back to article Microsoft yanks the document-destroying Windows 10 October 2018 Update

Microsoft has taken the unprecedented step of pulling a Windows 10 release a mere four days after its arrival amid a clamour of users complaining about files not being where they had left them. Windows Insider supremo Dona Sarkar took to Twitter to announce that Windows fans would no longer be able to get their hands on the …

  1. Aladdin Sane

    If this was an Apple product

    "You're installing it wrong"

    1. Daniel von Asmuth
      Facepalm

      find out what the recovery process is going to be

      Thank Gates you only have to press <ctrl-z> to undo the update.

      1. Aladdin Sane

        Re: find out what the recovery process is going to be

        ctrl+alt+fuckit

        1. Fungus Bob

          Re: find out what the recovery process is going to be

          "ctrl+alt+fuckit"

          That would be to install the update...

        2. southen bastard
          Joke

          Re: find out what the recovery process is going to be

          Where's the fuckit key, I CANT FIND THE FUCKIT KEY!!

          Microsoft knowledge base says it's beside the anykey, WHERE"S THE FUCKING ANYKEY!!

          TO LATE its installing.

          1. vtcodger Silver badge

            Re: find out what the recovery process is going to be

            It's UNDER the ANYKEY. Just lift the ANY key up and it'll be there.

            1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

              Re: It's UNDER the ANYKEY

              Looks like you've been updated to the same version Bombastic Bob has been using.

    2. fidodogbreath

      Re: If this was an Apple product

      Microsoft's advice to those who have downloaded the build is: for goodness' sake, don't install the thing.

      Good advice for Windows 10 in general.

      1. steviebuk Silver badge

        Re: If this was an Apple product

        I disagree. I still have Windows 7 on my ThinkPad but there are some nice little features of Windows 10 that make it enjoyable to use. Shame those features aren't in Windows 7. Still sticking with that on my Thinkpad for now.

        One madness with Windows 10 I don't understand is alot of the privacy and the Bluetooth default. Discovered it at work today or what issue it can cause. Sets itself to allow any Bluetooth device to connect even if not specifically paired. What issue did that cause today? The Bluetooth moused used by the person in front of the user I had a call out for was fucking interfering with their laptop causing the call of "my mouse is moving on its own".

        What are Microsoft doing?

        And on slightly unrelated moan with Office 365 and the shitty exchange spam filter. Tell it to block all yahoo.jp addresses yet it still lets them through ):o(

        1. nextenso

          Re: If this was an Apple product

          Its seems to be a policy by many users in these forums to knock Msoft. In my family, my business, and businesses of my family members, we have solely used Msoft Windows, starting dos based and onwards, and the Msoft family of products through most editions since 1987. We use our machines heavily all day. Apart from occasional glitches and Millenium, its been dependable and I wouldn't touch Apple having tried it several times.

          The almost infinitely wide range of compatible software and the superb almost instant support response (Office 365) keeps us firmly bound to Msoft, as do millions of others.

          Of course there are glitches. This software. With so many millions of users using an almost inconceivable range of different combinations of hardware and software editions, no amount of testing will find all problems, plus inevitable human error at Msoft and elsewhere. I speak as one who has developed software.

          1. fishbone

            Re: If this was an Apple product

            It also seems to be policy for Apple fanbois to complain about complaining.

          2. Updraft102

            Re: If this was an Apple product

            no amount of testing will find all problems,

            Therein lies the problem. Microsoft apparently took that statement the wrong way, because they perform no amount of testing!

            They got rid of the paid testers to save money (which I am sure it does, just as it would save money if car manufacturers could skip all the safety testing. Who needs testing anyway?).

            So now they push this stuff off to the Insiders for "testing," where they did find and report the bug, but because their bug fixing system is somehow a popularity contest, the data loss bugs didn't get enough upvotes to be fixed. It wasn't popular enough to be fixed!

            I'd be a lot more inclined to accept the "can't find all the bugs" if Microsoft had made even the slightest effort to do so. It's not hard to see how an assortment of volunteers playing around with new builds in their spare time and reporting those bugs in the un-serious party environment of the Insider forum would end up finding less bugs than professional QA testers, and that's often the case. In this case, the volunteers did find and report the bug at least 14 times, and MS still chose to greenlight the build with the data loss bug still intact.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: If this was an Apple product

            > Its seems to be a policy by many users in these forums to knock Msoft.

            Because they're a corrupt, convicted monopolist, making lousy software and seem to be happy paying PR types to post positive messages of support on various tech forums.

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: If this was an Apple product

          there are some nice little features of Windows 10 that make it enjoyable to use

          Like what? Honestly, there is not a single change in Windows 10 that I feel is an improvement on Windows 7. Not that I'm fond of Win7 - but Win10 is a fucking unmitigated nightmare. Windows 95 was better. OS/400 V3 was better. Using MVS via JCL jobs and TSO is better. Frickin' MS-DOS 2.0 may not have been better, strictly speaking, but it was less annoying.

          I've used a lot of operating systems, and none has come close to the continual stream of aggravations and outright horrible behavior of Win10.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If this was an Apple product

      If it was an Apple product, updating would basically hose everything and reset all settings to factory defaults. I've had that happen more than once when installing a MacOSX update. Thankfully my iMac is "too old" to install the latest version of MacOS.

      1. JaimieV

        Re: If this was an Apple product

        How the fuck? The user account I'm typing this from was first created in Tiger in 2005 and has been migrated through all the intervening releases. The other half's account is from 2006. They've both travelled through different chains of hardware from Minis to MacBooks and Pros to iMacs and back to Mini again.

        I've even run a bunch of those migrations through beta releases of OS X/macOS. How is yours so flaky?

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: If this was an Apple product

          "The user account I'm typing this from was first created in Tiger in 2005 and has been migrated through all the intervening releases."

          In my experience, I've never seen it do anything to the user folder, or really most places on the hard drive. However, it does at times reset settings. You have to go to system preferences to switch them back. I've seen this on IOS too. It's not a terrible bug, but I set those settings and I'd like them to stay that way without my needing to go back in. I've also seen certain installation bugs (the one that hit me when high sierra was launched at me is particularly memorable). Still, I'd say that apple OS releases haven't really had anything as bad as this one on windows.

          As usual, I'm glad that yours is working, but if others' systems aren't, there is still a problem.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: If this was an Apple product

          How is yours so flaky?

          So, for the first few years of owning my mac, I didn't really use it for much. I needed xcode to publish iOS builds of the game I released many years ago, and that was about it.

          Some time after that I realised I could set up Apache and use it as an internal server for web development and testing, which I (slowly and painfully) did. That was working fine for a while. Until I updated macOS. That update effectively destroyed all my custom network settings and the entire Apache configuration. Now, it's entirely likely that I didn't set things up "correctly". But in all honesty, if macOS ships with something like Apache, then it should ship with a fucking configuration tool, so I can't set it up wrong. And if it configuration files have changed, maybe it should not blindly fucking overwrite them when updating. Apple love to harp on about how user friendly their machines are, but to be honest that's been a complete crock of shit for at least 20 years now. (I used OS6 (or 7, I don't remember) for quite a while back in the day and absolutely loved it.)

          A second update destroyed the vmWare setup I was using. Now this was basically due to vmWare stopping support for the product I had bought (it wasn't more than two years old) and Apple not giving a rat's shit about backwards compatibility. Suffice to say I will never buy anything from vmWare ever again.

          After losing the Apache configuration I decided to invest in something that could manage that shit for me, so I bought MAMP Pro (iirc) and set about rebuilding the test configuration for my web development setup. That worked fine until, once again, I updated macOS and, once again, that system was hosed. The version of MAMP Pro that I bought doesn't really work with the latest macOS (hello, backwards compatibility) and I mostly haven't bothered trying to figure out why - it sort of works, but mostly doesn't for no obvious reason that I can see. I can't be arsed to to figure out why, and I don't really need it these days anyway.

          Now that I can't update macOS, my copy of xcode will very shortly be too old to support the features our app developers are using, and at that point I will throw my mac in the garbage where it belongs. (And pray work doesn't buy me a new one.)

          I think that brings us up-to-date. Who needs a drink?

    4. goats in pajamas

      Re: If this was an Apple product

      If this was a story about a failure at Apple then your post would have merit. As it is it's just infantile.

      Stick with your plastic Windows box and leave criticising Macs to those who have actually used one and maybe try and find something pertinent to say about the matter in hand.

  2. SJA

    Why even touch user folders?

    It's a Windows Update. Why do they even need to touch the user folder?

    1. Tigra 07
      Linux

      Re: Why even touch user folders?

      Instead of copying everyone's files to give to the NSA they accidentally cut them. The fix is identify which files are yours and give you a copy back.

      </Smug penguin>

      1. Marco van de Voort

        Re: Why even touch user folders? Onedrive

        Several sources say that the bundled onedrive update wipes out locally stored files if they are not in the cloud. One forum post said that defanging onedrive settings (files-on-demand setting) and updating onedrive separately before the update should remedy that.

        Not that I recommend trying that, specially now that it has been pulled.

