Windows 10 . Anybody downloaded it yet?

[RFS]

2 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

You can also access the reliability history from the Control Panel via Security & Maintenance:

 

 

(You can access the Control Panel by typing "control panel" in the search bar.  I don't know why they took it off the start menu in favour of the rather limited Settings function.)

 

I've simply created a shortcut on the desktop with this as the command - C:\Windows\System32\perfmon.exe /rel

[Free At Last]

Although I have a drive with W10 and keep it updated I still prefer to use W7, however this is the second time in a week I have noticed Microsoft Security Essentials has been turned off without any notification and I have to manually restart it so I get my auto weekly scan.

Microsoft are continuing to provide signature updates for Microsoft Security Essentials until 2023, so what is turning it off?

[Jonboy]

I would be tempted to use a third party antivirus to scan it at this point (either malwarebytes free version, or the eset free online scanner personally) to make sure its nothing that shouldn’t be there.

 

[melmerby]

Windows Updates coming thick and fast

I've had them on the 8th, 12th & today 15th.

The 8th, for some reason wasn't picked up around it's release 27/02/20, the others were released the 10th & 12th March

[ejstubbs]

I had a Windows update on the 13th - I wasn't aware of it at the time but it is showing in the log.

 

What is annoying is that Windows unilaterally and without warning rebooted overnight.  I know this because I logged in to a clean desktop with no applications running when I started using it on Saturday morning.  If nothing else I would have expected a notification that it had done it.

 

More annoyingly, it seems to have done it again overnight last night, trashing some work that I was doing in AnyRail.  I've looked in the updates log and there doesn't seem to be anything there that would have required a reboot last night.  Looking again, though, I see there was another update dated 11th March but nothing for the 8th.  Could it be that the one timestamped 11th March was the one dated the 8th -  i.e. 11th March being the date that it was installed - that didn't actually trigger a reboot until the 13th/14th - and thus the one last night was actually the update timestamped 13th March?

 

Either way, being given no warning of an update being required is unacceptable.  I checked a few of the update settings and I found that the toggle for notifying me when an update requires a reboot was off.  I'm 99.999% certain that I wouldn't have changed that setting, so it looks rather like something Windows contrived to do of its own accord.  Unless I have some sneaky malware, but I did run scans last week with Malwarebytes and Spybot which came up clean.

 

This definitely looks like changed behaviour, and I'd really like to know what's causing it and how to stop it.

[raymw]

all settings, update and security, advanced options.

[ejstubbs]

6 hours ago, raymw said:

all settings, update and security, advanced options.

 

Yes, I went there.  Which setting in particular do you think I should be changing?  As I wrote above, I found the "Show a notification when your PC requires a restart to finish updating" toggle in the off position, which I believe must have been changed somehow - and not by me - because I'm pretty darned sure that I used to get notifications.  The "Restart this device as soon as possible when a restart is required to install an update" toggle was, and as far as I know always has been, off.

 

If there's another setting there which isn't obvious and would solve my problem then please clarify.

[melmerby]

7 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

 

What is annoying is that Windows unilaterally and without warning rebooted overnight. 

In the settings Windows will re-boot "out of hours", unless set not to, however it can only do this if the PC is left on.

If you switch off (if not why not?) you will see it finish the install when you re-boot.

If there is unfinished work that wasn't properly saved it will trash it.

 

When it has done an automatic download and install you will  see a note by the power icons when you come to power off.

e.g. Restart or Restart and shut down.

[raymw]

You can pause updates (7 days for home, 35days for pro., iirc ). Just make sure you update b4 the due date, and you can pause updates again

[ejstubbs]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

In the settings Windows will re-boot "out of hours", unless set not to

 

Can you elucidate how one sets it not to?  I've been through all the settings in the "Update & Security" section of settings and can't see any way to do that.  I can change the active hours, but only up to 18 hours in total out of 24.

 

I don't power it off because it's a VM, running on a machine that needs to be on 24x7 for other reasons (plus I'm lazy, and I like to be able to start working on it any time I feel like without waiting for it to boot every time).  I could virtually power off the VM but there doesn't seem much point.

