Microsoft should be totally ashamed - W10 uninvited massive 2 hour update is CR#P

jmc160

Jivesinger wrote: »

This option exists in Windows 10 Pro, and some other versions, but not Windows 10 Home, which a lot of people will have.

Thanks for pointing that out, it didn't occur to me beforehand. I've updated my post to reflect this.

agarnett

hans_2 wrote: »

Are you sure the recent Anniversary Update installed?

Metered connection option should now be found in network properties not in Settings.

I have no doubt they have changed the headings within the Settings area - I was quoting them off the top of my head. I also think there is probably more than one way to get there, but the way I went in (after the Anniversary Upgrade) was

Click on Start/Settings cog/Network&Internet/WiFi/Manage known networks/ then click on your own known network and then on the Properties button that appears then Set metered connection "On" ... Phew!

There surely has to be a prize for the first person that can get to the same place inside two or three clicks :rotfl:

agarnett

jmc160 wrote:

Not trying to be clever, I'm genuinely curious. And I'm not offering general help to normal users, I'm replying to your forum post, asking specific questions about your experience, out of curiosity. Given your claimed skill level, I'm genuinely confused about your approach here which is why I'm asking what I'm asking.

I didn't suggest a roll-back, I suggested restoring your system from a backup to the state it was in before the trouble you've had (I've made an assumption here that you have backups based on your comments regarding experience and skill, apologies if I've got this wrong..)

Given my own experience, I'm inclined to think there must have been something wrong with your system, or something happened to the download during the update to cause the issues. Or something on your system stopped it from working properly. I've seen antivirus programs block the free W10 upgrade on numerous occasions, so I tend to look for these things if it goes wrong.

Well I think I had your motivations sussed from your first post about being curious, jmc160

No need to knock my skill - my skill is in managing my own risk in this case quite well, thanks. I suspect I had tape drive back-up systems in my home PC before you were out of nappies, but who really knows ? Maybe you are just a late developer

Are you really trying to assert that true home users with skill should have spent their time long since on a backup regime which enables them to back up and restore faster than they can fix lazy upgrade implementations peddled as the best thing since sliced bread, as they arise, i.e. without resorting to complete backups?

Pigs might fly one day!

Or are you still convinced there's something wrong with my machine? I've no doubt ... its a piece of Asus cheap kit ... I only spent £500. Serves me right? No that's not what you meant?

Perhaps I use the wrong anti-virus? Actually I use internet security recommended and paid for by a bank. Silly me! But silly Microsoft too! Windows didn't ask me last night to disconnect from the internet and deactivate Kaspersky before it took over my machine this morning. If it was so clever it could do it itself - I suspect it did, but then it faffed up switching protection back on again afterwards.

I know how to protect myself from files I choose to download thanks, but I did say in my earlier post that the replacement file download I found was not useful - so I therefore chose not to say where I found it.

I think I did pretty good in fixing my machine. What would you do in hindsight that could be safely described to the majority of users as a self fix? Re-registering DLL's maybe? Would that be wise?

You've already now realised you couldn't have deferred the upgrade in most peoples "free W10" versions, which I was prepared even to thank as a piece of useful advice, since proven to be slightly misguided. We can all be less than perfect in our analysis, can't we?

So put yourself in my position this morning and state how you would have fixed it. Forget backups. Most people don't have them on their home machines. And even if they imagined they might, and if they then went looking on my machine (and probably theirs too unless it was an original clean install of W10) they'd find a W10 Control Panel option to Back Up and Restore W7 - and the Lord only knows what that would do!

I used Outlook Express originally and then Windows Mail when OE was terminated, and then Windows Live Mail, because I use multiple email accounts for different purposes and I keep local email storage folders too. I am not unusual in that regard.

I have no doubt that if I was to spend a weekend or two on it, I could probably use the W10 Mail App, but why would I unless I was forced? I had a brief look once and decided it was a gamble. Why should I have blind confidence in an App that I have never used and about which so little is written confirming easy 100% confidence inspiring seamless import of Windows Live Mail folders and emails?

