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Microsoft Operating Systems Windows IT Technology

Windows 10 Buggy Updates? Our Patching is Simple, Regular, and Consistent, Says Microsoft (zdnet.com) 197

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Microsoft has declined to comment on an expert's many complaints about the quality of its recent patches and cadence of Windows 10 feature updates. Earlier, Susan Bradley, a Microsoft MVP who for the past 18 years has volunteered her time helping Windows users, took a survey of over 1,800 respondents regarding the Windows 10 Update experience. She then sent an open letter to Microsoft executives summarizing the results of this survey and providing thoroughly researched material regarding the poor update experience Windows 10 users have been experiencing. In return, Microsoft argued in a blog that it gives admins all the tools they need to test and provide feedback before it releases Patch Tuesday updates. From a report: Microsoft's John Wilcox, who helps promote why organizations should move to Windows 10's Windows-as-a-service model has, at the behest of Windows pros, offered an explanation of its monthly Windows 10 quality update servicing cadence and terminology.

As noted by ZDNet's Ed Bott recently, IT admins who'd spent years learning about Windows Update needed to "prepare to do some unlearning" due to the many changes introduced by Microsoft's shift to a Windows 10-as-a-service model. "With Windows 10, Microsoft has completely rewritten the Windows Update rulebook. For expert users and IT pros accustomed to having fine-grained control over the update process, these changes might seem wrenching and even draconian," he noted. [...]

Wilcox outlines that Microsoft's guiding principles to its monthly Windows service updates are built around being "simple and predictable", "agile", and "transparent." Wilcox doesn't directly address patching expert Bradley's major complaints about Microsoft's patches of late, but said Microsoft's predictability meant IT managers should be able to handle its "simple, regular and consistent patching cadence."
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Windows 10 Buggy Updates? Our Patching is Simple, Regular, and Consistent, Says Microsoft More

Windows 10 Buggy Updates? Our Patching is Simple, Regular, and Consistent, Says Microsoft

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @07:48PM (#57066446)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      QDOS started out broken, and has stayed broken for 38 years.

      As a company, Microsoft had made one stunning achievement. Keeping the hulking wreck of patches, workarounds, incompatible compatibilities and combatible inconsistencies most of the way to upright. Windows is a tangled mass of three generations of spaghetti code the likes of which will never be surpassed. To patch such a binary is feat as audacious as it is ultimately futile. Sooner or later, the operating system will simply collapse under the weig

      • Install Gentoo.

        I'm a fan of Ubuntu Mate myself, but that's why we have all of the distros. A desktop with the interface you like, but the underlying programs just work.

    • And then it is already to late.

      And quite consistent. I get phone calls and emails after every update for people needing their computers fixed.

  • Simple, Regular and Consistent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @07:54PM (#57066470)

    I notice "Reliable" is not in there. Please add that one in, too, Microsoft.

    • Let's be honest, at this point an OS doesn't need much development. It's basically old tech. They of course can add new features, but they are not in RAD mode anymore. This is definitely calling for a development methodology that is more stable than it is agile. Agile means you can change your plans overnight: windows doesn't need that.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      "Simple, regular, consistent" sounds more like he is describing his bowel movements. I sense a new meme coming on.

  • Right... (Score:3)

    by cirby ( 2599 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @07:57PM (#57066480)

    ...like the Windows Update that kept trying to install itself over the last couple of months, failing each time after multiple restarts, then defaulting back to the old installation, no matter what I did.

    Finally, I downloaded the most recent one (bypassing the older version), and it still had problems. Until I unplugged all of my USB devices except my mouse and keyboard. THEN it installed.

    No problem at all.

    • Re:Right... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @08:21PM (#57066572)

      1803 (April 2018 patch) has been very problematic for me as well. BOTH my dev machines still can't update to that version, as it hangs or errs on installation. After failing to install multiple times over the course of several months, they both seem to have given up, leaving me at 1709. I'm sort of wondering how long 1709 will still get support. What happens if a Windows 10 machine gets "left behind" simply due to technical issues with patching? Answer: probably something I won't like.

