back to article Kindle Paperwhites turn Windows 10 PCs into paperweights: Plugging one in 'triggers a BSOD'

Plugging a Kindle Paperwhite into a PC running Windows 10 with the Anniversary Update installed sparks a full system meltdown, it is claimed. Connecting the Amazon e-reader to a fully up-to-date W10 machine via USB triggers an immediate Blue Screen of Death, according to complaints on Microsoft's support forum. All the trouble …

  1. bombastic bob Silver badge
    FAIL

    is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

    is there a comprehensive list of cockups for the Win-10-nic "happy anniversary" edition?

    So far I've seen quite a few... (published by El Reg that is, in the last few days) from BSODs to PowerSmell bugs.

    I guess this is what happens when you lay off all of your Q.A. staff, refuse to listen to customers, and ship beta code en masse.

    1. m0rt

      Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

      Anniversary edition, Windows 10 gets all passive aggressive...

    2. Baldy50

      Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

      OMG! How many more are there going to be?

      Glad I didn't go for the free upgrade and would rather pay for whatever OS I use in the future when 7 not supported.

      1. BobChip
        Linux

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        Yup. It is called Windows 10. It is comprehensive, all embracing and apparently all destroying. Of course, you do not need to pay anything at all for your next OS......

        1. Tchou
          Devil

          Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

          "you do not need to pay anything at all for your next OS......"

          You don't need to, but a little financial contribution is welcome on OSS projects.

          I gave two times 100$ to the FreeBSD foundation for 3 years of desktop bliss.

      2. oiseau
        Happy

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        .

        " ... would rather pay for whatever OS I use in the future when 7 not supported."

        No need to go to that far.

        Just get yourself one of those free ones out there, the ones with the funny names and no BSODs or snooping.

    3. Mark 85

      Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

      Win-10-nic "happy anniversary" edition?

      I'm thinking that this "anniversary" is like the ones some couples I've run across have had... there's going to be a large divorce in the near future.

    4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

      These are all part of the MS 'Cunning Plan' to make anything that isn't carrying the MS brand or Windows Inside sticker inoperable.

      How many printers no longer work with W10? Why don't the H/W makers update their drivers?

      Or what incentive was there from Redmond to make them not work?

      I really don't know what the real reasons are/were but the continued footgun events that surround W10 makes me think that is something that only Baldrick could dream up.

      It never ended well for Baldrick and I see no signs that this will end well for MS.

      1. Martin 47

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        AhHa! I've spotted the problem, it's clearly the wrong sort of turnip.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        Believe me, device makers need no incentive. They get no money by updating drivers, only by selling new devices. Maybe should they start to charge for driver updates after a while?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

          Oh, I didn't know you all support your customers indefinitely for free. But I'm quite sure you charge them handsomely even to replace a toner cartridge or plug a plug, whenever you can, instead. It's always easy to be munificent with someone else money...

          Yet I've seen very little criticism about, for example, Android very short update support, far shorter than the driver availability of many printers (especially if you buy a PCL or PostScript one).. Just because with a new printer people can't show off like with a new shiny phone? Grow up, boys, and send me on offer for your lifetime free support...

          1. Roopee Bronze badge
            FAIL

            Re: I didn't know you all support your customers indefinitely for free.

            I do. I give free telephone and email support if people ask, clients and potential clients alike. I only charge if I have to do a call-out. Microsoft should have tried that, it would have done wonders for their reputation, and dramatically improved their products because they would understand what real problems real people have with them. And of course they would be incentivised to make them more reliable and user-friendly. Instead they've done the exact opposite, with the opposite result.

          2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

            Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

            "Oh, I didn't know you all support your customers indefinitely for free."

            Smart businesses do. It is well known that finding new customers is harder than keeping existing ones. It is also well known that a sufficiently bad experience will mean that customers black-list you and for a number of years afterwards will buy from anyone-but-you. Bluntly, there's no point in producing new products if the support experience of the older ones is bad.

            Support isn't *that* expensive if you have half a brain. Most genuine problems only need to be fixed once, properly, and most non-problems don't cost you anything but time. After 5-10 years, depending on the product, they may well be open to the suggestion that the best "fix" is to replace their gizmo with one of your more recent offerings.

            In that last respect, Microsoft's repeated failure to convert XP and 7 users to more recent versions of Windows stands out as an oddity. Even without seeing the later versions, you can tell that they must really suck, based on the low conversion rates. It is astonishing that a company as large as MS has not shed more blood internally because of this demonstrable under-performance.

            1. Charles 9

              Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

              "Smart businesses do. It is well known that finding new customers is harder than keeping existing ones. It is also well known that a sufficiently bad experience will mean that customers black-list you and for a number of years afterwards will buy from anyone-but-you. Bluntly, there's no point in producing new products if the support experience of the older ones is bad."

              No, STUPID Smart business do that. SMART Smart businesses cultivate a Captive Market so that you don't have to find new customers; they inevitably come to you. And you don't have to worry about them walking away; they walk BACK for lack of alternatives. It's like the Smash Mouth song, "...but if the offer's shunned, you might as well be Walking on the Sun."

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

              Sorry, it looks you never run a company. You could retain all the customers you want if you don't charge them for support, just you won't stay in business for long, unless you just sell quickly expendable products like toilet paper or soft drinks.

              You have expenses, people cost, office space costs, power, heating and cooling costs, hardware costs, time spent understanding what the customer wants costs.

              Do you really spend much effort for a customer who bought a product of yours ten years before, is one of the few remaining users, and then never spent another dime with you?

              Sure, there's also the good customer you won't charge for a simple and quick fix, but supporting old products may become in the long run truly unsustainable, and yes, you may also need to sell replacements for old products, or you would just go off business.

              If you ever run a company, you quickly learn not all customers are the same. There are those who keep you afloat, and then there are those who will just sink you because they want everything but want to spend nothing. They may even pretend to promise to buy more.... these are the customers you can afford to lose.

              I understand from a customer point of view endless support is nice, just, nobody can afford it.

              But maybe drivers should add telemetry and send everything they see to the mothership so you can get endless support? You just need to decide what way you like to pay.

              I guess you like to be paid, and, believe me, many other people like to be paid and hope to not be laid off because their company can't stay in business.

          3. present_arms

            Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

            I do with my respin, yes I don't have 350 Million users, I have a few thousand at best, 99% of my stuff "just works" for them, but I miss the occasional oops and I endeavour to fix as soon as I can, regardless if the bug affects one person or a lot. Oh and yet I don't have the turnover of some small countries. MS laying off their testers is the single biggest fuckup they made. If only they would look back to days when within reason (it's always been bad but ffs not this bad) that XP in the end was not bad, vista has a bad reputation for being dog slow, it was but at least the fooker ran, 7 was a major improvement on Vista although it was a paid for service pack, then after that all shit broke loose. We had "Modern" of 8 and 8.1 (largest fucking start menu ever) and now the spy ridden 10 and it's nice show stopping updates. It's a shame really. We need a Microsoft, if only to show other developers what not to do.

            Alie

          4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

            "Yet I've seen very little criticism about, for example, Android very short update support",

            Where have you been? This site is full of articles and comments bemoanoing the crappy update process of the brand name android devices (note the Google DO provide updates, but your branded devices won't take them)

            "far shorter than the driver availability of many printers (especially if you buy a PCL or PostScript one).. Just because with a new printer people can't show off like with a new shiny phone?

