Microsoft: Windows needs a minimum of 8 hours online to update successfully

[captaincranky]

These outrage harvesting posts always bring out the same characters. LOL

Hey, if you want to be on XP or 7, you do you.

Guess what? I certainly don't need your permission.

 

[dualkelly]

Windows update blocker.... turn off the updates and manually update critical updates only. End of Issue.

 

[captaincranky]

Windows update blocker.... turn off the updates and manually update critical updates only. End of Issue.

Would you believe you can simply shut down updates altogether in Windows 7? (Without looking for some bullsh!t app to help you)?

Anyway, I'm going to sit around and wait for a hardware based TPM 3.0 and Windows 12 to come out, and render obsolete all the crap you had to buy for windows 11.

 

[dualkelly]

Would you believe you can simply shut down updates altogether in Windows 7? (Without looking for some bullsh!t app to help you)?

Anyway, I'm going to sit around and wait for a hardware based TPM 3.0 and Windows 12 to come out, and render obsolete all the crap you had to buy for windows 11.

Yeah however you can not run windows 7 on much of the new hardware because there are no drivers available. I have a workstation for work 64core amd and no motherboards offer windows 7 support. So you gotta work with what you have. I have enough tools that can completely block windows 10 or 11 from communicating with microsoft servers. After some heavy modification windows 10 behaves like windows 7.

 

[captaincranky]

Yeah however you can not run windows 7 on much of the new hardware because there are no drivers available.

I dealt with that last night. I have this bizarre idea that I'd like to build a PC around the new Alder lake i3-12100. DDR-4 , and install Win 7. (I'm not as stuffy as some around here about not wanting a CPU that, "only has 4 cores")

I figure that that i3, is the equivalent of my i5-6600 plus hyper threading, for only about $130.00!
Well, none of the stock Intel drivers are compatible with win 7. I think I have the last versions for Win 7 in my Skylake rig. After which I found out that I would need a separate video card for 7. And good luck with that, right?

So, if it's any consolation, I may have to resort to Windows 10, and just keep my new toy, offline.

I've had Windows Update turned off for years. In fact I even escaped Windows GET WINDOWS 10 NOW, flash screens that everybody was bellyaching about. I always picked and chose what I'd let the mutts in Redmond install.

I finally did find a VPN that would work with 7, but as it turns out it had to be 7, SP-2. I'm thinking 7's last big update, consisted mostly of all the telemetry they wanted to stick people with in 10. So I passed.

 

[dualkelly]

I dealt with that last night. I have this bizarre idea that I'd like to build a PC around the new Alder lake i3-12100. DDR-4 , and install Win 7. (I'm not as stuffy as some around here about not wanting a CPU that, "only has 4 cores")

I figure that that 13, is the equivalent of my i5-6600 plus hyper threading, for only about $130.00!
Well, none of the stock Intel drivers are compatible with win 7. I think I have the last versions for Win 7 in my Skylake rig. After which I found out that I would need a separate video card for 7. And good luck with that, right?

So, if it's any consolation, I may have to resort to Windows 10, and just keep my new toy, offline.

I've had Windows Update turned off for years. In fact I even escaped Windows GET WINDOWS 10 NOW, flash screens that everybody was bellyaching about. I always picked and chose what I'd let the mutts in Redmond install.

I finally did find a VPN that would work with 7, but as it turns out it had to be 7, SP-2. I'm thinking 7's last big update, consisted mostly of all the telemetry they wanted to stick people with in 10. So I passed.

Here is a list of tools I use to get windows functioning semi normally.
if you install windows 10 make sure its not connected to an internet connection then I install these

Windows update blocker
blackbird
Ashampoo_AntiSpy
DoNotSpy10
O&O shutup10
Destroy windows spying
WPD

You can then use Geek uninstaller to uninstall all of the windows Application store bullshit
Then use Classic shell to revert windows tool bar back to a more normal windows use

 

[bazz2004]

Just a guess but the hardware may be the most important factor behind a continuous glacial Windows update situation. I have an atom netbook that came with W7 starter and I took it through to W10. Windows updates were so slow I did eventually lose patience. There was no upgrade remaining because it was maxed at 2Gb ram and had an SSD drive. That's one of the reasons I installed XP on it. There are no Windows updates now and it performs far better all round.