      I've had more issues with patches in the last few years than I ever remember having in the previous decade or so. So, yeah, count me as being pretty unhappy about the lack of quality control in the patching process. Before a couple of years ago, that wouldn't have even made my top ten complaints.

      • With PowerShell:

        Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll -KBArticleID KB

        That hasn't failed a single time in the hundreds of times I've used it since March. Sad that the UI is such a mess that you have to resort to manually installing the updates one by one, but at least it works.

        • Appreciate the help, but I'm not sure that will work. I'm talking about a major feature release, not a KB patch. So, I'm not sure that approach will work.

          My understanding is that the next thing I should try is installing from a download Windows 10 ISO. I think that will simply avoid the need to patch altogether. To be honest, though, I'm thinking I might just wait and see if the next feature patch works before I try that, which will likely be released this fall. There's really no must-have features in

      • Have a machine at work still on 1607; disabled updates due to incessant issues, but after turning it back on recently, it refuses to update.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Wolfrider ( 856 )

        --If win10 landed on your PC/laptop 3 years ago and you didn't immediately start looking for viable alternatives, you're already well behind the curve. Try running something stable on the desktop like Ubuntu 18.04 or Mint, (or even OSX) and confine win10 to a virtual machine - so you can do snapshots and rollbacks easily.

        • I'm a videogame developer. I'm already running Ubuntu and macOS on separate dev machines because I plan to ship my game on all three of those platforms. In fact, I'm typing this on my Ubuntu machine now. Not running Windows simply isn't an option for many of us who actually have to ship a product that runs on it.

      • I've had more issues with patches in the last few years than I ever remember having in the previous decade or so. So, yeah, count me as being pretty unhappy about the lack of quality control in the patching process. Before a couple of years ago, that wouldn't have even made my top ten complaints.

        I've had update problems for years - back in XP days even. I think that Windows update has more problems the more hardware and software installed on the machine in the past, and now has problems with regular everyday things as well. That's a guess based on the plethora of failures.

        I do know that it has a lot of problems with audio, especially with virtual audio devices. But I have had no less than 3 mouse caused update failures this year. I know that mouses were only invented in March of 2018, but srsly?

    • Re: Right... (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I have a surface tablet that I got as a gift. The last couple of months it will download updates, fail to install them, and then redownload them. I only use it for watching shows so I really don't care what happens on it but it's already used 20 gigs of storage in the windows update folder (I forget the exact directory).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Calydor ( 739835 )

        Now imagine it doing that on a slow and/or datacapped connection.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mathew7 ( 863867 )

        I'm looking very closely to the new surface go.....I hope xubuntu 18.04 will run good on it.

      • I have a surface tablet that I got as a gift. The last couple of months it will download updates, fail to install them, and then redownload them. I only use it for watching shows so I really don't care what happens on it but it's already used 20 gigs of storage in the windows update folder (I forget the exact directory).

        Change it to "do not download updates on a metered connection" That will protect you a little - I have had Windows update ignore that a few times, but it helps.

    • ...like the Windows Update that kept trying to install itself over the last couple of months, failing each time after multiple restarts, then defaulting back to the old installation, no matter what I did.

      Finally, I downloaded the most recent one (bypassing the older version), and it still had problems. Until I unplugged all of my USB devices except my mouse and keyboard. THEN it installed.

      No problem at all.

      You know the zealots will pounce on this, saying it was your fault instead of Windows. My Mac has 8 USB devices plugged in with nary a problem on updates. My sole Windows machine has 3, yet half the updates fail unless I unlplug everything - weird that Windows can't handle a USB mouse any more.

  • So, basically... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GerryGilmore ( 663905 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @07:57PM (#57066484)
    ...."all your IT belong to us."
    Seriously, that is just the type of new-speak jargon for "we don't care about you, only your sweet, sweet dollars now that we've gotten you locked in, heh, heh, heh...".

    ANYONE still using Windows 10 is getting exactly what they deserve.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      Resolution: WONTFIX
      Reason: Works for me

    • Re:So, basically... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Saturday August 04, 2018 @12:24AM (#57067214)

      Its a strong natural monopoly. If you work at a site that has used windows / office for years, its very difficult to change. LibreOffice / OpenOffice are fine applications but they are not able to interact well with complex MS office docs. Some organizations like ours have lots of documentation in MS systems like sharepoint. When you have many years of infrastructure and documentation, its very expensive to switch.

