vijucat a day ago

It's become a universal truth that you should probably not upgrade to the latest and non-greatest version of ANYTHING these days. Not Android, not Windows, not iOS, not macOS. It's just embarrassing how companies with market caps sometimes above $1T produce workslop.

I use Windows Update Blocker on Windows 10 to keep it "protected" from upgrades (!). I can see that critical security updates are occurring despite this, so it's a good compromise. For now. When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable.

  • PunchyHamster a day ago

    It's such a stark contrast, my home servers just run unattended-upgrade (on Debian) with no problems, I just do the major version upgrade every year.

    Meanwhile everything consumer and most enterprise is as you said, "don't upgrade if it is not broken, else you WILL feel pain".

    Companies basically trained bad security habits into their user base

    • Saris 18 hours ago

      Yeah Debian is really stable because its so far behind the current releases, lots of testing has been done by the time it updates a package. Great for servers and stuff you just want to set and forget with auto updates.

      • jayd16 17 hours ago

        Ironically, servers should be the most disposable and easily to replace from scratch after a bad upgrade but the world is a silly place.

        • doublerabbit 10 hours ago

          If hardware is failing fair enough. If you can't restore bare-metal within two hours then you're doing something wrong.

      • eikenberry 16 hours ago

        It is equally great as a workstation when combined with a development environment manager with package installation like devenv or flox (or many other options). This combo gives you a stable (not-changing) platform with up-to-date tooling. Best of both worlds.

        • Saris 15 hours ago

          It's also why I'm a fan of atomic distros, easier to roll back from a major bug like my login screen no longer functioning.

    • phoronixrly 21 hours ago

      Do you do the major version upgrade the minute it's announced? Be honest.

      • ptx 16 hours ago

        The point is that you don't have to: the unattended-upgrades part is separate from the major upgrades. You still get security updates for the previous stable release for a while after a new stable release, and the security updates can safely be installed the minute they're announced without bringing in unwanted features changes.

      • wing-_-nuts 19 hours ago

        debian stable? Yes. Debian stable is tested to the point that it's fossilized. Besides, we're not even talking about a major version update. We're talking a minor one, and the last time I'd had a simple update break linux was when arch was shipping the master branch of grub. (The dev and I had words over this practice, which resulted in me going to another distro)

      • luz666 3 hours ago

        Since I switched to nixos some years ago, yes. My fear level dropped from 80% to 1%.

      • doubled112 21 hours ago

        On my home server, sometimes I do take some snapshots and upgrade a few VMs and LXC containers.

        Sometimes I even run testing because stable will be out shortly and I don't feel like upgrading.

        It's a very different experience to the single Windows laptop in my house, where the latest stable is always subtly broken in ways I notice. Last week the top half of the taskbar disappeared for an evening, for example.

      • alternatex 17 hours ago

        He did say Debian, being stable is the one thing it's good at.

      • ndsipa_pomu 20 hours ago

        I admin a bunch of Ubuntu servers and I tend to do a major version upgrade on my laptop and then some low priority machines to see if anything has changed. Typically, the only issues I've had is when there's dropped support for older SSH/SSL protocols which is easily fixed.

        However, Windows Update isn't doing a major version upgrade as far as I know - it's the equivalent of doing a kernel upgrade in Linux. Also, the typical Linux upgrade command will also pull in updates/fixes for pretty much every bit of software in the system, whereas Windows Update will ignore user installed software as far as I know.

      • bitwize 20 hours ago

        Once a new major version hits stable, it's been hammered on quite a bit. Debian has a reputation for being behind the curve, for this reason.

  • jerriep a day ago

    > When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable.

    I think it will still be objectively bad. But maybe compared to Windows 12, it will seem good.

    • FridayoLeary a day ago

      They say every second version of windows is bad. 8 was so bad they skipped straight to 10. But given the current priorities of Windows i'm not holding my breath. They seem to have abandoned the idea that "things should work" as a key principle. 10 was around for an extraordinarily long time but 11 has very few good ideas.

      • ndiddy 19 hours ago

        One large contributor to modern Windows's lack of quality is that Microsoft laid off all of its dedicated QA staff in 2014, with the expectation that developers would own the OS's quality themselves, and whatever they miss would get caught by telemetry reports from Windows enthusiasts who sign up to test new versions for free. Getting rid of QA eliminated Microsoft's institutional knowledge of what causes bugs, what areas to look at, etc (invaluable when you're dealing with a 30+ year old codebase where large portions were written prior to automated testing being standard). The free Windows enthusiast testing didn't make up for this because you can't expect them to act like how a QA tester would act.

