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Comment by sisu2019 | Hacker News Reader

sisu2019

To start with I am super unhappy with the content and execution of recent windows updates. Its not okay to keep resetting my preferences and it's not okay to rip out control dialogs that worked very well the past decade with some demented metro app (rip display and sound device setting).

But I have not had a single unexpected reboot on my win10 install. It's because I always update at the next time of convinience. Updating is required maintenance of any software system and you can't afford to ignore it. I also see some consequences of questionable behavior blamed on windows. You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. Don't blame windows or whatever, just dont ever do that or at least bear your shame quietly.

Also, please for the love of god, stop lobbying for OSes to faithfully restore your open apps on reboot. The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything which is not worth trading for your ability to better compulisvely hoard chrome tabs. That shit is not healthy btw.

Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux. Remember Windows user used to be free to apply updates when they wanted but you, yes you, MS hater of yesteryear kept blaming MS for the large number of unpatched and therefore insecure Windows systems. So they don't give users the freedom to postpone indefinitely and of course it's also not right. So what can they do?

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> The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything which is not worth trading for your ability to better compulisvely hoard chrome tabs.

WTF problems is the system creating that require it to blindly reset the state of everything?

I get “we have detected a problem that may be resolved by us forgetting your Chrome tabs”, but doing it by default, just in case? Not acceptable in 2019. This is the sort of behaviour that makes people hate their computers.

you can scream not acceptable and stomp your feed all you want but when for instance your 3d accelerated chrome tab triggers some rare gpu bug you will be happy that simply pressing reset fixed it, for you, for now anyways. End users shouldnt have to do root cause analysis. Everyone that has any experience with computers had something like this happen many times. Bugs are a fact of life, it's your choice to have temper trandrum about it. Also if you "hate" one of the greatest inventions of all times you should check expectations a bit.

This attitude might have some validity if updates were of higher quality, and they could be rolled back at will.

But the truth is, these days, updates are rolling the dice with your computer. Major features are removed, and new bugs introduced. Not just with Windows 10, but with other software like Chrome.

Why not allow updates to be rolled back? Surely, if updates were so desirable, then nobody would want to undo them. It is because it would be admitting that some people might not want updates, among other reasons.

And so we live in a world where we can no longer rely on our computers. A setup that worked perfectly for you yesterday might be completely different when you wake up. Some bugs get fixed, new ones are introduced, except that I don't know what they are. It creates a kind of learned helplessness with computers.

I actually agree with and share a lot of your concerns and Win10 is really bad in this regard. A few patches back all my printers stopped working and so instead of preparing items to ship I had to spend my monday morning fixing that issue for no good reason. I was livid! But the content of patches is a seperate issue from the one of forced reboots. I think the reason MS and other Vendors want only one version of their software out in the wild is because otherwise patching becomes a complexity nightmare.

Our computers (meaning the whole of software and hardware) are extremely primitive, their culture soaked in insanity and in general they are perfectly hateable. It's not my choice to have a temper tantrum about it because they were already shitty when I got here. But what's on my mind isn't how hateable computers are; it's how loveable something shitty can be as long as it's shinier and bigger than last year.

"I'm not sure most programmers even know what makes things slow anymore" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De0Am_QcZiQ&t=629s

It should be up to the individual apps to remember what state they were in, not the operating system. All major browsers offer this option.

It's less unsaved work (that would be madness), but unsaved context. The physical arrangement of windows and browser tabs and file locations is significant, and losing it all to a reboot (intentional or otherwise) destroys that context. Want users to reboot more often and on your timetable? Preserve and restore context.

Meanwhile, in a smoky apartment on the bad side of town[1]:

Warning: this hard locked my MBP. [snip] It was a pain in the ass to recover: my only option seemed to be to power down and power back up again, at which point OSX helpfully remembered the state my machine was in and dropped me back into the blacked-out display and maxed fan. Some combination of NVRAM reset, SPC reset and safe mode was required to get back in.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19265107

I think macOS has the saner default but Windows has the better experience. The default should be to save state and give you the option for a hard reset should you really need it. Apple gets it wrong by not exposing the various types of resets anywhere in the UI and instead requiring users to memorize a series of keyboard incantations on boot.

