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[Ovek]

Were you not able to postpone it a second time? I've never encountered an issue with updates forcing me to restart while I was using my PC.

Windows 10 is my favorite Windows OS.

Don't think you can if it's a critical security update. I could be wrong but I'm sure MS can force updates on if they want to, the only exception would be the enterprise and education editions because they have IT departments that should be on the ball (they never are).

Anyway blame all the idiots in the past that never installed updates and then blamed Microsoft for their computer getting fucked over by malware etc.

 

[Rushersauce]

I've installed Windows 10 in every single computer I have, and 0 ISSUES. These PCs range from 2009 to 2015

 

[XOMTOR]

After it downloads and gets ready for an update, it gives you a few days before it forces you to restart to install the update, so your hypothetical only works if you're purposely leaving your computer on for a long time without checking for an update.

Heck, when it's ready to install an update, it even sends you a notification saying "updates are ready to install, restart when you want to update"



Windows 8 had virtually the same update system. It was even a little bit worse because iirc it didn't have active hours.

Windows 7 had that nonsense of spawning that tiny box in the corner asking you to update and if you ignored it it would just force reboot.

Plus leaving your computer on for weeks is terrible both for the environment and your install. Consumer Windows isn't designed to stay on indefinitely. With modern SSDs and the change to making restarts more of a hybrid between full shutdown and hibernation there is very little reason not to shut down your computer from time to time.

What are you talking about? I'm typing on a Win 7 laptop that hasn't been restarted since May 16 (the last time I manually checked and installed updates). Machine is fast, hasn't a single issue and has only 55 processes running.

 

[pestul]

I've installed Windows 10 in every single computer I have and 0 ISSUES. These PCs range from 2009 to 2015

I've had a similar experience for the most part. I upgraded about 15 PCs to W10 and have only heard very minor complaints. I have it on a Xeon 5650 (2009), Alienware m11x (2010) and Xeon 3440 (2010) systems. My server rebooting at night was the biggest issue but that's resolved now. Uptime is excellent. I'd say better than even W7 in my experience.

 

[mhayes86]

Yep, it's MS patch week. Check your Update settings. My laptop actually randomly rebooted recently after pulling an update.

Coworker had his machine reboot similarly and it fucked the VM he was in the middle of running. Windows 10 is a pain but at least uninstalling Cortana completely is nigh impossible.

The pop up ads from my OS were enough to make me dual install Ubuntu.

Yeah, it can't be 100% removed, but with gpedit, you can disable Cortana and the web search options from Computer Settings. The OS search is so much faster without it.

This is terrible advice and how the most recent malware hacks got propagated.


OP is your computer controlled by an IT department? If so, tough shit, update when the updates get pushed. If not there is an option in windows updates to defer major updates while still getting security patches.

A good IT department would have deployed updates over night and not in the middle of the day.

 

[diunxx]

Still going strong with windows 7.

 

[chromatic9]

Not had any technical issues on my i7 930 machine.

Updates can be annoying though but I get to postpone them for at least a week. The regedit tweaks for updates don't seem to work on the W10 home version, I've implemented them 100% exact a few times. I know Pro users can do this through group policy.

If it wasn't for gaming I'd be on Linux or other OS. I'm an old school desktop user, I have no need for the jumping over the couch in a plush apartment fun Microsoft want.

 

[tokkun]

After being forced to install Creators Update, I could no longer launch games, as they would all crash on startup. Tried a bunch of stuff to fix it before eventually just reinstalling the OS, wasting an entire day in the process.

If Microsoft wanted to start forcing updates, they ought to have put some more investment in improving the update process first. Updating Windows is terrible compared to any of its competitors.

- Linux almost never requires a restart to apply updates due to proper separation of system components.
- OSX can restore all your open applications when restarting, so it is not disruptive.
- ChromeOS updates are lightweight and super fast.
- None of them seems to need to reboot my computer without my consent.

Windows is a complete dinosaur in comparison, with updates rendering your computer unusable for tens of minutes at a time and causing you to lose work if you were not around when the computer decided to reboot on its own.