        Of course I don't expect Microsoft to suddenly start caring about product quality. The Windows user base has largely stopped growing, so MBA logic is to spend the bare minimum resources on maintenance and to funnel the existing userbase into growth areas like cloud/AI services.

      • MrLeap 21 hours ago

        I remember a different apocrypha for why they skipped from 8 to 10. They wanted avoid OS specific code that conditionally activated from the substring "windows 9" but meant for windows 95 and 98. One would imagine any code like that not being quite as helpful a few decades later.

      • keyringlight 21 hours ago

        I wish convenient ideas like that which become memes would die off as I really doubt there's any rhythm at Microsoft that causes it, for example I doubt they have alternating teams for every other version. More to the point, from an outside perspective I don't see any change in direction that would drastically change windows for the better within foreseeable future or the timespan a "windows 12" would release.

      • ikamm 14 hours ago

        I must be the only person who remembers everyone shitting on W10 saying it was awful and they were staying on W7 until W11 came around and suddenly we're pretending like everyone loved it

        • Telaneo 14 hours ago

          People were indeed shitting on Windows 10, but far less than Windows 8, and most people were willing to suck up the minor enshittification of 10 compared to 8 in exchange for a more modern OS.

          People sticking to 7 until 11 came out is something I've heard nothing of. The people who stuck to 7 that I knew of knew that things were very unlikely to get better.

      • Dwedit 18 hours ago

        The "every second version" rule may be a meme, but it does not reflect the actual release order of Windows, nor properly count the NT series. It only really applies to sentiment surrounding Windows 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, and 11. But that leaves out Windows 95, most versions of Windows NT, and Windows 2000.

      • basch 21 hours ago

        The Windows version numbers are not used often but really do help group Windows into distinct "early vs late" product cycle tiers. They didn't really skip straight to 10, they just named 9 8.1 for reasons.

        Windows 5.0-5.2 is Win 2000, Win XP, Win XP64.

        Windows 6.0-6.3 is Vista, 7, 8, 8.1.

      • timpera 21 hours ago

        Windows 11 is pretty great though, it keeps all the good ideas from 10 and improves on them. I don't get the hate.

  • basilikum a day ago

    If you're forced to use Windows, just use Windows 10 LTSC 2021 IoT. Gets security updates until 2031 but none of the new "features".

    • dijit a day ago

      its not easy to use this legally though.

      • Telaneo 14 hours ago

        If Microsoft doesn't want to sell it, I don't see why I should care that it's illegal. I don't feel bad for downloading abandonware for the same reason. They don't want my money? Fine then. I'll just get it somewhere else then.

      • driverdan 17 hours ago

        If they aren't willing to sell it to those of us who want it I don't see a problem with not paying.

      • 0xEF a day ago

        Running unlicensed versions of Windows has historically been pretty easy. Am I missing something with Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021?

        With Windows 7, once the evaluation period ran out, you just had to deal with an annoying notification about your copy not being genuine, but it never stopped me from doing whatever I needed to do after installing it on dozens of machines over the years, at this point.

  • oefrha a day ago

    My Windows 11 Pro installation is helpfully stuck on 23H2 since every time it attempts to install a newer version it simply gets stuck on a black screen and requires a forced power cycle and subsequent auto-restore, wasting forty minutes in the process.

  • butlike 17 hours ago

    Counter-point: I upgrade day 1 (or in a reasonable timeframe) because I know there's no way the company will ever "go back" on what they're doing. If the new UI nukes the pleasant atmosphere of the OS by making all the icons look glass-like, then I'd better get used to it now. I don't want to forego upgrading, then have to learn a bunch of new features ON TOP of the UI differences.

    For example, iOS 26 introduced the liquid glass, which, coupled with how some UI elements work, was essentially the only change. If I wait until the inevitable iOS 36, I'll have to learn the UI paradigm on top of 10 versions worth of functional upgrades. The delta would be too large for me.

  • I_dream_of_Geni 18 hours ago

    Interesting take. I've used MacOS for 30+ years, and for the last 20 years have had zero problems with updating immediately... For that matter, iOS has been flawless also.

    • jrajav 18 hours ago

      You've either been very lucky or haven't been using much older software. macOS updates routinely cause issues early in the release cycle, particularly with backwards compatibility. Working in creative fields with lots of niche applications and plugins in use makes this a lot more apparent. Catalina in particular was a total nightmare.

      • butlike 17 hours ago

        The musicians suffer a lot with macOS upgrades, but I've found even if some hardware isn't supported officially, it most oftentimes works somewhat well.

    • cschep 18 hours ago

      flawless is a wild take.

      • Insanity 18 hours ago

        lol indeed, since iOS 26 my GPS is broken on Apple Maps and Google map. It’ll just freeze the updates very few minutes making it almost useless for driving

  • jayd16 17 hours ago

    For fun, try a version of Windows Server 2025 with the desktop GUI. Its actually kind of awesome to see what they can do when they care to.