            What are you smoking? A generic Postscript or PCL driver will work with any Postscript or PCL printer. Postscript and PCL are generally backwards compatible. You may lose control over advanced features, but you will always be able to get a printed page. Of course, if your only real experience is using Windows, then yes, you probably need the correct and latest driver for your exact make and model or printer or it won't work at all and you have to by a new printer and/or scanner every time a new version of Windows is released.

        2. Mage Silver badge

          Re: charge for driver updates after a while?

          All the real Kindles are only USB storage!

          You can connect it to XP, Win7, Linux and even Andriod phones or tablets via USB2Go adaptor cable if the Android device supports USB sticks that way.

          It's not like one of those silly cameras that needs a driver, or like an iThing needing iTunes. You don't need ANY application other than a file browser, though I recommend Calibre (works almost all eReaders and many OSes).

          How many other USB devices cause this?

          Does turning off stupendously stupid autorun fix it?

        3. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

          Re: Printer drivers. why

          isnt it about time some sort of standard was brought in to negate the need for drivers for printers and scanners .(i spent fucking hours the other day with a brand new brother scanner that refused to swallow its own drivers , but thats by the by)

          Isnt that what postscript is? and twain? and even ISIS?. why do the hardware munufacturers need drivers on the pc, tailored for that OS?

          Shouldnt the PC just say " hey , yo , printer , I'm chucking you a document Postscript stylee - you know what to do cos we've been rockin that protocol since 1987"

          or the PC could say "Scanner! dude! next time my homie drops you some green , just gimme the data in Twain or ISIS format and thatll be all super groovy"

          I know all this is possible because some printers you can just stick a USB with a JPG into them and they print - no need for a fucking recalcitrant windows machine that will say "the best driver is currently installed " 1000 times before you manage to convince it that no driver is installed and place accept the one you've been trying to force feed it for hours.

          1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

            Re: Printer drivers. why

            As far as I'm aware, such standards already exist (defined by the USB consortium) and are implemented in Windows. Despite this, printer and scanner manufacturers apparently believe that having their own driver stack is a good thing.

            Perhaps this is because it lets them push crapware (for which, presumably, they get paid) alongside the driver installer. Or perhaps it is because Microsoft's implementation is so bad that no vendor wants to associate their kit with the bugs. (This was certainly the case for USB comms devices until at least Win8. *Everyone* wrote their own driver on Windows but just used the standard one on Linux.)

            1. Charles 9

              Re: Printer drivers. why

              "As far as I'm aware, such standards already exist (defined by the USB consortium) and are implemented in Windows. Despite this, printer and scanner manufacturers apparently believe that having their own driver stack is a good thing."

              Because they want to be the new standard-BEARER. Remember, the ultimate goal of any business is a captive market: one where the customers pretty much can't do ANYTHING without you, INCLUDING doing nothing at all.

            2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Printer drivers. why

              "but just used the standard one on Linux.)"

              True, but don't forget the quirks mode needed to get around buggy standards, buggy hardware and propriety firmware/niggles/stuff in some devices. But least with BSD/Linux that all just happens behinds scenes and "just works" rather than needing special, individual drivers..

            3. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Printer drivers. why

              Did you ever read the USB specifications? They don't do what you believe they do. Moreover, there are not oly USB connected printers (all of my printers are networked ones).

              And it looks you have no idea what processing is needed to turn memory data into a physical print, and viceversa. Do you believe it happens by magic?

              You can use generic drivers with printers supporting standards like PCL or PS. Not surprisingly, you will lose any management features which are not covered by the standards.

          2. herman

            Re: Printer drivers. why

            Well, most networked printer have a FTP server that does exactly that. Send it a PS or PDF file by anonymous FTP and it will print.

            1. simon maasz

              Re: Printer drivers. why

              As many students have discovered rather than pay for uni printing. H aHa

          3. dajames

            Re: Printer drivers. why

            Isnt that what postscript is? and twain? and even ISIS?. why do the hardware munufacturers need drivers on the pc, tailored for that OS?

            That's exactly right ... BUT ... the reason we have so many devices that do need drivers is to reduce the hardware cost of the printers and scanners.

            A PostScript printer has to have quite a bit of CPU power and memory on board to run the PostScript language and that costs money, but you can make a thick-as-pigshit printer for much less, and the PC has plenty of CPU power to work out where to put the ink/toner. The fact that you then need bloated drivers to make it work, with obscure dependencies on specific OSes and runtimes, and that the printer is then a compatibility nightmare and a support headache is of no interest to printer manufacturers.

            If you insist on a PostScript printer and a wired ethernet connection you'll pay a little more for your printer, but compatibility and support problems will vanish.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Printer drivers. why

            Actually, is far more complex than that. First, not all printers are PCL or PostScript ones with on board processing engines. Most of the cheaper ones have jobs processed on the PC and the taw data in a printer specific format is sent to the printer. Same for some high end photo printers that may have printing capabilities beyond what PCL and PS cover.

            Then there are all the hardware specific settings that are outside the scope of PCL and PS standards. Or image processing through the OS color management system. If for you is acceptable to print a jpeg without color profile, your needs are very, very basic. Anyway JPEG is already an RGB raster format that needs very little processing. Find one that supports TIFFs...

            Same is true for the scanners, for example dust removal technology. Yes, you could move much of this processing to the device, and maybe use a web interface to manage them, it would just make the device much more expensive, that's why PCL and PS printers cost much more. Also you may lose the capability of working on raw data - there are some third party scanner software that actually improve the capabilities. Why? Because they work on raw data with more sophisticated algorithms, or use the scanner hardware in different ways (i.e. multipass scanning). These require direct access to the scanning hw.

            And you would still need to update the firmware as the OS evolves.

            I find worrying more and more people actually have no clue about a computer and its devices work.

          5. Luiz Abdala

            Re: Printer drivers. why

            On the other side of the spectrum....

            My Playstation 3 (YES, A FREAKING PLAYSTATION) read my Logitech Webcam, and my Epson Printer, WITHOUT DRIVERS.

            The freaking webcam would cause the PC to throw a hissy fit if it was plugged before the drivers. Woe betide you if you plugged the printer on PC before launching their setup CD too.

            The printer just worked out of the WIFI signalling through the router, of all the methods. The webcam was working on the PS3 before I even sat down.

        4. Wensleydale Cheese
          FAIL

          That doesn't add up

          "They get no money by updating drivers, only by selling new devices. They get no money by updating drivers, only by selling new devices."

          Printers are sold cheaply in order to establish a future income from printer ink sales.

          That income stream will dry up if the devices stop working.

        5. RW

          Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

          Maybe M$ should stop changing driver architecture with every version of Windows. It can't be an accident that this occurs.

      3. RW

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        > what incentive was there from Redmond to make them not work?

        More crap from the so-called marketing wonks. M$ has a long standing habit of doing their best to disable both hard- and software not branded M$. My suspicion is that said wonks think that if they can disable Popular Item #33, customers will flock to the M$ equivalent.

        Back in DOS days, M$ thought their slogan was funny, "Dos isn't done until Lotus won't run". Deliberately introduced malfunctions are an old, old practice in Redmond.

        This is wrong, both factually and ethically. Rather like the Young Turks' comment on Donald Drumpf, "running profitable businesses is a much better plan than repeated bankruptcies." [paraphrased], a much better plan for M$ would be to build hard- and software so good people are happy to adopt it without childish efforts to force them to.