 

[Wiped89]

Windows 8 and 10 are shit.

I rejected the free upgrade and am still on 7. In fact I recently reinstalled onto a new hard drive and still went with 7.

Don't see why I'll ever need to upgrade.

 

[RionaaM]

I haven't had those problems exactly, but Windows 10 certainly has gotten more "noisy" in the last few months. I keep getting pop ups informing me that Skype is a thing that still exists (even though I haven't used it in years) and the One Drive shit is even worse. I set it not to automatically start with Windows or run pretty much ever, but every damn day there's a pop up urgently asking me to sign in with my non-existent One Drive account.

Oh yes, I've had the OneDrive pop-up appear several times. MS is pushing ads into my desktop, screw that. It also pins the Edge and Windows Store icons to the taskbar every time there's a major update, forcing me to remove them again and again.

I miss the days when the OS was a tool for you, and not the other way.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I've had relatively small, odd issues since installing the most recent version of Creators. Borderless Fullscreen mode introduces tearing in games for the first time ever, regardless of what GPU driver I used. Also my external USB 3 HDD randomly disconnnects and reconnects, something that was happening years ago but stopped. Now it's back and I don't know why. I'm patiently working through both but I don't like having to fix things that haven't been broken because MS changed something.

I'm also having an issue where my desktop CPU fan ramps up more often than ever before. Again the only meaningful change is the new OS update. The one that added 3D paint. Even opening the task manager can trigger a brief fan speed and volume increase.

 

[Diprosalic]

10 has been the most hassle free OS i've ever used and i pretty much used all of the bigger ones since 2000.

Love it.

 

[nicoga3000]

As bad as Microsoft is at times, they actually fixed this problem. Unfortunately in your case, the IT department didn't install the Creator's Update.

Does the Creator's Update allow you to put off installing updates indefinitely? Because that's one of the biggest piles of shit MS did with the new Windows. Let me decide if and when I want to update.

It's also fun when it auto-updates and fucks up my media server when I'm not home.

 

[Apzu]

After creator's update I don't have as many problems as I had before. Still I'd say Windows 10 is the worst windows OS I've used by far, I have had more problems with it than with 95, Me and Vista.

 

[tokkun]

Does the Creator's Update allow you to put off installing updates indefinitely? Because that's one of the biggest piles of shit MS did with the new Windows. Let me decide if and when I want to update.

It's also fun when it auto-updates and fucks up my media server when I'm not home.

No. You can configure the number of days before it will force restart, but there is a maximum value they allow you to set (45 days IIRC).

 

[nicoga3000]

No. You can configure the number of days before it will force restart, but there is a maximum value they allow you to set (45 days IIRC).

Is that a feature that I can set, or do I have to see the "hey update me now or later?" dialog box pop up?

 

[Mammoth Jones]

See this is why I don't want to go back to windows. Ugh. Was considering a windows laptop since I can get beefy hardware for the price.

But christ I like to install updates when I want to.

 

[SpiceMelange]

See this is why I don't want to go back to windows. Ugh. Was considering a windows laptop since I can get beefy hardware for the price.

But christ I like to install updates when I want to.

You can with windows pro and up. I never get prompted for any updates.

 

[Silent Chief]

This is terrible advice and how the most recent malware hacks got propagated.

Have a computer that stops working intermittently or one that might stop working permanently? Both sounds equally bad to me, 50/50 toss.

 

[tokkun]

Is that a feature that I can set, or do I have to see the "hey update me now or later?" dialog box pop up?

You can set it in Group Policy Editor if you are using a version of Windows that supports it. I'm not sure about other ways.

However, it will not prevent that dialog box from popping up. All it does is change the point at which Windows -stops- giving you a choice and restarts without asking.

 

[Setsuna]

I feel like I havent had an update in months

I dont see how people are always having issues

 

[Dreams-Visions]

You can with windows pro and up. I never get prompted for any updates.

I'm on pro and put off the big updates seemingly indefinitely via a variety of suggested methods. Went to restart my computer one day and one of the big updates started installing anyway. Rolled back within an hour as some of my most use programs broke.

