I read the actual Blog post, I do not tend to listen to "Forbes" themselves.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I really need to find a way to get an individual license for the Enterprise edition. Enterprise users wouldn't put up with this shit.

One of the many things I hate about Windows 10 is all the behind the scenes automation that I don't know what it does. I feel like I don't control my own computer anymore. I'd like to return to the days where my computer does NOTHING unless I explicitly tell it to.
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LTSC 2019.
 
This is one of the reasons I use Linux as my main OS and dual boot to Windows only for games. I just don't trust windows.

In Linux, nothing communicates with the outside world unless I tell it to. Sure, I can create automation through cron, but when I do I'm waiting mywriting my own script and manually putting that script into the crontab so it runs at a specific time. There are never any surprises.

This is how I would like Windows to be. No surprises.
 
ha ha ha.

nice mircosoft. fuck with peoples everyday machines so you can build treehouses for your more fragile employees.

pathetic.
 
Quite obviously, now, I was wrong for thinking that I was being a responsible 'net human for believing that using Win 10's "Check For Updates" feature. Silly me, for thinking that MS was just sending me security updates, and new Defender definitions. What was I thinking?

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I miss my Commodore 64/Atari 520ST/Amiga 500 days. Life was so much simpler then.


Garsh Nabbit! You kids get off my lawn!
 
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crap installed fine for me - you can pause updates for 35 days under advanced
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Huh. I always viewed the "check for updates" button as just a way to manually force an update check. It shouldn't be any different from the automated checks.
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It is, when you hit that button it opens you up to the PREVIEW updates and turns you into a beta tester. Really your only choice is to disable updates all together and manually download/install the security updates. I only use W10 for games, photoshop and some Office stuff these days.
 
So the world's free customers are stealthily beta-testing the software for the corporate customers?

Seems a bit sketchy, business-wise.
 
I developed a deep distrust for MS updates after they started sneaking telemetry software into Windows 7 updates. But at least then, you could pick and choose which updates to install. Then they adopted the 'Updates only available via massive all inclusive roll-up' crap. But at least in Win 7, you can tell it to not ever update. Thanks Microsoft for forcing us to choose between being up to date on security patches and having MS spyware installed or not having MS spyware and risking some other spyware.

With Corporate policies like this, no wonder there are so many breech reports.

Maybe some enterprising law firm should do a class action lawsuit for back pay for all of us since MS has basically admitted we are now their QA staff. I would happy settle for the $15/hr wage the west coast states keep pushing for time spent testing all those Win 10 updates my laptop has received. (Still running Win 7 on primary box, have no plans to change that. Kinda want it to be reliable.)
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
If they are "optional" how do you avoid installing them, if they install automatically when you check for updates?
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Roll-Safe-Think-About-It.jpg
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I really need to find a way to get an individual license for the Enterprise edition. Enterprise users wouldn't put up with this shit.
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User new2019 set me up. I bought a new laptop, and there weren't Windows 7/8 drivers for everything.
 
Turned off the app updates, turned on the delay update in the settings. Turned off auto download.
 
The only thing Microsoft appears to be concerned about as far as desktop is turning win10 into a subscription model. I can certainly keep a Linux box up for everything but games, unfortunately the windows “polish” keeps me on it. But the polish is wearing thinner than ever now. Good thing my windows 7 key works for win10 - otherwise things might be different. Reliable updates are a big deal and right now Linux has MS beat.
 
BloodyIron said:
Or install Ubuntu Linux and get exactly what you want. Hell even has a cancel button. It's the future, today!
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I use Linux (Mint) as my primary desktop OS. I used to use Ubuntu, but I switched away when they made the Unity desktop the default.

I know things are better than the used to be as far as gaming under Linux goes, but it still performs worse than under Windows, even with the new DXVA wrapper.

I can't afford to lose any performance, no matter how small, as I play at 4k60hz, and it is usually a struggle to get a constant 60+ fps at that resolution.

So I keep Windows 10 Pro around just for games.

Generally if windows borks itself with updates it's not the end of the world. I still have my main OS for everything else. I just won't play any games until I fix it.

I live under the constant fear that Windows is going to have some sort of bug during the update process and wipe my Linux partitions.

To protect against this I periodically boot up from a rescue USB stick and dump a disk image to my NAS via my 10GB Ethernet direct link.
 
Fyi you can game on Linux.

Zarathustra[H] said:
This is one of the reasons I use Linux as my main OS and dual boot to Windows only for games. I just don't trust windows.

In Linux, nothing communicates with the outside world unless I tell it to. Sure, I can create automation through cron, but when I do I'm waiting mywriting my own script and manually putting that script into the crontab so it runs at a specific time. There are never any surprises.

This is how I would like Windows to be. No surprises.
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Dead Parrot said:
With Corporate policies like this, no wonder there are so many breech reports.
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Except that the data is stored and accessed on Linux or Unix based servers. These breaches you mentioned have nothing to do with Windows updates but hey, facts be damned...… :D
 
BloodyIron said:
Fyi you can game on Linux.
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BloodyIron said:
If anyone has any questions about gaming on Linux, just let me know.
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It's possible, yes, but as I mentioned above in my previous post, it is buggy, mouse feel is off, and even with the new DXVK wrapper there is a performance hit. It's small, only a few percent, but when I'm already struggling to keep up with 60fps at 4k resolution, I can't afford even the smallest performance hit.

