What sends noobs running back to Windows?

[Marie SWE]

2018, ever month a Windows 10 date that would wipe printer drivers or screen drivers ...

Okay.
I always pause software updates for 365 days and security updates for 7days.. that way the systems stays more stable.

I had never heard of people loosing data on updates before, so it was a new one for me..... and a rollback to 7 is even worse.

2018
Microsoft Explains Why Windows 10’s October 2018 Update Was Deleting People’s Files
https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/microsoft ... les-files/

windows 10 (October 2018 update) (version 1809) deleted all my files
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 4bfef9039a

Maybe get data back
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/m ... 18-update/

2019
Windows 10 Keeps deleting my files
ttps://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-keeps-deleting-my-files/55d95dcb-020a-45f2-8f67-5088b462abe3

2020
Windows 10’s New Update Is Deleting People’s Files Again 2020
https://www.howtogeek.com/658194/window ... les-again/

Feb 2021 MS had to patch its patch after it failed.

it was software updates..
This is a good example why you never-ever should install updates directly when they are released.. always wait a week for security updates and longer for software updates.. When it comes to software quality features, you don't really need them if you don't experiences a bug or things like that.
To blindly install updates the first day is to play Russian-roulette since windows vista.
This sometimes goes for Linux too.

[antikythera]

Or at least backup beforehand, but the same goes for linux too

Acronis True Image is perfect for the job as far as windows is concerned. It can do Ext4 as well but I find foxclone is quicker and more convenient

[RollyShed]

it was software updates..
This is a good example why you never-ever should install updates directly when they are released.

Except MS can lock it in to update automatically whether you want it or not.

It might be of interest to see how many people say update as soon as possible or how many used to say that.

from the web - "Microsoft prioritizes updates according to their importance. If you see "critical" updates, it's vital that you install them as soon as possible."

Should you update windows as soon as possible -
Yes, usually," wrote Tim Fisher in Lifewire. "The updates that, on most computers, install automatically, often times on Patch Tuesday, are security-related patches and are designed to plug recently discovered security holes. These should be installed if you want to keep your computer safe from intrusion."

However after the bungles over the past few years a number of people are saying don't update as soon as possible.

"And MS updates will take 6 to 8 hours."
How ridiculous is that !!!!! I can do a total Linux install in 8 minutes and update maybe nearly as long.

Backups - the case I mention, went from Windows to Linux, everything was backed up on another disk which is why the MS one day, Linux the next caused so little trouble.

[Marie SWE]

Except MS can lock it in to update automatically whether you want it or not.

It is possible to prevent MS to update automatically.
there is several ways to stop auto updates. one easy way is, I don't know the exact name for the setting in english, but you set that if you pay for you data traffic. that will prevent from auto update downloads, and then you can do the updates manually instead.

It might be of interest to see how many people say update as soon as possible or how many used to say that.

from the web - "Microsoft prioritizes updates according to their importance. If you see "critical" updates, it's vital that you install them as soon as possible."

That is a lot of people that say install as soon as possible to keep your system safe.. that goes for this forum too.
I always wait to see if people start complaining about broken updates or system starts to fail in different ways... if no one have complain within a week.. then its probably safe to install the updates. let others be the guinea pigs if you want a stable system... and never install a OS until it is the second or third dot release.

"And MS updates will take 6 to 8 hours."
How ridiculous is that !!!!! I can do a total Linux install in 8 minutes and update maybe nearly as long.

yes it is.. and it is all the software quality and new feature updates that take long time... if you only stay with the security updates, you will have a shorter update time... and you don't get the surprises of news or weather things popping up in the taskbar.

[Drugwash]

one easy way is, I don't know the exact name for the setting in english, but you set that if you pay for you data traffic.

That'd be setting the connection as a metered connection.
Such as with my HSPA modem which is limited to 5GB download monthly at max device speed (approx. 44Mbit/s?) which afterwards becomes approx. 120kbit/s.

[Marie SWE]

one easy way is, I don't know the exact name for the setting in english, but you set that if you pay for you data traffic.