 

The VM was installed during the initial Windows 10 rollout (it was a Windows 7 VM and had the free upgrade to Windows 10 when MS actively offered it).  It has been kept updated ever since then without any issues, apart from needing to be prompted by me to go look a few times when I'd noticed other folks getting an update that hadn't yet reached me.  As I've tried to make clear above, as far as I'm concerned this reboot without warning is recent, new behaviour.  So what's changed?

 

Then again, maybe I'm wrong and it's always done this but I've never, in all the years I've been running Windows 10, noticed it before.  Is there a log somewhere of each reboot that I could check to see if it has actually being doing this all along?

[Butler Henderson]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Can you elucidate how one sets it not to?  I've been through all the settings in the "Update & Security" section of settings and can't see any way to do that.  I can change the active hours, but only up to 18 hours in total out of 24.

1. On the Windows Update screen pause updates for 7 days

2. On the Windows Update screen - Advanced  Options, Pause Updates will allow you stop updates for up to 35 days

 

[ejstubbs]

23 hours ago, Butler Henderson said:

1. On the Windows Update screen pause updates for 7 days

2. On the Windows Update screen - Advanced  Options, Pause Updates will allow you stop updates for up to 35 days

 

I know.  Did you miss the bit in the text you quoted where I said I'd been through all the settings?

 

But telling it not to do any updates for a certain period is not the same as getting it not to reboot out of hours, which is what I specifically asked for guidance about.  It would be a consequence of pausing updates because, not having updates to apply, it wouldn't have a reason to reboot - but as soon as the first update arrived after the end of the moratorium period it'd be off again rebooting out of hours.  So not a solution to my particular problem either.

 

Having tracked down how to find reboot records in the system logs, I am beginning to wonder whether I might actually be mistaken in thinking that it didn't used to do out of hours reboots without telling me.  I still can't recall an instance of it happening previously, though - certainly not so as to lose work that I'd left unsaved.

 

I think my best option for now is to make sure that I do at least save my work between sessions on the VM.  It's probably a tribute to the reliability of both the host machine and Windows 10 in the VM that I got rather too lax about that.

[RFS]

Cumulative updates for Windows 10 are usually issued on "Patch Tuesday" which is the second Tuesday of the month and precisely at 6pm UK time. One way of controlling this process is to manually do a "check for updates" soon after 6pm at a time of your choosing, so you can then control when it's done. 

[melmerby]

51 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

 

 

I think my best option for now is to make sure that I do at least save my work between sessions on the VM.  It's probably a tribute to the reliability of both the host machine and Windows 10 in the VM that I got rather too lax about that.

That's the most sensible thing to do.

I always save anywork before leaving a computer, either temporarily or shutting down.

Minor variations that can easily be re-created get saved over the previous one, major revisions get a new file name.

I also tend to save work over various drives in case of failures.

Over the years (nigh on 30 years of PC use) the most frequent failure has been the storage device.

[raymw]

My desktop pc is on 24/7. Most of my data is on  my local windows server, and that is backed up daily to a cheap, small (about 4 inches square by 1inch high) headless pc with 4 off 4Tb  usb 3 wd element drives.  I use 2 bright sparks free synchback to copy the server files over  to two of the drives, and then copy those drives to the other two, and remote desktop to control the headless pc, if needed. Windows file history is useful to get to previous file versions if I screw up my programs I'm working on, git would probably be overkill in my case. As mentioned I pause updates and ensure I update monthly or earlier, before the paused date is reached, and have a few spare minutes available, then I pause updates again. An ssd for drive C:, gets the updates installed pretty quickly on the desktop. Using the cheap PC and usb drives, allows me, if that pc fails, to hook the usb drives into any available pc, imho that is more secure than any proprietary NAS system. The 4 TB drives were about £80 each, the pc (with w10) was £116, and a four way usb3 hub £15. The small pc is quite slow, but with the usb3 drives it is more than adequate for streaming videos across the network, etc.