Windows 10 does that for me as well...isn't that the whole point of the Timeline feature?

Well I'm glad no one is hiring you to design user interfaces. Applications work for the user, not the developer. Applications are designed around business logic and customer demands, not how lazy the developer is. If Firefox saves my tabs on exit then I fully fucking expect my tabs to be there next time I open it up, regardless of my OS state.

> MS hater of yesteryear kept blaming MS for the large number of unpatched and therefore insecure Windows systems

This logic means that when W7 is up, I'm a bad person for not just upgrading to W10 despite it offering a completely different experience and despite the fact that I owe MS no brand loyalty.

> I fully fucking expect my tabs to be there next time I open it up, regardless of my OS stat

that's pretty short sighted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19267411

That "Have you tried rebooting it?" is a thing at all is pretty bad but it's going to be so much worse when apps and OSes interact in a way that prevents clean reboot.

I'm trying to figure out what someone's macbook being stuck in a bad state and needing an SPC and NVRAM reset has to do with this conversation. That happens all the time on macbooks.

It also has no effect on whether FF's tabs come up next time. And if FF closes suddenly, you have a chance to discard your open tabs on start.

Explain to me how my statement is shortsighted again?

sorry, I meant to post this link:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19268201

Sounds like an issue with Chrome, then.

The OS handles its own state. That should be invisible to applications. Applications handle their own state. That should be invisible to the OS.

As I said, Firefox offers a choice to restore or discard tabs after a bad start or shutdown of the program.

If Chrome doesn't have good fail-safe mechanisms, I'm confused about what that has to do with Microsoft and what it has to do with me being shortsighted.

In this case it's an issue with Chrome, yes, very good. In other cases it could be an issue with firefox. You won't get into save mode when your OS simply locks up on boot because the bug that causes the lock up is in a tab that auto-restored firefox restores for you.

/I am/ a bit confused how it's so hard for you to understand the larger issue, especially since you know about two examples that already illustrated the point.

> You won't get into save mode when your OS simply locks up on boot because the bug that causes the lock up is in a tab that auto-restored firefox restores for you.

I'm a bit confused about why you don't perceive the above scenario as a software bug that needs to be fixed, specifically a programmer error dealing with compartmentalization.

Compounded further by another error when entering safe mode, as safe mode by design doesn't load any non-essential programs on start. Neither would Linux single-user mode without X. You should always be able to enter safe mode if a particular non-system program is messing things up. That's the point. Anything else is a bug and deviates from spec. If a programmer tried to argue with me that the spec was wrong in this case, they would be fired on the spot.

Firefox also doesn't auto restore tabs if it was shutdown improperly, so what you describe shouldn't happen. Has it ever happened to you? Or are you just arguing against a strawman?

Yes of course it's a bug. Maybe read what I've written about this in my OP. Everything you mentioned is predicated on things working as intended when I am talking about working around bugs users have no control over this whole time.

For those cases, like in the examples, we need to keep the real hard reset that's been there the entire history of personal computing.

> Firefox also doesn't auto restore tabs if it was shutdown improperly

Okay how do you think that is implemented? There is no magic fairy dust that settles in the hard drive, it's code. Code with bugs, code with limitations. Safe mode is code, code with bugs and limitations. With your restore-reboot you now rely on two components to not fail in every single program that could cause something like the examples mentioned. Amazing design, let's make airplanes like that.

> they would be fired on the spot

spare me the power tripping garbage, instead try to show some comprehension

> strawman

You don't seem to know what a strawman is.

You design software according to intended spec, and then provide safeguards for each module when it makes sense.

You don't design software on the premise that nothing works as intended and spec is thrown out of the window. If your software is full of bugs then you've failed on multiple levels and that's just one of them.

And in this case, the spec required by me and other consumers is that application and OS state remain completely independent.

> Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux...

Sure, but there's the question of regularity. For the most part, I can do live updates of every part of my linux system (including the kernel if livepatch is enabled). I only have to reboot if there's something like a major change to the init system. This leaves my server with the latest bits and no downtime in the past 5 months. On the other hand, my Windows machine tries to reboot at least monthly - and that's less often than I'm sure Microsoft would like.