  • Saris 18 hours ago

    Same goes for some of the desktop focused Linux distros, I had Fedora KDE break the login screen from a bad update that got pushed out. It's best to just wait to update anything important.

  • anal_reactor 18 hours ago

    Android has reached the state of complete maturity. For years already major version releases were mostly shifting icons around. There's zero reason to update.

  • askl a day ago

    > When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable.

    I'm not using windows anymore, but at least since Windows XP I felt like only every other release of Windows was usable. So my upgrade path was XP, Vista, 10, completely skipping over the bad releases Vista and 8. So just skip over 11, Windows 12 might be an okay release again.

    • bluescrn a day ago

      Not holding out much hope for a good Win12 given the priorities seem to be to wreck the UI/UX, remove customisation options, turn things into advertising billboards, and force AI into everything (even bloody Notepad).

    • havblue 17 hours ago

      We used to say this about Star Trek movies as well before determining that they're mostly bad. I've moved on from Trek and I'm fine with moving on from Windows.

  • Madmallard a day ago

    which windows update blocker do you use?

    • defrost a day ago

      All around, for everything, I cannot recommend the Chris Titus (and friends) WinUtil enough:

      https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil

      It's a suite of powershell scripts and tweaks that are open source for inspection frontended by a nifty powershell multi tabbed TUI (Text User Interface) widget.

      There's a tab for upgrades and installs of common dev / tech / power user tools; a tab for tweaks; a tab for windows update options; a tab for building install disks / VM's (eg: minimal for gaming or for hosting windows applications in Qubes, etc).

      Update Tab can select all updates / only critical / none ever / advise and let you choose.

      To use, you do need to 'trust' (or inspect the work of and download source and self apply) a pool of windows tech nerds - you literally open a powershell admin window and pipe raw boot script over the internet and give it control to bring up the TUI.

      This could be malware (but isn't, last I checked) - same risk with all such tools d/loaded from internet of course.

      See Usage on github page - various writeups and youtube tutorials.

      It'll rip the AI addons, Copilot, and Snapshot and Spy stuff right out of Windows 10 / 11.

      Easy to use and follow.

      • ryandrake 18 hours ago

        Anyone know if this stops the truly diabolical Windows 11 behavior where it removes the options to "Shut Down without updating" and "Reboot without updating?" At some point, the only option to shut down your computer is "Shut Down and update." I've gotten to the point where I just yank the power cord to turn off my computer, because Microsoft doesn't permit any other way.

    • vachina a day ago

      Go to system32 and take ownership of wuaeng.dll and qmgr.dll and restrict access to only your user. Works on 10 and 11.

      Windows will chug along as if Windows Update never existed (forever).

    • GoblinSlayer a day ago

      Isn't it microsoft who blocks updates after it discontinued windows 10?

      • AlexandrB a day ago

        You still get a lovely, full-screen advertisement for upgrading to Windows 11 on boot every few weeks.

        • Madmallard 12 hours ago

          I fully expect at some point for it to ninja-download and ninja-install because I meet the system requirements.

  • Zardoz84 a day ago

    Except Linux

    • codedokode a day ago

      To be fair, Linux has always been like this, breaking things with updates. Linux was ahead of commercial companies, but they caught up with it.

      • OJFord a day ago

        Linux works with updates however you want it to - e.g. Arch is a 'rolling release' distro, so compatibility is always expected at the latest of all packages; any update to any package is expected to have been tested with the latest at that time of any other relevant package. Of course bugs occur, sometimes something will be missed, but then it's just an update away to correct it. Or say Debian is not; a release is cut, tested, beta'd, and then made generally available - arguably more testing and a higher chance of finding a compatibility issue, but a slower cycle, potentially harder and slower to fix when something is missed.

      • PunchyHamster a day ago

        Linux is very much "pick your poison"

        Run Debian Stable and it basically doesn't happen - only updates are actual security ones.

        Run any rolling distro and you basically accept "with newest version comes the newest bugs"

        And there is a whole bunch of distros between those extremes ,depending on how new you need your software to be (that being said, Debian Testing hits nice mix between "new enough" and "someone actually tested stuff before publishing").

      • sph a day ago

        Use better distros. I haven’t had a broken workstation since 2014 or so.

      • jamesnorden a day ago

        This is 2000s era FUD.

        • jfindper 17 hours ago

          Yeah, exactly. We all know that Linux removed all bugs and made themselves bug-proof in the 2010s.

    • lionkor a day ago

      Im always happy to update my arch install, because I usually get new features to play with, and my system has not broken due to updates in 4 years.