 

Windows server is good, but the version I have (v12 r2) is being de-emphasized, and there will be problems with it and the latest w10, but v19, is too expensive for my needs, so when it falls over, i may well repeat my small pc solution.

 

Tempting providence here, but I've had very few snags with w10 updates.

[Butler Henderson]

23 hours ago, RFS said:

Cumulative updates for Windows 10 are usually issued on "Patch Tuesday" which is the second Tuesday of the month and precisely at 6pm UK time. One way of controlling this process is to manually do a "check for updates" soon after 6pm at a time of your choosing, so you can then control when it's done. 

and set it not to pause updates for 7 days. Also suggest a manual check later in the week (Friday or Saturday) in case an emergency patch of the patch has been issued.

[raymw]

interesting change wrt passwords https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/04/04/next-windows-10-update-to-recommend-users-change-passwords-for-pins/

[raymw]

Not specific to w10, but interesting. (video on audio cassette)  https://youtu.be/D5zV1mC4E3w?t=665

[Ian J.]

Regarding pins instead of passwords, of course a pin tied to a local device and never shared to a server is not going to get compromised without access to that device. But if the local device is set up to use a local account and not an online one, then a password is more secure than a pin. The problem here is that MS is trying hard to force us to use an online Microsoft account for regular logins. This very concept is the root of the insecurity, as Windows of old never required that (unless in a networked Active Directory environment).

[melmerby]

I have a Microsoft account but none of my devices use that to log in to Windows, even when a new install "demands" using/creating a MS account to log in, I set up a local one instead.

 

Surely a PIN is no more than a 4 digit password on a local account and therefore not considered very "strong"?

 

[raymw]

The pin is linked to the hardware. If someone, for example steals a credit card, (apart from being able to get £45.00) they will also need to know your pin. The pin is not usable on another card (unless by luck), and it locks out after a few tries (and also after you've used contact-less a few times). Same for you PC- pin locked to pc, whereas a password can be used on any device. Some banks used to provide a card reader (virtually all banks used the same reader) and if you moved funds from your account, they'd display a number on you pc screen, you used you card  in the reader, entered your pin, enter the number from the pc, then read the generated number from the reader's screen, and entered that on your pc (two part verification). Now they send an sms to your mobile phone, or an email, since it is thought more unlikely a  hacker would have stolen your phone (and could have unlocked it), or stolen your email address,  cf  stolen  your card  and knowing  the pin.

Passwords are a nuisance, you need too many of them, and most are easily hacked/fairly common. password generators are not a real solution.

[Hroth]

20 hours ago, raymw said:

Not specific to w10, but interesting. (video on audio cassette)  https://youtu.be/D5zV1mC4E3w?t=665

 

Its how Slow Scan TV works.

 

Even easier to do for the resolutions used by John Logie Bairds mechanical TV system, and he recorded television on 78RPM gramophone disks!

 

[RFS]

10 hours ago, melmerby said:

I have a Microsoft account but none of my devices use that to log in to Windows, even when a new install "demands" using/creating a MS account to log in, I set up a local one instead.

 

 

 

Be aware that there seems to be a change coming. I have been trying out the next Windows upgrade (20H1 based on build 19041) on a test PC I have. When doing a clean install it demanded a Microsoft account as the only user it would register. Previously you had an option to skip that and use a local account instead. Only solution I found was to run the clean install with the ethernet cable unplugged....

 

Hopefully this may change on the final release.

[melmerby]

7 hours ago, raymw said:

The pin is linked to the hardware.

We are talking PCs here, made by throwing lots of disparate parts together, you can make endless changes to your PC hardware wise to add features/performance (I often do) but it's still your copy of Windows on your PC.

 

IMHO PINs embedded in cards are something else entirely.

[raymw]

the following power shell command will get the uuid (Get-CimInstance -Class Win32_ComputerSystemProduct).UUID

the uuid will not change, unless you change the mother board. Also, each windows installation has a unique id.  I guess either or both of them are used to verify the pin number either locally or remotely.