Microsoft will force Windows 10 Home users to download and install updates to its operating system without any options to turn them off. A final version of the OS, distributed to testers this week, contains a clause in the end user license agreement (EULA) that reveals Windows 10 users will receive “automatic updates without any additional notice.” The changes have left some Windows users concerned.
We’ll get some registry switch within a matter of weeks or even days I’m sure, but the prospect of forced automatic updates is an odd one – I’ve had some issues with Windows updates not working out very well in the recent past, and as such, I kind of like to retain control over how and when updates are applied.
That being said, I’m sure it’s great news for the huge loads of outdated, insecure machines you have to fix on holidays while visiting family.
Nope, it’ll just be exchanging one problem for another. Now, instead of applying updates, we’ll have to fix failed updates. No thanks, especially if they’re driver updates gone wrong trying to replace an OEM driver with a stock Windows version, or IE updates getting applied in the wrong order. Count me out.
Yeah, if they include driver updates with this, that’s going to be a HUGE pain in the ass for a lot of people, like when the video card driver it downloads starts to cause BSODs, or completely freezes the machine. I think this is the reason why Samsung started to block Windows Updates …
Edited 2015-07-17 19:50 UTC
No… Not applying security fixes will always result in a non-working computer given enough time. I think have needed to roll back one Windows update in 20 years.
We don’t know about drivers yet…
The whining about this issue is ridiculous. I would think any reader of OS News will be using the Pro version anyway like me so a non-issue.
Edited 2015-07-17 19:59 UTC
Repairing problems from Windows Update failures was my ~third most common call for computer repairs (behind browser/email and DEU – defective end user – issues). I always disable automatic updates as a result and run strong security software (Avast!) and disable a few problematic system services (such as Windows Search) and things work well after that for many years.
I have a strict policy for software updates: only update when things are actually broken or only update to “big” revisions (such as service packs) – and NEVER be an early adopter on a customer’s machine. Of course, I retired a couple of years ago, so I won’t be doing anything about the Windows 10 upgrade except, maybe, on my own machine (since it’ll be free 😉 ).
What? You disable automatic security updates on customer PCs? How do the updates get done then?
I work as computer technician in an IT department and we have some issues with Windows updates but that is because of proprietary software we have to use.
On my home machines over the years, almost zero issues.
Edited 2015-07-17 20:53 UTC
Manually, when a specific update is needed?
What? I am talking about security updates and they to be applied when they are released.
How would a regular user know when they are “needed”? Once automatic updates are turned off they usually never get applied by a user.
It won’t be too bad, *IF* you can hide specific updates to prevent them from loading. If it won’t stay hidden, though …
I had to do that with an Nvidia nForce driver on my old XP station. The driver that came from Windows Updates would kill the NIC, and the only way to get a network connection was to roll-back the nForce driver. Once it was hidden, I never had anymore issues with Windows Updates on that system.
I have a laptop with a 3G card integrated. I would really not like it do attempt updates over the 3G connection as it has limited data.
Well, Windows 8 and 8.1 automatically recognize metered connections, and knows not to download updates over them.
Connections can also be manually set to metered.
Edited 2015-07-17 20:05 UTC
The funny thing happens when Windows Update updates the driver for your 3G modem and then your Internet connection disappears until you somehow obtain the original driver (happened with Mini-PCIE Ericsson H5321GW).
Just roll-back the driver from the Properties screen in Device Manager. No hunting for driver disks required.
If that doesn’t work, you can also roll-back to the System Restore Point that gets created prior to Windows Updates installing anything.
Edited 2015-07-20 16:22 UTC
Many rural US towns have no broadband options. My parents learned that ATT stopped renewing DSL service and were left with nothing but satellite or cellular internet.
4GB data only plan = $50/mo + $10/GB overage.
Luckily for them MS are planning on reimbursing customers for the bandwidth charges incurred by their share of forced bandwidth usage.
/sarcasm
I don’t see that as a problem. These people are hardly going to be using such an ISP for Netflix! Most of Microsoft’s updates are relatively small on the order of a few megabytes each. And if they opt for only getting security and essential bugfix updates that keeps the data requirements lower. People don’t have to update to Windows 10 either. Windows 7 & 8 are still going to be supported for the foreseeable future.