        The unethical aspect doesn't need spelling out; it's obvious. I'm surprised that this doesn't violate fair trade laws.

        1. MJI Silver badge

          Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

          I remember their constant attack on the Netware client as well.

          Yes MS we remember.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

      What? Windows 10 got the largest QA team ever - 350M testers. Who else has a so large one? And see, they are actually finding bugs, while testing all the devices out there without MS even spending a dime for them.. Don't worry, for selected paying users W10 will work...

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

      is there a comprehensive list of cockups for the Win-10-nic "happy anniversary" edition?

      Nobody is willing to dedicate THAT much space..

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

      and ship beta code en masse.

      It sounds as if much of it is still alpha code that has not been tested at all.

      1. Warm Braw

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        much of it is still alpha code

        Worse, much of it is gratuitous - stuff that could simply have been left unchanged. Although, I suppose that applies to everything after Windows 7 - Windows was done at that point and there was no real need to change it.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

          'no real need' is subjective. Don't get me wrong I'm mostly satisfied with Win7-- only uncovered a few showstoppers such as the corrupt user profile thing where it loses your registry, sometimes permanently, and the only way I got it to work again was by restoring a non-MS-made image of both the Windows partition and the one holding \Users (which you're not supposed to hold on a different volume but whoever decided that is insane and the fact that using that "deprecated" layout will cause upgrades to Win8 and later to summarily fail, is just a bonus). Supposedly there are lots of small performance & responsiveness improvements in 8 (according to Herb Sutter in the atomic weapons talk) but it's not enough to justify the widespread madness. IMO anything that was rather important could have been rolled out to the various components of Win7 leading up to SP2 but maybe I'm just spoiled on modularity of UNIXy things and the whole kit really did have to be redesigned, as I already suspected and still do 2 major versions later.

    8. MrClaret

      Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

      How exactly didn't they listen to their customers...every heard of the Windows insider program.

      1. Wade Burchette

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        "How exactly didn't they listen to their customers...every heard of the Windows insider program."

        The most requested feature of the insider program was the return of Aero. Where is Aero? Many people requested Microsoft disable all the telemetry and spying. I repeatedly requested the return of the pre-boot F8 repair button. All ignored. Many people requested a customizable hierarchy-based start menu like the one found in every Windows version from 95 to 7. What they got was an illogical, strict alphabetical mini-Metro start menu whose sole purpose is to push apps. When people made suggestions to the mini-Metro start menu, they were listened to. The insider program was not about feedback, it was about affirmation.

      2. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        "every heard of the Windows insider program."

        yes. I was there. the fanbois, shills, and sycophants all kept touting how great the flatso 2D flugly was on the 'answers.microsoft' forum that was dedicated to the insider program, about how the start thing couldn't be any better, how the adware and spyware was NOT intrusive, how the tracking didn't violate our privacy, how much BETTER the 'apps' were, how much BETTER the 2D flatso was, yotta yotta, and there were ALSO those who objected and started threads that got MORE activity than ANY OTHER KIND with boatloads of NEGATIVE POSTS having titles like "there are no redeeming qualities in windows 10" and "why I hate windows 10" and things of that nature [/me catches breath] and they received the BANS and threats from moderators that they did NOT deserve.

        And, yours truly was SPECIFICALLY threatened by the forum owner, after a YEAR of having been careful to stay WITHIN the rules so as to NOT get banned, and ALSO after an apparent astroturf campaign involving 3 or more well-known sycophantic posters, that there was SOMETHING wrong with my "tone" (and 'everybody' was saying so now), with the use of capitalizations and punctuation for EMPHASIS!, much like certain 'El Reg' articles even, and that if I didn't "stop that" I would be banned based on my WRITING STYLE.

        [I left instead, and so have many others]

        And many other dissenters from MIcro-shaft's direction were UNFAIRLY banned (during the insider program) for *slightly* violating "the rules", particularly when you stretch the definition to include 'making the mod angry' or 'the moderators *FELT* as if'. These members (particularly, one, an author of windows books) were always pointing out (often OBVIOUS) problems, retorting the ridiculous arguments from the fanbois and shills, and often using FACTS with actual data to back it up [such as quoting MANY survey results that indicate the popularity of 3D skeuomorphic vs 2D "flatso" was 2:1 in favor of the 3D style], and they were ULTIMATELY rewarded with somewhat frequent "sit in the corner" bans, sometimes for a month or more. Yet, the shills, sycophants, and fanbois would REGULARLY engage in overt ad-hominem attacks and accusations, and never ONCE got a ban.

        So yeah, Micro-shaft "listened" during the insider program. They listened to people who SAID! WHATEVER! THEY! WANTED! TO! HEAR!!! And ignored the rest of us.

        1. Someone Else Silver badge
          Pint

          @ bombastic bob -- Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

          Damn, I wish i could upvote you more that once...or buy you a round

        2. WolfFan Silver badge

          Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

          So yeah, Micro-shaft "listened" during the insider program. They listened to people who SAID! WHATEVER! THEY! WANTED! TO! HEAR!!! And ignored the rest of us.

          Bloody hell, Microsoft's got me agreeing with Bombastic Bob! I'll never live it down.

        3. ADRM

          Ever heard of the Windows insider program?

          I was there too. My suggestions of Aero and a basic Windows 2000 mode for lab computers was ignored. I was also at 10 forums too. I gave up even trying to get some sense into the fanboiz. So what do we have, a product that is universally loathed by users and technical support alike. Only the fanboiz swooning over every new build sent there way.

          Me I am on Windows 7 Ultimate and I have 10 on several virtual machines. My wife's work computer failed and was replaced with a 10 Pro machine. So I have been helping her navigate the settings for single click and so on. Why has all this been moved around she asked? I have no idea. I don't care now either. Sooner or later Windows will have to change or die. Which will it be?

      3. Captain DaFt

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        "How exactly didn't they listen to their customers...every heard of the Windows insider program."

        It's just a modern version of the old corporate suggestion box.

        Only difference is this one dumps to /null instead of a waste bin.

      4. WolfFan Silver badge

        Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

        How exactly didn't they listen to their customers...every heard of the Windows insider program.

        Bloody hell. Whatever Microsoft is paying you to act the fool, it's not enough.

        I was an 'insider' since the 'Insider Program' started. Before that I was on the Win 8 beta test. I screamed long and loud during the Win 8 beta about how much I hated, hated, HATED the damn tiles. I screamed long and loud about how I would really, really, REALLY rather have a start menu. I screamed long and loud about how I thought that Aero was much superior to Modern/Metro/whatever they ended up calling it. Not only did they ignore me, they deleted most of my posts and banned me from making new ones. I did not use Win 8 on any of my systems. Win 8.1 got limited use. Very limited.

        Somehow the idiots in charge at Microsoft forgot what I'd done with the Win 8 beta and didn't merely let me into the Win 10 beta, they specifically emailed me an invite. They swore that they were going to listen to the Voice Of The People this time, that they'd learned their lesson. They lied their little pink asses off, of course. Again they did not listen to any criticism. Again they shipped a glorious cockup which could have been avoided if they'd actually listened. I stopped posting after the first few times my posts were, again, deleted. They still send me notifications, even though I've turned off all the 'Insider' settings I could find. Only two of my systems run Win 10, and one of those is a VM on a Mac. I am, as I type this right now, downloading the latest version of 64-bit Linux Mint. Only two of the apps I must use are not available on either Mac or Linux. Both run fine on Win 7. I will install Mint on the assorted Windows desktops which don't need to use those apps and put on Linux apps which give me the functionality that I need, or I will replace the (mostly aging and due for replacement anyway) machines which need an app available on OS X but not on Linux with Macs (Mac minis, mostly) as necessary. I give up. I really do. I've been using Microsoft-based systems since 1981. The only way that I'll still be using a Microsoft-based system this time next year would be that I can't find a replacement for those last two apps.