Ended up upgrading again after a clean install. Was just kinda like "fuck it let's see what happens". I have yet to have as smooth an experience as vanilla W10 after any of these larger updates. It's the niche applications that may not get updated regularly (or at all anymore) that suffer the most. Weird stuff like borderless fullscreen tearing is unexplainable to me, however. I assume MS doing something to fuck it up when it had been perfectly fine for a decade.

I feel like I havent had an update in months

I dont see how people are always having issues

Cool contribution. You don't need to see how people are having issues. All you need to do is accept that they are.

 

[Fuu]

Heard some whining at the office recently concerning an update taking too long when people turned on their computers and needed to start working. I try to update during a monthly maintenance I do on everyone's computers, but this time it wasn't possible to avoid.

Otherwise W10 has been pretty good as far as work goes (I work on a Mac, but the rest of the office people are on Windows and aren't computer savvy), especially compared to the shitshow that previous versions managed to be (aside from W7).

 

[captive]

Yep, it's MS patch week. Check your Update settings. My laptop actually randomly rebooted recently after pulling an update.



Yeah, it can't be 100% removed, but with gpedit, you can disable Cortana and the web search options from Computer Settings. The OS search is so much faster without it.



A good IT department would have deployed updates over night and not in the middle of the day.

some people take their laptops home. I've deployed updates for end users at large organizations. I gave a WEEK for you to shut down and restart, including a weekend, and people would still complain because they wouldnt update by the deadline and then the deadline would come and fuck their shit up.

I've even had one idiot hold the power button down to turn the computer off during the part of windows updates that says "do not power off your computer - windows is updating" she bricked her own computer. People are fucking stupid, sorry, but they are.

 

[Crayon]

I don't think there's a single OS out there that can update every part of itself without restarting. Google's introducing something in the next version Android that might be able to do something like that? Not sure.

Any Linux I've tried can do all updates without restarting. Most will prompt you to restart if you need/want to update the kernel. Even that is just a default precaution. You can live patch your kernel if you want.

 

[Jigolo]

I agree OP the recent shitshow I've been dealing with is unable to open settings... how the fuck is this glitch possible.

I tried to download this 300kb fix from MS and it didn't work. I just shut down the computer . I don't even feel like using the shit right now

 

[Zepp Twofist]

I don't think there's a single OS out there that can update every part of itself without restarting. Google's introducing something in the next version Android that might be able to do something like that? Not sure.

Linux are working towards that, and even then it never forces you to restart ever.

In general I get the reason for why MS have decided to handle updates like this with Windows 10, but they have chosen the worst and most user hostile "father knows best" way to deal with the issue.

As for their decisions regarding ads, data collection, pushing unfinished feature updates on users and the continued nerfing of features from the Pro version there are no excuses beyond greed. If there wasn't so much software locking me in I would have jumped ship months ago.

 

[Drifters]

Ok, I just need to vent. I was a long supporter of Microsoft products, but Windows 10 is one of the worst OS I ever work with.

So today I need to do a critical job on my notebook that would take 45 minutes. So I turned it on, started the ONLINE program and so... After 10 minutes a message pop saying the Windows need to restart to apply updates, giving me an option to restart now or delay it for 15 minutes "to save my work". Chose the delay imagining that I could delay it again, but noooo after 15 minutes, 25 after starting my test, another message pops saying rebooting. And it already passed another 15 minutes and the thing still "rebooting".

Fuck MS. Don't you know that some things cannot be saved/paused?

This is precisely why I left Windows for good and only use MacOS or Linux now.

 

[Red Liquorice]

Windows 7 had that nonsense of spawning that tiny box in the corner asking you to update and if you ignored it it would just force reboot.

No it doesn't.

Some of these issues sound like you just need to go in to the regular settings (no fancy registry shit) and just tick/untick a few things.


IIRC, Win 10 Pro allows you to postpone updates, it's only Home that doesn't(?)

 

[Sora the Cat]

Windows 10 never freezed on me, it also never forced me to restart, ever. And I've never seen a single ad or Cortana (Where is she?) I don't know what I'm doing different from you guys.