Is it fair to compare your Linux Server to your Windows Desktop? My Windows Server has 4 options for handling updates:

1) Automatically install and schedule a reboot.

2) Download but let me choose to install.

3) Tell me there's updates but let me choose to download and install.

4) Don't check for updates.

Nothing he described is in any way limited to servers. Even kernel live patching is available to Ubuntu desktop users for free: https://www.ubuntu.com/livepatch

And if Linux on the Desktop met his needs then he wouldn't be running Windows Desktop.

My point is that Windows Desktop is not Windows Server so if you're going to compare a Linux Server to Windows, then you should compare it to the equivalent Server variant.

> if you're going to compare a Linux Server to Windows

Lorkki's point was that this was not a thing that happened in the comment you replied to. Linux servers and desktops operate in the same way. The laptop I'm typing this on has 3 months uptime.

The original comment was about the regularity of updates and the complaint that Windows requires reboots more often. The op then compared his Linux Server's uptime to his Windows Desktop.

I simply said that wasn't a fair comparison because Windows Server doesn't require you to reboot.

You guys are arguing that Linux is Linux and I'm not disagreeing with you. Linux loads executable into memory before running them, Windows doesn't. So files on Linux can be updated/overwritten without reboot. That's a technical hurdle that can't easily be overcome.

The downside of that feature is that it's a hell of a lot easier to have a Linux system not come back up when it reboots because of drive failures or corruption. I've had that bite me in the ass a handful of times.

Regardless, my point was that if you need a system to have ridiculous uptime there is a version of Windows for that. I would argue that you absolutely do not need your laptop to be up for 3 months at a time.

I run Windows because that's what my job requires. I also use Linux for personal stuff. This is hardly a unique situation.

For some of us the year of the Linux desktop is long past. A modern OS that doesn't require frequent reboots is one of the perks.

I turned off automatic updates after I was waking up in the morning to a ton of lost work more than once a week as a result of automatic updates. At one point I was seriously considering installing Linux and using a Windows VM it was so bad. I really feel bad for Windows 10 Home users who can't do this.

Why did you go a whole week without saving your work?

I read it as: >I turned off automatic updates after I was waking up in the morning to a ton of lost work more than once a week as a result of automatic updates. He would go to sleep with his computer left on daily. At least a week it would have restarted on him having expected that the computer would have stayed in the same state that he left it. Not that he would go a whole week without saving his work.

Not the author, but I regularly leave my computer with a debugging session open (because it's 7pm and it's time to go home). If Windows reboots, it sometimes takes hours to reproduce the bug and reach the same breakpoints again.

IME this isn't really true on desktop machines. I've had a few crashes/issues over the years:

* Trying to open a KDE app halfway through a KDE upgrade - crash.

* Trying to open a new tab in firefox after an update - crash.

* Updating an arch system - sound broke when rebooted, that was a frustrating holiday.

I usually reboot after an update if I see anything big like KDE/firefox/gnome/system being updated just in case.

Which is why the Red Hat and friends crowd is pushing for true offline updates for desktop systems. I'm using it on Fedora right now and it works surprisingly well. The UI is quite ugly since it's basically just PackageKit fighting with systemd over the tty output but it works.

I call bullshit. This crap can and will happen in unfortunate times such as opening a laptop for presentation, also note that shutting down a computer with lowish battery with update pending is a death sentence until you reach a charger, because you'll never make it past the stupid update.

Just when you need it the most and it has the lowest battery this crap will pop.

Minewhile some computers are stuck in update loop of failing to update, reverting, and retrying every god damn day again like anything will change. If you're too bad at ensuring updates work, dont force them down my throat the 100th time expecting something will change. I already accepted the fact your trash update will never work so can you please stop wasting my time?

I don't like this attitude. It seems to blame the user for everything rather than striving to make the technology better and more seamless.

I don't like how people have a fixed capacity for discontent. Everything is so amazing and yet people get really upset over the smallest things but are not willing to do anything to mitigate the effects they don't like. Okay it's too much to ask to just apply updates when they come. It's too much to ask to set a time when these reboots could happen. It's too much to ask to just press CTRL+S every once in a while. I wonder what will be too much to ask next ...