        Congratulations, Microsoft. You have succeeded in doing what Apple's marketing people could not manage: you have succeeded in making me do a mass replacement of Windows-based systems with Macs. And some Linux.

        Bloody idiots.

        1. TVU Silver badge

          Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

          "Both run fine on Win 7. I will install Mint on the assorted Windows desktops which don't need to use those apps and put on Linux apps which give me the functionality that I need, or I will replace the (mostly aging and due for replacement anyway) machines which need an app available on OS X but not on Linux with Macs (Mac minis, mostly) as necessary".

          I'd suggest leaving either one PC on Win 7 or do a dual boot with Linux. Another thing to try to see if Play on Linux/Wine, or the paid-for CrossOver, can run your essential software on Linux.

          It's quite clear that the Insider Program testers who have posted in this thread have been harassed and ignored for making what are reasonable and constructive suggestions. That is an insane and counterproductive thing to do and the resulting flawed Windows 10 will only help to alienate home and small business users of Windows 10 - cue greater uptake of OS X, Linux and Chrome OS.

          1. doke

            Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

            I would suggest VirtualBox, VMplayer, or something similar, to run windows VMs as guests on your Linux system. You can snapshot the windows image, and back out when it eats itself. It gives windows a simpler, virtual, "hardware" platform with more common drivers. It lets you sharply limit access to attached devices. For example, you can explicitly list which USB devices the VM can see. I have two of these guest VMs, one for each windows only software application I still need. Keeping them separate also keeps the apps from fighting over DLLs.

    9. a_yank_lurker

      Re: is there a comprehensive list of cockups?

      Not yet and may be never.

  2. frank ly

    I remember

    Plugging an empty USB-SD card reader into a Win 2K laptop and getting BSOD every time I did that. I learned to remember to put an SD card in before trying that. There always seems to be something that makes it flip in some way.

    1. Stoneshop
      Mushroom

      Re: I remember

      Plugging in an ODS-2 formatted USB stick bluescreens W7, IIRC XP did a hard reset immediately.

      Given the degradation from W7 to W10, I won't be surprised if the system explodes after scribbling PANICPANICPANIC all over the disk.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I remember

      There always seems to be something that makes it flip in some way.

      All those things appear under the generic category "trying to actually use it".

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I remember

      The thing is that Kindle's have been around for years and normally work with machines running Windows without any issue when plugged in, irrespective of the specific model.

      The fact that one of these models of Kindle now causes a BSOD on their "best ever" OS indicates that MS have fundamentally broken something in Win10 which they need to fix.

      Remember also, that there were numerous reports of machines which lost all network connectivity after upgrading to Win10 due to driver issues. If MS cannot even deliver reliable LAN and WiFi drivers for their new OS on existing hardware, what hope is there for future updates of the OS? It's not as if networking on Windows is a new technology is it?

      Personally, I think Windows 10 is malware and will avoid using it for as long as physically possible.

      1. DaddyHoggy

        Re: I remember

        I have to run my Netbook wired these days - if I turn the Wifi on Win10 locks up completely and I have to hold down the powerbutton until it dies.

        MS sent me a Powershell script to fix it - but it doesn't.

        Oh, and my webcam doesn't work any more.

        My wife's got a Paperwhite, perhaps I'll plug it in and see if I can collect the full set of SNAFUs MS have created with their Win10 updates...

        :¬(

      2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

        Re: I remember @AC

        The way that Windows device driver identification works is fundamentally broken IMHO.

        It requires you to have a specific driver for the USB and PCI (and I presume PCIe) device identity. This is normally provided by the manufacturer (remember all those shiny round things that came with the device).

        The result is that if you upgrade a windows system, and the existing propriety driver that used to work fails the upgrade compatibility check and is removed from the configuration, the device will be left with no driver loaded. This is even if there are perfectly good drivers for that particular device on the system (this is particularly bad for network devices that are largely built from standard chipsets).

        in the case of network drivers, this may mean that you can't even get to the Internet to try to find working drivers!

        The Linux model, which has generic drivers for almost all of the chipsets included with the OS, and a device ID mapping file that points to the correct generic driver for a particular device, means that as long as you can identify what driver should be used, even if it is not in the config. file already, you have a fighting chance of getting it working without having to find another machine and start mucking about with USB memory sticks to copy the driver to re-install.

        And you're not beholden to a device manufacture who has no real interest in providing new drivers for old hardware.

        1. fung0

          Re: I remember @AC

          Peter Gathercole: "...you have a fighting chance of getting it working without having to find another machine and start mucking about with USB memory sticks to copy the driver to re-install."

          Thanks for the explanation of how this works in Linux.

          I've been very impressed by the ability of Linux Mint to support my mutant former ChromeBook. With Mint 17.1, the trackpad worked, and even the touch-screen worked. Better yet, each succeeding version of Mint makes more stuff work, not less. With Mint 18, a few glitches went away, and my Wi-Fi became much more reliable. I bought a USB-to-Ethernet dongle that only specifies Win and Mac drivers, but it plugged and played without hesitation.

          Microsoft has trained us to believe that Updates Always Break Stuff. But it seems that this axiom is not actually hardwired into the fabric of the universe.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I remember @AC

          'No real interest in providing new drivers for old hardware' -- when HP did this to me and I had to dispose of a perfectly good laser printer, I made a simple resolution -- never buy another HP product.

          1. Charles 9

            Re: I remember @AC

            Until you find ALL the manufacturers do that. Captive market...

          2. energystar
            Boffin

            Re: I remember @AC

            "...and I had to dispose of a perfectly good laser printer." Actually they handle it through an 'universal printer driver', a la linux. But neither HP'er.

            I had to trash a Samsung Laser failing after less than 600 color pages. The part -non covered by warranty- listing at more than half the actual price of a new one. Going Epson refill tank now. Just have to print a panchromatic test everyday, to keep jets clean. Two years without any servicing. Expecting at least another two.

        3. Charles 9

          Re: I remember @AC

          "The Linux model, which has generic drivers for almost all of the chipsets included with the OS, and a device ID mapping file that points to the correct generic driver for a particular device, means that as long as you can identify what driver should be used, even if it is not in the config. file already, you have a fighting chance of getting it working without having to find another machine and start mucking about with USB memory sticks to copy the driver to re-install."

          Unless the support's SIMPLY NOT THERE...like there is for SO MANY USB WiFi devices out there...

          1. Chemist

            Re: I remember @AC

            "Unless the support's SIMPLY NOT THERE...like there is for SO MANY USB WiFi devices out there..."

            IF you have trouble ( I never have BTW ) then as it's a USB device - just plug one in that is supported.

            (I've got several for Raspberry Pis that cost almost nothing, are ~ 1 cm long and work with all my LInux desktops and laptops)

          2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

            Re: I remember @Charles

            It is quite true that there are unsupported devices. I have a PCI wireless card made by ASUS that seems to use some form of Broadcom chipset for which the drivers don't exist for Linux.

            But equally, the drivers don't exist for Windows 7 or later, and they were pretty difficult to find for Windows XP!