        1. Tigra 07
          Black Helicopters

          Re: Marco

          Aha, so it does involve Onedrive. For anyone not aware, Microsoft was caught aiding the NSA and giving access to Onedrive. It's not paranoia, it's happening (or at least it was and now they cover it up better).

          https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2344633/leaked-nsa-document-shows-microsoft-co-operation-over-prism

        2. Julian 8 Silver badge

          Re: Why even touch user folders? Onedrive

          Even more reason for us to be able to remove this bit of bloatware

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Why even touch user folders? Onedrive

          > Several sources say that the bundled onedrive update wipes out locally stored files if they are not in the cloud.

          Ah yes. Reminds me of something that happened to my as-then boss in the late 1990s.

          He had just got a shiny new laptop, and had about 5GB of mail stored in the Exchange server (a lot in those days). He configured his new laptop, and told Outlook to sync to Exchange.

          Outlook obliged and brought the two into sync - by deleting all his mail from the server.

          1. SonOfDilbert
            Flame

            Re: Why even touch user folders? Onedrive

            Ah! Those were the days! Reminds me of the time that the Exchange information store used to stop when the 15GB limit was hit. If some poor schmuck tried to restart the information store service, the whole store somehow became corrupt and had to be restored from backup. Such fond memories of praying that the restore was going to work at 2 in the morning.

            1. Slabfondler
              Facepalm

              Re: Why even touch user folders? Onedrive

              That reminds me of a great mail transport system I used in the late 80's - it had a similar issue, where if it ran out of space it would trigger an email to the admin, but since it had no room for the message, would generate another message to the admin, and so on and so on...

        4. Twilight

          Re: Why even touch user folders? Onedrive

          How about Microsoft decouple OneDrive? I have absolutely no need for a OneDrive update (or at all). OneDrive is inferior to DropBox or many other solutions.

      2. wallaby

        Re: Why even touch user folders?

        "Instead of copying everyone's files to give to the NSA they accidentally cut them. The fix is identify which files are yours and give you a copy back.

        </Smug penguin>"

        To use a previous users post with a small modification:-

        If this was a story about a failure at Linux then your post would have merit. As it is it's just infantile.

    2. djvrs

      Re: Why even touch user folders?

      So as I thought then, the Windows 10 edition updates are more like a fresh install of Windows and a 'transfer' of your files and programs to the new/freshly installed version......Great......

      1. Killfalcon Silver badge

        Re: Why even touch user folders?

        Sounds to me like OneDrive is force-syncing in a stupid way, and removing files it doesn't have it's cloudy list ('syncing' a supposed 'deletion', maybe).

        I suppose it's possible that they're using OneDrive to bring your files to a fresh install, but that seems like a pointlessly expensive way to do it. Microsoft does have to pay for the bandwidth OneDrive uses at their end, after all, and this would result in a lot of data moving per user every update.

        1. Sixtysix
          Black Helicopters

          OneDrive - Re: Why even touch user folders?

          I don't use OneDrive

          I don't use a Microsoft Login

          ...Will I be safe, or selected for "extra" special deletion?

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

            1. keith_w

              Re: OneDrive - Why even touch user folders?

              my 32GB acer had 8.xGB free and successfully updated. How much counts as "Not Much"? OTOH, I didn't have any personal files on it as it was strictly used for email while travelling. so of course there was nothing available to disappear..

          2. bd1235

            Re: OneDrive - Why even touch user folders?

            I don't use One Drive or a Microsoft login and I had no trouble with the update on my TEST system. We all install on our TEST systems first so we can iron out the probs first before attacking our real system which has precious unbacked up data.

            1. mistersaxon

              Re: OneDrive - Why even touch user folders?

              Not to be picky but if your data in the real system is precious, why isn't it backed up?

              Moving on, the issue here seems to be related to the idea that OneDrive is a backup solution when it's a HA solution, the difference being that the HA doesn't record a point-in-time, it attempts to recreate a state by copying and deleting. The lesson being that old chestnut: you always need a backup.

          3. beep54

            Re: OneDrive - Why even touch user folders?

            "I don't use a Microsoft Login" A while back my desktop went rather spectacularly titsup and somehow hosed my main gmail account which I've never been able to recover. This meant I was no longer automatically logged into 10, which seems to grieve it highly. I have found that there seems to be absolutely no reason to log into MS when using 10. The sad little "PLEASE LOG IN....PRETTY PLEASE???" popups are both mildly annoying and amusing.

        2. spr97ajm

          Re: Why even touch user folders?

          The first ever Windows phone I owned (the Orange SPV) had a similar sync philosophy. The first time I connected it to my PC, it deleted all my contacts.

          I had to admit, both devices were then in sync though.

          1. Phil Kingston

            Re: Why even touch user folders?

            Smartphone 2002, with ActiveSync, those were the days

    3. el kabong

      Data slurping, of course!

      Everyone is doing it so... why not?

    4. rmason

      Re: Why even touch user folders?

      It's not "updates" as we know and 'love' them.

      The feature updates for win10 are effectively OS re-installs. More scope for stuff to go badly wrong.

      They tend to be huge, 1.5-3GB. A far cry from the old windows updates most are familiar with.

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: Why even touch user folders?

        They tend to be huge, 1.5-3GB. A far cry from the old windows updates most are familiar with.

        On the plus side, they're also appallingly slow. When my Win10 machine (a recent-model Dell laptop, supplied by my employer, of course, since I wouldn't pay money for Dell equipment or Windows 10) updated a few weeks ago, it took over three hours to finish the "update", not counting download time. Three hours, during which the machine rebooted four or five times, and sternly warned me not to turn it off or touch anything or look at it sideways.

        This was problematic not only because of the obvious failure modes (hey, Microsoft, some people have desktop machines that aren't on a UPS...), but because I had to leave for a trip that morning. Of course, I wouldn't have chosen to install an update right before I had to leave, but Microsoft decided to force one on me overnight "to improve my experience" and "make Windows better".

        You know what would make Windows better, Microsoft? Stopping the compulsory "updates", and firing whoever approved that idea in the first place.

    5. King Jack
      Facepalm

      Re: Why even touch user folders?

      Windows 10 is spyware. You need to go through users private offerings to get info. That is why Win10 goes through user folders.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why even touch user folders?

      It's a Windows Update. Why do they even need to touch the user folder?

      I reckon it's the move from \users\%user% to \victims\%user% that went wrong. It's still all there, just linked to the wrong place so you end up with some data being stored correctly from newer software, and some still being dumped at \users\%user%..

    7. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Terminator

      Re: Why even touch user folders?

      Don't ask Micro-shaft 'why', you'll just get a ban from their forums for NOT bowing down and worshiping them, and 'enjoying' EVERYTHING they do [to you], like a good little fanboi.

      From the article: A former 'MVP' "went public after being defrocked following criticism"

      Micro-shaft does NOT like criticism. ANY criticism. Especially, when it's the _TRUTH_.

      /me "been there done that" back during the 'insider program'. MANY of us were VERY vocal about the 'wrongness' and were inappropriately treated by moderators, etc.. They wanted the insider forums to consist of praise and worship and "all good, no problems". Instead they got FEEDBACK about the wrong things they were doing, especially the ads, the slurp and forced updates. I was particularly vocal about the 2D FLATSO and the obvious 'not listening' to the customers.

      And that's because we're not CUSTOMERS to them. We're "masses" or "minions" or something worse...

      1. Someone Else Silver badge

        Re: Why even touch user folders?

        Sounds a lot like YAN orange-haired despot we know and "love"...

  3. JimmyPage Silver badge
    FAIL

    "A good state"

    weasel words. Not "get your files back", but "a good state".

    It's a little like being told your house is going back to a "good state" after a burglary. No, you won't get your shit back. But it will smell of pine.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "A good state"

      North Korea is a good state - depending on who you ask.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The guy who wrote the update

    Should have got the sack

    But that wouldn't bring three thousand million, seven hundred and sixty-eight deleted files back

    Would it?

    1. Frank Bitterlich
      Facepalm

      "The guy who wrote the update"

      Seriously? "The" guy? You're assuming that one dev wrote this release?

      It's not exactly breaking news that developers do make mistakes; it should be the job of QA to prevent these mistakes from hitting the street. As such, a Release Preview program (a.k.a. "Install-at-your-own-risk-club") is a good last step to catch catastrophic bugs that the rest of QA didn't catch.

      But to some PHB it also looks like a good thing to scrap when you want to get your release out quicker and cheaper.

      1. Primus Secundus Tertius

        Re: "The guy who wrote the update"

        In my career in the software industry I never saw QA get their hands dirty actually doing an independent code check. Their excuse was that their function is to ensure procedures have been followed. All known mistakes documented in triplicate, meetings minuted, actions acted upon, documents duly signed off.

        Good paperwork is proof of a good product, is it not?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "The guy who wrote the update"

          "In my career in the software industry I never saw QA get their hands dirty actually doing an independent code check."

          A QA guy once explained this to me with this: "We are only here to assure that quality proceures have been followed and performed by someone, not that we will perform them ourselves".

          My colleague once gave the same QA guy a test report consisting of "It passed", written on a Post-It note.

        2. Hans 1
          Boffin

          Re: "The guy who wrote the update"

          Depends where you work ... we have experienced consultants who now have grown tired of travelling and have taken over Q/A. They have a whole wack of different systems with different settings, and each time they find a showstopper, they get a cold lager (so to speak)! Our customers rely on our software for some business critical stuff, you cannot just go easy-peasy, sir ... Quality costs money!