I do foresee the occasional snafu with updates breaking 3rd party software that will be more problematic. But compared to the number of people that just won’t update and don’t have the foresight or wisdom to realize it shouldn’t be optional when utilizing community resources with always on connections… “The needs of the many…”
I can’t count the number of willfully ignorant that think because they “have nothing of value on my computer” that they couldn’t possibly be a target. They fail to realize that the computer hardware itself is often the target, and I seldom can convince them otherwise even with pertinent facts.
stormcrow,
Obviously they’re not going to be able to use netflix or bittorrent, probably not even youtube. Still, none of this makes it ok for the OS to use bandwidth without permission. What your not getting is that they’re not choosing the ISP, it’s what they’re stuck with because of where they live.
Right now, I have Windows Update bugging me in lock-screen about available security updates – there was a patch Tuesday recently, after all.
33 important updates, 1135,9 MB (that’s for Windows 8.1 and Office 2013).
Fortunately, Windows recognizes that “You’re on a metered connection, so you might have to pay for downloads.” and does not download them.
However, the point is, that it is hardly “Most of Microsoft’s updates are relatively small on the order of a few megabytes each”. It is about gigabyte/month.
(Btw, 4 gb/month is not even occasional youtube-worthy, forget netflix. It is about 135 MB/day, which could be burned through by a single video. It is OK for light browsing, mailing, chatting, using Google Maps and occasional Remote Desktop/Citrix for your work).
Wonderful! Send me your address so that I can bill you an extra connection for my folks who have paid for the absolute best available connection in their country (4m down / 768k up theoretical, 128k down / 56k up real, 8 GB hard cap) when Windows update decides to download a giant heap of updates in a single go. And since it generally takes 2-3 weeks to set up the connection, and between 4-6 hours for my folks to get half what they paid for, I’ll of course bill you for their time wasted on getting the second connection. It’s quite reasonable – $1000/day net of taxes, but I’ll give you a pensioner’s discount.
It’s bad enough that you couldn’t get from 8.0 to 8.1 without either buying a fresh license or downloading something that literally took months because it was so large and they had other things to do with that connection – like talking to their kids. But Microsoft apologists are already out in force claiming it’s not a problem because they don’t have an issue. Yep, just like poverty is solved because you have money in your bank account.
Edited 2015-07-20 01:23 UTC
Windows 8 and 8.1 don’t auto-download updates over metered connections; presumably, Windows 10 won’t, either, due to the cost.
Windows also does a fairly good job at knowing whether or not your connection is metered. Users can also manually set connections to metered as well.
I hope Microsoft have fixed their lack of imagination, then. In 8.1, ethernet connections cannot be set as metered. The drivers for some 3g modems (and presumably 4g these days) set them up as ethernet. Even on ADSL, my plan has 10GB peak and 10GB off-peak per month, so I’d want to set updates to off-peak.
gld59,
Yea I was wondering about that, metered ISPs use the same wifi access point interfaces as unmetered ISPs, it seems unlikely that the devices know whether the internet is metered or not.
In any case, it seems dumb not to have more direct control over consumption of resources by the OS. What if I need to sync files – metered mode prevents that.
Usually metered Wifi is recognized from non-metered by “magic” dhcp tags. For example, android hotspot uses DHCP option 43 and “ANDROID_METERED” item.
However, I haven’t found a tag to set for Windows to consider the connection metered yet.
I agree with the general feeling that this might cause for some. Basically, this makes me want to not update to Win 10. I don’t have ground internet at home, but am able to share my phone’s unlimited 4G service. I’ve turned off auto update and only update when able to at my parent’s house when I go to visit.
Maybe I should just give up on Windows altogether. I already use Linux for a majority of the time, anyway.
I, personally, am very weary of Microsoft’s latest moves. Maybe it’s time I ditched them completely again. Particularly because the alternatives have never sounded better.
If you use the Pro version, this doesn’t apply.
I hope you had a good holiday Thom because I would not want to be on holiday when MS decided that I needed to D/L some mega patch and your 3G roaming charges soon his the roof.