Btw it's not hard to see that MS is working on making windows better even if it's hit and miss at the moment. Forcing reboots /is/ exactly that progress when it comes to windows security and I think it's quite unfair to not acknowledge the history that led to this.

Some people have different work habits.

Some people do critical work that can't be delayed.

This OS behavior wouldn't be acceptable in a computer running in a surgery office or a nuclear control room.

The problem is the OS is limiting its acceptable use cases to where the work isn't terribly important and can be interrupted without warning.

This is a technology problem with a technological solution.

These users would be wise to choose an OS that won't fail this way.

well of course everyone knows that all the smart uninterruptible rocket surgeons use linux nudge wink. It's okay to not target every possible group under the sun. And to be honest windows is getting a bit too dumbed down even for me And that's what stings, I guess. For all the things they do wrong, they get the most shit for one of the few things they got right. Everyman user will delay updates forever so they must be forced to apply them.

Microsoft wouldn’t sell a surgery office or nuclear bunker the versions of Windows with automatic updates in. Even if they tried, the relevant organizations wouldn’t buy those versions. Even if they did, regulators wouldn’t allow the purchase.

It’s like complaining that your game console can’t run hard-real-time factory control software. Nobody ever claimed it did, and you’d be personally irresponsible to even try. There are certifications hardware and software need to achieve to be used for such purposes. Use the certified software. (Windows Embedded Core, for example.)

Well some people consider their work to be as important as rocket brains surgery. I'm serious. I don't want to maintain my OS. I don't want to be interrupted by it. I want it to just work and work without any issues. Right now, I just disable all updates and hope nothing bad happens. I tried the rolling updates thing but it was both extremely annoying and it screwed up my settings. Sure security bad blah blah but I don't really care, I just want my work done.

Maybe this points out the real problem... There's no way to buy Windows minus the unsafe crap, and still use it for regular work.

It's what the "pro" version should be, but isn't.

> You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER.

How about running long compilations, video decoding, etc

Seems to me that Windows is unsuitable for real work.

how about you do pending updates and set your work time? I think planning is still allowed for real work yes? This is why I don't believe that all these complaints come from super productive future steven spielberg level content producers because people like that wouldn't even need to think about planning around such an utter triviality.

quite tragic how the only thing holding back untold numbers of academy-award caliber filmmakers are configurable Windows updates

What if I'm about to go to a concert, running late and I need to print tickets last minute, and suddenly windows needs to spend 30 minutes updating, without giving me a choice? The fact that you can't stop it in the moment is infuriating. Also, you can't expect the user to manually configure system updates.

what if on your way to the concert your car breaks down because you kept putting of the required maintenance for months and months? This is exactly analog to your example. "Car users can't be expected to initiate an oil change at their convinience". Oh please.

My computer wouldn't break down without updates. I previously had windows 7 for years and never updated. And had consecutive months of uptime. You don't get it.

People like you are the reason we have to make system updates mandatory. Can you imagine if someone important kept an out-of-date primitive OS from updating for years? We have to be able to patch bugs in software whether you care about them or not. We are in climate change denial levels of discussion here.

That is not a good analogy. When a car breaks down, it cannot continue working. If Windows forces an upgrade, it could continue working, but refuses to.

Windows updates can be postponed and rescheduled. They don't just happen while you are using the computer--you have to affirmatively let them happen. (Though in some cases updates are mandatory when restarting or shutting down.)

Windows has an awful habit of popping up countdown timers to reboots in the background behind your applications. I install updates at every opportunity, but it still rebooted on me without having given any visible warning while I was in the middle of an Overwatch match.

Reported for gameplay sabotage. And abusive chat, for good measure.

> How about running long compilations, video decoding, etc

That has to run (and postpone updates) more than a week to force reboot it.

That’s not “work” (input state); that’s cache (computed state.)

And you’d normally do those things, these days, on a LTSB (i.e. workstation) or Server machine, which doesn’t have those problems.

Windows 10 “Pro” is Windows for “professionals” in non-computer-related professions, that need Microsoft to be their IT admin. If you are your own sysadmin, then you should be running LTSB and, well, sysadminning it.