        3. Steve B

          Re: "The guy who wrote the update"

          Have to agree. I inspired ICL's Software QA team, but we were so successful, we were disbanded and product reliability took a nose dive again..

          A couple of years ago I got a QA lead job in the UK with a leading US backup and restore company, but only lasted a couple of weeks because their flagship product had flawlessly passed its official QA but by running my company induction script as a proper QA exercise against the new product I found several bugs, one potentially serious, I was too new to know if it was or not so raised it with the development team for them to check out.

          Cue a trip from HQ personnel and an unbelievable conversation:

          "As a QA Lead it was not your job to find and report bugs, the QA Test Lead role is to run the supplied scripts and if there are any bugs, the script will flag them."

          "... but I found 20 new bugs"

          to which the response was

          "You are not the sort of person we want working for *****"

          I wasn't even allowed back to my desk to get my coffee cup, someone else had to get it for me.

          Back in the 70s, our groundbreaking QA philosophy was that we were "users". As such, it was fairly important that the products worked as documented, but more important was that when we did things wrong they catered for the fact and dealt with it in the correct and safe manner. Even thought we knew more about the product than half the developers, we only used knowledge and traits available to users so if the documentation was wrong - tough - we followed it and the product failed until it was correct. If the user was told not to do something they could easily do because it caused an issue, we would incorporate it to ensure it didn't, because you could guarantee a user would do it at the most inconvenient time.

          Back in those days, you had to apply OS patches and software package updates via punched cards and they refused to do a rebuild before submission to QA, so I insisted the exercise included the punching of the cards from when we started not before. Turned the exercise into a bit of a fiasco but as a direct result a new delivery system was devised and a new department formed to ensure the task of applying patches was a smooth infallible operation for the actual users. Job Done!

          Product and operating system reliability shot up hundreds of percent.

          We put it together in less than 6 months, but after they disbanded us and it all went downhill, the company spent the next decade rediscovering "quality" for the first time!?! And I am not sure they ever reached our level of success.

          MS were just starting off then, bit it sounds like they still haven't caught up even 40 years later.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "The guy who wrote the update"

        In Agile, you do your own QA. Seems to be working well.

        1. Cavehomme_

          Re: "The guy who wrote the update"

          "In Agile, you do your own QA. Seems to be working well."

          In fact so well, I now call it Fragile.

          Agile is fine for fluffy end-user stuff and business reporting, not operating systems and really important stuff.

          1. SonOfDilbert
            Pint

            Re: "The guy who wrote the update"

            "In fact so well, I now call it Fragile.

            Agile is fine for fluffy end-user stuff and business reporting, not operating systems and really important stuff."

            Hooray - someone actually criticising the current state of what most companies think of as Agile. Here, have an upvote!

        2. FrozenShamrock

          Re: "The guy who wrote the update"

          I can only hope this was meant to be sarcastic.

    2. Mark Manderson

      @AC But that wouldn't bring three thousand million, seven hundred and sixty-eight deleted files back

      no, but actually making backups of your own files regularly would have made this a nonstarter? Oh "shock horror" doing a quick sync/backup before updating?

      Silly idea I know....to confirm your C drive is not a backup location ;) its safer to trust MS not deleting YOUR files?

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: But that wouldn't bring three thousand million, seven hundred and sixty-eight deleted files back

        Yes, this would have been much less of a problem if people backed up their files. That's correct. It's also quite relevant, except:

        1. There are some people who never back up their files. They aren't reading this comment or this site at all.

        2. Microsoft's update system is such that it will run the update when it wants to, without asking you. Therefore, you don't have the chance to say "Let me take a full backup of this before you do that."

        3. Windows now gets updated a lot, such that you can't take a ton of time out of your schedule to do something unusual every time it does. I used to be in the camp of always doing a clean install if a new major version of the system was coming out, just to avoid any problems that the upgrade process has. This includes taking a full backup, both through my normal system and onto alternate media that is confirmed bootable or externally mountable in an emergency. I'm not going to do that multiple times a year, thanks.

      2. mistersaxon

        Re: @AC But that wouldn't bring three thousand million deleted files back

        As I said elsewhere in this thread: OneDrive is a HA solution, not a backup. And, as a HA solution, its job is to duplicate your source offsite ASAP - sadly it'll do this even if you (or your OS upgrade) decided to delete something important.

        So yeah, people need to understand that Windows Backup / Time Machine is a backup and OneDrive / iCloud is not. But setting up and running backups is so *boring* you know? Always running at the wrong time and interfering with your work!

      3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: @AC But that wouldn't bring three thousand million...

        Oh "shock horror" doing a quick sync/backup before updating?

        This is Win10. It decides to do the update for you, without warning, if you leave the OS running overnight.

        1. ma1010
          Megaphone

          Re: @AC But that wouldn't bring three thousand million...

          This is Win10. It decides to do the update for you, without warning, if you leave the OS running overnight.

          Or in the middle of the work day, if the system was off at night. I was in a business meeting and was supposed to see a presentation, but their Win 10 decided to do updates instead. About an hour later, it decided to start working, so I was able to see the presentation.

          Honestly, what complete moron would think this is an acceptable way to run anything, much less a major computer operating system? Every time I read one of these articles, I'm so happy I switched to Linux!

          1. agatum

            Re: @AC But that wouldn't bring three thousand million...

            Honestly, what complete moron would think this is an acceptable way to run anything, much less a major computer operating system?

            Perhaps the kind of moron who sees the sales figures and goes "oh, look, no matter how much we piss on them they still buy our shit."

            If you want change, vote with your wallet, that's the only vote you got. If you can not vote with your wallet, bite the bullet baby.

          2. Primus Secundus Tertius

            Re: @AC But that wouldn't bring three thousand million...

            @ma1010

            I know people who have defected to Apple for the same reasons.

      4. Twilight

        Re: But that wouldn't bring three thousand million, seven hundred and sixty-eight deleted files back

        >>> Oh "shock horror" doing a quick sync/backup before updating?

        How exactly do you do that when Microsoft can and does arbitrarily decide when your machine should be updated. I've gone down in the morning to find my laptop rebooted after an update overnight (with no prior notice that it was going to be done that night) and I've gotten notices that Windows 10 was updating "right now" to "improve Windows". I have also sometimes gotten "there's an update pending - do you want to update now?" to which I almost always delay a little to let other people find as many issues as possible.

    3. the Jim bloke

      its not "The guy who wrote the update.." who should be facing discipline.

      It is the manager of his department.

      They will be getting paid ridiculous amounts of money with apparently no responsibility.

      What a company does with its workers is up to its own policies and how well it can evade local labour laws and basic human rights, but when a fuckup affects the population at large the apology (preferably a traditional Japanese one, and I dont mean a pinky finger) needs to be from management level - not some sacrificial drone.

      1. ShadowDragon8685

        Oh, come on now, this isn't THAT serious.

        A pinkie will do just fine.

      2. agatum

        They will be getting paid ridiculous amounts of money with apparently no responsibility.

        Like any run of the mill politician then. At least with these jerks it's the company's money, not public.

    4. vtcodger Silver badge

      I wouldn't be at all surprised that the folks who did the update told their managers what would probably happen and were told they were paid to code, not to be system architects.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Move

    Perhaps when they tried to slurp the users' files they did a move instead of a copy.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Move

      I bet they moved them all into C:\NUL (that's a temporary directory tree, right?)

  6. chivo243 Silver badge
    Headmaster

    or a handy install of Linux.

    Not sure if this is a tongue in cheek response, or they plan on using a live Linux disk to retrieve the files.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi
      Linux

      Re: or a handy install of Linux.

      Why not? Remember Microsoft Linux ( mslinux.org )?

      1. Tigra 07
        Linux

        Re: Waseem

        That's site is solid gold! They have a misattributed quote on the page though:

        "This is horseshit. Horseshit, horseshit, horseshit. And for those of you who don't know what that means, it's the shit that comes from a horse!"

        -- Greg, Columbia Internet"

        Greg in Columbia is clearly Linus Torvalds...

        1. Keith Langmead

          Re: Waseem

          "-- Greg, Columbia Internet""

          Hopefully you know the reference... it's from the User Friendly web comic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Friendly Greg is Tech Support and Columbia Internet is a fictious company.

          1. Tigra 07
            Thumb Up

            Re: Keith

            I was not aware of that. Thanks for the link!

  7. Oh Matron!
    Coat

    wait, wait, wait, wait.....

    Where's the backup? Mine's the coat with the 256GB external SSD drive in the pocket...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: wait, wait, wait, wait.....

      Backups only work if they aren't deleted too

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
        Thumb Down

        If you keep your backups on the same computer, You Are Doin' It Wrong (TM).

        1. Keff
          Holmes

          If you have important files on one disk on one computer, you've got all your eggs in one basket. What could go wrong?

          Buggy update, buggy app, virus/malware, power spike, disk crash, house fire, theft . . . and operator error. For all the vitriol thrown at Microsoft, loss of files is your own damn fault. Get a couple of external hard disks and create disk images regularly, ESPECIALLY before a major update, and store one offsite. Subscribe to a cloud backup for your files.

          It's not rocket science.

          1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

            Re: It's not rocket science.

            Unfortunately it is not as simple as that. Simple as rocket science? Hmmm. If your infrastructure is well-engineered then you might have a bit of confidence in where you can put your trust, and plan accordingly.