      Some applications work better on Windows than on LInux, (Matlab for example), and others like Photoshop and Itunes won't run on linux at all (except in a windows emulation environment which sort of misses the point).

      Windows is still easier than Linux for non-expert users to use.

      I really dislike W10, and would switch to Linux if it did what I needed to do - but it doesn't.

      • FWIW Photoshop works rather nicely in Wine now, it has a "Gold" rating. Itunes works too, although with sluggish graphics. Check it out, it might be good enough for you. It has been for my needs.

      • LibreOffice / OpenOffice are fine applications but they are not able to interact well with complex MS office docs.

        Microsoft Office doesn't interact well with complex MS office docs. I've had some older documents that I've had to use OO to open.

        But now that you will soon be using Microsoft's Operating systemm on a rental basis, realize that it is a shit test - you will have ot take as much shit as you are willing to put up with.

        And the second you don't pay their ransom? What happens then - you going to be able to open and work on your documents? How much are you willing to pay for that permanent lock-in?

    • Re: So, basically... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jahoda ( 2715225 )
      ANYONE still using Windows 10 is getting exactly what they deserve.

      And by that, of course, you mean anyone who has wanted to purchase new hardware for their organization in the last several years?

      . It's the pretentious sanctimony and dunning-kruger arrogance that lets me know it's still /.

      • ANYONE still using Windows 10 is getting exactly what they deserve. And by that, of course, you mean anyone who has wanted to purchase new hardware for their organization in the last several years? It's the pretentious sanctimony and dunning-kruger arrogance that lets me know it's still /.

        I'll trade Dunning-Kruger for your Stockholm syndrome. You're putting up with Microsoft's shit because it is what you will put up with. And act like there is no other alternative. Enjoy your Operating System - it's the best, and always will be, because the only possible solutions are From Microsoft, world without end, amen.

  • Take a line from the Unixes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @08:01PM (#57066500)

    Microsoft should separate out the operating system, the applications, libraries and the user data a lot more and then with proper security measures and filesystem snapshots the operating system could be a lot better, easier to manage and easier to rollback.

    If something goes wrong on Linux or BSD I do an apt-get or pkg install with a specific version. With a ZFS boot volume, I snapshot before and after any major updates, something goes wrong it literally takes seconds to repair. On Windows, you can't roll much of anything back without destroying the OS.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Microsoft has already been doing snapshots FAR longer than Linux distro's. In fact, when an upgrade fails, it automatically rolls back these days (recovery in many ways is actually better than what most Linux distro's provide).

      It's also had proper security measures for ages (UAC is basically Sudo). In fact, even technologies like recovering when the display driver crashes have been in Windows far longer.

      I think the problem with Windows mainly is that people are still often viewing as Windows XP SP1. It's co

      • UAC is not basically Sudo, It's SUID with an additional Yes/No box for "added security". Don't know if I would count 10 years as "ages" either, especially not if you consider that Sudo have been around for 38 years now.

        Why people insist on using newer Windows for server tasks however is puzzling. I recently installed a Windows Server 2017 in VirtualBox to do some debugging on a clients behalf and out of nowhere in the middle of me work the screen turned blue with the "applying updates 1 of XX" message. I gu

      • Yes ... Which was superseded 20 years ago (Score:4, Insightful)

        by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @11:42PM (#57067142) Journal

        Microsoft made a very smart decision, which was exactly the right thing to do at the time. Then the world changed and what had been a good decision became a huge problem. Not because Microsoft was dumb, but because of a fundamental change in computing.

        > It's also had proper security measures for ages (UAC is basically Sudo)

        Yes, it is basically sudo, which was considered proper security ... in the 1970s. Windows has had it for ten years, so only 30 years behind. That model is called discretionary access control, or DAC.

        In the 1970s and 1980s, very secure systems had a much more secure model, called mandatory access control. That's more security than needed for a personal home computer which runs from a local disk, as opposed to a mainframe exposed on a network. A personal home computer only needed to be worried about virsuses on disks, because they used Disk Operating System, not a network operating system such as Unix.

