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Comment by UnoriginalGuy | Hacker News Reader

While I am overall pretty positive about Windows 10; has anyone else been having ongoing issues with this large "upgrade" updates?

For example my work machine is outright refusing to install the last one, and Googling suggests the only way to get around it is a manual install via USB. A family member's home machine also got corrupted during an install, and I had to wipe it to recover (since it couldn't roll back or complete the installation).

I like the concept of these "big bang" updates with new features, but there's something wrong with how they're delivered.

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My issue with the "upgrade" updates is that they have a habit of nuking my boot loader.

So I have to wait to update until I know I have a chunk of time set aside to repair GRUB.

Also, is there a reason they take so long to install? I've had to wait a solid 15 minutes involving multiple reboots and multiple cycles of it showing 0 to 100% progress where you think it's done but it just keeps going.

My lay understanding is the big updates like this include a full Windows image rather than a delta, and basically replace the existing Windows image entirely, then replay the registry and settings into the new image.

It's somewhat akin to provisioning an entire new VM template and then replaying an automated install script to bring it up to date.

As someone that remembers how long in-place upgrades of that sort used to take (something like 98-ish to XP I recall taking hours), it's amazing they've got it down to "just" 15 minutes and a couple reboots.

(It feels like most Insider Preview builds get installed in this full image in-place upgrade system, too, and it's fascinating to see it happen sometimes two or three times in a week.)

I couldn't install creators update at first either on my laptop (old sony vaio, so I wasn't terribly surprised). Windows nagged me a few months later and I let it and everything went perfectly.

I guess it is reasonable to assume that MS works out issues with the updates as failures are reported.

But yes, the way they are forced upon users is sickening.

I think for most home users forced updates is a good thing. I just wish there was better options to have manual control. The other day I was rendering a video file and wouldn’t you know it, windows 10 restarted and interrupted it. Far as I can tell my options are to set away hours but that doesn’t help when you’re doing a 20+ hour encode.

After trying various supposed solutions to this, most involving toggling some arcane Group Policy setting somewhere, all of which I dutifully toggled, only to find many days later that actually it made no difference, eventually I managed to hit on the right combination, and now I now get prompted for each update!

So it is possible, at least with Windows 10 Enterprise... even if I'm not quite sure how. I've ticked so many damn boxes in that stupid policy editor. But, if you ever find yourself losing faith as you click through another advert-infested Windows "help" site, stay strong! A solution is out there!

(It still isn't perfect, though. Sometimes the updates are downloaded before I get prompted; other times, I'm prompted and then they download. More than once, the "download" process has used 100% CPU for an hour, which makes me suspicious that it's doing a bit more than it claims. And a couple of times when I've had the Security & Updates page open in the background, I've seen things just install themselves without asking, suggesting that certain updates are able to bypass this. But: no forced reboots.)

Yup, my laptop is stuck trying to install the same update every day.

I haven't been able to install the last update either.

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