Microsoft mess up again

[tigerburnie]

Almost every update they do is a mess, they must be employing some special type of mongrel as programmers these days, wiped my computer almost of everything, photos vanished, favourites all gone and won't stay when reloaded, log off and everything disappears again, incompetence on a level I would have lost my job for when programming machines or robots.

[Classsix T]

Same old same old then.

 

 

Microsoft customers suffer from that company's legacy implementation of acquisition of workable Operating System code, marketing it as the only show in town and then persuading peripheral hardware manufacturers as the market leading OS.

 

But now, your super-duper OS upgrade needs to cater for backwards compatibility for your aging kit.

 

 

Get a Linux/Unix OS.

 

C6T. 

[tigerburnie]

Micro soft only seem to cater for people using a phone or a tablet, this happened last year, it took them over a month to sort out the bugs in it, I downloaded a few photos yesterday and didn't have time to sort them to external sites, so they are lost forever, irritating rather than catastrophic.

[beast66606]

2 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Almost every update they do is a mess, they must be employing some special type of mongrel as programmers these days, wiped my computer almost of everything, photos vanished, favourites all gone and won't stay when reloaded, log off and everything disappears again, incompetence on a level I would have lost my job for when programming machines or robots.

 

Harsh - to say the least.

 

Programming a single machine is so far away from writing an OS to support almost infinite hardware and software permutations, including legacy stuff as to not even be in the same universe, never mind ball park.

 

Maybe providing some more information about what you did rather than simply stating problems may help.

 

Your comments about updates does not fit in with *any* machine I've been involved with - and I've been involved in a lot through home and work.

[tigerburnie]

Even the Microsoft apps fail to work, can't even do my daily brain exercises playing the Majhong, they will get round to fixing it eventually, last time my Photoshop wouldn't work, this time that still works, but they've wiped my pictures, downloads documents clean, nothing left at all. Now that is their soft ware, not some external provider, we would copy the program as is, keep a copy and then do the modifications, if it went base over apex, we could reload the original program. Seems they are trying to run when they are yet to master walking, very amateurish.

[beast66606]

33 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

Even the Microsoft apps fail to work, can't even do my daily brain exercises playing the Majhong, they will get round to fixing it eventually, last time my Photoshop wouldn't work, this time that still works, but they've wiped my pictures, downloads documents clean, nothing left at all. Now that is their soft ware, not some external provider, we would copy the program as is, keep a copy and then do the modifications, if it went base over apex, we could reload the original program. Seems they are trying to run when they are yet to master walking, very amateurish.

 

Are you the same guy who moaned about an ancient version of photoshop not working with the latest Windows ?

 

Yo do understand that Windows is not a single program that can be simply copied don't you ? - and you did make a backup of all your important data files as anyone who has ever worked in IT would know to do before carrying out an upgrade ? - especially as you've had problems before.

 

Try dropping the stupid comments - Microsoft are not amateursish, there will be hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of PCs which will have updated without issue, in lots of different languages too.

[antrobuscp]

Sorry, I doubt I know enough to be able to offer advice, but my experience of the normal security updates has improved no end, and the 1809 feature update went straight through on 2 machines which have previously given problems, and which Dell do not confirm as suitable for the upgrade.

 

I did, however, prepare better this time:-

Firstly, I deferred the update for nearly 6 months to allow the bugs to be ironed out of it.

Second, I removed 2 encryption programs and my antivirus software before the upgrade and re-installed them immediately afterwards. One machine gave a little more trouble with the re-install, but the upgrades went through seemingly as they should.

Thirdly, as I do as a matter of course anyway, I made sure all data was backed up.

 

If my memory serves me correctly there was an issue when the 1809 upgrade was first issued with files being deleted, the update was withdrawn, and later re-issued. I do not keep my data in the "My Documents" structure, which is where I think the problem arose.

 

I still don't like the way that the updates appear to occasionally "go off on their own", but the updates do appear to be becoming a little more accommodating.