            With I.T. it's a bit difficult. Example's cited:-

            External Hard Disks can be taken out by ransomware if they are plugged in at the wrong time (yom yom more data to chew). USB has its fair share of idiosyncracies too.

            Disk images? Anyone who's seen The Fly will be able to imagine the principles of that storyline applied to the taking of Disk Images.

            Cloud backup? One of my clients has got that, but they also have on-prem backups too. If your Cloud Backup gets infested with Ransomware please tell me how do you choose the last but one snapshot for bulk restoration of infected files?

            Microsoft Backup: I remember Backup from DOS days, the format varied between versions and IIRC if for example you did a backup using 6.21 backup, you couldn't Restore it using the 6.22 version, and vice versa. (SETVER was a life-saver for those with the Wrong Version).

            I played around with the Backup on W10 and within the space of ten minutes had managed to confuse the hell out of it.

            "Before a major update". How do you know (we're talking W10 here), how do you know when the next major update is?

            The fact is that you have to assume that there is no safe "baseline". In addition you have a constant stream of hackers testing your defences. The philosophy is to use a blend of techniques to safeguard your systems, but that will vary from company to company. There is no "one-size-fits-all" strategy.

            Any rocket scientists here care to comment?

      2. chivo243 Silver badge
        Holmes

        Re: wait, wait, wait, wait.....

        Backups only work if they are tested! Who had time?

        1. jglathe

          Re: wait, wait, wait, wait.....

          Did a zfs scrub at the backup yesterday to be sure. Had to do it again on another disk and RMA the first one. So... probably?

  8. mark l 2 Silver badge

    "Microsoft and Windows 10 fan boy" ?

    The only good thing about Windows 10 is the amount of Software available for the platform. But with the advent of 'apps' on smart phones and tablets even that has begun to change.

    If some of the major business software for Windows were made available for other OS whether that be MacOS, Linux, BSD or some other OS then people would soon forget about using Windows and the market share would shrink dramatically.

    I don't think that switching to a new OS would be such a big change for users as perhaps it might have been 10 or 15 years ago when pretty much everyone was using Windows XP. People are now used to using several operating systems in their daily lives. They might have Windows 10 on their home PC, Windows 7 on their work computer, iOS on their phone, a custom OS on their Smart TV and Android on their tablet. Yet they manage to work out how to use them all without needing to be sent on a training course.

    1. Mage Silver badge
      FAIL

      major business software for Windows were made available for other OS

      Or even didn't depend on Silverlight as a cloud based CRM does.

      Seems to me that very many top Business software developers didn't follow MS developer best practice in the past or now.

      Most major business SW that won't work on Wine on Linux or has no Linux or Apple versions is that way for stupid reasons.

      CRM, Payroll and Accounts. Stuff done so badly that it won't run on Wine and in the past often needed and Admin rights to even run.

      I'm using Eagle CAD windows version on Wine (perfectly actually), because while there IS an excellent Linux version the Key file and password won't work on it. They expect you to buy a new copy if you migrate from Windows XP or Windows 7 to Linux.

      1. Waseem Alkurdi

        Re: major business software for Windows were made available for other OS

        I'm using Eagle CAD windows version on Wine (perfectly actually), because while there IS an excellent Linux version

        Because the code relied heavily on APIs exposed by Wine, or because both versions share the same code base, not necessarily because there is a Linux version *only*.

      2. DJV Silver badge
        Trollface

        @mage

        "MS developer best practice"

        Best joke of the day!

      3. Chris King

        Re: major business software for Windows were made available for other OS

        "MS developer best practice"

        Ah, the long-winded way of saying "Works for me !"

        1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

          Re: major business software for Windows were made available for other OS

          At one point in time MS spent a lot of time and money performing good user interface analysis and producing standards (for windows applications).

          Unfortunately other parts of Microsoft just ignored these and bodged and hacked the "latest look" into the application, regardless of the OS it was running on, or just ignored it and did whatever they felt like because they felt they knew better - they never did. So a whole set of non-standard and sub-standard applications were released by Microsoft who produced these standards in order to avoid this mess. Genius.

      4. Nick Ryan Silver badge

        Re: major business software for Windows were made available for other OS

        Most major business SW that won't work on Wine on Linux or has no Linux or Apple versions is that way for stupid reasons.

        Most of the software of this quality tends to struggle to work on Windows as well. At least reliably. Been there done, that, and I'm still amazed how developers manage to screw up things so badly that breathing on the operating system can bring down a separate app for no good reason whatsoever.

        For many apps a proper web application, as in something that uses HTML with JavaScript to enhance the functionality, is all that is needed. Unfortunately way too many less competent developers don't know this and instead vomit up JavaScript driven horrors that attempt, and inevitably fail, to unnecessarily replicate standard browser functionality. Slowly. While still pretending to themselves that a web application is the same as a single user modal application in a desktop environment.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "were made available for other OS"

      You should ask yourself why they aren't. Backward and forward compatibility, good UI, devices support, no GPL, availability of good development tools, etc. etc. are often reasons why a lot of software is written for Windows (and often macOS) but not for Linux, nor FreeBSD. Desktop development for Linux is a minefield - and Linux UIs really lag behind Windows and macOS. No surprise a lot of application are written in Java, to survive the distro and UI fragmentation.

      Devices like phones, tablets and smartTV have limited applications (mostly "consuming", rarely "producing") with little interactions with others, which are far easier to learn - complex desktop applications that often interact a lot among them may be not.

      Unluckily Linux is unable to admit it has a "desktop problem", and it's only relying in Windows false steps to hope to gain more market share, but it's a quite stupid approach. Nadella is working hard to improve Linux market share, true, but one day he could be booted too.

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: "were made available for other OS"

        Unluckily Linux is unable to admit it has a "desktop problem"

        I suppose when you are used to the 'extensive and vast choice' of 'whatever hair-brained UI Microsoft chooses to foist on you today', having a varied and (if you count all the variations possible along the lines of a Desktop you can achieve with a window manager combined with other tools) almost limitless choice would have to be a 'problem'.

        If Windows desktop UI takes a turn you don't like, you have to wait for some desktop tool to provide a workaround. On Linux, if your favourite desktop goes somewhere you don't like, just log into another, or fork it....

        1. Anonymous Bullard

          Re: "were made available for other OS"

          some desktop tool

          No need to insult them. They're trying their best.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "f Windows desktop UI takes a turn you don't like"

          Applications still work as before. Most people use a few applications, once they have launched them they could care less if there is a tile or start button - but of course the first impact is not good.

          Still, what they care is their applications work (and of course, files aren't deleted by a crappy update - Nadella should have a lot of shares in some Linux company).

          And frankly, almost nobody thinks the solution to fix a GUI is to fork it - people living in little worlds like yours could be surprised, but most computer users AREN'T programmers, the sixties are over, and it happened half a century ago.

          Meanwhile under Linux you have application with wildly different UIs because it looks impossible to have a standard one - and most of them are really ugly and looks to be designed by a part-time graphic designer. Tools for creating GUI applications quickly are sorely missing (but Java). No surprise Android used Java for the GUI, not any of the ugly native ones.

          Compatibility across distros, and even among different releases of a distro is often an issue. Sure, if you only use apps from repositories, someone have solved the issues from you. But that can't work for commercial applications which aren't open source, and never will.

          Just like MS wants only groupies in its Inside program, Linux groupies aren't helping Linux at all. Keeping on thinking Linux doesn't fail as a desktop operating sydtem for its own issues, but just because that bad ugly Windows, won't ever help Linux to gain more market share on the desktop.

          There's a lot that needs to be fixed to make writing commercial application for Linux - beyond IT professionals - a viable business. Keep on ignoring it, and it won't go anywhere.

      2. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Stop

        Re: "were made available for other OS"

        "Linux UIs really lag behind Windows and macOS"

        WRONG. I'll accept your "development tools" argument, but the problem with development on Linux or BSD has nothing to do with the UI "lagging behind" Windows.

        in fact, the 2D FLATSO on Win-10-nic *LAGS* behind things like Mate and Cinnamon, assuming you don't use a 2D Flat theme, but the fact that you CAN CHANGE THE THEME means that Micro-shaft LAGS BEHIND!!!

        Mate, Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE, and even vtwm have multiple desktops and have had them since 2005 or earlier. Micro-shaft only JUST added that feature to Win-10-nic. I typically have 8 desktops filled with task-specific stuff so I can multi-task more easily. Micro-shaft's "solution" appears kludgy to me, whereas there's over a decade of perfecting the way it works with systems that use X11.

        And now the REAL reason for it "being hard" to develop for POSIX systems: Microshaft has been pushing for nearly 2 decades with proprietary "solutions" for developers, beginning with ".Not", and before THAT, lots of shared runtime DLLs and 'extension' DLLs, and so forth, ALL with licenses that allow you to 'freely distribute' them so long as they are ONLY installed on systems running a Microsoft OS. Yeah, it's in there.

        Basically, they encourage [read: 'strongarm'] developers into using their 'freely distributable' shared components, but then LOCK THEM OUT of using them anyplace that's "not windows".

        They also have made great efforts in the past to get driver support for their platform [which was a good thing for customers at one time], bending over backwards to assist 3rd party driver developers into getting this done, until it became a "pay to play" scheme for Win-10-nic [via certs].