Microsoft hasn't covered itself in glory in the past with its imports of the old .dbx files into later iterations of their standard email clients, for example. Their import routines used to forshorten folder names quite terribly.

But as I say, jmc160, instead of trying to pick me up as seems to be your wont, what wise words of advice / nay, general help even, would you give the hoi polloi of normal / general W10 users who haven't yet suffered the Anniversary Update? Or is that not quite your bag?

jmc160

agarnett wrote: »

Well I think I had your motivations sussed from your first post about being curious, jmc160

My motivations were to satisfy my curiosity. Nothing more. Apologies if it sounded otherwise.

No need to knock my skill - my skill is in managing my own risk in this case quite well, thanks. I suspect I had tape drive back-up systems in my home PC before you were out of nappies, but who really knows ? Maybe you are just a late developer

I'm not knocking your skill, I made some assumptions based on your comments of your own skill level. If I got this wrong, again, I apologise.

Are you really trying to assert that true home users with skill should have spent their time long since on a backup regime which enables them to back up and restore faster than they can fix lazy upgrade implementations peddled as the best thing since sliced bread, as they arise, i.e. without resorting to complete backups?

I'm trying to assert that EVERYONE should have a backup regime. There are going to be times when a system either fails, or something happens to it that means it's going to be quicker to restore from a backup than to go through hours of fixing it. Or at the very least, have the ability to do a fresh install of the system without having to worry about losing any important files. It doesn't really take any skill these days to have good backups.

Pigs might fly one day!

Or are you still convinced there's something wrong with my machine? I've no doubt ... its a piece of Asus cheap kit ... I only spent £500. Serves me right? No that's not what you meant?

I was never convinced there was something wrong with your machine, just... suspicious. And yes, I still am. Your assertions that the update is a lazy implementation, etc. doesn't really hold any water for me. There are always things that go wrong with someone's machine with updates/upgrades like this, and usually (not always...) it's because of either something wrong with the machine, something on the machine that's stopping it from working properly, or some other factor. I also think a large part of it is that MS can't possibly test for all possible combinations of hardware/software already on the machine they're pushing the update to. There's just too many variables, it's impossible to test every eventuality.

Perhaps I use the wrong anti-virus? Actually I use internet security recommended and paid for by a bank. Silly me! But silly Microsoft too! Windows didn't ask me last night to disconnect from the internet and deactivate Kaspersky before it took over my machine this morning. If it was so clever it could do it itself - I suspect it did, but then it faffed up switching protection back on again afterwards.

I'm aware of Kaspersky and I'm a big fan of it. It doesn't change the fact that antivirus can have a tendency to be a bit overzealous when "protecting" a user's machine. I've seen antivirus programs stop the W10 upgrade and you can't really hold MS responsible for that. That's on the antivirus vendors. Hell, I had a family member years ago who installed a very well known, very well-established third-party firewall on Windows XP and it completely blocked all internet traffic! My point is, unfortunately it's necessary to have these tools installed, but there is such a thing as taking things too far.

I think I did pretty good in fixing my machine. What would you do in hindsight that could be safely described to the majority of users as a self fix? Re-registering DLL's maybe? Would that be wise?

I've no idea what I would do based on the information you've provided. I'd have a lot more questions before I could even begin. It would also depend on just how far gone the system is. I got the impression yours was pretty badly screwed up, hence my questions about backups (probably should have worded it better though, in hindsight...) As for the DLLs, if they're missing, then yes, re-registering them would be a good early-ish option.

EDIT: I've gone back and re-read your OP, and there's only really three issues you mention. Two of them are with third party apps, and the other one is outdated software that MS is soon to scrap completely. If that's all it was, then it's really not that bad going.

You've already now realised you couldn't have deferred the upgrade in most peoples "free W10" versions, which I was prepared even to thank as a piece of useful advice, since proven to be slightly misguided.