 

[Havor]

This is just beyond stupid, Windows Update should always be able to download updates, even if it's only on for 10 min at a time, if I turn off my computer Torrents just stop at that moment, and continue when I start my computer again without loss of data, why can't MS do that in 2022????

 

[lazer]

Micro$lop, phew, what a group....

 

[Dimitriid]

You can still manually check for updates and install them on demand. Just tap the Windows key, type "update", and select "check for updates", and then click the button : - )

I assume the 8-hour threshold is if you're just letting updates happen automatically.

That's not the point: If I pretty much have to manually update anyway then why can't I just turn off automatic updates? Not just "delay" them or "pick a time of the day" but an option to actually turn them completely off and let users who want to have finer control well, have it?

You're missing the core argument in favor of automatic updates: They are sold to people as "You cannot afford not to get these updates it's very important for security reasons and unless we force them into your computer you wouldn't get them and blame us for security issues"

But as it turns out, the vast majority of systems will never get them in a timely fashion anyway since it takes such a ridiculous amount of continued usage. The norm is people owning laptops and using them for a couple hours at the time at the most then shutting them off, putting them on sleep mode, etc.

So the performance for people that do use their computers for 8 hours or more on a regular basis will be severely affected so why not let them turn off automatic updates completely off and manually handle them all at once periodically? Chances are if you use your PC that much then you know and can be assumed to be tech saavy enough to handle updates on your own.

All this shows isn't that manual updates aren't a good thing but that they make automatic updates unnecessary and wasteful since they don't even work as advertised for most people anyway. It's a failure all around.

 

[dualkelly]

That's not the point: If I pretty much have to manually update anyway then why can't I just turn off automatic updates? Not just "delay" them or "pick a time of the day" but an option to actually turn them completely off and let users who want to have finer control well, have it?

You're missing the core argument in favor of automatic updates: They are sold to people as "You cannot afford not to get these updates it's very important for security reasons and unless we force them into your computer you wouldn't get them and blame us for security issues"

But as it turns out, the vast majority of systems will never get them in a timely fashion anyway since it takes such a ridiculous amount of continued usage. The norm is people owning laptops and using them for a couple hours at the time at the most then shutting them off, putting them on sleep mode, etc.

So the performance for people that do use their computers for 8 hours or more on a regular basis will be severely affected so why not let them turn off automatic updates completely off and manually handle them all at once periodically? Chances are if you use your PC that much then you know and can be assumed to be tech saavy enough to handle updates on your own.

All this shows isn't that manual updates aren't a good thing but that they make automatic updates unnecessary and wasteful since they don't even work as advertised for most people anyway. It's a failure all around.

Its even worse. Windows updates have deleted personal files in tens of thousands of cases. bricks computers all the time again in tens of thousands of cases, plus they use your bandwidth to update other computers!!! lol No reason what so ever to have daily or weekly updates they suck. Block windows update completely.

 

[wiyosaya]

Its even worse. Windows updates have deleted personal files in tens of thousands of cases. bricks computers all the time again in tens of thousands of cases, plus they use your bandwidth to update other computers!!! lol No reason what so ever to have daily or weekly updates they suck. Block windows update completely.

I've run into the occasional brick instance on a Windohs update - once, one of my computers rebooted to a black screen with nothing visible except the mouse cursor and nothing that I was able to do would fix it.

My solution is to always do an image backup using this - https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-linux/
No, I don't work for them. IMO, its great software that no power user should be without. And for personal use, the cost pays for a license that is usable on up to five different PCs.

 

[wiyosaya]

You're missing the core argument in favor of automatic updates: They are sold to people as "You cannot afford not to get these updates it's very important for security reasons and unless we force them into your computer you wouldn't get them and blame us for security issues"

As I see it, for power users, getting updates for security reasons is a non-issue.

 

[Dimitriid]

As I see it, for power users, getting updates for security reasons is a non-issue.

If Windows 11 is anything to go by, Microsoft is actually accelerating into removing more and more control from power users altogether and becoming a shittier version of macos.

Which serves them well because ultimately, they don't want developers to ever think about their hardware and how they use it: Just code using a very high level language on a popular framework with many pre-made features and don't worry about performance and hardware: If your code runs slow it's not because you can't properly control your hardware, you just need to buy Azure allocation and let us worry about hardware performance while we become billionaires out of excessive and wasteful use of inefficient code.

 

[axiomatic13]

Or you could just go download the latest ISO and have it done in 15 minutes?

