Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by darkcha0s 2421 days ago
Remember that you aren't their focus group. Their focus group are people with little to no knowledge of computers, and these services actually help.

That being said, how often is system update happening for you that its really a problem? It's a point that I see being repeated over and over, but I don't think I've had any interruption at all from system updates, beyond windows doing the occasional update before power down.

And also about the housekeeping activities -- Why would it continuously seek? Beyond fragmenting, indexing or defender scanning your files that shouldn't be happening, and I don't think I've ever had that be a problem...

2 comments

"People with little or no knowledge of computers" would actually benefit the most from a LTS-like version of the OS, with security updates _only_, and flexible feature upgrades every two years or so. That you can't get with Windows 10 (as an individual user), but can totally get with e.g. Debian Stable, and without paying a dime. Isn't that a bit ironic?
In my experience people annoyed by updates are mac users who are starting Windows VM once in a few months which will obviously download tons of updates and will ask to restart almost immediately. And, yes, as Windows did not have enough time to do its housekeeping, it'll do it, slowing down the whole experience.

I'm using only Windows in the last few years and it was never a problem for me. Windows asked me to reboot exactly once. Other times I just had "power off and install updates" menu item instead of "power off". That said, I'm powering off my PC every day, may be it matters.

It's especially fun when you are just about to run out the door, trying to pack down your work laptop and all the options you get is "Update and shutdown". Perfect if the computer will be spending the next four hours in a closed backpack and the car/bus/train/boat/plane is leaving NOW. If the laptop is older than two years you can't trust the battery to keep long enough for the update to finish and besides, how hot will it get in the backpack?
I haven't been using Windows a lot in the last years (as you said, updates annoy me a few times a year, but I still take the time to do them), however, a lot of Windows users have told me and others in our hackerspace that the first thing they do is to disable Windows Update when they install Microsoft Windows, so I suppose that they are really annoyed by updates.

I think most of them cling to the idea of a computer that doesn't need any kind of maintenance (except on the hardware side), which is something I can totally understand, but is not currently doable, at least if you want to keep connected to the rest of the world.

(Of course, we do tell them that if they want their computer to be connected to the outside world in any way, updates should not be disabled, and that maintenance is necessary).

Which is exactly what I was trying to convey in my original comment. I feel like the base that has a problem with the updates are a small vocal minority, which seem to be present any time Windows is mentioned on any HN thread. I have met plenty of people who develop/work on windows every day and don't have that problem.
There is another, silent, group : the ones that don't have any problem with the updates, because they disabled them, or because the local computer expert who installed their computer disabled them. They are also not vocal at all, since they "don't have any problem". (And this is also not only a problem on Windows).