 

That said, and with Win7 going off support next January, I have started to investigate the possibility of dual booting Linux and Win7/XP systems and keeping those older systems off the web. The actual portables are still perfectly serviceable for browsing and the photography I do, and I need to keep the Win software available for a year or two yet.   

 

I hope you can get your pc sorted out and if you post anything I think I can help with, I will.

 

Colin

[tigerburnie]

9 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

 

Are you the same guy who moaned about an ancient version of photoshop not working with the latest Windows ?

 

Yo do understand that Windows is not a single program that can be simply copied don't you ? - and you did make a backup of all your important data files as anyone who has ever worked in IT would know to do before carrying out an upgrade ? - especially as you've had problems before.

 

Try dropping the stupid comments - Microsoft are not amateursish, there will be hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of PCs which will have updated without issue, in lots of different languages too.

I guess you are in their employment otherwise you might not be so touchy, I am fully aware of the requirements of software to function properly, no need to get personal with your insults

[eastglosmog]

Seems like I have got off relatively lightly - latest Microsoft updates stopped all Microsoft Office programs starting (and then failed to install themselves), but left everything else running.  Our IT support company have been trying to sort it out for a day and a half and are still working on it.

[beast66606]

34 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

I guess you are in their employment otherwise you might not be so touchy, I am fully aware of the requirements of software to function properly, no need to get personal with your insults

 

Not even close - I prefer people who moan to give details about what caused the issues - at least so others can avoid potential problems even if they themselves don't want help.

 

Microsoft have > 800,000,000 copies of Windows 10 (and no doubt lots of copies of other versions of Windows) in use - hardly the sign of an "amateurish" company

[John M Upton]

I can't do updates on mine, it is a Netbook with a 30Gb hard drive of which 26Gb is occupied mostly with Microsoft's bloated OS.  Trying to persuade the nagware update system to download the updates to the huge USB hard drive I have attached fails, it won't do it as it insists it needs 6Gb of free space on the main drive.

 

Not going to happen and anyway it works so I am not going to risk screwing it up!

[NittenDormer]

I've always been fascinated by the amateur/professional distinction. As far as I am concerned, the latter is paid, but this in no way implies greater competence?

[melmerby]

21 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

I can't do updates on mine, it is a Netbook with a 30Gb hard drive of which 26Gb is occupied mostly with Microsoft's bloated OS.  Trying to persuade the nagware update system to download the updates to the huge USB hard drive I have attached fails, it won't do it as it insists it needs 6Gb of free space on the main drive.

 

Not going to happen and anyway it works so I am not going to risk screwing it up!

Considering my desktop only needs approx 8.5Gb for Windows 10 1809 where is the other 18Gb going?

[Theakerr]

I have just up-dated to Mojave.  I will not get into the problems of which there were many but what I will say is that my wife could not have done it and would have had to bring in a profesional.

[Andymsa]

3 hours ago, antrobuscp said:

Sorry, I doubt I know enough to be able to offer advice, but my experience of the normal security updates has improved no end, and the 1809 feature update went straight through on 2 machines which have previously given problems, and which Dell do not confirm as suitable for the upgrade.

 

I did, however, prepare better this time:-

Firstly, I deferred the update for nearly 6 months to allow the bugs to be ironed out of it.

Second, I removed 2 encryption programs and my antivirus software before the upgrade and re-installed them immediately afterwards. One machine gave a little more trouble with the re-install, but the upgrades went through seemingly as they should.

Thirdly, as I do as a matter of course anyway, I made sure all data was backed up.

 

If my memory serves me correctly there was an issue when the 1809 upgrade was first issued with files being deleted, the update was withdrawn, and later re-issued. I do not keep my data in the "My Documents" structure, which is where I think the problem arose.

 

I still don't like the way that the updates appear to occasionally "go off on their own", but the updates do appear to be becoming a little more accommodating.