Idk, it's just work so good for me, always fast and snappy. I do have it on an ssd tho.

 

[Tertullian]

Windows 10 is an OS made by scumbags. I would pay cold hard cash for a 3rd party program that could do all of the following simply and intuitively without me having to do regedits or whatever:

- Disable the lock screen, or (at my preference) eliminate all lock-screen ads

- Prevent Microsoft from pushing advertisements for Skype, OneDrive or any of their other shitty software to my computer

- Prevent my computer from sending any diagnostic or user information to Microsoft

- Prevent Microsoft from ever receiving any information from me that could allow them to build an “advertising profile” of me

- Scrub the OS clean of Microsoft Edge and Cortana entirely, if possible. If not, block Cortana from doing anything whatsoever, while still allowing the search box in the start bar to search local files, and perform web searches (using Google search in Chrome, obviously)

- Give me complete, intuitive control over all updates

- Prevent Microsoft from ever installing any of their awful modern “apps” on my computer without my express permission

- Prevent the OS from randomly sucking up all the CPU power and RAM

- Prevent the OS from doing anything CPU-intensive, long, requiring a restart, etc. without explicit permission

- Generally restore all functionality that should be in the Pro version but that Microsoft reserved to the Enterprise version

 

[Sakura]

When something like WannaCry or the Petya virus infects your PC don't be upset when you learn that the exploit was patched months ago.

You aren't gonna have any problems as long as you aren't going to shady/suspicious sites, aren't opening attachments you don't recognise etc. Basically if you are computer savvy the chances of you getting infected are pretty low.
When I was doing tech support I had far far more calls from people whose computers had issues after Windows updates going through, than from people who had issues that could've been prevented if they had only installed updates.

 

[ElNino]

It astounds you that after previous versions of Windows allowed you to keep postponing updates while you were finishing work, people expect to be able to postpone an update while they're finishing work in this version?

To be fair, my office laptop on Windows 7 does not allow my to postpone an update for more than 30 minutes either, and then it will force reboot to install.

 

[AndyMoogle]

Isn't this a step backwards though? Back in the Windows 95/98 days, sure rebooting occasionally would make things start working more smoothly again.

But with Windows 7 (and 8?) you could literally get weeks of uptime with typically zero issues. Has that changed just because updates are more frequent now?

Updates are less frequent nowadays. Only the second Tuesday every month.

Personally, I have never had Win 10 force restart on me.

You aren't gonna have any problems as long as you aren't going to shady/suspicious sites, aren't opening attachments you don't recognise etc.

No, that's really not the only way to get infected. Unless you count Neogaf as a shady site, considering that there has been malicious ads here in the past. There are a lot of legitimate sites with malicious content out there.

Also, all wannacry needed was an open SMB port towards the Internet. Being exposed to the Internet is all it takes sometimes. Especially with an unpatched OS.

 

[gohepcat]

You aren't gonna have any problems as long as you aren't going to shady/suspicious sites, aren't opening attachments you don't recognise etc. Basically if you are computer savvy the chances of you getting infected are pretty low.
When I was doing tech support I had far far more calls from people whose computers had issues after Windows updates going through, than from people who had issues that could've been prevented if they had only installed updates.

Noooooope

Good god.

A simple google search has...by far...been the biggest vector for infection for our users.

It goes like this.

1. Do a google search for something
3. Open 1st result on machine with unpatched browser/OS
4. Malware exploits unpatched machine without user intervention.
5. Proofpoint blocks site within an hour or so.
6. Google blocks site within 1 to 2 hours.

Update your shit always. Turn on autoupdate for friggin everything.

 

[Blizzard]

To be fair, my office laptop on Windows 7 does not allow my to postpone an update for more than 30 minutes either, and then it will force reboot to install.

That's probably a group policy thing though. Windows 7 normally lets you postpone in 4-hour chunks otherwise, and it doesn't reboot until you click the button.

Updates are less frequent nowadays. Only the second Tuesday every month.

In that case, a 2-4 week uptime should be completely normal and functional. That's what was boggling my mind about the earlier poster's comments that long uptime is bad for a system.