"free" is not the same as "Home Edition". My W10 Pro upgrade was free. The edition you get corresponds to the edition that was on there already. I have no idea how many users are using which edition, but I don't have a Home Edition machine so that part slipped my mind.

We can all be less than perfect in our analysis, can't we?

You're absolutely right.

So put yourself in my position this morning and state how you would have fixed it. Forget backups. Most people don't have them on their home machines. And even if they imagined they might, and if they then went looking on my machine (and probably theirs too unless it was an original clean install of W10) they'd find a W10 Control Panel option to Back Up and Restore W7 - and the Lord only knows what that would do!

Only way I can put myself in your position at this point is to look back at your first post, which really just states issues with three third party (or out of date) applications. If that's all that went wrong, then that's not too bad. I'd probably start with a reinstall/repair of those apps and if that didn't do anything, I'd start looking at the DLLs more closely. If that didn't work, well, it would depend on whether the system was my own or someone else's, and how much time they wanted me to spend on it. Although the "tone" of your post suggests maybe there's more to it than those issues, so without more information I couldn't really comment. But as I said previously, my posting here wasn't to offer advice and as you said in your OP, you weren't looking for any. I was just curious about a couple of things and wanted to understand the reasoning for the epic rant.

I used Outlook Express originally and then Windows Mail when OE was terminated, and then Windows Live Mail, because I use multiple email accounts for different purposes and I keep local email storage folders too. I am not unusual in that regard.

I have no doubt that if I was to spend a weekend or two on it, I could probably use Windows Mail, but why would I unless I was forced? Why should I have blind confidence in an App that I have never used and about which so little is written confirming easy 100% confidence inspiring seamless import of Windows Live Mail folders and emails?

Microsoft hasn't covered itself in glory in the past with its imports of the old .dbx files into later iterations of their standard email clients, for example. Their import routines used to forshorten folder names quite terribly.

that's interesting, thanks for sharing. Although as for the blind confidence part, the app has like 26,000 ratings in the store and over 17,000 reviews. I wouldn't really call that going in blind.

But as I say, jmc160, instead of trying to pick me up as seems to be your wont,

Look, I'm really not trying to pick you up on anything. If it's come across like that then I apologise. It wasn't my intention to come here and have an argument with you.

what wise words of advice would you give the hoi polloi of normal / general W10 users who haven't yet suffered the Anniversary Update? Or is that beneath you?

No, it's not beneath me. I'm all too happy to help those who need it. But you stated in your first post that you weren't looking for any advice.

I'd probably start by saying don't put too much faith in the horror stories on the internet from those who had issues with it. Everybody's system is different and the vast majority of those will update with no issues whatsoever. Occasionally there will be a resulting issue with something you have installed, but this is usually easily fixable. If it's that much of a genuine worry, maybe take some measures first to be safe, for example, take a backup.. Or at the very least, create some recovery media and store your important files elsewhere. Maybe download the upgrade (if possible) and then disable/uninstall antivirus before starting it.

I know you're probably going to come back and say that's mostly irrelevant because this "lazy implementation" came to your system completely uninvited and without warning, but again, I'm sceptical. I've never seen an update, let alone a major update like this one, come onto a system truly unannounced. You're probably going to disagree with this too and all I can really say is, I'm sorry you had this experience. And I'm sorry if I've offended you with some poor wording choices. I probably should have just left you to vent.

RumRat

@agarnett

You certainly have a bee in your bonnet over this. I think it may be blinding you to the fact that the majority of users had no problems with the update. So, perhaps others were questioning why you should have had so much bother?
There wasn't anything in jmc160's posts that warranted the reply you gave. Perhaps, once you've calmed down, you could re-read the posts without the paranoid belief that your skill levels are being questioned.
Good luck with fixing your machine.

I_have_spoken

It's a disgrace that Microsoft will again wreck OP's PCs when the "Redstone 2" update to Windows 10 ships next year.