Also how many times have you been doing something in full screen mode when windows has rebooted from underneath you? Come on own up. We really need to know this.
finally, I can hear the lawyers sharpening their pencils, ordering more yellow legal pad in anticipation of the class action lawsuits that will be heading in the direction of MS.
1) Data charges for updates – How many average users even know how to set a device as a metered connection?
2) Updates borking a device renderint it unusable. After all, MS patches always work don’t they?
Sorry, but IMHO (and 40+ years of working in IT) this is a really bad decision.
Has Balmer really left the building?
If the struggles I’ve had to apply updates with the Insider Preview are anything to go by, I have little to no faith about Microsoft releasing “perfect” updates once Win 10 is released.
For the Insider Preview, I was stuck on build 10132 for ages because every build update after that threw up (different) “light blue screen of deaths” and never updated.
I gave in, wiped build 10132 and installed build 10162 from scratch. I actually managed to update to build 10240 successfully first time (which shocked me), but the first reboot I attempted a few mins into the new install just stuck on “Restarting” for 30 mins (no updates were being applied) before I gave up and power cycled the machine.
BTW, is it just me or is the lack of info on boot, shutdown and build upgrade screens very annoying? I want to know what it’s doing (think the textual boot of Linux distros) and sitting there with no changing info for minutes on end is highly frustrating.
I had no problems going from 10130 to 10240. Sometimes you get lucky
While it’s a good move for Microsoft in general, I think they’re being a little too controlling. Not having the ability to disable feature updates makes it difficult for me to adopt it.
Having been bitten by feature and general OS updates (not related to security) on multiple occasions – iOS, Linux – I have become very cautious about general OS updates. Even performance regressions have become increasingly common as older devices are neglected.
Also, the article linked by theVerge – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/16/windows_10_will_update_whet… – indicates that this behavior applies to the Professional edition.
I’m no fan of automatic updates but I don’t think all this pants crapping is warranted. Microsoft seems to be making an honest effort to improve their software right now and it’s perfectly reasonable to think they’ve considered the problems of past updating, problems with the new model, and have made adjustments to the process accordingly. Instead of reacting to `your own` assumptions, I don’t see any problem with waiting to see how it goes before vilifying it.
I guess that you have never had any updates from MS fail or have your system fail to boot after their applications.
I think that you have been lucky.
Personally, I wait at least a week after their ‘Patch Tuesday’ releases before applying any of them to my systems. I’d rather let the unwary find out the problems first even with WSUS in place.
AFAIK, there do seem to be problems with patches on a pretty regular basis. This is not restricted to MS alone btw. I recently had a patch from IBM do a lot more than it said on the tin. They withdrew the patch and 10 days later it was released again. This time it worked perfectly.
So, are you going to sue MS when their updates borks your system? Sorry, you can’t because their EULA specifically probhibits it. What are you going to do then?
I can forsee a number of class actions before the end of the year unless MS drastically improves the quality of their patches. If enough people join them then they will have to change the policy.
I’ve had updates fail here & there but never any that BSODed my boxes, or caused a failure to boot. I’m aware that some people have experienced that however. I do consider myself fortunate that the biggest problem I’ve had with updates is annoyware like KB3035583 being installed. But, its always been easily fixed.
Like you, I opt out of 0-day updates. I also usually wait about a week before updating. The few times I can remember there being a major problem, I didn’t even bother updating until some time after the dust settled.
I don’t know that an EULA can legally strip you of your rights if damage occurs. I doubt it. Nonetheless, suing Microsoft is a bit dramatic. I’m fully confident that they’ll resolve any issue like that quickly and as easy as possible for their customers. I know people who’ve been bitten before but I can’t think of any time it wasn’t resolved quickly and without any real damage. I’m sure someone will raise their hand and claim the sky fell for them. It’s possible some combination of software & hardware creates the perfect storm so I have no problem conceding updates are YMMV.
I can’t agree with that at all. Automatic updates is nothing new and to my knowledge there has never been any class action lawsuits brought against Microsoft for its Windows updates, nor has there been any legal grounds for one. I don’t believe things are nearly as urgent and dire as your making them out to be. I think people are blowing a lot of smoke right now because they’ve read/heard something they don’t like. Reading some of these replies makes it quite obvious some are blowing things way out of proportion.