    • pjmlp 20 hours ago

      Better stick to LTS distros and even then....

  • zoeysmithe 19 hours ago

    Its not, instead you should install security updates in a timely fashion. People blocking windows update and being left super vulnerable isn't the solution. This bug was from an august update that affected some people. I think people are overplaying this to justify a dangerous 'dont fix if not broken.' No, your system is broken if its vulnerable.

    • QuadrupleA 18 hours ago

      Unfortunately companies use the "security boogeyman" to push ever-increasing ads, telemetry, performance degradation, features you probably don't want that disrupt your workflow and muscle memory, breaking API changes to libraries, etc.

      If you could sign a contract with e.g. Microsoft (or hell, NPM) to only receive updates that explicitly fix bugs and security holes, that'd be amazing - but I've rarely if ever seen it.

      • deltoidmaximus 18 hours ago

        During the early XP days Windows had granular updates where you could decline everything but security updates if you wanted. Even when they pushed out the Windows Genuine Advantage update (Which offered a user no genuine advantages at all, just possibly hassles) you could still decline it.

      • ryandrake 18 hours ago

        Exactly--if I could guarantee that I was getting just security updates and bug fixes, I'd be happy to turn on automatic Windows updates (and application updates too, for that matter).

    • Telaneo 14 hours ago

      If the choice is between being broken behind the scenes and broken in your face, it's no wonder people pick the former.

      If Microsoft and the like really cared about security, they'd push security completely separately from feature updates, allowing people to get the benefit of updates, without the negatives of those update breaking their environment.

      Or better yet, not push updates that break that break their environment in the first place. Security is a nice excuse for Microsoft to get you to update, but it's been used so many times to push hostile experiences to users that I can't blame the users for not wanting to be burned. The fault lies entirely with Microsoft and other companies for pushing hostile changes and chipping away at their goodwill.

      It hurts, Microsoft. Why are you doing this to us? (It's money. It's always money.)

  • MisterTea 18 hours ago

    > It's become a universal truth that you should probably not upgrade to the latest and non-greatest version of ANYTHING these days. Not Android,

    If you even have control... I have a Google Pixel 8 which was nagging me to update to the latest and greatest Android when my phone was already working just fine. I kept putting it off and rescheduling it until two weeks ago. I was driving home from work, phone in the cup holder, listening to music when the music suddenly stopped. I picked up my phone to see if it was a call or the shitty Honda Bluetooth crapped out again but to my surprise, my phone was powered off. Huh? Never had a phone just turn off like that. I let it sit for a bit to see if it was rebooting but no, it was off. So I powered it back on and suddenly I'm looking at new animations and realize that somehow the OS update forcefully installed itself. WTF. I am not sure if I accidentally scheduled the install, highly doubt it, but there it is, I had the update forced on to me.

    IThe best p[art is this latest and greatest Android that I did not need or want has a regression where swiping down the notification menu has a 5+ seconds delay to populate the menu with the notifications. So yeah, totally worth it... /s

  • noja a day ago

    Not true! The AI revolution has led to an explosion in software quality. The amount of fixed bugs and testing that AI-leaders such as MS have achieved is unprecedented. We will look back on this era as the golden age of software quality.

    • pmontra a day ago

      I think that you missed a /s at the end of the post. I can continue it with "Yes, we had an explosion in software quality and it's in shards all over the place."

      • fragmede a day ago

        It was sarcasm, they didn't forget the /s, it was intentional. (I downvote on /s)

    • vijucat a day ago

      I disagree with "the golden age of software quality". For example, right now, on the front page of HN, is this article, "After Windows Update, Password icon invisible, click where it used to be", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46116567. I could be wrong, but it feels as if this egregious error is AI workslop?!

    • pseufaux a day ago

      Reference? My anecdotal experience so far leads me to believe the opposite.

    • hulitu 19 hours ago

      > The AI revolution has led to an explosion in software quality

      Right, the software quality literally exploded. But, unfortunately, this was before AI. It came roughly at the same time Agile was becoming mainstream

    • steve1977 a day ago

      This is irony. Right? This is irony?

      • rsynnott 19 hours ago

        AI boosters pose a bit of a Poe's Law problem; the poster here is probably joking, but also there almost certainly exist AI boosters gullible enough to actually believe something similar to that.

cwillu 18 hours ago

“[Print] To meet security goals and support new print capabilities, this update transitions Windows printing components from MSVCRT to a modern Universal C Runtime Library.

As a result of this change, print clients running versions of Windows prior to Windows 10, version 2004 and Windows Server, version 2004 (Build number 19041) will intentionally fail to print to remote print servers running Windows 11, versions 24H2 or 25H2, and Windows Server 2025, that have installed this update, or later updates. Attempting to print from an unsupported print client to an updated print server will fail with one of the following errors: ”

Wow.