        They have also offered their OEM OS licenses as cheap as they can, with 'sweet deals' with computer makers that LITERALLY make it 'more expensive' to produce ANY computers pre-installed with Linux. This is usually called 'predatory practices' but for some reason they were getting away with it for a LONG time. Once they cornered the market, more or less, they controlled the availability of ANY alternative to their "one OS to rule them all" by essentially killing them off. Now we're all STUCK with Win-10-nic as the ONLY OS available on new computers not made by Apple, with a few exceptions here and there...

        And software developers look at this and say "80% of the market is Windows, that's what I'll develop for, doing Linux or BSD or even OSX is just too expensive".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "were made available for other OS"

          Interesting that you got 4 downvotes on a post that is in essence fact - Redmond is strong in that one..

          MS benefits from the fact that most IT people are too young to remember what MS got up to to ram its OS down everyone's throat, not limited to only offering charity to a nation if they switched to Microsoft. In my opinion it has not changed MO much since then, it just got better at manipulating the press.

        2. defiler

          Re: "were made available for other OS"

          Mate, Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE, and even vtwm have multiple desktops and have had them since 2005 or earlier.

          But, Bob - that's half the problem. You've banged out 5 different window managers right there. Your average user doesn't want five different window managers. They just want one. One that works. One that works sort-of like their old one. One that they know their way around, and that they can collar their nephew into talking them through a fix over the phone.

          I've said before about toothpaste. Too many choices! Windows, you get one UI and everybody is (in the main) happy. If they don't like it they can buy a Mac where you get one (slightly different) UI. If you don't like that, sure there's Linux, but people stumble over "do I want Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, What-the-fuckbuntu?"

          Choice is sometimes overrated.

          Also, I'll take this opportunity to apologise for being rude the other day. Too little sleep and not really any good excuse. You're a bit rabid, and your Linux flag-waving is a bit too much like zealotry for the real world that I live in, but the place would be missing something without your foil-hatted rants!

          1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

            Re: "were made available for other OS" @ defiler

            Just because different GUIs are available on Linux, it does not prevent applications with different look-and-feel from running simultaneously on a system.

            While it is true that a mixture of user interfaces on screen at the same time may look messy, it's no reason to say that you can't run an application on a Linux if you are using a different UI than the one the application expects to use (and even if this is the case, you can have multiple GUIs installed, and switch between them).

            I always have the Gnome and KDE support libraries installed (along with several others) on my primary workstation, and this means that I can run an application meant for almost any Linux GUI.

            Buttons and menus appear may be different from one app to another, but if an application is important, you get to know where to look for that app. Not ideal, but not a show-stopper.

            1. defiler

              Re: "were made available for other OS" @ defiler

              Just because different GUIs are available on Linux, it does not prevent applications with different look-and-feel from running simultaneously on a system.

              I totally accept that. I used to run Xubuntu as my daily desktop. Games compatibility (or lack thereof) put me back to Windows, but I could at least get my fix of KSP!

              But you and me are not "the average person". The average person will wonder why one application looks so weird next to the others. The average person will be confused and concerned by the lack of consistency. In fact, the average person will succumb to decision paralysis before actually selecting a window manager. They'll likely have been told that Linux is "quite hard" or "complex", and this is their first step in getting into it, and they're faced with a question that they're not expecting and likely not equipped to make a judged decision about.

              1. Updraft102

                Re: "were made available for other OS" @ defiler

                The average person will wonder why one application looks so weird next to the others.

                As opposed to Windows 10, where the application could have any one of three "design languages" in play, be they desktop/Win32, UWP, or UWP+Acrylic?

                I see just as many Windows applications reinventing the wheel and using their own design widgets than I do in Linux, and ever since Windows 8, it's been a half and half OS in terms of UI, and now Windows 10 has a third entry grafted on top of that (Acrylic).

                If you use one of the GNOME-derived desktops, it's actually more consistent than in Windows (in my experience at least), as applications using GTK+ (the most common kind) integrate seamlessly. If you use KDE, it's a mix of native Qt stuff (and Qt versions of things where available), and GNOME, with its ass-backwards buttons on everything.

                Any arguments about UI superiority in Windows became irrelevant post Windows 7, I think. If Windows 7 was still representative of the direction Windows was going, I probably would still be using Windows myself. Windows 10, however, is unusable, and is unfit for any purpose by design.

      3. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

        Re: "were made available for other OS" @AC

        You don't understand the relationship between the GPL and LGPL.

        GPL is not a barrier to writing commercial software on Linux, as all the bits you need (most development libraries, compilers and GUI support) are published under LGPL or other fairly permissive license, which allow you to compile, link and ship code without the GPL requiring you to open-source your code.

        Properly packaged Linux packages can have quite good portability within a system architecture (like x86-64), although sometimes the version checking for some of the libraries throws up unnecessary problems. But that's not much different from DLL-hell on Windows.

        Going forward, package managers like Snappy and AppImage will make Linux portability even better.

      4. Citizen99

        Re: "were made available for other OS"

        "were made available for other OS"

        "... Desktop development for Linux is a minefield - and Linux UIs really lag behind Windows and macOS. ..."

        In what respect does the UI 'lag' ? It depends what you're looking for in your UI. Admittedly, you have to choose the desktop that suits you from a large number of available choices.

        I like a 'rock-solid' traditional UI that looks crisp and presentable without a lot of arty-farty eye-candy. Trinity Desk Environment (a fork of KDE 3.5) does that for me, and provides a huge range of GUI tools and applications. Other tastes may vary.

        Not having to run 'badly-written' corporate applications, as mentioned by previous posters, most of the Windows-only applications that I need run perfectly on Wine. A VM of W7 or XP takes care of most of the rest.

  9. RyokuMas
    Facepalm

    Okay, I give up...

    [Me]: Right Microsoft. This is about the most monumental "shoot yourself in the foot" analogy I can come up with. Surely you can't stuff up much worse than that.

    [Microsoft]: Hold my beer...

  10. Sixtysix
    Happy

    Never happier to be late...

    ...time to start switching off at the outlet!

  11. Laughing Gravy
    Linux

    Yet more popcorn

    Loving all this Windows shit

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yet more popcorn

      Pop some more. I am looking forward to Linux being the first OS to correctly support all thirty-two pronouns recognized by the State of New York.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not Cloudy Here

    My Win 10 install is a little different:

    Nothing at all with a "cloud" type login.

    No Cortana (as far as possible), no OneDrive, no MS-Office, no subscription apps, no Apps Store

    Local backups to NAS including OS disk image (very small SSD)

    Nothing at all in Windows "Home folders", minimal in /users

    All "data" on a non-windows disk mounted as several partitions (also individually backed up to NAS)

    For once my paranoia feels almost justified.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: Not Cloudy Here

      Tell that to Average Jo{e,anne} who just lost all his/her data because Windows decided it was fit to auto-update.

    2. RetroTom

      Re: Not Cloudy Here

      not paranoid, that's the only sensible way to use Windows these days

      All the modern buzzwords are toxic 'features' that if you understand enough about computers you know you're best to avoid.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not Cloudy Here

        the only sensible way to use Windows these days

        Oh no, the only sensible way is to install it in a VM then delete the vhd/vmdk file.

        1. Waseem Alkurdi
          Devil

          Re: Not Cloudy Here

          Or in other words: lock it up and throw the key

    3. Julian 8 Silver badge

      Re: Not Cloudy Here

      sounds like me, I wonder if we would loose anything or everything

    4. mark jacobs

      Re: Not Cloudy Here

      So, have you dared tried to update?

    5. Tony W

      Re: Not Cloudy Here

      Off-site backup?

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not Cloudy Here

      For once my paranoia feels almost justified.

      With all due respect, why on earth do you then continue using Windows? It is exactly the stupid amount of work required to keep data safe from both a security perspective and Microsoft snooping itself that made us decide that enough was enough.

      We now use a mix of Linux and MacOS desktop to get things done, and on servers we use Linux and FreeBSD. Not only does that work, it's also stable and we have no exposure to licensing games either.

      That said, we're small. Not sure at which size this would no longer work.

  13. Hans 1
    Joke

    Microsoft QA Procedure

    "Did it install ? I do not care if it bricks the device, all I wanna know is did it install in the end! Yes ? then we ship it!" (Microsoft should register that)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh dear. This is even a bigger mess than the previous windows mega updates - and that's saying something. Their management needs Linus to give them a lecture about not breaking things.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Never break luserland, they say.

      The problem *is* *in* *the* *userland*. So perhaps Debian should teach them how to implement Debian Stable. When you measure solidity of rocks, they compare them to Debian Stable.

      1. Adam 1

        > So perhaps Debian should teach them how to implement Debian Stable

        I think they've started by studying systemd.

        1. Waseem Alkurdi
          Pint

          You made me laugh for two minutes straight! ^_^

          This one is on me (non-alcoholic beer though xD)

    2. DJV Silver badge
      Mushroom

      "Their management needs Linus to give them a lecture about not breaking things."

      Hah, I'd love to see that! And just when Linus has promised to tone his language down - this would (quite rightly) get the sweary fountain running at full blast again!

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Megaphone

        Re: "Their management needs Linus to give them a lecture about not breaking things."

        yeah, Linus has GREAT passion for quality, and those snowflake feelies out there, who can't take anything even remotely resembling criticism and need 'safe spaces' to deal with even the most trivial of life's problems, ALWAYS mistake 'passion' for 'anger' because, to them, it looks the same.