If there’s one thing you can always count on, it’s a certain group of people always yelling fire in the Microsoft theater. If I had a dollar for every time someone claimed pending doom, destruction, and sky falling compliments of Windows, I would be posting this from my beachside vacation house in the Caribbean. I guess I just need to see that this actually is the horrible disaster some insist before I’m willing to go along with it.
That is what I do on my own computers but I can not apply this to others computers I have to deal with because if they get exploited I would have to be, at least partially, blamed for it.
So, I used different strategies to computers I have to deal with. On almost all cases I set an administrator account for maintenance and assign a limited one to the user, and explain why and how they should be used. This has served me well through the years. On cases where WU/WSUS is available, I am the responsible and the computer in question is somehow critical, I may delay specific patches to be applied.
Edited 2015-07-18 17:36 UTC
Automatic Updates have been ON by default since like forever. So of all of the jammed up computers I’ve repaired recently, the problems have been in spite of Automatic Updates not the absence of.
Yep. My favourite experience with Automatic Updates was 6 or 7 years ago, while attending a conference: the presenter was using a laptop running XP and apparently the update settings were in “full auto” mode, because the laptop rebooted to install updates… in the middle of a presentation.
And that was XP, which is a 14 year old OS, and the last tweak to update behavior was 11 years ago I believe.
Windows has gotten better about not force rebooting until outside of normal hours, and you can tweak when it does reboot IIRC.
My point was that the problems I see have nothing to do with updates or lack of updates. Almost exclusively every computer I’ve been asked to “look at” was user-infected with advertising viruses, toolbars, fake virus removal scams, and spyware.
Windows 8.1 with the latest updates appears to be just as vulnerable to these types of infections as Windows XP or Windows 7.
While a fair amount of that malware counts as trojan horses (because they’re coming with something that the end user wanted), quite a lot of it is drive-by downloads that happen due to security exploits, and patches fix those.
But none of the computers I’ve fixed lately have had Automatic Updates set to OFF. Just saying…
About damn time. I’m sick of going to infected computers by ignorant home users who haven’t update simply because they don’t understand the issues.
To Na-sayers. Get yourself a decent version of Windows like the Professional version and stop using kiddies toys like Home.
Most of the infections I’ve dealt with have been self-inflicted by the computer owners. Updates don’t stop that, and neither do expensive “Professional” versions of the OS.
If Microsoft wants to make their OS more secure, what would help is a system-wide and browser-independent ad blocker; 90% of the crap I’ve cleaned up is related to advertising and scam promotions, both from online browsing and bundled crapware. (The other 10% is perhaps the result of file sharing.)
Me 2.
But it’s the user, not the OS which is to blame. If only they would read what the screen is telling them.
Windows Professional is so much better for serious users and isn’t expensive at all.
Gee, easy to get a student version if money is short. So why not go down that route?
I think Microsoft is making a mistake in forcing updates on users. When I actually used Windows back in the 90s and early 2000s, I can remember that Windows updates were the culprit in about 90% of my computer issues. These were usually misbehaving driver updates or misbehaving registry or dll patches. On the Windows machines I support, I usually advise people to download updates but allow the user to specify which ones to install, that way known problematic updates can be avoided. I have a feeling that there will soon be a public backlash from users whose machines were rendered buggy or unstable due to some buggy update.
I have seen a fair number of Windows machines whose updates were neglected. That does tend to result in compromise, in my experience. I advise friends and family to apply all updates if possible.
However…
a) Windows is huge. Updates are huge. Bandwidth is a problem.
b) Service packs are really infrequent. MS has made noises about fixing this, but it remains to be seen.
c) Delta updates take forever to install on Windows after they download – usually something like 5 hours per hundred megabytes, seemingly independent of how fast the PC is. And there are a lot of reboots, and RAM/CPU/IO hogging, and Windows being unusable while certain updates are applied. I still haven’t figured out what’s behind this; suffice to say that the updater from Windows Vista onward has been remarkably crap.
Add to that stuff like the infamous WGA-breaking updates for Vista and 7, and I can see why people don’t apply updates… I mean, it’s not a good habit, but I can see why.