  • wrs 18 hours ago

    You stopped quoting too soon; the best part is the error message that straight-up lies! “The printer driver is not installed on this computer.” Absolutely classic Windows right there.

  • antiloper 17 hours ago

    Apart from the obvious compatibility disaster, what kind of skeletons does Microsoft have in their printing system that the choice of C library creates those compatibility issues in the first place?

    • stackskipton 17 hours ago

      Print Spooler has had some bad security vulnerabilities. Example: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2021/06/30/printnigh...

      I don’t know if this C library helps mitigate this but Print Spooler is not “it just works” either.

      • vintagedave 8 hours ago

        The UCRT is just the newer, Windows-component version of the MSVCRT, the one they’re worried about. It’s even available for XP.

        > will intentionally fail to print to remote print servers

        Why would a more secure local print driver refuse to talk to _remote_ print servers? What is so untrustable about what comes over the wire, and if it is, how can they trust the print server is or is not one is claims to be and can be talked to?

    • tonyedgecombe 16 hours ago

      My guess is it’s riddled with vulnerabilities. I used to write some print management software and found it very easy to crash the spooler just from routine API calls.

      Not only that but it seemed every time they fixed a vulnerability some piece of functionality broke.

  • ddalex 17 hours ago

    What happened to "always maintain compatibility" ?

    • jfindper 17 hours ago

      Typically there's always been an implicit "unless the security risk is wild".

      Even though it's in-fashion to hate them, Microsoft has been pretty amazing at keeping compatibility. This one is pretty painful, but I really don't think they're doing it just to fuck with people or force you onto Windows 11 (as some people seem to think).

    • wolpoli 17 hours ago

      Windows 10 2004 itself has been out of support for 4 years. At some point, they have to drop code that's maintaining compatibility with obsoleted older version of Windows.

  • schmuckonwheels 17 hours ago

    If this was Apple everybody would be praising their ability to cut ties with old cruft.

kachapopopow a day ago

For anyone that does not want to switch to linux LTSC is a good alternative to avoid issues like these:

https://github.com/massgravel/massgrave.dev/blob/main/docs/w...

I recommend IoT Enterprise LTSC and you can use https://get.activated.win to activate it.

If you are using it in a business setting it's $30/month per license (there are unfortunately no non subscription licenses for windows 11 IoT).

Alternatively you can install AtlasOS and disable automatic updates and rely on maintaining a strong firewall or/and switching every application to run sandboxed using sandboxie for security. Take note that for an average person you can run without updates as long as your computing device never leaves your home and your local network / networks you trust, use external tool for driver updates.

  • mapontosevenths a day ago

    I feel like if you're going to use LTSC there is no point in using 11.

    Windows 10 LTSC will still get updates for years, and uses less than half the resources that 11 does.

    • kachapopopow 21 hours ago

      it's also using the exact same kernel, the only difference is explorer.exe and default apps funny enough. But I have to admit that the file explorer (not to be confused with explorer.exe the desktop), is nicer with the new tab functionality.

      • mapontosevenths 20 hours ago

        I know it's subjective, but I care less about the tabs and more about the missing right click options. I'm also annoyed that 11's explorer uses literally double the memory to perform the same function with less options.

        I know you can add the missing right click options back. I just shouldn't have to.

  • hackernudes 18 hours ago

    There are two issues to consider: security updates and software compatibility.

    The LTSC version is good for security updates, but I worry that software could stop supporting Windows 10 despite the LTSC version existing.

    Coincidentally I am about to install Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC! I was experimenting (and struggling) with PXE boot with iSCSI. An update broke iscsi boot in Windows 11 25H2 (26200.6901 works, 26200.7019 fails) as well as LTSC (26100.6905 works, 26100.7178 fails). There were other issues with iscsi boot on the LTSC version - the network hardware needs to be enumerated before the first boot, but can't boot because it needs network (a chicken-and-egg style problem).

    • deltoidmaximus 17 hours ago

      To expand upon the second issue: I believe Nvidia stopped releasing driver updates for the version of Windows 10 a still supported version of LTSB was based upon at one point leaving users with no further driver updates for a Microsoft supported system. I don't know how common of a problem this is but it did seem to happen once. I also use LTSC but this is a potential pitfall.

      • verall 17 hours ago

        I use W10 LTSC (which is pretty old at this point) and have no problem installing the latest NV drivers

mrweasel a day ago

The password icon being invisible is just funny. Some of the other issues are actually problematic, as they may interfere with some workflows.

However if you go to the December 1. (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/december-1-2025-kb...) the icon is still missing. How hard is that to fix? Aren't they using CoPilot? Just ask it to fix the invisible icon.