        Then the world wide web happened. What had been your personal home computer was suddenly exposed to hackers around the world. The level of security needed, the way one thinks about security, had to change radically. That's why Linux got Mandatory Access Control in the 1990s, first as an optional module, then as a built-in part of the kernel, called SELinux. Since the late 1990s, MAC has been "proper security". Windows may get it in about ten more years - they recently got the *nix userland.

        I said Microsoft ended up in this situation by doing something smart. In the 1970s, computers cost as much as a house (particularly with important accessories like hard drives). Microsoft wanted a system people could run at home, on affordable hardware. That meant a few kilobytes of memory, and a 360KB drive. A drive that can store 360KB isn't much. To make that work, Microsoft would have to delete 80% of the OS compared to mainframes. It made perfect sense to delete stuff home users wouldn't have any need for. Before the web, they had no need for any of that security stuff, so Microsoft didn't include any in their OS.

        Microsoft spent 190-1994 (and a billion dollars) developing a new future of computing. The key underlying technology was called COM. Their vision of the future was finally ready for beta testing when it got it's name, Windows 95. But something crazy happened. In 1995, the world wide web became a phenomenon. There was a whole new future of computing completely different from what Microsoft had spent years developing. At first they tried to stop the web, then tried to turn it into a bunch of COM programs (by renaming COM to ActiveX) which would run only in Internet Explorer. That didn't work, of course. HTML was too good of an idea to be stopped.

        Microsoft starting fighting. Trying to save their vision of computing. Mobile showed up and Microsoft tried, but missed. Tried again and missed. They fought against Linux, they fought against the open internet, and they fought against the government potentially breaking the company into pieces. They fought for 20 years and in all this fighting they didn't accept the reality, the new needs, and build a solid, secure operating system - they improved some things, but didn't catch up on security. Remember they started off about 30 years behind on security, which was actually the smart thing to do at the time.

        A few years ago Microsoft leadership really accepted they had lost the fight. They have started embracing Linux and open source. They now know they and their systems are just one more player in a huge global network - one full of dangers. It takes a few years to reverse the culture all through a behemoth the size of Microsoft, so pockets of old-school Gates and Balmer-style thinking remain. They are improving on many fronts.

        Of course their new thing is Windows as a service, paid for in part through the Facebook model of giving up all your privacy and control. We'll see how that works out. Facebook is an enormously successful company, so maybe the same model will work for Microsoft.

    • Have you actually used Windows? You've been able to roll back updates, restore files, etc. for who knows how many versions - so many that I can't remember a time when you couldn't.

      • Since Vista, I think. So, like 11 years ago? But I'm sure GP will still get "Insightful" or "Informative" mods, even though all of what he's asked for has already been done, and what he talked about doing in Linux or BSD you can also do quite easily in Windows.

        Windows has its share of problems without having to make stuff up about it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        I don't think you understand the difference between Windows' restore checkpoints and a true snapshot of a file system. A snapshot restores the data even if the OS doesn't know how to. There are plenty of instances where update rollbacks don't work or make things worse, filesystem snapshots obviate that problem completely by rolling back to a known working state.

    • lot of Linux updates don't need an reboot! on windows at least 1 an month.

  • Simple, regular and consistent poops (Score:3)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @08:01PM (#57066502)
    Until the whole thing gets diarrhoea. An unexpected reboot that breaks things or installs bubble witch saga is usually what happens.

  • But dat lying doe (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03, 2018 @08:13PM (#57066542)
    Microsoft is so full of shit that the Couric scale measuring it broke in half. Windows 10 with no updates can be quite "simple and predictable" but updates carry a massive risk of installation failure with irreparable OS damage compared to my experiences with Windows 7. I neuter the Windows 10 update system on all my Win10 machines because the updates are guaranteed to mess up the system at some point; it's not "if," it's "when." It also doesn't help that every feature update rearranges the control panels and loses control panel functionality, and when Microsoft says "send us feedback so we know" and feedback is sent, it is FUCKING IGNORED.