Microsoft does not agree with you. LTSC is Windows for devices (ATM, Medical scanners, etc), not for users.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-IT-Pro-Blog/L...

The autoupdate group policy hasn’t changed since Windows XP and still exists in Windows Server 2016.

I shouldn’t have to buy 5 enterprise copies for ltsb to turn that shit back off.

> real work

Not a current Windows user but I used to work in a huge distributed system of Windows machines bringing in some hundreds of millions of revenue. Was that fake work? Seems condescending to both not know about automatically manage update settings and to bash 33.5% of the server market share.

Ops statement about "real work" is so absurd I can't even grasp what state of mind would lead to it. Like the fraction of world GDP produced on windows must be in the double digits, right? Like you can't be so sheltered that you don't know that most all professionals outside of IT are using windows, right?

I too am a superior unix-like OS user. I had a long comment written up about how M$ sux and how dumb Windoze users had to constantly save their work. I lost it though because the power went out and I didn't save a copy.

Hello there, fellow FOSS GNU/Unix-like OS user. I'm sure you are right because you use the same software as me and I'm right. Anyway, Windows is not real, man. Why is Microsoft even trying any longer? I personally haven't seen a reboot or a graphical user interface in like 17 years.

> You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. Don't blame windows or whatever, just dont ever do that or at least bear your shame quietly.

I think this might be the result of laypeople bringing phone OS expectations over to a desktop OS.

For many phone apps you never have to worry about saving or closing them and there is little difference between opening an app that wasn't open before and resuming one that's not been on your screen for a while.

Same goes for web apps, you are editing a google sheet and never worry about saving it.

However, there are forms of work that are a mess when they are interrupted. Long rendering jobs for example.

Web sites don’t do that by default. I would say, they are losing unsaved data by default and very few save it seamlessly.

"Also, please for the love of god, stop lobbying for OSes to faithfully restore your open apps on reboot. The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything"...

I'm not lobbying for that, but I am lobbying for a proper hibernate feature (like Windows 7 had). Windows 10 has it, but it's hidden for some reason. Ubuntu had some version of it at some point, but it's disabled now and very hard to reenable and very unreliable. Unfortunately restoring everything takes up a huge chunk of my work time.

Reboot should still be a separate option.

An unpatched exploit is independent from applying an update. Serious exploits should be patched asap because they may endanger critical infrastructure. But I as the system administrator should be able to make the informed decision not to apply the update for my own reasons. Even windows 10 PROFESSIONAL doesn't allow this. It's a huge screwup on MS part.

It is my computer - I should get to override any setting, including automatic reboots and updates.

Never before have I been so directly prevented from running networked services on my personal computer as Windows 10 has done. Gaming? Media? <name your normal service hosting anyone would want to do>? Nope. Rebooted.

sure so if you had an unpatched windows spreading malware you would, of course, spring for all of the damages and take all the blame for yourself, right? And you would also write to every publication that would use this hypothetical situation to unfairly bad mouth windows security to demand a correction, right?

MS tried it, users didnt do it, they got blamed so now it's mandatory. Natural progression.

In the case of the Internet, if you catch malware, that's your own damned fault.

I know what you're saying, and I hear you on the Windows getting blamed front, but if they can't do security patches without changing UI and restarting constantly, against user will, then it's no deal.

I’ve never had to reboot my MacBook in the last 3 years. I’ve rebooted maybe twice in 6 years (to install a major new OS version).

The need for rebooting is a design flaw, as is the need to manually save work.

then you are not patched and you are probably exposed to severe security risks. You could do this on windows ten years ago but it didn't go well for MS

Yeah you’re right. In my defense.. Risk of being rooted before security update: unknown, possible. Risk of being rooted after security update: unknown, possible.

Meh.

"Not being patched" doesn't mean a sinister fate awaits. Not all unpatched instances are critical. A lot of variables need to be in place before many of these "unpatched risks" are significantly risky.

Not leaving the house is a good survival tactic against the threat of being hit by bus. That's your argument?

Giving me option to perform updates whenever the hell I want, is a reasonable option we once had, it's been taken away... the hand of God reaches down and rips it out of your hands.