 

That said, and with Win7 going off support next January, I have started to investigate the possibility of dual booting Linux and Win7/XP systems and keeping those older systems off the web. The actual portables are still perfectly serviceable for browsing and the photography I do, and I need to keep the Win software available for a year or two yet.   

 

I hope you can get your pc sorted out and if you post anything I think I can help with, I will.

 

Colin

 

Rip win 7, I still won't upgrade to any version of Windows that forces an update on me. My mates PC takes so much time to startup due to these updates 

[Pete the Elaner]

6 hours ago, Andymsa said:

 

Rip win 7, I still won't upgrade to any version of Windows that forces an update on me. My mates PC takes so much time to startup due to these updates 

That is common attitude but ill-informed. There is a very good reason they force the updates.

 

They have developers employed to find security issues before customers do. Hopefully they do actually find these first. Security fixes are then published.

There are unscrupulous people out there who reverse engineer the new security fixes as soon as they can to create viruses.

 

This is where the forcing comes in...

If Microsoft published the update & let users install them in their own time, there would be a period when many machines would be vulnerable to the new viruses. This is what used to happen & they got criticised for it. Their reaction was to push updates out as soon as they were happy with them. Occasionally one gets through which causes an issue on a combination of things they have not tested but, as remarked earlier, they have made the system so widely compatible that it would not be possible to try it with every possible hardware/software combination. It is partly this compatibility which makes Windows such a resource-hungry system.

 

The biggest example I can remember was around 2005-2006 when I was in desktop & server support. The media reported it as being the 'So big' virus which I found amusing because it was actually Welchia! The latest update was available for a few days before the virus became an issue & guess what...it would have secured the vulnerability that the virus exploited. The problem was that it had not been applied to most machines.

 

So how about looking at this from the opposite angle? How many major virus issues have been prevented because updates are now forced out more quickly?

 

 

[Izzy]

My main laptop is still a Win7 machine. It works quite okay with Firefox and Thunderbird, and has a higher spec (3i/8gb/750D etc) than most reasonably priced replacements around at present so I am in no hurry to replace it. I do have a range of other equipment I can/do use, both Microsoft and Apple, so am not bothered by Win7 support ending, although I do believe it is starting to become life expired re mouse buttons etc, anyway.

 

However, I do have a small Win10 11.6” laptop, which has 4gb/64gb SSD, ( the cheap variety such machines are given). I also have a 64gb SD card fitted with all my docs on because I have read that the very basic machines with just 2gb/32gb SSD’s are almost impossible to use, to do anything much, because the loaded Win10 consumes virtually all the space, and leaving almost none for docs or V ram. Certainly on this one it does take up around the 30gb mark. This is one aspect that puzzles me because although it automatically updates itself as is now the norm, the Win version it has is 1803, yet I keep reading references to 1809?

 

One difference I do find between Windows and Apple equipment is the different way hard drive space is stated as being available.  With Apple, the available space quoted, whether i-phone/i-pad/MacBook, (32/64/128/256/512gb), seems to be after the O/s is installed I.e totally free space for docs/file storage, whereas with Win machines it’s always before anything is loaded, and as already stated, in many cases the O/s can take a very large chunk of it.

 

Izzy

[60021 Pen-y-Ghent]

9 hours ago, John M Upton said:

I can't do updates on mine, it is a Netbook with a 30Gb hard drive of which 26Gb is occupied mostly with Microsoft's bloated OS.  Trying to persuade the nagware update system to download the updates to the huge USB hard drive I have attached fails, it won't do it as it insists it needs 6Gb of free space on the main drive.

 

Not going to happen and anyway it works so I am not going to risk screwing it up!

Hi!

I had that problem too. One solution (not tried it myself) might be this: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-mount-hard-drive-folder-windows-10

It might fool Windows into thinking you've got oodles of free disk space.

 

Another, which I have tried and worked fine on my 1gb ram, 32gb drive tablet: https://cd-rw.org/t/linx-and-lamina-7-8-10-tablet-owners-thread-drivers-included/43/10

but make sure you back up your drivers first. See https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/68426-backup-restore-device-drivers-windows-10-a.html

Plus your data, and you'll have to reinstall any additional software and your data. Got me out of the persistent "You must update" rat-trap.