 

[hrab]

- Disable the lock screen, or (at my preference) eliminate all lock-screen ads

Where do you see those ads? I have W10 Pro, and the only ads I see are when I open start menu and see some crappy game proposals like Candy Crush. My lock screens has always been pretty pictures only.

I agree that W10 sucks though, have it on my desktop and laptop for two years now, and always had bunch of different problems on both. Quite recently my quick actions stopped working at all, were always disabled and didn't allow me to switch my WIFI network, because available networks list was never appearing on desktop (funny enough it was showing on the lock screen). Spent a lot of time on the internet looking for the solution, in the end had to make a proper reinstall.

Also every time when I connect my laptop to a monitor, and then disconnect it, I can no longer minimize my applications, need to manually restart the explorer to make it work again.

And couple of times it switched the default applications I've installed (browser, movies etc), to their own, just like that, without ever asking me. One day GoG Galaxy stopped working for me as well. And steam was starting with two error popups first before actually launching.

After formatting my computers recently they are working nice so far, but I'm sure soon it will soon find new ways to piss me off.

And these automatic downloads like Candy Crash are just pathetic, they really have no shame.

Pretty and quite fast OS though, makes a very good use of my hybrid drive in the laptop.

 

[The Futurist]

I know it has had it's issues, but the main problem with Windows is that is requires a bit more from the user. Sometimes you need to be more proactive with knowing settings and changing things you don't like. That's not a good design choice from Microsoft, but a lot of the things that people complain about can be avoided.

I've been using it for a while and I love it.

Can't complain about 7 either, but 10 has been rock solid. Don't think I can even think of an instance where it caused me an issue.

 

[QuantumZebra]

You were warned.

I adore Windows 10 / Server 2016.

This is fucking gold. I'm making it my work background.

 

[ElNino]

That's probably a group policy thing though. Windows 7 normally lets you postpone in 4-hour chunks otherwise, and it doesn't reboot until you click the button.

Sure, but isn't that what we're talking about here as well? My Surface Book has never forced me to reboot while I was using it, and most of the time I don't even notice it has updated since it happens in the night when I'm not using it.

This appears to be a work environment PC forcing an update that isn't able to be postponed, which is the same as Windows XP/7 depending how it has been configured. Hell, I usually don't even get a prompt when my work PC updates, all of my programs simply start closing.

 

[Cannon Goose]

Aside from some wonkiness with the Creator's Update (which seems to have fixed itself or could be disabled) I absolutely love Windows 10.

Aero gave me performance issues in Windows 7, and in Windows 8/8.1 the Update client would break on a weekly basis. I lost sleep trying to fix that fucking thing and reinstalled Windows countless times but never actually fixed it myself. Thankfully all that stuff went away as soon as I installed 10 and I've been happy ever since.

That being said, there is one minor issue I have that I would love to solve. I have a USB microphone and in Windows 10 the Boost and Enhancement options are missing in the recording devices panel. If I plug in a standard mic cable I get those options but not for my USB mic. My research indicates that this wasn't an issue in earlier versions of Windows and has been a problem with 8.1/10 for years.

 

[Yeoman]

It's such a shit operating system. The thing that's always surprised me about Windows is just how prone parts of it are to just breaking or crashing for no given reason.
Not to mention "microsoft compatibility telemetry" which decides to trash my harddrive on random days - and before anyone asks I've turned it off like 8 times (including via the registry) it somehow keeps renabling itself.
Let's not even get into the catastrophic Control Panel vs. Settings nonsense.

 

[jetsetnickradio]

I haven't had any issues with Windows 10. In fact, I think it's a great OS. 7 feels so ancient to me now whenever I'm on a machine that still has it.

My only complaint about 10 is that they keep changing parts of the UI. I work in IT and sometimes I do support over the phone and the user will have an older version of 10 with different-looking menus.

 

[jstripes]

Windows 10 is a great OS with a lot of boneheaded and questionable features.

 

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Automatic update downloading + manual installation is still the best Windows Update configuration. It sucks that the setting is hidden within Group Policy, which in turn means it's only available in Windows 10 Pro instead of Windows 10 Home.