        Sometimes, it takes a DRILL SERGEANT to get things moving in the right direction, with a few swift ass-kicks and a lot of yelling, insults, and profanity. That goes DOUBLE when the development team CONSISTS OF A BUNCH OF OVERPAID, UNDER-CHALLENGED, SPOILED CHILDREN! [right Micro-shaft?]

        1. Waseem Alkurdi
          Thumb Up

          Re: "Their management needs Linus to give them a lecture about not breaking things."

          Yep, @bombastic bob takes down the house once more!

          (How's that Windows 10 on your laptop going? ;-P )

        2. agatum
          Pint

          Re: "Their management needs Linus to give them a lecture about not breaking things."

          ALWAYS mistake 'passion' for 'anger' because, to them, it looks the same.

          For once I wholeheartedly agree with bob and his signature 'all odd words capitalized' writing style.

  15. Sixtysix
    FAIL

    Insiders - should be better than this

    "As an Insider, it pains me. Beyond belief. — Abby Jane Hicks (@AbbyJaneHicks64"

    Whilst I have tremendous respect for all those willing to put their main systems in the line of fire by working exclusively on the Insiders ring, I think Abby is not representing the majority of Insider Contributors well:

    We were told to expect that StrangeEffects will be a regular occurrence.

    We are clearly warned that BadThings might happen.

    We are absolutely encouraged to keep backups.

    At the same time I have a LOT of sympathy for Steven who has obviously backed out of Insider (as have I). Not sure about ninja and cats, but the lack of follow through is one of the reasons why my main machine and backup have been switched, and my input to the programme has been zero for some considerable time.

    1. DJV Silver badge

      Re: Insiders - should be better than this

      My input to the Insiders programme has on most occasions been to say "stop fucking this or that up" - but they don't, they quite happily continue to fuck more and more things up every day.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Insiders - should be better than this

      We were told to expect that StrangeEffects will be a regular occurrence.

      We are clearly warned that BadThings might happen.

      We are absolutely encouraged to keep backups.

      When did they tell you that you might have to travel from Ottawa to Toronto to get your system fixed? Just curious.

  16. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Stop

    Wrong person is announcing this

    Windows Insider supremo Dona Sarkar took to Twitter to announce that Windows fans would no longer be able to get their hands on the afflicted build.

    She's in charge of Windows Insider, not Windows. Or perhaps we're finally being officially told that every day is beta test day?

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Trollface

      Didn't you get the memo ?

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Didn't you get the memo ?

        Hell, my Win10 machine gets the memo several times each month. The text is a little strange - something about "You need to reboot your computer to make Windows even better!". But the meaning is clear: "Fuck you, we own this box, and we're going to push our crap software onto it whenever we like".

    2. #define INFINITY -1

      Re: Wrong person is announcing this

      Branch-readiness "targeted" is the new beta.

  17. Dwarf

    Dear Microsoft

    You need an effective test and QA function.

    Hopefully you can see the damage your current approach is causing to to remaining customers and how its hardening the resolve of ex customers.not to consider MS products again. As they say, once bitten twice shy.

    Oh and one other thing - don't do anything to my data on my computer without asking me in plain language first. Never assume you know best as you don't know what I use my computer for and in what manner..

    1. Tigra 07
      Thumb Up

      Re: Dear Microsoft

      Windows 10 got me to research and buy specific hardware and learn how to use Linux just to escape it. KDE Plasma seems years ahead of Windows.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Teiwaz

          Re: Dear Microsoft

          KDE is years ahead as much as a polished turd.

          For instance:

          https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Do1LKU1XgAMEzkS.jpg

          Also - depending on how it was configured by the maintainer of a distro - dragging a running program from the task bar to the desktop could present you with the following options:

          - Copy

          - Move

          - Link

          What are we operating on exactly? The application.desktop file, the one that resides in the "start menu". So if you opt for "move", the app is gone rom the start menu.

          I've no idea what the user was trying to do in the linked image, so it's hard to use it as an argument for anything. I've come across Windows users running Office and all their documents installed to the Desktop dir (the system slowdown was horrendous).

          The Plasma desktop doesn't really have desktop icons (per se, there are options using folder views of the Desktop folder on Home).

          The Control KDE gives you over your desktop is almost totally absolute, that includes the ability to mess it up.

          I think you are trying to use KDE like it was Windows and rubbishing it when it doesn't respond the same way.

          I'm not saying all are perfect, or that any of them are. Maybe it would be nice if there was one desktop with more attention paid to it so it shone like a diamond of perfection, but reality is, everyone has their own idea of perfection.

          Go look up that XKCD about competing standards...

          1. Long John Silver
            Pirate

            Re: Dear Microsoft

            Also, it should be borne in mind that the objections were aimed toward the user interface alone. With Windows the interface, seemingly, is inseparable from the code for computing applications. No so with Linux wherein there is free choice among interfaces ranging from the command line, through simple graphical display, and up to 'all-singing all-dancing' displays convergent with Windows.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Dear Microsoft

            That seems to be a loop, cased by the Desktop icon being put on the desktop.

            Maybe it's a fringe case, still it allows the user to open an endless number of self-referencing views.

            The same thing would happen if one tries to click on - for instance - the network settings on Linux Mint; in this case the app will happily open multiple times. Other Linux flavours / Operating systems prevent this from happening.

            This in the end is just lack of polish that has been persisting for more than a decade.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dear Microsoft

        Despite being one of the best options available, together with Budgie and Pantheon (used by Elementary OS), I still find that KDE is "years ahead" as much as a polished turd.

        For instance:

        https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Do1LKU1XgAMEzkS.jpg

        Also - depending on how it was configured by the maintainer of a distro - dragging a running program from the task bar to the desktop could present you with the following options: Copy / Move / Link

        What are we actually copying/moving/linking? The $(application).desktop file that resides in the "start menu", so if you opt for "move", the app is gone from the start menu.

        These are just two of the annoyances I have with KDE. Of course the good thing about open source is that I can choose between different polished turds, such as Gnome 3 (dumbed down after each release), Budgie (still buggy), XFCE (still ugly) and all of them will come with their own bugs or visual inconsistencies that will upset me on a daily basis nonetheless.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Dear Microsoft

          About KDE GUI, take a look at the "Visual papercuts" section here:

          http://www.ocsmag.com/2017/02/17/the-state-of-plasma/

          Note how most of the criticism is still valid after 18 months.

          If you don't notice anything wrong, and cannot spot this kind of glitches in the various UIs, I envy you. Seriously.

          1. Tigra 07
            Facepalm

            Re: Dear Microsoft

            "About KDE GUI, take a look at the "Visual papercuts" section here:

            http://www.ocsmag.com/2017/02/17/the-state-of-plasma/

            Note how most of the criticism is still valid after 18 months."

            Ah, so no serious bugs, just design changes that are questionable or half-arsed? You had me worried for almost a second. Anyone can nitpick.

      3. Tigra 07
        Trollface

        Re: Dear Microsoft

        https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NSPOHiZ3zLQ/maxresdefault.jpg

        I too can present an image of a bug and use it to claim it's host OS is the worst thing since unsliced bread...No OS is immune to bugs.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Dear Microsoft

          I did not say that Linux is a terrible OS, I said that KDE, with all its polish, it is still a polished turd.

          My criticism is against the GUI, not the underlying OS. And because OSS is all about choice and "competing" projects, I am still waiting for someone to finish the race when it comes to polish and attention to detail.

          My preference in this space goes to Elementary OS that happens to be the most polished so far, then to KDE Plasma (whose defaults can still be left behind depending on the distro adopting it), Then Budgie..

          Said that, just to be clear, I find Windows 10 flat interface a visual abomination, and the Windows 7 just visually passable, but dated.

          If I could go back, I would still use the Windows Classic interface from Windows 2000, and once again it is not just how elements are presented on the screen - I could just get a Linux theme for that - to me it is about padding, alignment, balance between element size and all the other things that most of the people cannot / do not notice that on Linux are still off because are not perceived as important.

  18. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Trollface

    Well thank goodness

    Thank goodness this release wasn't changing much, right ?

    Right ?

  19. Wolfclaw
    FAIL

    Going to be a lot of dodgy calls from can I say it wihtout being racist, India from so calle WIndows Support saying your files have been zappe dby W10 update, can we remote in and fix. If Microsoft want us to trust them to do updates as and when as a service, they need to cut the BS, accept insider program is not QA tetsing and get their sh!t organised or just give up !

    1. Long John Silver
      Pirate

      These 'entrepreneurs' are to be found closer to home too.

  20. SVV

    questionable conclusion

    "If you have installed it, and everything is hunky dory (as it is for us), then there is no need to worry."

    Having read the story, I think there is every need to worry if you use this OS. Nobody knows if everything is "hunky dory" : not even Microsoft did.

  21. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    Surely a company the size and might of Microsoft would have the manpower to have worked out what the hell caused this almighty clusterfuck by now?

    They should publish what it was that went wrong ASAP so that competent technicians (i.e. not Microsoft support) can fix it themselves.

    I bet the scammers will have produced a web page saying "call this toll free number to recover your files after bad update lost them" before Microsoft admit to and publish whatever the hell went wrong.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good criticism will only make your product better

    It's "funny" how how many companies try to bring on board experts working hard for free, but are ready too boot them as soon as they don't act like groupies chanting to the world how great the product is.