Have fun!

Regards

David

[Andymsa]

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

That is common attitude but ill-informed. There is a very good reason they force the updates.

 

They have developers employed to find security issues before customers do. Hopefully they do actually find these first. Security fixes are then published.

There are unscrupulous people out there who reverse engineer the new security fixes as soon as they can to create viruses.

 

This is where the forcing comes in...

If Microsoft published the update & let users install them in their own time, there would be a period when many machines would be vulnerable to the new viruses. This is what used to happen & they got criticised for it. Their reaction was to push updates out as soon as they were happy with them. Occasionally one gets through which causes an issue on a combination of things they have not tested but, as remarked earlier, they have made the system so widely compatible that it would not be possible to try it with every possible hardware/software combination. It is partly this compatibility which makes Windows such a resource-hungry system.

 

The biggest example I can remember was around 2005-2006 when I was in desktop & server support. The media reported it as being the 'So big' virus which I found amusing because it was actually Welchia! The latest update was available for a few days before the virus became an issue & guess what...it would have secured the vulnerability that the virus exploited. The problem was that it had not been applied to most machines.

 

So how about looking at this from the opposite angle? How many major virus issues have been prevented because updates are now forced out more quickly?

 

 

 

Im sorry Im still not convinced. let's take an example I boot up my laptop that has win7 installed takes about 2 mins tops once it's done all its things. Now my mates laptop, it can take up to an hour sometimes before you can even do any work why because it's installing those updates. As for viruses anyone who goes on the internet should have one of the propriety programs installed and a firewall. I can't see why Microsoft should be criticised for a user deciding if to install an update or not, and if a user wished to install an update then he would do it at a time that was convenient for that user, it's the users choice and he should take responsibility for that choice and would have to accept any issues arising from not updating. Now with win 10 there is no choice anymore, but when updating win 7 I can deceid how many of the updates I want and can easily indentify which one is causing any possible system issues with win 10 it installs the lot, not so easy to indentify any issues that may be there. Now I use computer control of the layout and I want to have a quick op session and having to wait for win 10 to do its updates first is not an option as far as I'm concerned. Then there's the bells and whistles of win 10, as many have said its a bloated op system and takes up far to much space

[melmerby]

There really is a lot of ill informed comment on here.

 

36 minutes ago, Andymsa said:

 

Im sorry Im still not convinced. let's take an example I boot up my laptop that has win7 installed takes about 2 mins tops once it's done all its things. Now my mates laptop, it can take up to an hour sometimes before you can even do any work why because it's installing those updates.

That's total crap.  Windows 10 doesn't install any updates until you do a restart, it downloads the updates in the background (I don't even notice when it's doing it.) and if you set it's scheduled restart out of hours, you tell it when to to do the restart. e.g when you finish a session. The PC will then install the updates and shut down. When you next boot up everything is done.

And I've never had a Win 10 update take anything like an hour, even on SWMBO's poorly specified laptop. (Celeron, 4Gb, slow HD)

 

[beast66606]

4 minutes ago, melmerby said:

There really is a lot of ill informed comment on here.

 

That's total crap.  Windows 10 doesn't install any updates until you do a restart, it downloads the updates in the background (I don't even notice when it's doing it.) and if you set it's scheduled restart out of hours, you tell it when to to do the restart. e.g when you finish a session. The PC will then install the updates and shut down. When you next boot up everything is done.

And I've never had a Win 10 update take anything like an hour, even on SWMBO's poorly specified laptop. (Celeron, 4Gb, slow HD)

 

 

I've just (since my last post ^ ^ ) updated 3 laptops with the 1809 release, downloading took an age but then (for the next couple of weeks until we get a 50GB connection (yippeeeeeeeee !!)) we have a damp string Internet connection.