That'd be setting the connection as a metered connection.
Such as with my HSPA modem which is limited to 5GB download monthly at max device speed (approx. 44Mbit/s?) which afterwards becomes approx. 120kbit/s.

thanks for the input.
I don't remember all setting-names in my head and they often has different translated names.

[diabolicbg]

Have excellent free programs...
https://www.sordum.org/9470/windows-upd ... cker-v1-7/

[Guilden_NL]

Apart from hardware support and perhaps not a good enough equivalent to their favorite/most-needed programs, there's also lack of real live person tech support. We may be fine doing multiple Google searches but that's not gonna cut it with most people I've interacted with.

eg if they can't get on line because their wifi receiver isn't compatible.

This can be an instant dealbreaker. I tried to dual boot Ubuntu Breezy with XP years back on a laptop. Couldn't find a working fix so it was years before I tried Linux again.

Where do they get "real live person tech support" for Windows? I keep one laptop running Win 10 for the very odd edgecase where I need to check something for a customer outside of their environment. Can't remember what the issue was, but around a month ago I went through the massive amount of MSoft support tickets in their forums with nothing but dead ends. ZERO live tech support available. I eventually figured it out on my own and moved on.

I've found that my customers who spend many millions with Microsoft can't get live tech support from them.

[Guilden_NL]

Except MS can lock it in to update automatically whether you want it or not.

It is possible to prevent MS to update automatically.
there is several ways to stop auto updates. one easy way is, I don't know the exact name for the setting in english, but you set that if you pay for you data traffic. that will prevent from auto update downloads, and then you can do the updates manually instead.

It might be of interest to see how many people say update as soon as possible or how many used to say that.

from the web - "Microsoft prioritizes updates according to their importance. If you see "critical" updates, it's vital that you install them as soon as possible."

That is a lot of people that say install as soon as possible to keep your system safe.. that goes for this forum too.
I always wait to see if people start complaining about broken updates or system starts to fail in different ways... if no one have complain within a week.. then its probably safe to install the updates. let others be the guinea pigs if you want a stable system... and never install a OS until it is the second or third dot release.

"And MS updates will take 6 to 8 hours."
How ridiculous is that !!!!! I can do a total Linux install in 8 minutes and update maybe nearly as long.

yes it is.. and it is all the software quality and new feature updates that take long time... if you only stay with the security updates, you will have a shorter update time... and you don't get the surprises of news or weather things popping up in the taskbar.

No enterprise allows auto updates due to compatibility issues (they test with all of their apps before releasing to user systems) and the horrible history of MSFT updates that crash systems.

I keep one laptop on Win 10 purely to test things outside of my customers' environments (I may do things completely against their security protocols as a short cut to save time as one example) and I block auto updates. Even when I go 6 months between updates (I read through user experiences and stay away from known problematic updates) the longest I've seen an update process go is 20 minutes. No idea where hours come into play, even on a very old and low memory system.

[Marie SWE]

No enterprise allows auto updates due to compatibility issues (they test with all of their apps before releasing to user systems) and the horrible history of MSFT updates that crash systems.

I keep one laptop on Win 10 purely to test things outside of my customers' environments (I may do things completely against their security protocols as a short cut to save time as one example) and I block auto updates. Even when I go 6 months between updates (I read through user experiences and stay away from known problematic updates) the longest I've seen an update process go is 20 minutes. No idea where hours come into play, even on a very old and low memory system.

exactly, enterprises have there tech-department doing the updates and it is on the off hours to minimize the impact of the business. then you can push the clients updates you want thru the local server.
six months between updates is a bit to push it in a business environment.

[ivar]

I support around 500 windows machines (workstations + servers) at work, using a centralized tool. Usually pushing them out a couple days after patch tuesday after following treads on the sysadmin reddit to watch out for potential problems. That saved me a lot of headaches from the january 22 updates, which put domain controllers into a boot loop. So I was able to just defer those broken updates and wait to apply the updated updates, lol!

Otherwise, i have very few horror stories to tell

[MurphCID]

I support around 500 windows machines (workstations + servers) at work, using a centralized tool. Usually pushing them out a couple days after patch tuesday after following treads on the sysadmin reddit to watch out for potential problems. That saved me a lot of headaches from the january 22 updates, which put domain controllers into a boot loop. So I was able to just defer those broken updates and wait to apply the updated updates, lol!

