[foobar1962]

A comment at the end of the article:

>Lost productivity to malware = 0hrs. Lost productivity to windows auto updates = 28 hrs. Sitting here right now losing time and money to an unauthorized update. I know how to avoid malware on my work laptop.

That's a bit like how some people (who weren't THERE) think the Y2K-thing was a non-event: they didn't see all the work that got done fixing things before the big day.

[pooper]

Sorry, friend but you are wrong on this. A simple change would fix the problem which is don't restart the computer! You can update anything and do anything when the computer is plugged in but please don't restart the computer or at least let users decide when they want to restart their computers. Even fedora does a better job with software updates. There is a checkbox when you turn off or restart the computer. If you check it, fedora will install updates and shut down/reboot. Why is this so difficult?

Security without usability is worthless.

[moreless]

What do you mean "even Fedora"? Linux had updates figured out decades ago. They are applied in the background (so you can keep working), usually don't need restart, and if reboot is needed, it's just that - a fast reboot without applying any updates and similar. Because they were already applied, you just boot to a new copy of kernel + modules.

Windows always sucked at this, it just took a turn for worse in Windows 7 and 10. If I tried to come up with a more annoying updates system I really couldn't. It's incredible how difficult it is for them to pull their act together on this one.

[pooper]

Sorry, i didnt mean it as an insult. I use fedora every day but i imagine they have fewer resources than Microsoft does.

I am not sure about windows 7 and 10. We are arguably better off today than in the ActiveX days. It made no sense to require using windows internet exploder to download windows update.

[rainbowmverse]

If an update is ready, Windows (at least as of 10) offers an option to update and shut down when you open the power options menu. The random reboots and periods where the computer is unusable (while it gets updates ready) are still annoying.

[jmkni]

> This malware is tracking everything I type, but at least it's not slowing me down

[youdontknowtho]

I don't even know what to say to the guy you are replying to. Holy...just wow. Can you imagine trying to fix something when some of your users are just unwilling to let you try anything to fix it?

[JoshTriplett]

> Can you imagine trying to fix something when some of your users are just unwilling to let you try anything to fix it?

That's what happens when you 1) don't understand the problem you're solving, and push things that aren't appropriate updates through an update mechanism, and 2) lose user trust.

[youdontknowtho]

Do you really think that they don't understand what problem they are solving?

Compare the number of patches vs windows 7 or the number of cases that require a reboot since XP...they are working towards a better system. That being said, I really, I'm not trolling here, think that you can't make users happy in this age. People have been trained by interactions with crap companies, Microsoft included, to go from 0 to apoplectic immediately just to get a resolution. There's no benefit to being a happy user, you won't get your issues looked at...and there are always issues!

[JoshTriplett]

> Do you really think that they don't understand what problem they are solving?

Yes. Every single person who turns Windows Update off should be considered a critical bug, and their use case should be understood and fixed. The fact that they instead still use it to push anti-features means they still don't understand why people still turn it off.

If they started, today, focusing heavily on getting people to trust Windows Update again and leave it turned on, they'd have a massive uphill battle. But I've seen no signs that that's a focus at all.

[youdontknowtho]

Wow, man. Talk about back seat driving. Why do you think that they have spent over a decade refactoring the operating system into smaller components that can be installed and updated independently? What about peer-to-peer updating and all of the updates that not only don't require a reboot but don't require any user intervention whatsoever?

Something that is an "anti-feature" to you is someone else's (in the case of windows, several million someone else's) every day must have.

[JoshTriplett]

That's not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about things like misclassifying updates as "important" or "critical" rather than "optional" to get them installed onto more systems, which makes people stop trusting that distinction.

[pjc50]

The laptop which reboots at an inconvenient time isn't "fixed", from the user perspective it's "broken".

It has to be unobtrusive to achieve acceptance.

[Anderkent]

You say sorry and you try to make the upgrade process less disruptive.

[youdontknowtho]

They've been doing that over the last couple of OS versions. XP to 7 to 10. Granted it's still not great, but it's improved vastly. It has a long way to go. I just think that it's really hard to please end users these days for a variety of reasons that don't all relate to software quality.

[plorkyeran]

Windows 10 updates are far more disruptive than XP's ever were.

[youdontknowtho]

That's just not the case. I've been a system administrator for a very long time and I can promise you that updates on XP were much worse. Much, much, worse. XP was better than 2K, but wow is 10 better. It's a different world altogether.

[Anderkent]

They've had a problem of upgrades being painful/slow/difficult, and so people not doing the upgrades. They've fixed the second part by taking away the choice; the first is barely changed.