 

Installing took around 30 mins on one laptop which had a hard disk, as opposed to SSD (which took about 15), but, as you say, it's possible to schedule it for dark hours, I chose to force the update "now" to see if my photos would vanish, they didn't - in fact all three laptops updated without issue.

 

Anyone running 1803 (Windows Key + R then type winver) - can check for updates and it should offer the 1809 update.

 

Without any information as to what the OP was updating 3.1 to 3.1.1 ? Latest 10 update ? Windows ME to the bin ? it's impossible to ascertain whats going wrong, and lambasting MS is just daft - I work in IT support and 99% of the problems I deal with are user (= self) inflicted. I sympathise with people having issues, they do happen - but give us information to help, if we can, not just complain in a non-specific way.

 

[Oldddudders]

Having moved to another operating system some years ago, I nevertheless have tried to keep two Windows PCs updated by periodically booting them up and letting Microsoft do the rest. Deb's PC, last used in earnest in 2012, and about 9 years old, has with no help from me updated to Win 10, and my enquiry for updates the other day showed nothing outstanding. It still seems to be fully functional, and everything I tried worked.

 

My 2009 machine cannot take Win 10 because there is no driver update for some piece of kit (graphics card?), and on Sunday I seemed to get an apologetic message from Microsoft saying Win 7 support stops next January. How much importance is attached to car model support after 10 years? 

 

Both machines are now being stripped of user files and will be donated to a friend whose gaming-obsessed boys will have fun with them. 

[Joseph_Pestell]

1 hour ago, beast66606 said:

 

I've just (since my last post ^ ^ ) updated 3 laptops with the 1809 release, downloading took an age but then (for the next couple of weeks until we get a 50GB connection (yippeeeeeeeee !!)) we have a damp string Internet connection.

 

Installing took around 30 mins on one laptop which had a hard disk, as opposed to SSD (which took about 15), but, as you say, it's possible to schedule it for dark hours, I chose to force the update "now" to see if my photos would vanish, they didn't - in fact all three laptops updated without issue.

 

Anyone running 1803 (Windows Key + R then type winver) - can check for updates and it should offer the 1809 update.

 

Without any information as to what the OP was updating 3.1 to 3.1.1 ? Latest 10 update ? Windows ME to the bin ? it's impossible to ascertain whats going wrong, and lambasting MS is just daft - I work in IT support and 99% of the problems I deal with are user (= self) inflicted. I sympathise with people having issues, they do happen - but give us information to help, if we can, not just complain in a non-specific way.

 

 

Twice in the last year, Microsoft installing updates has caused my laptop to be unable to restart! That's a pretty basic problem for Microsoft to cause.

 

I have not been so unlucky as the OP in losing stuff as a result but each time it has taken me a couple of hours to sort out. And most of the updates seem to be rather unnecessary.

[melmerby]

Following my previous post, it reminded me to update SWMBO's laptop that for various reasons has been used for 9 weeks.

When checked it showed 6 updates (One cumulative Windows, two other Windows, Flash, Bluetooth driver, & the always present Malicious software tool)

Whilst still using the laptop for e-mails etc. it downloaded/installed all 6 in 62minutes.

Before shutting down I did the restart and that took just 8 minutes, so only 8 minutes of non usable time for 6 updates.

 

This is as I said a pretty slow computer  = Dual Core Celeron, 4Gb memory, 5400rpm 500Gb HDD, onchip/shared memory Intel HD graphics. (<< Hence it won't automatically upgrade to 1809)

[Sir TophamHatt]

Yet, millions of devices around the world, including my own (2 PCs) seem to update fine

 

But then again, I don't know why there is an expectation that computers will upate fine, with no problems, every time.  In fact, I don't think I have had any updates that have gone wrong.  It's usually me updating something manually that breaks something.

 

There are some basic things that every PC needs to work.

First one is No Anti-Virus.  They cause more problem than they're worth.

Any version of Windows worth using comes with an inbuilt one that does fine.

Edited April 24, 2019 by Sir TophamHatt