            So, not the OS provider (of whichever sort) at fault.

            But Linux has another trick up it's sleeve. If you can find a usable WinXP driver, there exists a method of wrapping the Windows driver up so that it can execute on Linux. This is described as ndiswrapper, and if you really need to get a device working, this can provide a solution.

            But for most people, the solution is, unfortunately, to discard the device and get another.

            On the subject of wireless drivers, I've put Linux on many, many laptops and computers, and outside of the example listed above, it has just worked for pretty much all of the systems I've built in the last 10 years.

            The only caveat to this is generally, I only build on older systems, not bleeding-edge ones. It is possible that a new system may require some lead time for someone to figure out what's different.

            But ask yourself. Is the fact that a device manufacturer is prepared to provide Windows driver but not a Linux one a fault of Linux?

          3. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

            Re: I remember @Charles (again)

            I just read your post again.

            Is the support really not there? Have you checked to see whether the chipset is not supported, or that the system just does not have an entry in the hwdata lookup-table for a particular a manufacturer and device ID.

            If it is the latter, you need to add an entry in either /usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids or pci.ids from one of the repos. on the Internet. Not that difficult.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @frank ly

      I see your Windows 2k and I raise you Windows 98. With more pain attached to it: during a public presentation of Windows 98 the host was going to show how easy it was to connect USB devices. He plugged in an USB scanner: "Let's plug it in, it's going to see a new device. You'll notice that this scanner build.. whoah!".

      And the next moment both the host and Bill Gates who attended the presentation were greeted with a BSOD. Which unsurprisingly triggered quite an applause from the audience ;)

      I think Microsoft should change their slogan. The "Where do you want to go today?" just doesn't fit anymore....

      Microsoft Windows 10: "What do you want us to break on Tuesday?".

  3. Novex

    Good Grief

    This is why I don't use Windows 10. Just how many things can go wrong with this OS? And MS think it's right to force this crap on users? It seems almost every day I get a feeling of deja vu all over again! I said it before, I'll say it till I'm a horse: forced updates are a fucking mistake and we should be allowed to keep them out, and telemetry is something we should be able to stop completely and verifiably.

    Windows 7 + Linux Mint FTW.

    1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Good Grief

      ...and Microsoft wonders why people are slow to upgrade.

      Here at work, we like to have our laptops and OS so reliable you could almost forget they are there. We certainly don't like to be beta testers for whatever new shiny thing Microsoft feels we need.

      Bonus points for not radically changing the UI with every release.

      / You'd think they could finally get USB right...even Linux has managed to do that

      // Yes, I run Linux Mint at home

      /// My wife and kids use Macs

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Good Grief

        It's not about your opinion of things, it's the DRM'ish of things that keep Windows kicking. Then there's full on lock in with Video games (just because Pepsi is popular and offers cola doesn't mean that Coke doesn't have the market on lock down).

        I run 0 Microsoft products now, but considering WinTin-can come for free supposedly, we are not out of the mirk yet.

        WinTin-can do a lot for you, may I suggest recycling. Pennies for thought.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In unrelated news..

    .. sales of Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite went through the roof. Amazon contributes the sudden rise to the impending start of the school year, but IT specialists suggest there may be a different reason.

    Microsoft staff were spotted running away from a Starbucks clutching their laptops when someone pulled out a Kindle Paperwhite.

  5. Hans 1
    Windows

    >After they reboot, the Kindle is visible and usable as a USB device as if nothing happened. I can browse files on the Kindle and I can use Calibre with Kindle. After the crash and reboot, I can even eject the Kindle and plug it back in without any problems – at least during that session. If I then shut down my laptop, plugging in my Kindle the next time will crash my laptop again and reboot it, and then I can normally use Kindle again. Needless to say, this is annoying.

    Hardware change requires a reboot, that is normal in Windows world, what is this guy complaining about ?

    1. muddysteve

      "Hardware change requires a reboot, that is normal in Windows world, what is this guy complaining about ?"

      Inserting a USB device should NOT require a reboot. That is what he is complaining about.

      1. hplasm
        Happy

        That is what he is complaining about.

        Whoosh!

        1. muddysteve

          Re: That is what he is complaining about.

          Please explain why my comment is a "whoosh"?

          1. Sixtysix
            Facepalm

            Explain...

            /sarcasm was implied, and obvious

            1. muddysteve

              Re: Explain...

              OK - didn't think it was obvious, though.

          2. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        No, what he's complaining about is not a reboot, it's getting an OS crash when you insert a USB device that's been around for years.

        A new "feature" in Windows 10. Win7 handles Kindles just fine.

      3. kventin

        """Inserting a USB device should NOT require a reboot."""

        ahhh, i see. SHOULD NOT as per rfc 2119 i presume? well, it wouldn't be the first rfc implemented by microsoft in a, let's say "creative" manner.

        1. muddysteve

          Yes.. "there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances" may well hold true, but crashing the system seems a drastic way of implementing it. Still, that's Microsoft for you.

        2. Wensleydale Cheese

          "Inserting a USB device should NOT require a reboot."

          "ahhh, i see. SHOULD NOT as per rfc 2119 i presume? well, it wouldn't be the first rfc implemented by microsoft in a, let's say "creative" manner."

          Creatively copied and pasted from Your wget is broken and should DIE, dev tells Microsoft:

          "users might already have written scripts using the functionality provided; Microsoft's position is therefore that fixing this needs to go through a community request for comment (RFC) process."

  6. DrAJS

    Not all Kindle Paperwhites do this

    My boss and I both have Paperwhites bought on the same day, from the same batch, with the exact same firmware (5.8.2). Mine has caused BSODs on 2 Win10Ann machines (one a completely fresh build) and his just connects normally.

    On one machine my Paperwhite triggered a RAID rebuild as well (4 disk RAID10)!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not all Kindle Paperwhites do this

      yikes!

  7. James 51

    There are problems with Kobo ereaders as well:

    http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/windows-10-anniversary-update-is-incompatible-with-kobo-e-readers

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Perhaps they ought to ask one of the hundreds of companies they shakedown for having the temerity to write a FAT filesystem (you know, blocks mostly with data but sometimes with pointers to other blocks) how they should do it.

      1. James 51
        Joke

        You'd hope as they hold the patent that MS would know how to do this. If not they can ask one of their licensees.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      all part of their grand plan

      Next we'll see them releasing a new Zune and ...

      make iDevices inoperable.

      Soon, nothing that isn't MS approved (made or running W10) will be able to connect to a Windows 10 device.

      All part of their grand plan to rule the world.

      Pass the Wensleydale Grommit!

      1. Wensleydale Cheese
        Thumb Up

        Re: all part of their grand plan

        Pass the Wensleydale Grommit!

        :-)

  8. jaywin

    Who's driving?

    It'd be interesting to find out whether the Kindle uses a MS generic driver or one provided by Amazon. And if it's a generic one, whether the problem occurs with other devices that use that driver.

    1. James 51

      Re: Who's driving?

      Judging by the number of problems that seem to be I/O related I am guessing that there were a lot of changes in this area that haven't been communicated to the hundreds or thousands of companies that create hardware and software and this is the resulting mess. Unless MS is taking a break everything and move fast approach to development.

    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Who's driving?