    They're fucking lying. Microsoft the company has no regard for the needs of the users. I'm sure several engineers there really do care, but they can't fix the problems caused by the weenies that think they're too smart and users need to be dragged kicking into their new paradigm. To hell with user interfaces that have slowly evolved over decades and proven to stand the test of time! To hell with the most fundamental usability concepts! To hell with everything that works! We're AGILE! But somehow also SIMPLE AND PREDICTABLE! Because that makes sense when Satya's ya boy!

    Fuck you, Microsoft. Give me back my fucking Default Programs where I can unilaterally assign one program to all possible defaults with one click, otherwise go fuck yourselves.

  • My problem with updates is time (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @08:14PM (#57066546)
    I've had patches take over 2 hours to install, and woe be onto you if you turn your computer off in the meantime. I don't even know what the hell it's doing. These are not slow computers. i5 6600U & 8 gigs of ram.
  • I also find windows update to be very approachable and down to earth. You know, an update you'd like to have a beer with at the bar.

    • You know, an update you'd like to have a beer with at the bar.

      Usually, you'll have time to go out for a whole night on the town with each update before you're allowed to log in again.

    • Win 10 updates are like that ugly drunk chick (or hunk depending on your proclivities) at the bar that you take home. Why? Because you know at some point in the VERY NEAR future its going to fuck you. Maybe hard, fast and unforgettable, maybe it will be a forgettable experience that you shrug off in the morning... but you are gonna get fucked.

  • I find it hard to recommend windows for almost any purpose. Microsoft has squandered, time and again!, opportunities to salvage their reputation among the technically advanced users and enterprises with leadership that knows their arse from their elbow. So they are left with non-tech end users and enterprises with poor technical leadership. I suspect that won't end well. Hopefully (for shareholders), they will be able to hide this revenue loss by roping in Office365 and Azure customers.

    Run away.

  • When companies respond this way, it's over (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You know the game is over when the higher-ups start responding like this. That is the "You don't know what you want" attitude that has foreshadowed the failure of many companies and projects. They're grasping at straws, frustrated, unable or unwilling to understand the problems, and unable to recover...

    Stick a fork in it, Microsoft is done.

    (of course with the amount of money they have, they won't go under any time soon; they will probably be a corpse still gasping for air in 100 years)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tsa ( 15680 )

      Hm. Steve has done that almost all his life and look where Apple is now.

      • Hm. Steve has done that almost all his life and look where Apple is now.

        Nope - Apple is generally giving it's customers what they want. You probably just don't agree with what their customers want. I want my computer to work after an update. When my computer doesn't work, I don't.

        My Apple computers work after updates. It's a pleasant surprise when my Windows machines do. Which is not to say that using my Windows 10 computer is a pleasant experience.

        • Youâ(TM)re partly right. Steve knew what his customers wanted even before they themselves knew it.

  • Denying a user's software freedom is unjust. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Friday August 03, 2018 @08:25PM (#57066592) Homepage

    For expert users and IT pros accustomed to having fine-grained control over the update process, these changes might seem wrenching and even draconian...

    How proprietors use their power over the user power varies and perhaps increasingly obtuse, but is completely explainable in terms corporate media mostly doesn't dare to explain even as it documents a proprietors' excesses: the power is firmly rooted in denying users software freedom—the freedom to run, inspect, modify, and share published computer software. Proprietary software users get as much control as the proprietors let them have. Microsoft has shown its users a taste of their power before such as when Windows 10 ignored user's privacy settings [eff.org] (including sending identifiable information to Microsoft, even if a user turns off its Bing search and Cortana features, and activates the privacy-protection settings [arstechnica.com]) or when Microsoft forcibly and immediately imposed "upgrades" to Windows 10 [arstechnica.com].

    DRM, jailing, tyrannical control, surveillance, interference with ordinary activities, and sabotage are all there [gnu.org]. When and if Microsoft deems it time for Windows users to take their updates without warning or opportunity for delay (including enterprise users), Microsoft will do so. This isn't unique to Microsoft either, this is part of an ongoing pattern of which Microsoft is but one proprietor wielding this control. Proprietors get to make these decisions stick based on your willingness to submit to their authority; you determine the limit of their control over your system by how long you'll let proprietary software (such as most of Microsoft's software) be installed on your computer. You can choose to favor software freedom instead, even if it means giving up some conveniences and learning new things. In doing so you take a step in the direction of controlling your computer and getting back the power you deserve over your computer.