Probably not a priority.

  • jraph a day ago

        int Counter = 5;
        while (--Counter >= 0 && Prompt("Take a screenshot. Do you see a lock icon on this picture? Answer "Yes" or "No". Be concise. No fluff. Refrain from saying 'You’re absolutely right'. Try to ignore stuff that looks like lock icons in the background.") != "Yes") {
            // Try resetting the icon
            LockScreenLockIconSet("fa fa-lock"); 
    
            LockScreenForceRedraw();
            Sleep(2000);
            // We've seen better results when refreshing a second time after a delay. Don't know why. AI suggested it.
            LockScreenForceRedraw();
        }
  • medwards666 a day ago

    > How hard is that to fix? Aren't they using CoPilot? Just ask it to fix the invisible icon.

    They would, but no-one in the development team are able to log into their PCs due to no longer being able to locate the password icon ...

  • magackame a day ago

    > How hard is that to fix? Aren't they using CoPilot? Just ask it to fix the invisible icon.

    Maybe that's the problem? Imagine a Microsoft employee allowed to program only by using a CoPilot prompt, screaming and begging to just apply a patch he already written without touching anything else :D

  • hulitu 19 hours ago

    > How hard is that to fix?

    My experience with Microsoft fixing bugs in Win 10: at least 6 months. At first they deny it, then, after a fix is issued, they acknoledge it.

smartmic a day ago

Expanding the "Gradual rollout" section is … interesting. I could hardly read it, let alone understand it straight away. For me a clear indicator that I am trying to ingest AI generated content. It's so embarrasing - is quality in documentation now a foreign concept in the age of AI, or does nobody simply care?

  • alternatex 17 hours ago

    No one cares? I am confident someone got a promotion out of AI automating that. It is the metric being tracked in performance reviews. What is not tracked is how the readers experience it, so no point in putting effort into that.

    Bottom line is employees do what they're incentivised to do.

emsign a day ago

Can't wait for my new SSD to arrive, then it's finally Goodbye Windows, Hello again, Linux.

  • QuadrupleA 19 hours ago

    Moved to Arch 6+ months ago after 25+ years in Windows, it's been SO nice. My computer belongs to me again, lightning fast, no ads and BS every update, no 500 background processes.

    Definitely took some setup work - I have a lot of scripts and custom tools. But so worth it! Happy trails.

  • binkHN 21 hours ago

    I did this just recently; Windows is now adware and no longer in your best interests.

Grisu_FTP 4 hours ago

Does this happen every time after the update or only sometimes? if it happens every time, how does that slip through? It would literally be noticed on the first test boot, no?

also: "To remove the LCU after installing the combined SSU and LCU package, use the DISM/Remove-Package command line option with the LCU package name as the argument. You can find the package name by using this command: DISM /online /get-packages.

Running Windows Update Standalone Installer (wusa.exe) with the /uninstall switch on the combined package will not work because the combined package contains the SSU. You cannot remove the SSU from the system after installation."

Always these linux users wanting to fix everything in the terminal, luckily i dont need it to use (or install without internet/MS account) Windows at all :)

nickjj 18 hours ago

Windows 10 has some really weird UI quirks.

I have my taskbar set up to be the small view on the bottom but I have the double stacked time + date so I can always see what time it is and today's date. It does this without making the taskbar taller.

50% of the time when I reboot, the date disappears and re-appears on its own after some time (sometimes hours, sometimes days, even without another reboot).

I'm taking 2 weeks off around Christmas and I'm absolutely dedicating some of those days to finally switch to native Linux to be control of my machine. I was trying for almost 10 years but was always road blocked on something not working. I think things are good enough now. I'll be making serious compromises on my video editing workflow but everything else is much better minus games with kernel level anti-cheat and I'm willing to take that hit.

  • d3Xt3r 16 hours ago

    > Windows 10 has some really weird UI quirks.

    Oh boy, wait till you see Windows 11's UI quriks.. They butchered the taskbar and replaced it with some cheap (presumably AI coded) imitation.

    Firstly, you can't move it to the top or sides. Okay, bottom taskbar I can live with.. but if you enable small icons and show all names - like how it used to be back in the day - it doesn't shrink the taskbar's height, so it ends up looking weirdly out-of-proportion. Even more weirder is this inexplicable blank space to the far-right (between the tray and where the taskbar buttons end), this space refuses to be used up even if my taskbar is full - sometime this space just expands for no reason, reducing the space available for the taskbar buttons by almost 50%! So 50% of the taskbar is blank, and the remaining buttons shrink and get shoved into the tiny tray overflow space, thereby almost killing the whole point of the taskbar. It's like, they don't want you to use the old title view any more and want to force you to use the icon-only, centered-taskbar...

butz 20 hours ago

A computer without Windows is like a fish without a bicycle.

steve1977 a day ago

Microsoft: if you're eating your own dog food and use Copilot etc. to develop Windows, please stop.

