Microsoft just posted on its blog about how Windows 8 is going to handle automatic updating and the consequent system restarts – and they’re changing a few things around. They want to make the process less disruptive, and there’s reason to cheer: no more popup notifications begging for restarts.
Over the past ten years since Windows Update’s inception, the update mechanism has improved greatly. Updating Windows XP was pure hell with crappy websites, slow downloading, and an even slower process of checking for updates (that could take ages!). You also had to endure many restarts, even in the same set of updates.
Windows 7, by contrast, downloads and updates quickly, all within Windows itself (instead of from a website), and other than the occasional restart, the process is entirely painless. Due to extensive architectural changes in the lower levels of the Windows operating system, restarts are few and relatively far in between – most driver updates, for instance, no longer require restarts. All this has improved the process greatly.
Still, the process can apparently be streamlined even further, and Microsoft is doing just that for Windows 8. Windows Update will consolidate all the restarts in a month, synchronising the system restart with Patch Tuesday. You will get three days to perform this monthly restart – if the three-day period is over, the system will restart automatically.
So, say Windows installed all the necessary updates around Patch Tuesday, and it’s time for the automatic restart. Windows will display a notification on the login screen for three days, asking for a restart. Gone are the interrupting pop-up notifications in the bottom right corner asking for a restart.
After the three-day period, Windows will automatically restart. If critical applications are running, the restart will take place the next time you login (to prevent data loss). you will be given 15 minutes to save your data, and then the restart will take place.
The most welcome change? Everything is consolidated on the login screen – no longer will your workflow be interrupted by annoying popup dialogs begging for a restart. “Having a restart notification or dialog pop up in the middle of an important presentation, a game or a movie is not a pleasant situation, to say the least,” Microsoft writes, “When attempting to automatically restart the PC, if you are in presentation mode, playing a game, or watching a movie full-screen, WU detects this state, and delays the automatic restart until the next available opportune moment or the next time you log back in to the PC.”
Luckily, IT administrators – and thus, us geeks – will be able to change the update policies to our liking. I personally do not let my Windows machines update automatically, since I want to know what’s being updated on my system (especially driver-wise), so I’m happy I’ll still have the option to make changes to the update policies.
In the blog post, Microsoft also addresses the idea of letting third party software tap into Windows Update, but this is something that has been largely superseded by the arrival of the Windows Store. Metro applications will be updated automatically through the Windows Store, so there’s no need to use Windows Update for that. As a sidenote, the fact that non-Metro software won’t get any place for automatic updates is further proof that Windows applications as we know them today are considered legacy.
My biggest issue with Windows Update currently is when the little shield icon pops up next to the Shut Down button on the start menu, indicating that I need a restart, even though I don’t. These phantom “Time to restart” notifications bug me a little.
I would like is a place that displays exactly why a restart is needed, and what exactly what is being done when the restart occurs. I want detailed information, including even which registry and file modifications listed individually, as well as what piece of software is making the request.
Its nice to know I’m not the only one that this drives nuts. i don’t know how many times I’ve gone to shut down only to cancel just so I can launch Action Center and find out what the heck is going on. there is a difference between making it easier and taking control away from the users and frankly MSFT has gone a little too far towards the latter IMHO.
Oh and while we are complaining would it REALLY kill MSFT to actually gives us a little blurb instead of some stupid KB codeword that I have to go look up? Heck even “This is an update for Windows Explorer” would be better than kb947365 which is worse than useless.
Seems silly to limit the Windows app store to only metro apps. I think the approach that Apple is taking is better. Why not allow other apps to take advantage of the app store framework if they want to? I’m so tired of 10 different updated daemons running for every piece of software. What a colossal waste of system resources and my time. Between google chrome, firefox, java, flash, comodo firewall, etc etc I have a bunch of update checkers and notifications popping up every day.
Same with the full screen apps. Windows 8 has the completely different interface for those apps and never the two shall meet. Why can’t I open a website in the regular IE or Firefox, and then decide halfway through to fullscreen it into a minimal metro/touch interface.? Apple does it that way in Lion, and I think the approach is very promising. Once apps support it more, you could switch between a minimal full-screen mode and normal mode in any app. No completely separate environment or app necessary.
Because Microsoft is not Apple, and they seem to want to get out of their way to implement not something usable, but something DIFFERENT. Which is fine for a phone or tablet, but for the desktop it’s gonna be crap.
“Think different”?
Even Windows 2000 did (though it probably came with some late service pack, not RTM).
The only problem with Windows XP is there’s no straightforward way to tell it to check for updates NOW.
Easily solved with a 6 lines batch file:
set WUAU=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate \Auto Update
net stop wuauserv
reg delete “%WUAU%” /v DownloadExpirationTime /f 2>nul
reg delete “%WUAU%” /v NextDetectionTime /f 2>nul
reg delete “%WUAU%” /v ScheduledInstallDate /f 2>nul
wuauclt /updatenow
And the behavior of the updater can be controlled pretty well tightly with group policy settings (whether you’re in a domain or not).
Disabling the stupid default behavior, which insists on rebooting after a scheduled update, even with apps running and unsaved work, is a requirement !
Now if MS is looking for something to improve in the updates area, it’s about time they come up with a framework for third party applications.
Leaving to every other editor the responsibility to provide its own crappy update service is so silly.