Otherwise, i have very few horror stories to tell

That is a lot of computers to keep running and running right. My old county is still having issues with the ransomware attack that occurred, and is just now getting email back up and running. We did not pay, other counties and cities did pay.

[Guilden_NL]

exactly, enterprises have there tech-department doing the updates and it is on the off hours to minimize the impact of the business. then you can push the clients updates you want thru the local server.
six months between updates is a bit to push it in a business environment.

6 months is the longest I've gone between updates. It's one stand alone laptop and two reasons for that time I waited so long - 1.) I hadn't needed it for a while, and 2.) there was a very bad update around that time, so I held back until I actually needed to use it.

I think the longest I've seen with my enterprise customers is two months. Same issues - bad release and waiting for it to be remediated, and sometimes coupled with a big internal release of an app that was tested on a specific Windows update.

[Guilden_NL]

That is a lot of computers to keep running and running right. My old county is still having issues with the ransomware attack that occurred, and is just now getting email back up and running. We did not pay, other counties and cities did pay.

Imagine 150,000 desktops. I have several customers around that amount, some a little higher, some a little less.

Twenty years ago I worked at a global IT Services company who was managing over 3 million desktops. Of course, they were split by customer, but that was the total amount that one of my colleagues was ultimately responsible for.

[Marie SWE]

exactly, enterprises have there tech-department doing the updates and it is on the off hours to minimize the impact of the business. then you can push the clients updates you want thru the local server.
six months between updates is a bit to push it in a business environment.

6 months is the longest I've gone between updates. It's one stand alone laptop and two reasons for that time I waited so long - 1.) I hadn't needed it for a while, and 2.) there was a very bad update around that time, so I held back until I actually needed to use it.

I think the longest I've seen with my enterprise customers is two months. Same issues - bad release and waiting for it to be remediated, and sometimes coupled with a big internal release of an app that was tested on a specific Windows update.

aha, okay, then i understand.

[MurphCID]

That is a lot of computers to keep running and running right. My old county is still having issues with the ransomware attack that occurred, and is just now getting email back up and running. We did not pay, other counties and cities did pay.

Imagine 150,000 desktops. I have several customers around that amount, some a little higher, some a little less.

Twenty years ago I worked at a global IT Services company who was managing over 3 million desktops. Of course, they were split by customer, but that was the total amount that one of my colleagues was ultimately responsible for.

OMG! That is a LOT of computers to keep running, and to fight human stupidity.

[Guilden_NL]

OMG! That is a LOT of computers to keep running, and to fight human stupidity.

I think that was why "lockdown" was his favorite word.The difference in pricing to manage companies that blocked USB and other external storage, and those that didn't was considerable.

[MurphCID]

OMG! That is a LOT of computers to keep running, and to fight human stupidity.

I think that was why "lockdown" was his favorite word.The difference in pricing to manage companies that blocked USB and other external storage, and those that didn't was considerable.

The county I retired from two weeks before I retired was hit with a Ransomware attack that used bitlocker to lock down all computers that were on the network. No idea how it came in, but I have been retired for over a month, and they are just now finally getting back up and running. They refused to pay the ransom, and so it was format and re-install. They actually went so far as to pull drives and install new ones. Email just came back last week, and there are still systems that are down. I cannot imagine the agony of larger organizations that get hit with such events.

[ivar]

Where do they get "real live person tech support" for Windows? I keep one laptop running Win 10 for the very odd edgecase where I need to check something for a customer outside of their environment. Can't remember what the issue was, but around a month ago I went through the massive amount of MSoft support tickets in their forums with nothing but dead ends. ZERO live tech support available. I eventually figured it out on my own and moved on.

I've found that my customers who spend many millions with Microsoft can't get live tech support from them.

+1,
.. or just being told to run SFC /scannow, whatever the symptom was. And those dead links sure are annoying when you think you finally are onto something, and then nothing

[rambo919]

snip

A lot of the time this is not really "Deletion" but rather "Reset to Defaults".... so never leave anything important in a "Default" area.