Agreed.

If you give users the ability to go back and revisit a program with the idea of letting them save their work and quit, they will, without a doubt, abuse that privilege and pretend that they don't have to restart.

You put a time limit on that and threads like these will still exist, just instead with people complaining that Windows only gave them ten minutes to save everything before restarting.

Plus, if you do the thing where you check if the user has been active for the past several minutes, you'll have the same people saying "I left my computer on with my work open and it restarted wtf!!!!!" because you can't assume a computer not actively being used is one you can safely restart. (It's why they introduced the active hours thing--that's a far better way to judge if a computer's safe to restart because the user can define when not to restart the computer, but they're not allowed to set the entire day).

Really, complaining about the ticking timebomb--all software on the scale of Windows where most of the users fail to comprehend on how it works and how best to organize workflow to both stay secure and at high efficiency, you have to make the assumption that the user cannot be trusted and must be given as little ability as possible to create loopholes around stuff like this. Heck, I work at a division of IBM where we handle server software, and over the last few weeks we've had division heads continually reminding people saying "hey we still have servers with SMBv1 enabled why is this happening we thought we told you guys to disable it weeks ago" and those are people who write server management software for a living.

Like this is why I questioned your familiarity with software programming, you can never trust the user to work with you and install updates when they should or not insert sql commands into your online forms, etc, etc. That is something you learn very early on.



I don't think there's a single OS out there that can update every part of itself without restarting. Google's introducing something in the next version Android that might be able to do something like that? Not sure.



the win7 stans are almost as bad as the winxp stans back when win7 first hit the scene. fine the last windows release was a little rough, but refusing to update now that there's a better windows version out that brings forth updates you probably actually would make use of doesn't make you smart, it just makes you stubborn.

Yeah, I agree with the majority of this. I think this thread is proof positive of confirmation bias, too: it only takes one or two forced restarts that interrupt critical workflows to sour one's impressions, and this bitterness likely inheres in: (1) group policy settings at the enterprise level and (2) preset (or user mis-set) configurations.

FWIW, it's undeniably critical to have a patched, upgraded OS. Everyone in this thread saying they'll disable updates is objectively wrong -- but I get, on some level, some of the lingering frustration.

"Active hours" is likely the best compromise. No disagreement there.

I'm not surprised by the breakage rate among substantial updates, but the borking of my installation when it went from (I think) vanilla to Anniversary, requiring a full reinstall -- combined with the admittedly less striking but still there disjointedness of the entire experience (e.g., two systems settings/control panels!) -- caused my dissatisfaction to rise.

Either way, I guess I'd take Windows 10 over the Windows 8 Metro I use at work.

 

[Tertullian]

Where do you see those ads? I have W10 Pro, and the only ads I see are when I open start menu and see some crappy game proposals like Candy Crush. My lock screens has always been pretty pictures only.

Those "pretty pictures" are ads. Ever hover over the little text that says "Like what you see?" They're ads, often for vacation destinations. They might be unusually tasteful ads, but Microsoft is still getting paid to shill to you.

Hey, looks like I might be wrong though: they can be disabled in the Pro version? Not entirely sure.

 

[Mendrox]

Windows 10 killed two of my laptops after an update so far. Wasn't able to recover anything at all even with backup point. Also it's making my work more difficult atm because we still need Windows 7 at the moment (in talks with Dell for new machines etc.) and KabyLake is not Windows 7 supported. It's okayish...

 

[Patrick Young]

Get an enterprise license.

We still have Pro licenses on the laptops I rolled out at work. I like it because everyone's finally forced to update their shit for once. I set every laptop to defer feature updates, so I can tell them when a big update is coming and to restart their shit at home.

It also gives me a chance to bugfix over the three months to prepare a patch.

 

[Knch]

Ever hover over the little text that says "Like what you see?"

I have, it gives me the option to say whether I like it or not and gives me a new picture if not... If they are ads I have no clue what for...

 

[GuessWho]

it's not a perfect OS but it is a great OS. I love it.