And those applications not being theirs is not excuse for leaving unpatched holes throughout the system.
Linux distributions have a far superior software update system in this respect.
Dear Microsoft,
Please spend some of your vast sums of money on making your patching system more hot-patch friendly (like ksplice).
Since I have to use your OS sometimes, it would at least be nice to know you are doing something cool with it.
THIS. Instead of jumping through hoops trying to figure out how to make mandatory restarts not so annoying, how about making it so that restarts are not necessary, and updates happen SILENTLY in the background? With billions of dollars to throw at the problem, I’m sure SOMEBODY at Microsoft can figure this out? Didn’t Linux solve this like 15 years ago?
As an aside, I HATE the Windows 7 update process. I had to turn off automatic updates because I would find that some task I would tell my computer to do at night (like encoding large videos) was interrupted by a random reboot in the middle of the night. So now I have these f**king ‘malicious software removal tool’ and windows defender updates popping up every day or two.
And Windows 8 isn’t looking much better… what about for those of us who work from home and never log in/out? Is it going to be back to the old way of annoying pop-up balloons? And they say that the Windows Store will solve the problem of 3rd party apps not being able to use Windows Update, cept that non-metro apps (you know, the apps people use to get REAL WORK DONE) won’t have the capability to auto update. Am I missing something here, or does somebody need to FIRE all of the MS execs and hire somebody with some common sense?
Exactly what I was thinking. I never see the login screen since I just have it log in automatically. How is this going to work?
Why don’t you just dosconnect it from the network when you are doing these jobs?
Then windblows can’t go and get the updates to apply in the first place
(or alias the ip addy they use to get the updates back to 127.0.0.1)
There are ways to stop this admittedly stupid and crass behaviour.
You DO know that you can simply tell it to download but NOT update without your intervention, yes? or if you want complete and total control over updates (including Office and .NET) you can just use WSUS Offline?
as for Windows 8, aka “Ballmer’s Folly I have a feeling its gonna make Vista look like XP. When I showed screencaps and later was running the beta of Win 7 my customers were full of questions and had curiosity about the OS, with Win 8 I’ve shown over 140 people now the screencaps and NOT A SINGLE ONE wanted to have anything to do with it!
To me the most telling thing was the closest i got to an “endorsement” which was by a little old lady no less. here was the exchange ‘Oh that’s a nice looking cell phone picture, is that Android? I hear that’s quite nice…what do you mean Windows? Windows what? why that is just stupid! Why would I want a cell phone on my computer?’ I thought Ms Pipin nailed it, win 8 is a cell phone OS being shoehorned onto the desktop because Ballmer has Apple envy. If he thought he got hatred for vista he ain’t seen nothing yet!
This is treating the symptom, not the disease…
No, not in a sane way … files are replaced while they are still in use … Try using firefox and updating it through say Yum at the same time, it will do odd things … this is happening in the rest of the system … you just haven’t noticed it.
It happens to work okay most of the time. On Reboot Windows actually replaces the files.
“if the three-day period is over, the system will restart automatically.”
Fuck off. That was my first thought… It will force a restart? Fuck off.
You do realize that’s how Windows works right now, and has worked since at least Windows XP, right?
Which is just one more reason to disable automatic updates. Nothing should ever install or update itself without asking first. It’s just asking for trouble otherwise. Maybe they more or less have to have the automatic updates for those folks who don’t really know how to use a computer beyond the basics, but for anyone who’s actually profficient with computers, automatic updates are nothing be trouble IMHO.
I leave automatic updates on … tbh I never notice them being installed (since vista) and I just have a “you need to restart” message … I actually shutdown my computer when it isn’t in use.
Considering most of the patches are on Patch Tuesday … it doesn’t happen that often.
I think it is good that they are forcing “normals to update” otherwise they don’t and then the OS is wide open .. us nerds can just turn it off … as the article says.
Don’t worry too much, you’ll probably be able to disable automatic updates one way or the other.
Anyone ever hear the idiom: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” ???
Well, that is my philosophy when it comes to doing updates. On ALL systems, ALL operating systems, I completely disable ANY form of automatic updating or update reporting.
I then harden the system against exploit vectors, disabling and removing unneeded features, and configuring every sub-system that will be used to limit automatic behavior. I do this on ALL systems I build – ESPECIALLY the ones for grandma…
Avast anti-virus on Windows and Firefox with a few handy add-ons and disable access to Internet Explorer completely (and configure it to disable add-ons, and lock down certain areas in the registry from modification…).
15 years of this. Only one system ever became compromised, and that was for the typical reason: DEU (defective end user).
That said, botched Windows updates have made me a fair amount of money, and I hope Microsoft keeps pushing them for many years to come!
–The loon
disclaimer: i’m a linux fanboi (yes, i am)
on all of my windows installation, i’ve ALWAYS keep windows up to date, and KEEP uac on (yes, even if it’s annoyning) but NEVER EVER install any anti-virus. i even deleted ms anti-malware.
and i didn’t use ie (opera), and when i download crap on the net, i run it in a virtual machine.
never had problem tho.
Err that doesn’t work in software … most complicated software is broken … it just that you won’t notice it for maybe a while.
I have written SQL scripts that have needed to be maintained … Software tends to rot …
http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html#book5
Updates are good … you also get new features from Microsoft while the OS is in mainline support. Service Pack 2 for Win XP made Wireless much easier than before.