If you're not using it (why not?), please start.

  • NoMoreNicksLeft 19 hours ago

    Do they have any employees left capable of writing code without it?

    • [removed] 16 hours ago
      [deleted]
lionkor a day ago

Copilot is on the job to fix it already!

1970-01-01 17 hours ago

Somebody should be fired for that. There's no excuses. A nearly trillion dollar company can afford to pay to QA before release.

avazhi a day ago

Man. I’d pay actual money to be able to just install security updates and nothing else indefinitely for this pile of shit. Really does suck that 90% of my workflow on my Windows PC remains Windows-only.

  • majkinetor 21 hours ago

    You don't have to pay anything.

    Select security updates using this app:

    https://github.com/DavidXanatos/wumgr

    • jfindper 16 hours ago

      If you care about security, you're shouldn't be downloading some random dudes update manager with the last release being in 2019.

      • majkinetor 13 hours ago

        First, not a random dude.

        Second, it's open source. You and your AI army can inspect the code if you wish. The same is true for literary every other software, so I don't see a point you are making.

        • jfindper 11 hours ago

          >"First, not a random dude."

          Oh, are they famous? Who are they and where would I know them from?

          >"You and your AI army can inspect the code if you wish."

          Nah. Though, if you want to pay a consulting fee, sure!

          >"The same is true for literary every other software, so I don't see a point you are making."

          The point I'm making is that if you care about security, you shouldn't install an update manager from some random dude, especially when it hasn't been touched in 6 years.

          And if you don't recognize why software that manages your updates is riskier than most software, you really shouldn't install an update manager from some random dude.

    • avazhi 20 hours ago

      Unfortunately, as I have a 12700 I’m forced to use windows 11 and downgrading to W10 is not an option.

      At this point I’ve literally just disabled updates completely. Firefox + uBlock origin + noscript is gonna have to get me by on that machine for now.

AshleysBrain a day ago

Perhaps someone with good with reverse engineering skills could figure out what went wrong here - it might be amusing...

throwaway48476 a day ago

In other news, 500 million PCs declined to 'upgrade' to 11.

  • OscarTheGrinch a day ago

    Like a dog shaking fleas, Microsoft seeks to concentrate on paying customers, leaving granny to fend for herself in a world full of scams and misinformation.

    • nine_k a day ago

      Steam should start packaging small productivity software.

      More seriously, the granny might actually be better served by a Chromebook.

    • jay_kyburz 17 hours ago

      Really? They nagged and nagged and nagged and nagged me until I finally upgraded.

kgwxd 18 hours ago

Roblox was the last thing keeping my Windows 11 partition alive. Today, I found Sober that runs the Android Version on Linux. Took no effort to install and feels just like the desktop windows version using KBM. Goodbye forever MS!

  • JamesSwift 18 hours ago

    Thats and minecraft are also holding me back. Well, technically my kids back. I was worried about it being janky, but you think its just as good?

    • magnetowasright 9 hours ago

      I use MCPelauncher to play android bedrock minecraft on linux and use a controller. Jankiest part was having to resurrect a very old, deeply unused google account to buy the game, but as goes without saying, YMMV.

    • kgwxd 17 hours ago

      Minecraft was what originally triggered me to dual boot Linux. I couldn't run either version in Windows 11 without also signing into the MS store, so I decided Java version was better than nothing. My kid doesn't play much MC anymore, but if we do, we'll start a Java world next time.

    • krior 17 hours ago

      is there anything that prevents them from using the java-version?

officerk a day ago

Does it matter? It's designed to be used only by by AI agents anyway.

kissgyorgy a day ago

But hey! At least these four AI components made it in, so the important stuff is okay...

Traubenfuchs a day ago

Did Microsoft just completely give up on QA in the name of accelerated slop delivery? They are in the news once a month for a serious windows bug. My disdain for windows id getting immense, at this point I'd rather have a linux computer, if I can't have a macbook. (But don't get me started on OSX & iOS, which are also total messes)

  • rs186 a day ago

    Microsoft is just relying on the feedback they collect from Windows Insider Program (a.k.a. program for volunteers beta testers) to fix bugs before a new version is released widely.

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsinsider/

    Once upon a time, you were able to get a free Windows 8 license if you join that program. And yes, when I was young and naive and couldn't care less about random things breaking, I joined the program, just like when I used to root Android phones and flash ROMs every other week.