    It happened to me, and some people I know (on a different product) - complains based on facts are even the worst, because they put under the sunlight really, often big, issues companies like to keep under the rug. Just, this way, they stumble upon them over and over and keep on board only worshipers who can't find real issues even when slapped on the face with them.

  23. Sureo

    "where Windows 10 goes from here"

    Dust off Windows 7, apply all those updates since SP1, and release it as Windows 20.

  24. markrand
    Happy

    At my ex-employer (65,000 people, at the time) I was a network admin. I got into a number of rows due to the department's policy of exempting all MS patches from any form of change control and requiring 100% installation within 5 days.

    Schadenfreude, anyone...

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1809

    My tablet has updated to 1809 - as I had an issue with the April update being stuck.

    I didn't lose any files as it was in a factory reset anyway and OneDrive did sync and download all my cloud files.

    What do I need to do in order to avoid losing any files in future as I can't roll back?

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: 1809

      MS claim you won't as it's a problem with a migration process to the new version.

      Yes, it's actually like updating from XP to Vista or Vista to 7 or 7 to 8 every six months, only without you backing up beforehand as it's just pushed out and automatically installed.

    2. Updraft102

      Re: 1809

      What do I need to do in order to avoid losing any files in future as I can't roll back?

      Nothing. The problem was with the installation of 1809, so once it is installed, that particular threat has passed. Other threats, though... there will be more.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Document Shredding

    Did they bring in Banksy to make the UI a little more edgy?

  27. Cynical IT Manager

    OS SaaS = Fail

    Quite clearly Microsoft's SaaS approach to Windows 10 is failing. I've never been able to shake the feeling that an OS using SaaS approach will never work. It seems I'm right. This methodology means patches and major updates can be rolled out so quickly that simply put they are not tested sufficiently. Any users of the 365 platform can attest to the amount of borked updates and rushed fixes across all of the products.

    I mean what company would announce that they will drop a major CRM plugin for outlook, and it's "upgrade" replacement lacks the core functionality of the original? Oh yea Microsoft.

    To think, I trust them with the most fundamental piece of software, my OS.

  28. Anonymous IV
    WTF?

    "If you've had to pick up the phone to one of Redmond's support team, let us know"

    Are you seriously suggesting that an unscheduled phone call from someone alleging to be from Microsoft's support team is not a scammer?

  29. LRO(EX)

    I always do a backup to NAS monthly and before any Windoze update. Saved me on several occasions.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Will this put the brakes on MS's ridiculous bloated updates every 6 months ?

    Nope, I think they are too stupid or too deaf to listen to the customer.

  31. Long John Silver
    Pirate

    Microsoft could inadvertently bring commerce to a standstill

    Mess-ups like that reported here may be inevitable regardless of how well Microsoft manages development of its products. In particular, Windows 10 code nowadays measured in gigabytes offers many opportunities for unintended consequences when developers make 'enhancements' or merely attempt to correct known bugs. Even when components of the whole are modular their interactions with other modules can trigger occult faults elsewhere. Perhaps the probability of such failure increases with size of code nearer to geometrically than linearly?

    The problem is compounded by the code being known only to Microsoft and some trusted outsiders. Users encountering problems not of their own making are in weak position to devise workarounds. Maybe, in particular instances, the community of expert users and enthusiasts can devise interim fixes; however, these take time to be verified and propagate via backchannels to Microsoft's official communication with users and there is the matter of trust.

    Hence, it's ceased to be idle speculation when pointing out the potential for an operating system which dominates the market for PC and laptop installation to bring about chaos in the commercial world and beyond when a fault emerges. These days, all activity appears to be (mindlessly) frenetic. That means even outages of an hour or so can be catastrophic. Add to that national and global interconnectedness provided by the Internet and the possibility of knock-on effects from a software fault cascading outwards, perhaps at geometric rate, leaves the realm of fiction.

    Accepting that Microsoft is an honest vendor (with reservations about how it captures the market) shouldn't deter conspiracy theorists speculating on what might be in the future. There's little preventing a bad actor from forcing Microsoft to target a specially malformed 'update' at devices within a particular nation or branch of commerce. Implicit deniability would arise from the malware being embedded in an 'update' and from the rapidly being established fact that, despite all good intent, Windows updates and security fixes bring hazard, albeit small.

    The considerations above provide ample reason for preferring open source software for critical applications. Not only that but also, code unrestricted by copyright encourages 'derivation' from which can emerge exciting possibilities unlikely to arise from a silo containing developers dedicated to a particular business plan.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Finally, a release that uses less space!

  33. Ratty.

    Microsoft Support

    "Hello, Microsoft Support.

    Have you tried switching it off and on again?"

  34. stephanh

    windows home == beta tester

    The internal Q&A has been mostly fired, the Insider program clearly cannot find its own bug reports.

    Windows Professional, Enterprise & Education can postpone updates, Windows Home users not really. All Windows Home users are now beta testers for the expensive SKUs.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple user here again...

    No updates pulled: iMac, iPhone, iPad, Watch, Homepod, Apple TV... all still ok.

    1. stephanh

      Re: Apple user here again...

      Another macos user here, who vividly recalls left hanging for a week for a fix for the bash shellshock exploit, while Ubuntu got the fix the same day.

      But yeah, so far no user data eaten.

      1. agatum

        Re: Apple user here again...

        Another macos user here

        Third user here. I do not let osx updates anywhere near my production systems (2 laptops, 1 tabletop) before 6 months cool off period. Let the fanbois do the testing.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Malware

    Who needs it now?

  37. tmz

    Checks calendar ...

    It's 2018.

    How does anyone put up with this **** anymore?

  38. Maelstorm Bronze badge
    Trollface

    In Soviet Russia...

    In Soviet Russia, you do not perform Q&A on the software, the software performs Q&A on you.

  39. This is my handle
    Joke

    A former US Secretary of State had a really early preview installed on her email server ages ago!

    That is all.

  40. fidodogbreath
    Thumb Up

    However, if you have gone ahead and allowed the update to do its stuff and been hit by the missing files issue, leave your PC alone and give Microsoft a telephone call for help.

    Their customer service is great! "Microsoft" actually called me this morning to say that they found a problem with my computer, but they're able to remote in and fix it for me. He already fixed my Amazon, and now he's fixing my bank login. Super impressed!

    /s

  41. Howard Hanek
    Happy

    Adapt a Script?

    From 'Little Shop of Horrors' to 'A Great Big Shop of Horrors'

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Welcome to the new improved

    Microsoft Windows Overwriting System

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not even Vista was as Bad as this...

    Win10 is the only version of Windows that's eaten user files, not even Vista.

    This horror was predicted. Win10 users are just upgrade test-lab monkeys!

    .....Phone Microsoft......

    Outside Corporate Tier1 Support, is there proper phone support anymore?

  44. arctic_haze

    No surprise

    The policy of more and more intrusive upgrades with less control by the actual user.

    What can go wrong?

  45. jamesdagger

    Microsoft yanks

    'nuff said

  46. rmstock

    apt-get install testdisk

    When you see this happen, all your files getting deleted, pull the plug and or battery. Next boot from a Ubuntu 16.04 installation or live usb stick : http://installion.co.uk/ubuntu/xenial/universe/t/testdisk/install/index.html

    when booted live do : sudo apt-get install testdisk

    The manual for this tool, which works - i rescued a company's crown juwel files with it, after a accidental quick NTFS format had happened - is here https://crashrecovery.org/testdisk.pdf

    an instruction video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhWbSM-630E

  47. RobThBay

    A better Canadian solution??

    I thought the Canadian solution would have been something along the lines of ...don't worry, be happy... weed will be legal very soon (Oct 17th).

    :)

  48. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    Testing

    When Microsoft talk about "testing" they are talking about testing users patience - it has nothing at all to do with the testing of their products.

  49. nlight
    Angel

    In the end, Windows will still be the main OS on the average Joe's PC

    People are living by defaults.

    Default browser: Edge

    Default search engine: Bing(Top 10 searches are Google, just typos)

    Default everything, why bother?

    Who's the winner?

    Drum roll.

    Same goes for the Apple.

  50. Stuart Dole
    FAIL

    Backup broken too.

    Alas, I was hosed by this. I *thought* I had backups - the WIndows Backup program was turned ON with a frequency of one hour (the default) and aimed at my NAS. But, even across many reboots and updates, the most recent backup (on careful inspection) was eight months old. Too late for that now...

    Funny how the security software will natter at you if you haven't done a scan in a while, but the backup program keeps it all to itself if it goes away.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Backup broken too.

      I had that problem with Acronis True Image. Worse, its logs were reporting backup success. I never thought to check .. but the files it was creating were 0 bytes in size. Their support was AWOL. Fortunately I found out when I went to restore a single file, so I only lost one thing. Dumped their product immediately and never miss an opportunity to advertise the way it screwed up.

    2. Stuart Dole
      FAIL

      Re: Backup broken too.

      OK, I *did* call Microsoft and spoke with "Mohammed". He assigned me a case number and said they'd get back to me. They did! And they knew the case number, and did NOT offer to "remote in", but made an appointment for me to bring my machine in to a Microsoft Store. So I did. Luckily, the nearest such store is only an hour's drive away (the Apple store is much closer - but I didn't go there).

