this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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I find this to either be a lie or self inflicted. I manage a small fleet of a few hundred windows systems and all updates have been fine for years.
In the windows admin user groups there are more than a few that are deploying updates within 24hrs of release to thousands of servers and workstations and have not reported issues.
Lastly I think that tech bloggers say things like this to get clicks, so they can get ad revenue. Then they also tell you how to disable updates so they can get more clicks and ad revenue.
It’s disingenuous and probably harmful to be telling people to disable updates that lead them to be exposed to vulnerabilities.
I hate Windows for all the monetisation and privacy issues but I never really had problems with it killing my computer.
I had a Windows 10 update fuck up my laptop for about 15 hours until it somehow magically unfucked itself and started working again once.
But thats about it
The primary issues that I faced with Windows (Win10 nearly a decade ago) are
If I had never used Linux, these wouldn't even seem like problem; just normal Windows shenanigans. But after using Linux, I can never go back. I don't know how much worse/better Win11 is now but can't be bothered to try.
A future Linux enjoyer spotted
I LOVE Linux and I am still to lazy to use it on my gaming PC... normal folks don't want anything to do with it. Effort is an allergen.
what afford is there with steam?
but yeah if it is not steam, fair
My biggest issue with Windows (at least on my desktop) is with my GPU driver for my Intel Arc A770 LE. Windows Update will not stop automatically “updating” my driver to a driver that was made about a year and a half ago. It’s too old that Intel Arc Control doesn’t even work with it. It doesn’t matter how I install the latest driver from Intel, I can DDU the old one, install the driver and wipe all custom configurations or just install it normally. Nothing works, upon the next reboot, it automatically says “there’s an update” and installs regardless if I want it or not. The driver installation also has a 50/50 chance of blue screening my whole system when installing, both the installation from Windows update, and from Intel. The Window driver “updates” for my driver have also just happened randomly with no notice, they’ve occurred during hour long Blender renders, crashing it and wasting hours of my time redoing work. (This is all on Windows 10). It is frustrating to deal with
Meanwhile, my Linux install on the same computer just runs mesa and I’ve had no issues at all with my GPU. (Or any issues with drivers really, it all just works).
Although it didn’t “kill” my computer. Whenever I still used Windows, it would spontaneously install this outdated driver which would either blue screen or crash whatever I was in the middle of doing such as working in Blender, playing a game, etc.
It's kind of disingenuous of you to proudly say, "I don't use the same version of Windows that this person likely does and I don't have the same issues that this person does so they must be full of shit".
It's kind of a wide disparity for something that's so locked down, though. It's not as though one person is saying they get occasional issues and the other is they often have issues... it's one person basically saying their own personal computer is nigh unusable and the other providing an example of a large number of examples of that being extremely unlikely...
It's far more likely this individual is fucking up their computer on a regular basis, or has a very high bar of usability that is broken any time there is even the slightest hiccup or inconvenience.
There aren’t many versions of windows since 10 and 2016. They are all very similar now.
There are vast differences between Windows home and Windows pro and Windows Enterprise editions as far as how easy it is to control and block off the annoyance ware that Microsoft builds into it.
If you use deployment software to roll out your images after standardizing them and have a set image that you can deploy to a thousand computers as easily as one then it's very simple to sign in with a local domain account and disable the windows things through a group policy and just start rocking and rolling whereas your average Windows home user is not going to even have access to GPO and we'll have to tediously for each and every single computer every single time they reset it redo all of the things to disable all of Microsoft's crap activation.
They are not entirely different but definitely distinct versions of Windows and dismissing the home and non-enterprise users that their experience is inferior to your experience on the Enterprise side is what I'm saying is disingenuous
I’ve found the more you mess with defaults the more likely you’ll encounter problems.
The article author was talking about their work PC anyways.
Gpo/Intune just allows you make mistakes at scale.
The author was talking about their work computer suddenly not booting up the next day. The windows version differences wouldn’t cause this.
That's the difference between the Home and Pro versions though. The things that generally break on the Home versions are all the things not generally enabled on a domain controlled Pro version. Thisbis more about Microsoft just being bad at small updates versus these giant roundup packages they like to ship.
What things? Home just doesn’t have GPO as far as I know.
The interesting thing for me is that I own two different surface pro 7 tablets. I have one for work and one for home (now that work doesn't require me to bring my own device anymore). The work surface has windows 10 pro on it. My home one doesn't, The difference is very interesting. The IT team have disabled a lot of stuff on my work surface that I don't even have access to on my home unit. I don't often have bugs from updates breaking things at work. I do at home though which is enough for me to perhaps upgrade the windows key on my home unit someday. If I don't install linux first which is a possibility.
"I've never experienced what you describe, so it must be either imagined or your own fault."
I've seen this nonsense over and over again in communities of all kinds, most often in tech forums (where there are always a few participants suffering from a big-fish-little-pond effect). It's a very rude and foolish bit of human behavior.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
I think the guy you're replying to is probably right, just because you can tell from the article the author is not really an expert or advanced user.
But I upvoted you because honestly we do not get enough random Shakespeare on online comments lol
That is probably why Microsoft forced updates on people in W10.
My two cents, I could say the same as the author. My Windows work laptop most of the times cannot wake up from sleep (you know, opening the lid after it's closed) so I have to force a restart. There's a 50% or less chance that Bluetooth and WiFi won't work at all (they won't be displayed on Windows, like it's not even a feature) after I turn the laptop on, so most of my pre-work morning is restarting the laptop until it's working as intended. It's the third laptop I got from them, they're different models but they're all HP, and they all had problems. The Macs and the same HP laptops running Linux have none of these issues.
There have been two distinct Windows updates in recent memory that have broken things.
The one that stopped network printers from working, and you had to change a specific GPO setting which was not available in Intune at the time, meaning I had to do it manually on each computer.
The one that removed all shortcuts to Office 365 apps from the desktop and start menu, necessitating a repair... manually on each affected machine.
So it does happen on occasion. It's not as bad as in the XP days, but it still can be a little sketchy at times
I had an update completely and permanently bricked my webcam, and another that fucked up my audio (but that eventually got fixed months later).
Oh yes, I remember the audio one, too!
I can kind of feel the author on this. I'm in charge of a lot of "special projects" at work that basically come down to, "figure out a way to replicate this extremely expensive technology or software using low cost or free alternatives". It ends up being an unholy mix of programs and hardware that is held together with duct tape and super glue and any minor perturbation means something breaks.
Sounds like less of a Windows problem than an individual problem, though.
Blaming Windows cause your Frankenstein machine breaks often is disingenuous.
I'm not passing blame. Just giving an example.
Doesn't even need updates, in the 10 years I was on Windows it didn't want to start after shutting it down again like 7 times
I hated having to reinstall every year
I‘ve had several faulty Windows updates in recent years and my machine is pre-built. And going by the threads I sifted through in search of solutions I am far from the only one. It‘s perfectly fine to not have the newest update at all times so as long as you update once a month when you can afford a potential faulty update. Having an older than most recent version is far from your biggest concern regarding security. I would even say it‘s a non-issue compared to good old fishing mails.