    (On the other hand, corporate IT almost certainly only roll out updates half or one year after they become available, when these bugs are likely already fixed.)

    • hbn 18 hours ago

      Anyone who would opt-in to use a buggier version of an already buggy and unreliable OS without being paid should be psychologically evaluated but instead they're trusted to be QA testers for the most widespread desktop OS in the world which is also a critically important tool in businesses and government organizations that keep most countries running.

      • deltoidmaximus 17 hours ago

        I wouldn't worry about it. It isn't clear anyone is even reading any of their reports anyway.

        • hbn 13 hours ago

          I imagine it sends a fax to a printer that's had its tray removed and is mounted above a waste bin

    • ilc 19 hours ago

      So you can get rooted by the security issues disclosed.

      Isn't it a wonderful catch 22?

  • eitland a day ago

    Didn't MS fire most of the QA people together with the translation people a few years ago?

    Or is that just a rumor that many of us fall for because it seems like a great explanation of what we see?

    • netruk44 a day ago

      They laid off SDETs circa 2014 (I was one). I don’t think Windows ever had QA people, but it did have automated testing and dedicated people to write and monitor those tests, then file bugs if something broke. But not anymore since 2014.

      These days, the only testing any release of Windows gets is from Microsoft employees (Dev/PM) and Windows Insiders.

      They have rules of how many hours of self-hosting are required before they can release, but that’s the only requirement. That there exists telemetry of it running.

      You might see a gap with that testing methodology, but it might also explain how things like this happen. If it’s a bug that doesn’t prevent boot, it’s easy to ignore.

      (I knew a few devs who would just put builds of windows on one of their computers and play a 72 hour long video of a black screen on repeat to get self hosting hours. Then they would proceed with their feature release. And nobody saw any problem with that.)

      • sumtechguy 21 hours ago

        MS needs a 'windows xp sp2' moment. Where they stop jamming new things in and just fix as much junk as possible. They still have a mixed control panel situation. Things just randomly work/break for no real reason. Camera here one day gone the next oh look its back again. Hey my sound is broken again. Linux/MacOS in many benchmarks is faster. Hundreds of old programs now just flake out for random reasons. But then will work again sometimes. Backwards compat is a reason to stick with them. But if it doesnt work, why am I here? SteamOS is going to remove one of the large reasons people keep windows.

        MS is losing the people who cared about using them. Those people are migrating to linux/macos. I dont blame em.

      • MandieD 14 hours ago

        They still had Software Test Engineers (a different role from SDET) in 2001, when I was an STE intern in MacBU (Macintosh Business Unit), which at that point, was basically a compliance department in the wake of the US DoJ's massive anti-trust ruling against MSFT a few years before. Every month, the MacBU STE team lead would award "Scariest Tester" for whoever had found the best (scariest) bug.

        We were also, essentially, Apple's Mac OS X post-release testing team (10.0 Cheetah was released while I was there, but I missed the party because my grandmother had died and I was back home for her funeral) - we ran into all sorts of exciting problems with basic OS functions.

        One of the things MacBU prided themselves on was having fewer people putting out the whole Office suite PLUS Internet Explorer for Mac than there were working on Word for Windows alone, yet still managing.

        • rdhatt 9 hours ago

          Really impressive since Internet Explorer 5 for Mac was the best browser anywhere at the time. First to support HTML4 & CSS1.

  • hulitu 18 hours ago

    > Did Microsoft just completely give up on QA in the name of accelerated slop delivery?

    They never had QA. It was common knowledge to wait until SP2 for a "stable" version. These days, Windows is a rolling release, so all bets are off.

alsetmusic 19 hours ago

I mean, shouldn't we all be encouraging people to hit Enter or Return? No need to click blindly if we just use keyboard input properly. Unless the form doesn't correctly respond to those keys… dunno if that's the case or not.

pwthornton 17 hours ago

Maybe the should spend time less time and money on clanker slop and more on delivering for their paying customers?

  • magnetowasright 9 hours ago

    Their paying customers aren't end users, they're companies paying for in-OS advertising and telemetry/spyware data

vel0city a day ago

I mean this is a Preview release right? Essentially a beta? Are we surprised there are bugs in a beta release?

pjs_ a day ago

And? Writing software at scale is incredibly hard. Where is the empathy for MS devs who are sprinting every day to give us an awesome product

  • stack_framer 17 hours ago

    > Where is the empathy for MS devs

    It's right there, next to the empathy they have for their paying customers.

  • AlexandrB a day ago

    Still waiting for the awesome product. Last time they shipped one was in 2009.

kotaKat a day ago

This makes sense.

The Windows Insiders are so glazed over they probably don’t even use passwords to log in — they’re too lost in the “free QA for Microsoft” sauce.