Please stop advocating that our choices be removed. Even something like a browser status bar was ripped out, first in Chrome, then FF. Not even an advanced choice to have it back. I prefer choice and control, I don't want a new mummy or daddy in form of tech giant or publishing and advertising giant or software vendor telling me how it is, or what I need.

Most macOS point updates require a reboot so you must be running an unpatched OS a lot of the time.

I've found rebooting on mac pretty painless regardless.

> Also, please for the love of god, stop lobbying for OSes to faithfully restore your open apps on reboot. The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything which is not worth trading for your ability to better compulisvely hoard chrome tabs.

Funny enough, someone just posted in the GPU.js thread about how it hard locked his machine, and because the OS restored chrome and chrome restored his tabs after rebooting, he was forced to take extra measures to recover: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=19265107&goto=item%3Fi...

perfect example, thank you!

Very legal and very cool.

Linux has at least 3 methods to hot swap the kernel to a new version. Rebooting is convenient but with some effort entirely optional.

Interesting. I only know about kexec. What are some other examples?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kexec#See%20Also I always forget about the oracle one. They along with pure kexec all have their tradeoffs.

Ah, right. Those allow applying small patches to a running kernel, but don't do a full kernel swap.

» Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux. Remember Windows user used to be free to apply updates when they wanted but you, yes you, MS hater of yesteryear kept blaming MS for the large number of unpatched and therefore insecure Windows systems. So they don't give users the freedom to postpone indefinitely and of course it's also not right. So what can they do?

1. The easy stuff. Show a bright red warning that covers 10%, 20%, and progressively 50% of the primary display asking user to reboot at the next opportunity. However, don't reboot automatically unless the user opts into such behavior.

2. The hard stuff Take a hard look into what update requires reboot. Strip everything and hide almost all (I'm assuming we will need a kernel) those things from Windows home but keep them available using Windows features for a few years. Enterprise users might need backward compatibility but I think there is a lot of room to simplify Windows for the home.

In my previous corpo, we had some third-party software that would show an (unkillable) ticking clock counting hours to the forced maintenance reboot (starting at 12 hrs) when the admin has scheduled the updates installation. Predictable and much better than not saying anything, and silently rebooting when I go to get a tea with 10 apps opened.

> Predictable and much better than not saying anything, and silently rebooting when I go to get a tea with 10 apps opened.

According to the process flow diagram in the article, that won't happen unless you were working outside of your Active Hours and left your computer unattended for more than 15 minutes.

The Active Hours window can be an 18 hour window.

Must suck for those times you need to do 24 hours of work, huh?

this reminds me of those kinds of discussions with teenagers where every ridiculous escalation of hypotheticals comes with a triumphant "ah ah, HA why should I do my homework at all beleaguered on all sides by paper eating dogs as I am".

You don't work 24h and if you do, you shouldn't. If you still do well then make sure to check updates before your "shift"

I don't work 24 hours but my computer often work while I sleep.

That sounds like a job for a Server...

And then fix all the things that the update breaks?

If your workflow routinely brakes from updates then you probably need to reevaluate your whole setup.

>Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux.

Yeah,no. Even windows 10 dosen't require you to reboot it often - the machine i am writing from wasn't rebooted in two months(i update it when it is convenient for me, and when i am sure that update is 'safe' to install - updates that delete your files would be better left to another discussion) - it is usually running few spatial analyses nightly.

>You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. Don't blame windows or whatever, just dont ever do that or at least bear your shame quietly.

It isn't about having the work open, it is about system dictating WHEN you need to stop working and bloody update it.

We had a business presentation and our presentation laptop was running windows10 home - guess what happened?

Obviously you can delay update, or even prevent them for a while - but the prompt(which allows delaying by up to 15minutes, blocking updates takes place in control panel if i recall right) didn't show while presentation was in fullscreen - and the update took 1.5 hours.

Updating at reboot is fine, but users must have an option to NOT update at the next reboot(even if it is annoying as hell for user) - sometimes it is necessary - and remember that software serves the users, not the other way around.