  • Useless Machine (Score:5, Funny)

    by jetkust ( 596906 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @08:28PM (#57066614)
    In the future Windows will evolve into a Useless Machine. When you turn it on, it's only purpose will be to get an update and turn itself back off.

  • They may think what they wrote is true, but, (Score:5, Interesting)

    by flappinbooger ( 574405 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @08:50PM (#57066684) Homepage

    It simply isn't.

    Windows 10 updates are out of control. They claim they intend to schedule them at proper or convenient times but they don't. The computer will just up and reboot at the most inconvenient time.

    They are NOT stable, they DO break, and files DO go missing. One computer I support did the 1803 update and all the files were gone. The profile was still there, the files were gone. I found them - they were IN THE TRASH.

    WHY? WHY MICROSOFT? Why did you see fit to upgrade this PC and throw away the user's files? Are you sending a message? Is it personal?

    You can say the solution is Linux. For many geeks and power users that is true.

    I have another solution, 4 simple letters.

    LTSB

    • One computer I support did the 1803 update and all the files were gone. The profile was still there, the files were gone. I found them - they were IN THE TRASH.

      This is the funniest thing I read all week. I can't imagine the bug they had!.........good thing Microsoft is now running agile and don't use checked exceptions. It's easier when you don't think about what can go wrong.

  • UI feed back sucks way to long of looking stuck.

    Server 2016 is really bad with that.

  • Certified systems (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @09:00PM (#57066724)

    I'm curious how administrators managing certified/validated systems are handling this. Generally speaking the user of such systems is not supposed to install changes that they have not tested and do not control. If Microsoft is removing the ability for system administrators to understand or manage updates how are they maintaining certification status?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I work in a blood bank, FDA and state health department regulated. We're handling this by running Windows 7. That's the last version of windows we can run on our validated systems. Office workers get Win 10. We plan to go MacOS after 7.... sux but true.

    • Don't conflate these issues. They say users and IT pros when talking about Windows in general. Windows in general and windows in an organisation sitting behind a controlled WSUS Server managed by a group policy set are two different things.

      MS will always offer a flavour of Windows with control over the update process. Just not to commoners.

  • With the amount of data (Score:3)

    by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @10:17PM (#57066932) Journal
    M$ collected from all its Windows 10 users, a good understanding of new OS upgrades should be possible?
    What is M$ doing with all the OS use, software and hardware leave data?

    M$ set its own min hardware standards for every Windows 10 upgrade so each computer should be new and powerful enough fully support Windows 10?
    Do users CPU, RAM and GPU need more OS level resting to find hardware faults?
    How hard is it for a company to write and test an OS upgrade for their own OS given they understand every aspect of their own design?

    What is causing the problems? Users buying the wrong RAM/CPU hardware that has too many faults?

  • What planet is he from? (Score:3)

    by CharlesAKAChuck ( 1157011 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @10:36PM (#57066974)

    Wilcox outlines that Microsoft's guiding principles to its monthly Windows service updates are built around being "simple and predictable", "agile", and "transparent."

    Did he somehow miss Microsoft's July patches?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I think he did not say anything about "good quality". "Predictable" loses its value when it is "predictably bad".

  • Until admins have some kind of recourse to take against $Microsoft when ^Boss can't get to his funny cat pictures and passes :( admin over for his next raise because of a forced update that broke stuff, there will always be hate/strife.

  • A lot of MS hate (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LordWabbit2 ( 2440804 ) on Saturday August 04, 2018 @03:22AM (#57067538)
    All I am seeing is a lot of MS hate. But consider this. They have been doing their "patch Tuesday" stuff for a long time. Most times it works flawlessly, and no one even notices. When in a couple of cases PC's have problems... well that is what everyone remembers, and they label ALL of MS's updates as fucking useless. I would also like to point out that if you work in a company that has competent engineers they will test the updates on a series of test PC's before rolling it out to the rest of the corporation. Yes, they can do that MS has given them the tools, but lazy fucking engineers don't bother, so they end up causing widespread issues before they realize that update xyz is not compatible with us because we use hardware abc. Whose fault is that? MS? sure, because they released the update, but crashing all the PC's in a company, well, that's the fucking companies engineers fault for not properly testing first. There is a LOT of disparate hardware out there, the fact that windows update works for most people most of the time is fucking amazing, if you can't see that then all you want to do is hate MS. If you hate MS so much why are you even using windows?