That, and unless it is native, I don't want anything to do with it. WINE or anything based on it is just a hack, and not a good one. As long as I need any wrappers, emulators or compatibility layers I don't want it. Native only

It's just not worth it, when you can dual boot.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
That, and unless it is native, I don't want anything to do with it. WINE or anything based on it is just a hack, and not a good one. As long as I need any wrappers, emulators or compatibility layers I don't want it. Native only
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Just to put some perspective onto this, to be fair you are gaming @ 4k - I used to game @ 4k until I dropped back down to 1200p on a smaller monitor and realized the graphical improvement really wasn't as great as I thought it was considering the graphical demands.

Gaming at the common resolutions of 1080p, 1200p and even 1440p, DXVK and the latest versions of Wine/Proton implementations work bloody great. Half the time the fact that I'm not gaming under Windows never enters my mind. I think it's unfair to class these implementations as hacks, the thought and skill that has gone into effectively reverse engineering a compatibility layer that exists natively under Windows to suit Linux is actually quite impressive and is continuing to improve in leaps and bounds as time goes on.

People claim the mouse feels different? With acceleration disabled I honestly cannot tell the difference, and technically speaking, nor should I?
 
Mazzspeed said:
Just to put some perspective onto this, to be fair you are gaming @ 4k - I used to game @ 4k until I dropped back down to 1200p on a smaller monitor and realized the graphical improvement really wasn't as great as I thought it was considering the graphical demands.
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I'd agree that on smaller screens 4k is a smaller improvement (we are essentially fighting the ability of the eye to see any improvements here, so the difference will be small. Essentially what you are getting is a very computationally expensive form of AA.

Personally I game ~2' from a 48" 4k TV. It's a little larger than ideal (43" would have been perfect) but my goal was to replicate the normal desktop pixel density of ~100 dpi, and instead gain more desktop real estate and a greater field of view by going large. I absolutely love it and can't imagine ever going back.

Mazzspeed said:
People claim the mouse feels different? With acceleration disabled I honestly cannot tell the difference, and technically speaking, nor should I?
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Well, this was my own experience when I tried it, but if I am going to be fair, I have to admit it was a pretty long time ago, so maybe things have improved? I tried running some native Valve titles, like Counter-Strike when it first came out under linux, and was very unhappy with the mouse feel. I can't explain what was going on, but it just didn't feel right.

I guess I should reserve judgement here.

Other problems I had was many games constantly launching on my side screens instead of my center monitor, even when I clearly defined the center monitor as being the primary. The native version of Civ 5 also ran much slower under Linux than under Windows, and the graphical quality was much worse. I think in the port they just ignored any of the DX11 features and just ported the DX9 version of the Windows game over to OpenGL under OSX, and later Linux.

To your point though, things may have improved, and maybe I should try it again just to give it a fair shot, but I have to admit that my previous attempts left a pretty bad taste in my mouse and have significantly discouraged me. I don't want to have to figure with Wine every time I get a new title. I've fought with wine in the past and it is a bloody nightmare.

For whatever reason DXVK seems highly AMD-driven as well, with Nvidia features lagging behind. AMD doesn't make anything fast enough for 4k ultra 60fps yet, so I'll have to pass for now.

Maybe some day.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Other problems I had was many games constantly launching on my side screens instead of my center monitor, even when I clearly defined the center monitor as being the primary. The native version of Civ 5 also ran much slower under Linux than under Windows, and the graphical quality was much worse. I think in the port they just ignored any of the DX11 features and just ported the DX9 version of the Windows game over to OpenGL under OSX, and later Linux.
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I run dual monitors, all my games with the exception of one launch on my primary monitor by default. The one that doesn't I can change in the actual game settings to launch on my primary monitor, but TBH I can't see the point with only two monitors. I actually had issues with this running triple monitors under Windows back when I was running Windows as my primary OS, although that was ~ 5 years ago now. I had numerous issues running multi monitors under Windows, especially running Nvidia Surround...


Zarathustra[H] said:
For whatever reason DXVK seems highly AMD-driven as well, with Nvidia features lagging behind. AMD doesn't make anything fast enough for 4k ultra 60fps yet, so I'll have to pass for now.
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I don't think Nvidia is lagging behind in relation to DXVK? In fact from what I've seen Nvidia is performing better under DXVK, although the open source AMD drivers are improving in leaps and bounds now.


Zarathustra[H] said:
To your point though, things may have improved, and maybe I should try it again just to give it a fair shot, but I have to admit that my previous attempts left a pretty bad taste in my mouse and have significantly discouraged me. I don't want to have to figure with Wine every time I get a new title. I've fought with wine in the past and it is a bloody nightmare.
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I've quit using Wine and alternate front ends/installers like Lutris. I just use Steamplay/Proton and my experience is pretty much flawless. The Codeweavers devs are an awesome bunch and I admire their devotion to the cause.
 
Punish, just punish responsible users that check for updates.. WOW. That is disturbing.
 
And I thought google were jerks for having a check for updates button that did nothing at all in Android.. MS has them beat I suppose... Though Googles approach is pure crap too.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Huh. I always viewed the "check for updates" button as just a way to manually force an update check. It shouldn't be any different from the automated checks.

So what are you supposed to do if you need to make sure you have the latest patches and dont want this beta shit?

I really need to find a way to get an individual license for the Enterprise edition. Enterprise users wouldn't put up with this shit.

One of the many things I hate about Windows 10 is all the behind the scenes automation that I don't know what it does. I feel like I don't control my own computer anymore. I'd like to return to the days where my computer does NOTHING unless I explicitly tell it to.
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Having an enterprise license change nothing. We are putting up with this shit. I was just contemplating installing Windows 7 on my 7900X. The only version of 10 that doesn't get unwanted updates is the LTSB edition, but that's a whole other can of worms.
 
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