AndyPix

agarnett wrote: »

Are you really trying to assert that true home users with skill should have spent their time long since on a backup regime which enables them to back up and restore faster than they can fix lazy upgrade implementations peddled as the best thing since sliced bread, as they arise, i.e. without resorting to complete backups?

Restore point ?

agarnett wrote: »

Forget backups. Most people don't have them on their home machines.

No , that's just you .
Had you had one, your situation would have been much less stressful

agarnett

Sorry to have caused you to spend so much time responding to me jmc160, but it is very interesting how those like you and me who are confident we can solve most of what is thrown at us differ in our conclusions about whether Microsoft has been lazy or not.

Most IT minded people are narrow-minded people especially those who earn a living from it. It isn't good. They tend to look down their noses at silly users or see them as a fee paid service opportunity.

If you have been around computers as long as I have and around almost all Microsoft Windows iterations in particular, then you must realise that it hasn't really got much easier to own one and maintain it yourself. All the advances in compatibility of hardware and extended storage and speed of processing have in the last ten years been largely obviated by top heavy and lazy coding and other knots which have been created in home systems in the skewed names of security and progress.

What is your point in suggesting that Adobe Acrobat is just some third party application, Kaspersky is good but can be 'over-zealous', and that Apple's iCloud is also some third party application and MSE's website is just some third party website and that you still suspect my pc has "something wrong with it"?

Like yours, my machine is likely to be in the top 5% cleanest best maintained PC's in the world that aren't still sitting unboxed at the dealers!

I know I've written a lot since I started the thread, but did you cotton on to that laughable Asus Touchpad dialog I saw in the middle of the Anniversary Update? Who coded that or caused it to be executed? A third party, tsk-tsk ? The point about Windows machines is exactly that - that they should be third party app and hardware compatible. The main problem I suspect is that Microsoft doesn't truly want to partner the main providers such as Asus and Adobe and Apple and Kaspersky whose products we all use everyday as mainstay items, not incidentals, and which we all expect to be as bombproof as Microsoft Windows.

Whoever heard of anyone suggesting that Adobe Flashplayer or Adobe Acrobat were risky products to use, or ITunes (which is likely to install iCloud whether you intend it or not), or Kaspersky anti-virus? Microsoft has spent a bomb on facial recognition that the vast majority of users will not use for years yet. Why hasn't it spent a bomb on recognising which other products are most popularly used several times daily on its OS, and made sure it is fully compatible with them as well as vice versa?

MSE user 'I have spoken' chooses to use sarcasm to remind that Microsoft is the benevolent Holy Grail which will eventually provide Redstone 2 next year and maybe even Redstone 3 (Redstone 1 is the insiders name for the W10 Anniversary Update I have been complaining about).

I think the difference between me and "insiders" is that I know that most Windows users are not waiting with baited breath to be able to use the latest features the insiders drool over. Most Windows users just want their Windows PC to work when they switch it on each day to do their banking and read and send emails, and to be able to use eBay, Skype and a bit of social media interplay. Most people are not gamers. Sure lots of kids are and lots of Millennials haven't quite grown out of it so are vulnerable to staying up too late playing before work next morning, but that's not a good thing, is it?

Most people are finally beginning to recognise than rather than spend all day sat at a computer, a better life can be had by regular exercise, and realtime active interactions with people, which you simply cannot possibly get from hours at your pc - I actually missed 2 hours at the gym yesterday because of my forced interaction with Redstone 1, but I was nevertheless able to go out to dinner with friends and smile about have slayed the dreaded Microsoft multi-headed dragon instead of meeting them at the gym :rotfl:

Sure, many might like to interact again with their computers when they return home after a day of exercise whilst wearing their GoPro if that's your bag, but even then, most who can afford a GoPro aren't much interested in sitting down spending hours professionally editing the footage using huge new Apps and features from Microsoft - they just want a no brainer way to load up the best bits in five minutes using their 1 year old laptop or mobile which hopefully is not going to suddenly start updating itself for 90 minutes with Redstone 2 or Redstone 3 as soon as they switch on