I agree that restoring open apps on reboot is a horrible practice in general, but when updating the OS without any user interaction - it is a must if you cannot update without rebooting the OS.

What people are angry about isn't the idea that windows closes everything, or updates itself, but that they aren't in control of their computers.

Gee, you wouldn’t want to be computing a long running calculation or - horror of horrors! - an hours long compilation.

well maybe dont press later later later ten times in a row before you embark in finally calculating the 1 billionth digit of pi

I would argue that if your builds take more than 18 hours to complete then you should be running them on a build server which allows you to disable updates.

What about long rendering? Every student and/or indie artist now need a very personal cluster?

Those are legitimate use cases and I could probably argue away the Student one. I don't know how much has changed since I was in school but in the late 90s and early 2000s upgrading people's computers to Windows Workstation/2000 was the way to go. I can see with campuses having access to Dreamspark, kids just installing Enterprise or Server.

When my cousin was attending Ringling back in the early 2000s everyone needed Workstation or 2000 to run Renderman and they had setup the Renderman nodes on all of their personal workstations so that when anyone of them had a big job to render they could have the whole farm do it.

Or, and here's a crazy thought, why not treat your paying customers like people who have some idea what they're doing instead of cattle?

Because most of their paying customers don't have some idea what they're doing. Remember Windows XP? Remember how bad the security issues were around it that their competitor launched an Ad Campaign poking fun at them?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwQpPqPKbAw

Bad PR is more damaging to market share than the 1% bitching about being treated like Cattle.

If they give users the ability to disable security and update functionality then users will disable them OR bad actors will trick them into disabling them.

You're behavior is not unlike an Anti-Vaxxer's.

Always with this. "Everything sucks because users are stupid". No, everything sucks because developers who think like you do are assholes who don't give a shit about making everyone else's life miserable if it makes their job easier.

Always with this. "Everything sucks because developers are stupid". No, everything sucks because users are a mixed bag who range from power users to complete morons and everything in between. They have to write software to the lowest common denominator and sometimes have to lockout potentially helpful features because there are bad actors who can convince the morons to do bad things.

I kind of think that both your arguments can be shortened to "Everything sucks".

I've had to spend 21 hours compiling something (a compiler) before. However, it's a one time thing, and once compiled, all my compilation times would decrease dramatically.

Why is it unreasonable that for this one time thing, the OS gets out of the way, and allows me to make a single exception?

Also the whole thing about the Windows restart after update is due Windows still has this stupid file locking mechanism, which prevents overwriting file when in use. It's the only mainstream system, which still has that. In macOS or Linux (specially Linux), I barely need to restart OS after updates.

I don't agree on a single point of you. You are preferring system over user.

IMO, user should always have a choice to make final decision. Don't you want to restart or event download updates? You maybe like viruses or whatever reason, made you do so. Fine I don't care, it was your decision, and I (system) will respect that. I can only warn you, that your system might be at a risk.

> You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER.

This is stupid either. I can have unsaved work. It's risky, but again it was my choice. Previous Windows, which didn't restart willy nilly, didn't suffer with this problem as much as W10. So this is definitely regression in UX.

I felt deja vu while reading this post.

My chrome tabs restore just fine, thank you. I'm more about walking away from my workstation for an hour only to come back and spend 15 minutes opening up my terminals and other programs so I can get back to work. 15 minutes down every 2-3 days isn't negligible.

If they need to update every other day then so be it, but do it without offloading the work of what should be modern OS functionality onto end users who now have to clean up your mess.

Every 2 to 3 days? My Windows 10 machines need an update maybe once a month.

Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux.

Linux has a handy app called "needrestart". After you've updated it checks what needs restarting and offers to do it. If the kernel is updated then it will tell you to reboot. Some distros have live kernel patching which is as nutty as it sounds but seems to work. You only really have to reboot if the kernel is upgraded but to be honest, its a good idea to put in a reboot on a regular basis anyway and design your systems with some sort of redundancy to cope.

In my experience, only Gentoo (and derivatives and the like) can take longer than Windows for updating. Bear in mind they compile packages from source code. Getting a LibreOffice and Firefox and a Window Manager (say Gnome or KDE) update at the same time is a recipe for a very hot lap.

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