      The kindle does not have a proprietary driver. It is possible that Windows includes a kindle-friendly driver in the basic OS, but I think it is far more likely that this is the bog-standard driver for a USB-storage-class device. The BSOD may also be triggered by other (less common) storage devices, or it may be triggered by something in the USB device descriptors issued by a kindle paperwhite. The latter is more likely, but it is still embarrassingly poor programming from MS if Win10 can be made to BSOD based on data it receives from an external device. (It is a major security problem if someone who doesn't even have an account on the machine can DoS the box given a few seconds of physical access.)

  9. Mikel

    It's amazing

    Windows fans put up with all of this garbage.

    1. hplasm
      Gimp

      Re: It's amazing

      There's a reason for this icon, you see... ---->

    2. Pompous Git Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: It's amazing

      Windows fans put up with all of this garbage.

      Windows fans used to put up with all of this garbage.

      My next PC is an iMac Retina. Unless some bright spark manages to port some essential applications to Linux.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: It's amazing

        And what about all those people where there is no alternative to their software on anywhere but Windows? And no, WINE won't work on them and they don't have enough memory to use a VM.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It's amazing

          @Charles 9 - I'm afraid the only sensible thing for them to do is to badger MS regarding the shoddy quality of the prioduct they have purhcased from Redmond, contact relevant regulatory bodies and ombudsmen, and threaten legal action if MS don;t smarten up their act sharpish.

          That said, there are plenty of people that spotted Microsoft's abusive attitude to the rest of the world and shoddy product quality many years ago and decided to look for other options back then and as a result are not locked into MS's continuing carnical of pain. And quite a few of us even tried to warn folk back then of how MS usage looked likely to end in tears for users thereof, but the general response, back then, was to get shouted down by those who generally didn't understand the issues led by a chorus of MS shills. Given that it's taken Windows getting THIS bad and MS THIS abusive before some reasonably rational discussion has started to take place on the matter, I'm afraid my sympathy for those caught in a bad situation due to their current Windows dependency isn't quite as deep as it used to be. But there's absolutely no joy whatsoever in being able to say 'I told you so' in this instance.

          Avoidance of getting locked into a single suppliers products is something any sound business should attempt to do as a matter of course, yet so few businesses did this when it came to desktop operating systems. The blame for that doesn't lie in Redmond, they've merely been exploiting that lack of due diligence by so many companies as hard as they can, and getting away with it for years, because so many other companies allowed them to. My sympathies lie with the workers in those companies having to work with that kind of crap and whose livelihoods now, fthrough no fault of their own, depend on it.

          1. Charles 9

            Re: It's amazing

            "I'm afraid the only sensible thing for them to do is to badger MS regarding the shoddy quality of the prioduct they have purhcased from Redmond, contact relevant regulatory bodies and ombudsmen, and threaten legal action if MS don;t smarten up their act sharpish."

            And if that's not an option (because MS ignores you, knows you can't migrate, and managed to get off light in court because there's frankly no law in the books to punish their specific behavior since they're not technically a monopoly)?

  10. PassiveSmoking

    Remember the Windows 98 demo where they tried to plug a USB device in and it bluescreened in front of an audience of hundreds?

    You'd think MS would have learned a thing or two about programming USB drivers since then.

    1. Lotaresco

      "Remember the Windows 98 demo where they tried to plug a USB device in and it bluescreened in front of an audience of hundreds?

      At the Hippodrome? I was there man. It was like 'nam all over again, dood.

      I was also at "The Triangle" when M$ were based there for the launch of Win 3.11. The M$ droids were pushing AVI support and claiming that it was now "much better than QuickTime". The demo was quite impressive with 640x480 video that was smooth and appeared to be 25fps. At the time QuickTime was usually 320x240 and low frame rate (12 fps).

      When the presenter has his back turned I tried to move the media player window to see how it handled playback as the window was dragged around the screen. Things went wrong. The window that I dragged was a green rectangle. The video turned into road pizza for a moment then I got just a fraction of the video output overlaid on the green rectangle. A quick check of video leads and kit under the lectern showed that the movie was being played from a Laserdisc and then overlaid on the green screen by a separate video overlay unit. Tsssk, tssk, naughty chaps.

      When 3.11 did appear the AVI support was about the same quality as QuickTime but ultimately dumber because it didn't support the clever features of the QuickTime container format.

    2. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Remember the Windows 98 demo where they tried to plug a USB device in and it bluescreened in front of an audience of hundreds?

      I can even remember it from a comment earlier in this thread!

  11. cd / && rm -rf *

    TITSUP = total inablility to support user productivity

    All the trouble started when people downloaded and installed the Anniversary Update

    Let's get it right. They didn't download it. It was forced on them - they had no say in the matter. Users had about as much say in this as the guy bending over to pick up the soap on the lifer's wing in San Quentin.

    M$ - "we'll break your system in new and interesting ways today"

    1. Charles 9

      Re: TITSUP = total inablility to support user productivity

      "Let's get it right. They didn't download it. It was forced on them - they had no say in the matter. Users had about as much say in this as the guy bending over to pick up the soap on the lifer's wing in San Quentin."

      Sure there is. SQUAT.

  12. Uplink

    Drivers everywhere

    Once I changed my AT power supply to a ATX one. I had to install a driver to make ACPI shutdown work. It told this to a Linux pro, and he quipped thus to a colleague of his: "What did I tell you? One day Windows will need drivers for the case screws too."

    1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Drivers everywhere

      drivers for the case screws

      Have an upvote.

      // now cleaning coffee off my keyboard

      1. Captain Badmouth
        Windows

        Re: Drivers everywhere

        I can see the humour but experience suggests that this should not be a laughing matter.

        1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

          Re: Drivers everywhere

          You have moved the mouse. Windows must now restart.

          There's a reason I'm friends with the penguin.

      2. Wensleydale Cheese
        Unhappy

        Re: Drivers everywhere

        "drivers for the case screws "

        DON'T GIVE THEM IDEAS!

        "This device has been serviced by an unauthorised dealer. You have voided your warranty"

    2. David 132 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Drivers everywhere

      "What did I tell you? One day Windows will need drivers for the case screws too."

      Obviously never heard of a screw driver...

      1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Drivers everywhere

        screw driver.

        Our IT folks are running short of keyboards, and the looks they are casting in my direction are not friendly ones...

        1. Captain DaFt

          Re: Drivers everywhere

          "Our IT folks are running short of keyboards, and the looks they are casting in my direction are not friendly ones..."

          You might want to invest in some cling wrap to cover your keyboard before reading El Reg. It never pays to get the BOFH's attention. :)

      2. JLV
        Joke

        Re: Drivers everywhere

        Not everyone knows about those.

        “Well, you can't drink your screwdrivers, can you?”

        “What else would you suggest that we do with them?”

        "Vodka and orange juice.”

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Drivers everywhere

      "One day Windows will need drivers for the case screws too.""

      Apple actually do this. Who else remembers the special long Torx driver for the SE/30 and Classic? And then there's the Pentalobe screws on iPhones.

      What is the point other than being needlessly obstructive? You open it, it's now your problem. A Warranty Void if Removed sticker is simple and obvious.

      1. Pompous Git Silver badge

        Re: Drivers everywhere

        Apple actually do this. Who else remembers the special long Torx driver for the SE/30 and Classic?

        The earlier Macs needed a special tool to remove the back. Except the business my friend worked for were too tight to pay for one. John first had to make sure the customer was out of the room* before performing the following trick. He'd place the Mac screen-side down on the floor. Then he would rapidly strike opposing sides of the machine with his fists while simultaneously lifting them slightly. With a very loud bang that would pop the back off what was a very expensive machine.

