I'm back from my vacation to the US, the jetlag has mostly passed, so back to OSNews it is! So, Windows 8 has been out for only a little while, and we're already moving on to the next 'version' of Windows. Version is between quotation marks, because unlike previous releases, this doesn't appear to be the a monolithic single release. Instead, Windows Blue, as it's currently codenamed, is more of a procedural change than a technical change: Windows is moving to yearly releases for all devices - PC, tablet, phone.
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Member since:2005-07-22
Thom,
What I mean is that you apply one set of patches, reboot and check for updates. So you download and apply them and you have to reboot again.
I did a clean Server 2008 R2 install last week. To apply all the updates, I had to do the above operation SIX times. Updates on top of Updates.
By way of contrast, if I do a RHEL 6 install, apply one set of updates and you are done and ready to go.
Member since:2011-05-12
That's just the initial setup. After that updates arrive, you install them, sometimes have to do a reboot and then no new updates immediately appear.
I agree most (if not all) Linux distributions require just one round of updates after a clean install, but with Windows it's just some extra work at the start and then you're set.
It seems all the extra Windows updates are mostly related to .NET version 4. When you install that for some strange reason new updates keep appearing after each reboot.
Member since:2007-03-26
He does have a point.
Windows Update is pretty poor as update managers go by:
* no proper foresight with dependency resolution. So instead of just jumping to the end and pulling all the latest patches, it has to run through every update incrementally. This often means that you need to reboot after some core updates before the next increment of core updates can be performed.
* too many core systems that cannot be independently restarted. I'm by no means saying that Linux is perfect, but I love the fact that the only updates that need a reboot are kernel updates. Everything else can be independently unloaded and reloaded.
* annoying forced reboot cycles. If an update happens that needs a reboot, you get a 15 minute (IIRC) warning and that cannot be cancelled, only postponed for a few hours. Worse yet, if you happen to be away from your PC during that tim (eg making dinner) then you may find that Windows has forcefully rebooted your system.
While most of those points I can forgive because of various architecture decisions within Windows; mean a fix would be more work and potentially more dangerous than the annoyance of the current set up. But the last point is pretty unforgivable in my opinion. There should be no circumstances where the OS is allowed to reboot an unattended PC; that's an administrator / end user responsibility alone. And the example the aforementioned commenter raised was just one of many great reasons why an unattended PC shouldn't be assumed safe for system reboots.
Member since:2005-07-11
What's really bad is when your laptop auto-downloads and installs updates in the background, then you put the laptop into standby, and the battery runs down to nothing in your bag (since you forgot to hibernate it). Then you get to somewhere and need to pull up a presentation or grab a file really quickly ... and it spends 15 minutes "configuring windows updates", "installing windows updates" before the login screen appears!
Or, you manually do the updates, postpone the reboot, forget about the reboot, run out of time onsite, and throw the laptop in the bag. And suffer through the pre-login updates when you get to the next site.
Windows Update is not user-friendly, especially when you're in a rush. 
Member since:2012-09-21
You can disable this via the registry (or Local Group Policy (gpedit.msc) depending on OS version). The entry you're interested in is the "NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers" value which does what it says when set to 1. Below is the technet page with all of the Automatic Updates registry keys.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd939844%28v=ws.10~*...
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Member since:
2005-06-29
What?