[jnwatson]

I'm not a huge Apple fan at this point, but implying that other platforms don't have this problem is somewhat disingenuous.

Updates brick device across many platforms all the times. I've had plenty of PCs break from updates.

That you can even recover from a T2 failure at all without opening it up is quite nice. Perhaps my standards are low.

[SahAssar]

Not many other general purpose computers require another computer to fix.

Most windows and linux machines can be reinstalled with a USB stick. If you don't have that USB stick they can usually be written with any macos, windows or linux machine.

Updates do not usually brick machines. I'm guessing your PCs that broke did not require another PC running the exact same windows version to fix? And I'm guessing that if those PCs were made within the last 5-10 years you could restore from recovery and not need another device?

[at-fates-hands]

> Updates brick device across many platforms all the times.

A few weeks ago, I fired up Adobe Photoshop from their CC platform. No go, something, something about an intel compatibility.

Do online and start googling the error I was getting.

Seems the newest version determined that my quad core Xeon processors didn't support SSE 4.2 or later. A LOT of people were fuming online that in order to run the latest version, they would have to get a new PC or laptop with a new processor that was now required for the newest version.

The current solution for many is to now install an earlier version until they figure out what they want to do. Ironically, I still run a lot of stuff on my old Mac Mini so I found out that I can run the most recent version of Photoshop on there instead.

I haven't checked into the issue for a week or so. I'm still not sure if anybody came up with a solid solution without having to buy new equipment.

[Bqhatevwr]

> Seems the newest version determined that my quad core Xeon processors didn't support SSE 4.2 or later. A LOT of people were fuming online that in order to run the latest version, they would have to get a new PC or laptop with a new processor that was now required for the newest version.

I was with you until I looked up when SSE 4.2 was introduced.

SSE 4.2 was introduced in the Nehalem architecture...twelve years ago for desktop processors, ten for xeons. I really don't see anything wrong with Adobe requiring a processor newer than ten years old for software used by and large by creative professionals, people who make money with it.

If you're a creative professional working off a twelve year old computer, you're wasting money just from lost productivity waiting on that system - as well as flushing money down the drain on all the wasted energy running the system, unless you live somewhere electricity is insanely cheap.

A new computer would literally pay for itself in reduced power consumption alone, both idle and loaded wattage. A Ryzen 3600 uses less than half the power of a lot of xeon chips, has a single-core performance 50%+ higher than the very fastest second-gen quad core nehalem, and has two more cores.

Same goes for a modern GPU - everything is GPU accelerated these days, and you can get a several year old Nvidia card that is so power efficient the fans aren't even spinning most of the time.

Then there's the huge performance boost of NVMe.

The list goes on. Dude(tte). Buy a new computer. Or one at least made in the last 5-6 years?

[Kwpolska]

Can a Windows update brick a PC? I’m pretty sure it can’t, because it does not update the firmware of the main system controller. You might end up with an unbootable copy of Windows if you’re unlucky, but it’s fairly easy to fix it with install media or a recovery partition, and you might be able to recover any data your backups don’t cover (you make backups, right?). If you don’t have any install/live media for Windows or Linux, it’s trivial to make those with any working computer (Linux, Windows, macOS), including a friend’s. But if a macOS update nukes your T2 chip’s firmware, you need access to another Mac and the appropriate cables.

[jimmaswell]

We shouldn't applaud that it turned out to be possible to fix this thing after grueling effort (and the company trying to push purchasing a replacement) when the security chip was an unnecessary user-hostile blight in the first place.