 

[sorten]

That's not the point: If I pretty much have to manually update anyway then why can't I just turn off automatic updates? Not just "delay" them or "pick a time of the day" but an option to actually turn them completely off and let users who want to have finer control well, have it?

You're missing the core argument in favor of automatic updates: They are sold to people as "You cannot afford not to get these updates it's very important for security reasons and unless we force them into your computer you wouldn't get them and blame us for security issues"

That's the point exactly. Back when updates were optional, people didn't update. We have too many people who are either tech illiterate and wouldn't update, or tech savy and think they're too clever for security patches and wouldn't update. Microsoft isn't guessing at this outcome. They have many years of evidence for it.

But as it turns out, the vast majority of systems will never get them in a timely fashion anyway since it takes such a ridiculous amount of continued usage. The norm is people owning laptops and using them for a couple hours at the time at the most then shutting them off, putting them on sleep mode, etc.

So the performance for people that do use their computers for 8 hours or more on a regular basis will be severely affected so why not let them turn off automatic updates completely off and manually handle them all at once periodically? Chances are if you use your PC that much then you know and can be assumed to be tech saavy enough to handle updates on your own.

I don't know what you mean by "not get them in a timely manner" and your point about performance problems. Updates will download while your computer is in sleep states (unless you have a very old computer). My patch Tuesday update this morning required a simple reboot (~30 seconds) after my computer had been asleep all night.

But like I said, if you hate the updates and/or hate Microsoft, go elsewhere. Linux and Mac are both reasonable alternatives.

 

[ZedRM]

Wow, that's a lot of responses!

The above article is one of the reasons why I disable automatic updates and do manual installs of updates.

 

[captaincranky]

Here is a list of tools I use to get windows functioning semi normally.
if you install windows 10 make sure its not connected to an internet connection then I install these

Windows update blocker
blackbird
Ashampoo_AntiSpy
DoNotSpy10
O&O shutup10
Destroy windows spying
WPD

You can then use Geek uninstaller to uninstall all of the windows Application store bullshit
Then use Classic shell to revert windows tool bar back to a more normal windows use

Thanks for this. I even did a screen cap in your honor.

 

[mrSister]

Meanwhile, each morning when I log into my work laptop I just fire up a terminal, enter a simple command and in less than a minute I have my Arch Linux and software all patched up.

But is Microsoft's way to always make thing more complicated than they need to be

 

[imdarkbreeze]

Just click check for updates button once a week?

Exactly. All of this, article AND commentary, are assuming the user lacks the intelligence to simply ask Windows update to check for updates. Doing so, completely makes this a moot point and anybody who doesn't realize that probably needs to follow the old adage about putting it back in the box and sending it back to the manufacturer with a note saying "I am too stupid to own this".

 

[mbk34]

Weird, whenever it updates on my PC or my laptop it seems to only take a couple of minutes. Has anyone here ever actually experienced an update taking that long?

 

[captaincranky]

Exactly. All of this, article AND commentary, are assuming the user lacks the intelligence to simply ask Windows update to check for updates. Doing so, completely makes this a moot point and anybody who doesn't realize that probably needs to follow the old adage about putting it back in the box and sending it back to the manufacturer with a note saying "I am too stupid to own this".

This is actually funny, since the majority of big issues, like ransomware, shut down pipelines, and such, are attacks on systems supposedly fully patched, and run by so called "IT professionals"..

So, maybe they should say to themselves, "I'm too stupid to have this six figure job, I quit".

 

[captaincranky]

That's the point exactly. Back when updates were optional, people didn't update. We have too many people who are either tech illiterate and wouldn't update, or tech savy and think they're too clever for security patches and wouldn't update. Microsoft isn't guessing at this outcome. They have many years of evidence for it.

You know, personal security or data security doesn't begin, or end in cyberspace. If someone is stupid enough to rely on one computer for all their business dealings then you can patch it to death, and still wind up with it bricked by one of these "essential updates", or a zero date exploit that M$ might eventually get around to patching.

So, you can condescend to your hearts content about we "stupid users", but at the end of the day, M$ is all about full control, maximum data harvesting, closing up the system ala Apple, and becoming even more of a monopoly than it already is.

So, if you want to get at anything truly important.to me, you have to quit d!cking around with your little keyboard and phishing emails, back doors, trojans, whatevers, and break into my house to get it

Signed, a happy Windows 7 user