      The guy at the counter seemed to know what he was doing and booted up my box, and verified that indeed it was updated to 1809, but there was one more update pending. We talked a good deal about the chances of recovering the data, since I'd already done a restore - from the eight month old backup. We guessed it was about 0.01% chance of getting anything useful - his approach would have been to simply use some file recovery software. So we talked some more, and I left, with my box. The end.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: Backup broken too.

        We have definitely reached Peak Stupidity in Software Development.

        "What's a ... 'buhlean'?"

        "Don't know, do I look like I went to study medicine. Just install this new framework, it's come out yesterday, then we can code!"

  51. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
    Pint

    Plain And Simple

    I just run a simple back up script that copies everything in my user profile to a NAS box, with semi regular backup images.

  52. Potemkine! Silver badge

    "Too much "fun" and ninja cat and not enough hard graft and data."

    An accute description to describe what will be the future of public media, whatever they are

    1. defiler

      Re: "Too much "fun" and ninja cat and not enough hard graft and data."

      Dan Ashcroft, Preacher Man.

  53. xyz Silver badge

    Can they stop all the other updates too

    <rant>

    I am (was) trying to develop, vs 2017 on win 10 (in the woods) and I seemed to spend half my dev time waiting for shit to update as whatever daily "optimisation" chomped through my mobile's bandwidth allowance. I mean over 500mb an hour, wtf is MS installing and who the hell DOESN'T have a metered connection outside of CorpWorld. I won't even mention all the other stuff that wants to update itself with the same enthusiasm.

    I got so fed up of this, I went back to my old laptop....win 7, vs 2012 and SSMS to do the database and web services, so I've missed this update FAIL....yay! Then once a week, I go to the bar and and watch my win10 laptop melt their WiFi whilst I have a cold beer or 10.

    Can someone please point out to MS that not everyone has fibre cable the diameter of a sewer pipe nor the cash to pay to have their OS renew itself daily.

    </rant>

  54. Squareski

    Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers did this.

  55. shaunhw
    Alert

    Why ? Just why ?

    Why is this happening ?

    It's clear to me that Microsoft can't keep pushing out OS makeovers at this rate. Each one seems to break too many things. The last one (1803) stopped my touch screen on their OWN surface pro 4 design from working properly. In 1709 it was fine, and it was fine again when I rolled back. One can use the touch screen to set the cursor position, on some text field one is editing. On 1803 this works sometimes, and then fails. Your attempts just get ignored. To make it work again you have to press the power button to get the lock screen on, and then go back to the desktop. Then it works again, for a while. Still not fixed after 6 months - I did report it by the way.

    It just seems that they don't test stuff even on their own gear. Are they all using Apple stuff at home I wonder ? Are their kids doing their homework using Apple Macs too ?

    I am sure if they were using their own hardware with the latest stuff they'd soon spot some of these things.

    Now we have vanishing user files too.

    All this from the firm which tries to tell the world how good software should be written.

    My motto for them is "Why make it easy when you can make it hard ?"

    Much too hard in my view.

    They should get their house in order. A stable OS takes years to get right, and they shouldn't keep tinkering with it, once it is working for everyone. The possible impact of any changes should be carefully considered. I'm sure this is how it used to be, from Win2000->XP->Vista->Windows7 and one could expect a NEW OS version to have changes which might affect compatibility with previously released software.

    One major update to Windows 10 every 18 months should be enough for anyone, (after it's been thoroughly properly tested), and is probably as much as they can reliably do by the looks of it.

    I'm more than fed up with these irritating updates which have no respect for my settings, even to the point of changing, my desktop background to their default one. What I want is a well designed OS which gets security updates, fixes and maybe some new features now and then, but is otherwise left alone, the way I set it up.

    It's becoming a complete joke really.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why ? Just why ?

      On the topic of microsoft employees not using windows:

      Recently, I went to an interview at microsoft and began to discuss my experience with the interviewer. We began to talk about a thing I did that isn't relevant here, other than that it worked with creating logical disks. I spent some time describing this project when the interviewer asked me a question about how the disks were typically enumerated and mounted.

      That's when I realized that I'd only run this on linux and OS X, and that this probably wasn't going to be good for my interview prospects. However, I chose not to (also couldn't come up with) a good lie about it working on windows, and gave the correct answer with respect to the linux/mac mount points. The interviewer then said "Hey. This software sounds useful for stuff I'm doing on my home machine. Does it work on a mac?" So it seems that not all the microsoft people use windows when not on the job.

  56. Frank Thynne

    It seems finally to have happened -- Microsoft has lost control of its product.

    It has discovered the ultimate folly of having no Quality Assurance. It didn't even pass its release to its inadequate outsourced QA (Windows Insiders) before sending it to its innocent users. It didn't even listen to Insiders warnings of a problem.

    I am saddened to post such a comment again after some months of warnings.

    It's not going to be enough to fix the latest bug. Only a complete halt to development while a qualified QA and team are installed, with the power to veto a release if necessary will rescue Microsoft and its users from complete disaster.

  57. ProperDave
    Facepalm

    Brilliant. So Microsoft have given all the phone fraudsters yet another excuse to cold call and try and scam the less-experienced user out of pocket.

    Good job Microsoft. Good job.

  58. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1809 BITS pulled from VLSC too

  59. thatwasit

    I learned this lessen painfully back in Windows XP days

    My advice to my clients for years has been. Never be the first to do Windows updates. Even the monthly Windows Updates. Delay them a few days. Let someone else find the issues Then they are dealt with before we install them. I learned this lessen painfully back in Windows XP days.

  60. Alephi

    Other issues with the update

    I didn't lose any files, but I did find that it had reset some of my default applications, my audio settings, screen size, and if I open the PC Settings window or access settings through the original control panel, it immediately closes again when I roll the mouse over it. It stays open on the second attempt, but to date, I have not been able to keep the Personalization window open at all.

  61. cob2018

    Backups

    After nearly 30 years in the Unix/Linux world, I still rely on the old way. The "dump" and "restore" commands still work quite well for my modest needs, and the only issues I've had seem to always end being media-related crap such as bad tapes. The old simple approach works for me.

  62. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    *** Be careful *** Also new in 1809, changes to Disk Cleanup Tool, now includes user directories.

    MS have added C:\users\{username}\Downloads to the "Disk Cleanup" tool in 1809.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Microsoft have added the personal/user folder C:\users\{username}\Downloads to the 'Disk Cleanup tool'. The Disk Cleanup tool is normally used to remove previous versions of Windows i.e. 1803.

    Microsoft don't even highlight the change for regular users within the new version, that they have added this user folder to the list of directories the Disk Cleanup deletes data from.

    That's just sheer incompetence or a malicious act by MS.

    It's almost as though someone at Microsoft wants you to delete your own files "by mistake". Anyone would think MS need to sell a few more 1TB OneDrive subscriptions/Office 365 Subscriptions.

    1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: Also new in 1809, changes to Disk Cleanup Tool, now includes user directories.

      Next on their list to include is your NAS...

  63. Winkypop Silver badge
    Devil

    "If you have installed it...then there is no need to worry."

    Wait for it

    Wait

    For

    It

  64. Milton

    Definition of insanity?

    I freely acknowledge that if I were a less cautious user, with poor perimeter defences, I wouldn't be saying this.

    But I am typing right now on a 4.5 yr old machine (FYI: 32Gb, 8 cores x 5GHz AMD; used for some serious crunching at times) using an MSDN Win7Ult which I installed once and, having updated on the day, then disabled all updates, patches and even notifications for eternity. It has worked flawlessly for all this time, almost as if it were one of my Linux servers or an Apple machine. I am completely familiar with the still excellent interface, which works well with 2xUHD and 1xHD monitors (no touch nonsense or tiles) fully parallel overlapping windows etc etc.

    Once I am forced off W7 I'll finish the move to Linux. Some of my collaborators insist of using Office, Teams (another bizarrely inconsistent MS offering) etc, and for them I will probably buy (my first) neat little McLap to sit in the corner.

    But Windows 10? Sure, mobile devices needed a variant to suit them, but from here all I can see is that Win 8 and onwards have been huge steps backwards, actually taking away some of the usability and flexibility of earlier versions. All, it appears, in the name of trapping users forever in the MS ecosystem. And is it helping anyone, really? I see this saga of stories about how the latest update has trashed yet more work and wasted yet more time, and I wonder why anyone tolerates it.

    No, thank you.

    What improvement, never mind a radical makeover, did Win7 really need? What major benefit has the Win8-and-onwards travesty brought to users? After XP it was the only Win OS of which you could honestly, "looks ok, does what it says on the tin". That's all I ask. just keep doing what it says on the tin—and don't waste my time.

  65. Paul Stimpson

    Not the only thing it broke...

    I had this update auto-apply to a home version of Windows on one of my laptops. I don't use OneDrive (machine only has a local account) so, as far as I can tell so far, I've not had any files disappear into the ether.

    The update did break something else though. It brought in a bad version of the Atheros Killer 1525 driver and hosed the WiFi and Bluetooth on the laptop (error code 10, device cannot be initialized). This is clearly a not-uncommon problem as there's a page in the Killer Networking Knowledgebase describing it and how to fix it.

    I acknowledge QC is hard in a product this widespread that runs on thousands of different pieces of hardware but I am surprised that a bad driver for a network adaptor from a major maker, like Atheros, wasn't picked up.

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