        * Usually this was achieved by asking for a cup of coffee. On a bad day he'd get so high he couldn't sleep when night came.

  13. BazzF
    Happy

    Shrug

    For what it's worth, I have a Surface Pro 4 on Win10 pro and a self-built desktop on Win10 Home, both fully patched with the aniiversary update and subsequent KBs.

    Neither have any issue with my Kindle paperwhite, Android phone or any of my cameras when connecting via USB 3 or 2.

    The desktop is only used for gaming and photo editing, the Spro is basically the same exept for the gaming.

    Maybe it's a confuence of various bits of other software causing the issue? I dunno. I don't tend to install much exept for updates to the stuff already there.

    Capture 1 pro, On1 Photosuite and a bunch of games from Steam.

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Shrug

      "Maybe it's a confuence of various bits of other software causing the issue?"

      A lot of USB3 chipsets (or their driver stacks) are still fairly crap in my experience, and by "fairly crap" I mean that the USB 1 and 2 functionality is broken, leading to random disconnects or other trouble.

    2. BazzF

      Re: Shrug

      And I evidently have issues spelling except.

  14. twilkins

    Every year I celebrate the day I moved away from Windows to OSX.

    Now I spend my time doing my job, not f*cking about with my tools.

  15. psychonaut

    bastardised shit

    "I recently [installed] the summer Anniversary Update for Windows 10 on both my laptop and my desktop which went without any errors."

    should read:

    "i recently upgraded a previously upgraded operating system. i have shit sat on top of bastardised shit. it installed without any errors, well, any errors like stopping me from opening a browser and checking my email. the deeper, underlying total fuck up nightmare that my installation has now become is invisible to me except when i try and do something other than browse the internet"

    this may be only for some value of the total number of "upgraded", but i'll bet its happening on fresh installs too.

  16. Stevie

    Bah!

    Booting with paperwhite lugged in: machine does't hang looking for a bootable windows image?

    Connecting paperwhite while machine is sleeping: paperwhite isn't erased and bricked in that order?

    Progress, then.

  17. Nuno trancoso

    The weird thing is that in previous fails, Millenium and Vista, they backtracked in a single generation, XP and 7. Now we have 8,8.1,8.2,10, and no sign of them giving up.

    Maybe just me, but i'd say this points to someone's ego just plain not being able to accept their "new shiny" was actually a turd from the go.

    Given that business is about profit, maybe it's time said person is shown the door... For shareholders good et all.

  18. AdamK

    Makes a change

    There was a time when the headline would have read "Plugging device into Windows 98 does not cause BSOD" I would have said Windows 95 but it did not really know what a USB device was.

  19. ma1010
    Linux

    I have a Kindle paperwhite and have NOT had any computer problems

    I transfer all my books to my Kindle paperwhite by plugging it into the computer. Haven't had a BSOD or any other computer problems like that for over a year.

    Of course, I'm running Linux Mint. No data slurping. No ads. It just works.

    I'm hoping that Yet Another MS Cockup encourages more Windows users (and I used to be one) to try out Linux Mint. It installs dual boot so you can take baby steps if you need to. "Computer Users of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your BSODs, ads, spyware and crippleware!"

    1. fung0

      Re: I have a Kindle paperwhite and have NOT had any computer problems

      This can't be repeated too often: anyone who's still afraid of Linux, still mired in the propaganda about how "it's not ready for Prime Time," needs to realize that Linux is already far easier to deal with than Windows.

      Linux installs in minutes, not hours. It's free of all the nags and crapware and DRM. It has built-in support for an astounding range of devices, and it doesn't break when you update it (at your convenience, not some idiot's halfway round the world). It Just Works. What's more, the UI - depending on which one you choose and how you configure it - can easily be more like Windows than Windows itself. For example, Mint's MATE UI comes with an alternate 'Start' menu that mimics the beautifully simple hierarchical menu of pre-XP Windows. You don't need 'extras' like Classic Desktop, because the desktop is already 'classic' in ways Windows has forgotten about.

      No, Linux can't take over every task from Windows. But it can take over a great many of them (e.g. Calibre for e-books) - and the ones it does take over tend to work easier and better than on Windows. Not everyone gets this yet. I was at a Linux developer conference this week, and as far as I could tell by peeking over people's shoulders, I was the only one carrying a Linux device.

      I've been a Windows lover since version 3.0. Today I run Linux on two portables, Windows on my main desktop. More and more, I look forward to using the portables, and dread returning to Windows.

      1. Chemist

        Re: I have a Kindle paperwhite and have NOT had any computer problems

        "Linux installs in minutes" - quite

        On this i7 laptop even a heayweight like OpenSUSE took just 15 mins to install from a slowish USB stick (complete of course with a goodly selection of office/graphics/photo/multimedia/internet progs. and admin tools). After that it depends on how much updating your distro needs and how fast your connection is. But it's all usable whilst it does this.

        As to whether you need Windows - well I don't and my interests are photography including developing RAW , video editing, and all the usual office stuff + a vast array of scientific software most of which is developed on or compiled for Linux.

        1. Wensleydale Cheese
          Happy

          Re: I have a Kindle paperwhite and have NOT had any computer problems

          "After that it depends on how much updating your distro needs and how fast your connection is. But it's all usable whilst it does this."

          As I type a kernel update is installing itself on a couple of my openSuse VMs.

          I can happily carry on with stuff I'm doing in them, and when the update is done, it will let me postpone the reboot for as long as I wish.

          In other words, even a fundamental update such as one to the kernel doesn't get in the way of work in progress.

        2. a_yank_lurker

          Re: I have a Kindle paperwhite and have NOT had any computer problems

          There some pretty good, if somewhat obscure, photo software available on Linux. Some of it is commercial.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: I have a Kindle paperwhite and have NOT had any computer problems

            The problem is exactly that 'obscure'. You don't know the quality of them. How good the profiles for cameras and lenses you don't know. Were the professionally made, or are they amateurish ones? Community efforts may be great, but are not always the proper solution.

            Can I use also third party plug-ins and tools which could simplify, streamline and improve the workflow?

            Support for output devices can be an issue as well. My displays and printers comes with vendor supported software for OSX and Windows only. Calibration spectrophotometers as well. Sure, there are third party software that *may* work with them (sometimes losing some functionalities), but why should I risk?

            Why spend many thousand of dollars on quality hardware, and then risk less optimized results using software that tries to replicate original functionalities with no direct access to the product specs, especially in an OS where proprietary drivers are frowned upon?

            If my aim is to deliver the best products to my customers, ensure consistency, and be able to access fully external services for what I can't produce in-house, I won't take a route that can hamper my business.

      2. Charles 9

        Re: I have a Kindle paperwhite and have NOT had any computer problems

        "No, Linux can't take over every task from Windows. But it can take over a great many of them (e.g. Calibre for e-books) - and the ones it does take over tend to work easier and better than on Windows. Not everyone gets this yet. I was at a Linux developer conference this week, and as far as I could tell by peeking over people's shoulders, I was the only one carrying a Linux device."

        But where are the games? Many of us won't and likely CAN'T move until progress is made there.

  20. Black Betty

    Galaxy J1 Mini. No BSOD. Insta reboot.

    Not every time, but three times now I've plugged it in to charge and had my machine immediately restart.