No, its a question of attitude, isn't it? Naturally in a Techie Forum like this, there are likely to be a lot of contributors with attitudes at the opposite end of the spectrum to mine. However, after a month of Redstone 1 experiences, there are likely to be a majority of Forum readers who come here looking for clues about how to fix their laptops after the W10 Anniversary Update. Many of them will be somewhat concerned if not miffed with Microsoft and their computers when they arrive here in the forum, and I suspect their views might resonate more with the tone I have introduced with the problem, than with insiders "move along now - nothing to see" type attitudes.

So are we over the hump now? Have most W10 users suffered the update already? Clearly it has been some kind of gradual roll out round the world. Are most W10 Anniversary Update upsets still ahead of us, or as some of you like Rum Rat have dared to suggest (without much to back it up I think ), most people been there and done it and suffered no problems at all?

There is nothing special about my pc. I am not running anything weird and wonderful on it. It's just one year old and it is a world recognised manufacturer (Asus). It's an X554L for anyone that's interested. With my broad skillset, I'm able to maintain it in good shape. I don't make a habit of dicing with dodgy websites. I keep plenty of headroom on my OS partition (almost 300GB). To keep that headroom as large as possible, I tend to install extra Apps on my partition rather than on the OS partition - that is if I get given a choice on install. I wouldn't mind betting that my habit of doing that is a use case that the Redstone coders treat as a low priority - an added complication they don't want to think about too much ...


They say think of the children, don't they?

Well I think our kids are best able to deal with the sort of upsets I have been complaining about.

Instead I urge the Redstone coders, and those who create the use cases and specifications for coding, please think of the elder generation. In many cases, unless they are recently retired office workers, older users are barely able to reliably do their online banking each day as they must. Branch banking has become a thing of the past for most of them, and is not a pleasurable experience, so they are getting fewer and fewer choices.

If Microsoft continues to insist and ensure that W10, as their main product, is essentially the monopoly choice shipping with virtually all off the shelf PCs i.e. that it is to present itself as all things to all men in this world, then they have responsibilities.

They owe a firm duty to safeguard those whose lives they otherwise interrupt totally unreasonably, if and when their updates and upgrades can prove to be as dodgily implemented as W10 Anniversary Update has been in my experience.

agarnett

AndyPix wrote: »

Restore point ?

No , that's just you .
Had you had one, your situation would have been much less stressful

Why would it? I've mentioned this before. Why would I want to go back if I can see a way forward? Those who know what backups and restore points are about are like you and me. They aren't really for 'normal users' to try, especially after such a major upgrade I suggest. Who knows whether the restore coding is better or worse than the upgrade coding? Would a restore take another 2 hours and would it be 100% successful? And how anyway would I then stop W10 Home Edition trying to upgrade me again at the next startup?

If I have just installed a new printer driver or a single new App or have been fiddling with settings and made a muck of it and I have landed in a world of hurt, then yes, winding back to a system restore point might be an obvious option, if uninstall didn't work, but after W10 Anniversary Upgrade? I don't think so. Have you tried it? Nope? Why would you - you don't need to, and nor did I.

Are you advocating it for normal users?

indesisiv

Like you I am on a metered connection and I will actually go and see if I can find out how much it used now that I know it was big.

And to the people suggesting unlimited internet, I can't get unlimited internet at home without spending in the region of £50 a month which I am not prepared to do.

Regarding the update, I can't say how long it took to download as it happened in the background, but it didn't take more than about 5 mins to install then about 5 mins after reboot to finish. SSD is the way to go for this sort of thing
I have a fairly old laptop which isn't the quickest but the main drive really makes a difference when installing updates.

Can't say that I have had any problems with the update apart from a few quirks with the menu, I would like to have a bigger shutdown button, and be able to turn off the full a-z list of programmes.