  • The only good thing you can say about MS is that whatever they do it is consistently bad.

  • Microsoft now a hardware company with a range of PCs which come in very restricted hardware flavours actually have the ability to test their software against a control group. So why is it that every other patch tuesday we hear stories about Surface models bluescreening, melting down, batteries not working, type covers not working, to say nothing of the graphics driver issues they have experienced with software MS has released specifically for these devices and not the general population.

    It should not be up

  • No clue? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The Cynical Critic ( 1294574 ) on Saturday August 04, 2018 @04:32AM (#57067676)
    Reading their responses, in which they don't even respond to what's actually being brought up, I somehow get the feeling that their corporate communications policy literally doesn't allow them to admit mistakes, so instead they just try to pivot and go on about something only tangentially related rather than admit that patches have been an absolute mess for the last few years. Only problem is that their move to turn Windows into a Software-as-a-Service type deal is only going to make the buggy patch problem worse when admins get less control over what patches are installed.

    Then again I do understand why they don't want to address and admit fault with their shoddy testing and QA practices. Windows 8 and now 10 have after all been the way better advertisements for Linux, Mac OS and other alternatives than anything their creators could conjure up and they're obviously noticing how IT admins are once again looking at alternatives (the last time being when Windows 10 came out).

  • There seems to be a trend of companies countering arguments about highly defective software with 'oh, well it's because we are Agile'. Of course, Agile doesn't mean that you have to ditch your QA or anything, but it's a narrative a lot of software companies roll with. It's also interesting because even using the excuse is suggesting they think the users asked for it and the users are all just getting what they asked for. I see this a lot with companies, they paint their picture of the user base with broa

  • We don't care about your facts, we feel it's different.

  • ... Wilcox outlines that Microsoft's guiding principles to its monthly Windows service updates are built around being "simple and predictable", "agile", and "transparent." ...

    "simple and predictable", "agile", and "transparent." --- I notice that "high quality" is not mentioned in the goals for the patches. It shows in the low-quality patches that Microsoft has been thrusting upon its customers ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H data harvesting sources. It seems that Microsoft no longer cares about quality.

  • Our Patching is Simple, Regular, and Consistently Buggy, Says Microsoft.

    It seems it's a feature. . . .

  • The Problem is the Quality. NOT the Process (Score:3)

    by DERoss ( 1919496 ) on Saturday August 04, 2018 @10:02AM (#57068562)

    I am still using Windows 7, not Windows 10. I log all the updates to Windows and associated Microsoft products. When I review my logs, I see a large number of updates replacing prior updates.

    Starting at the beginning of 2014 (when I had to have Windows 7 re-installed), 69 updates were replaced. Three of 69 replacement updates were subsequently also replaced. One of those re-replacements was even again replaced.

    At the moment, I am holding up the update for KB4338818, which causes unacceptably adverse “Known issues in this update”. Those issues are supposed to be fixed by an update for KB4338821, which has not yet been released.

    Having spent 30+ years as a software test engineer testing software used by the U.S. military to operate its space satellites, I can tell that Microsoft relies too much on its customers to be unpaid testers. This is why I have always disabled the Windows automatic update capability. It seems that Microsoft's record with Windows 10 updates is no better.

  • For may years I dabbled in Linux distros as a hobby, using MS Windows for interaction with my paid work, as employer used exclusively MS systems and tools.
    Thus Windows 98 to windows 7 all went reasonably well, but update of Windows 7 to windows 10 caused major upsets to older software designed for Windows 7.
    I battled on but updates to 1703 took a long time and then ceased thereafter to update!
    Since version 1703 Windows 10 has never completed and update.
    As I was free of paid work, I used machine on a USB bas

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