  21. Chris G

    Ubiquity leads to iniquity

    At some point in the past as windows became for most intents and purposes, ubiquitous, MS decided that they had reached the point where they owned the World and no longer had to give a rat's arse what the Users thought needed or even wanted.

    That point seems to be a while before Vista was forced on the Users with KY and a rubber glove, incredibly, they managed to overcome Vista but I don't think it was because we wanted something better so much as they had an attack of serendipity.

    By now, having given the World hope with XP and 7 they are really insistent on letting us know who's the boss and who the bitches are. Well there are an awful lot of bitches out there who, having been shafted repeatedly are likely to tell the boss to go screw himself.

    10 having superceded the non-event that was the 8 series couldn't be a clearer way of telling the World to 'Fuck off 'cos we don't need you no more'. So let's go!

    My next move is Mint and a new email to get away from the intermittent 'something happened at our end' crap called Outlook.

  22. Captain Badmouth
    Windows

    What's next..........

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3108405/microsoft-windows/microsoft-changes-win781-updates-pushes-even-harder-for-windows-10.html

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3108572/microsoft-windows/a-peek-at-the-future-of-windows-7-and-81-patching.html

    Oo-er missus.

  23. JLV

    a slow motion trainwreck

    Not directly related, but did anyone notice that Win10 doesn't support the old .chm help file format? Really great when you have old software that still runs, but w.o. help files.

    The best thing one can say about 10 is that it is not 8. But really MS is doing its best to frustrate as many of its loyal users as it can. I mean, the Linux folk are elsewhere. The Mac folk too. They are not coming back. They won't be pleased regardless so they don't matter much to MS.

    But this constant stream of fairly high profile glitches and annoyances, along with telemetry, security holes, churn in system UI, bad system UI is not doing much to keep existing users around on Windows. No, they may not care about FOSS principles and on Linux. They may not be stylish and cost-unconscious and on Mac.

    They may not be cutting edge IT and they may not even really know what an OS is.

    But at some point, they may still just get fed up with Windows and leave. I don't see that happening any time soon with corporations. But individuals? What is the patience point when it is just not worth getting another PC with Windows? I suspect that's one of the reasons why tablets are replacing desktop/laptops for a lot of casual users - at least they are on Android/iOS, not Windows.

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Re: a slow motion trainwreck

      Companies will probably try to keep 7 alive passed its announced execution date. This is an even bigger problem for Slurp than consumers leaving initially. Consumers will be a slow bleeding away to other devices/OSes and Slurp may not spot the trend until too late. Businesses often have 100's if not 1000's of PCs and a few large migrations away from 'bloat will get some attention.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: a slow motion trainwreck

        "Companies will probably try to keep 7 alive passed its announced execution date. This is an even bigger problem for Slurp than consumers leaving initially. Consumers will be a slow bleeding away to other devices/OSes and Slurp may not spot the trend until too late. Businesses often have 100's if not 1000's of PCs and a few large migrations away from 'bloat will get some attention."

        Many of them are also held hostage to their infrastructures, and by that I mean all the existing software they have that likely has no substitutes and can't be found in any other OS, likely because they're custom jobs made by companies who (a) must be paid an exorbitant sum for a new version or (b) simply don't exist anymore. And what about the mountains of Microsoft Office stuff full of custom scripts and formulae and delicate formatting?

    2. Charles 9

      Re: a slow motion trainwreck

      "But at some point, they may still just get fed up with Windows and leave."

      And then COME BACK because the software they need doesn't run anywhere else. You might as well be Walking on the Sun...

      1. doke

        Re: a slow motion trainwreck

        "And then COME BACK because the software they need doesn't run anywhere else. You might as well be Walking on the Sun..."

        Why do people keep repeating this FUD? I'm a network and systems administrator. There are only two applications I still need for work that require windows. I very seldom use either. Both run fine in VirtualBox VMs. One actually runs better in a VM than on bare metal, due to quirks in how it's networking interacts with VPNs. There used to be more, but most of them now have Linux replacements. My need for windows has shrunk dramatically over the years.

    3. dajames

      Re: a slow motion trainwreck

      Not directly related, but did anyone notice that Win10 doesn't support the old .chm help file format? Really great when you have old software that still runs, but w.o. help files.

      The writing has been on the wall for .chm help for a LONG time. The WinHelp viewer (the program that displays .chm files) has not been included with Windows since Windows XP (Vista was the first version not to include it).

      The WinHelp format was deprecated because it is possible to write malware that exploits the format, so that's not entirely a bad thing. What is a bad thing is context-sensitive help in Windows programs died with the format -- HTML help has never been integrated into applications in the same way, and Windows applications are the poorer for that.

      It has been possible to download a Microsoft utility program to view .chm files in Windows versions from Vista to Windows 8.1. There is apparently no equivalent utility for Windows 10.

      See this Microsoft Knowledge Base article.

      That doesn't help if you have an old application with good WinHelp help but can't view it under Windows 10, of course.

  24. Alanex

    Crashes and Telemetry

    Just had a quick look on the forums linked to in the article. Why is Microsoft asking for dump files, system configuration files, etc when all this stuff is supposedly sent to Microsoft in their Telemetry to help them improve and diagnose Windows 10 issues? Surely they've been automatically sent all these crash reports along with the relevant system details to help them come up with a fix?

    I don't get it.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Crashes and Telemetry

      "I don't get it."

      The crash ALSO crashes the telemetry tool. A failure cascade that takes out both the process AND the watchdog that's supposed to be guarding the process.

    2. Alumoi Silver badge

      Re: Crashes and Telemetry

      Telemetry sends your contacts, e-mails, programs installed, files opened, keys pressed and other such relevant information in order for MS to continually and dinamically provide you with a better experience.

      Crash reports and other such nonsense are to be provided by the user in case of crashes.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: Crashes and Telemetry

        "Crash reports and other such nonsense are to be provided by the user in case of crashes."

        But there's such a problem as the thing that crashes being the crash reporter.

  25. energystar
    Big Brother

    "...It sounds like Windows is trying to mount the filesystem on the Kindle as a removable storage device and getting completely confused..."

    It sounds like a driver 'on the wild side'. Think is going to be discretely managed in between two.

  26. Nickckk

    You need to be prepared for any eventually with the Win10 beast.

    12 July when KB3172985 (OS Build 10586.494) was applied, the system was wrecked. I had to resort to USB and lost all data.

    As far a Amazon is concerned, I've ditched my Kindle. When I want to do a free download, Amazon routes it via itself and wants to charge me. It's not so much a tab as a business model for Amazon.

  27. VinceLortho
    Linux

    SOP

    Windows QA is astoundingly bad. Written on and sent from the Linux machine that was a Win10 until never ending updates fracked the WiFi and clock for the fourth time.

  28. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    What's next?

    First they took away my webcam, but I said nothing.

    Next they took my books, but still I said nothing.

    Next?

  29. Hargrove

    Configuration (out of) Control

    Some people say the BSOD only happens when they plug their Kindle into a USB 3.0 port, others say inserting it into a USB 2 interface triggers the crash too. Some people always get a crash, some most of the time, and others have reported experiencing no problems at all.

    In other words, the design of the operating system makes how it interprets and executes a piece of code in one App depends on the specific state some other App provided by some other vendor.

    Windows ceased to be an operating system by any reasonable definition of the term long ago. Calling it that doesn't make it so. Do I recall some perceptive commenter using the term "train wreck"?

    Windows 10 Anniversary Train Wreck. Has a nice ring to it, does it not?

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