Microsoft hints at new modern Windows OS with ‘invisible’ background updates | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft hints at new modern Windows OS with ‘invisible’ background updates

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56 pointsTomte94 comments

The worst of both worlds. You wake up the next day after automatic updates are pushed to your machine and your harddisk has been wiped clean and the first news article you find is that Microsoft is rolling back the update for anyone that hasn't received it yet because they don't have a QA department for this kind of thing any more.

I can't believe restarts are still a thing. We knew how to build OSes that can avoid this over 30 years ago. Many people claim that the Windows NT kernel is a pseudo microkernel, so it's probably all the user land cruft that's accumulated over the years. Hopefully they can clean that up and achieve true always-on functionality.

Its regularly astounding how few windows updates don't require a restart when most of my linux ones never do. The two filesystems act quite differently for locks, I know, but it is still a pain on windows.

I don't know how they'll get magic transparent updates when their model is to always require restarts.

>I don't know how they'll get magic transparent updates when their model is to always require restarts.

When the only thing stored locally is $HOME and everything runs on clusters on MS servers you will never know when the 'back end' reboots. The 'Future' is the same as the past but with updates.

You are (your smartphone) and will be running a dumb-terminal. Instead of one computer you are now using a very-large-cluster of servers. Each time you boot-up 'Your instance' may be a unique VM that gets spun-up in micro-seconds. When it's time for an update the patches can get all pushed out to the VM's and when you reconnect (i.e. wake from sleep-mode) you are now connected to an 'updated' VM with all the hard work happening on the backend.

This very of the future is really fucking COOL, and terrifying. It also pretty damn doable.

Interestingly, linux has ksplice despite being monolithic. To be fair I've never used it and I understand that it's fairly limited in what all can be patched without a reboot.

The accumulation of random bit flips on consumer gear is going to bring the thing into a weird buggy state or kill it eventually anyway.

There’s no appetite for selling consumers ECC memory either.

Random bit flips is a much longer time frame than we're currently seeing. Also, any services should be restartable at any time, so the only random bit flips that should matter are those in the kernel itself. The kernel data should be significantly smaller and so less likely to have a bit flipped.

If uptime and availability become a serious concern, then a partitioned system in which kernel data is in ECC memory while the remainder runs on cheaper non-ECC memory is possible as well.

I think you greatly underestimate a few things; one being the windows kernel size in memory, the other being the sheer volume of bit flips in high density memory.

A single 32GB SODIMM (as I have in my laptop, because it's a workstation laptop) see's roughly 12 bit-flips a month, these are correctable. This is pretty much in line with the 6-or-so bit flips I see on ECC memory inside servers (of which I have a few thousand, each having 32G modules spread over more area and enclosed in a heavy chassis, thus, less flips).

Bit flips are so common that it's even possible to have "double bit flips" in the same page, which is uncorrectable even with ECC.

So I think you grossly underestimate the percentage of bit flips, most are silent though (or attributed to bugs in software) so I understand you don't see it. If you had ECC memory you would.

My other point about Windows kernel being fairly large in terms of surface area is relatively self-evident, but I'll come back with some solid numbers, because those thousands of servers I was mentioning are all Windows.

EDIT:

As promised I checked the non-application memory usage of my fleet and the rounded value of Windows memory footprint by itself is 1.89GiB. FS Cache is also excluded.

> I think you greatly underestimate a few things; one being the windows kernel size in memory [...] As promised I checked the non-application memory usage of my fleet and the rounded value of Windows memory footprint by itself is 1.89GiB

That number is frankly absurd. No doubt it includes all sorts of things that shouldn't be included in a proper microkernel, which just goes to show to all those people that call the NT kernel a microkernel (or close to it), are full of it.

In principle, some book keeping memory for processes and the page tables are roughly all you need to live in kernel space.

Is that actual memory usage, or driver/device addressing in kernel space?

Curious (and genuinely concerned) how does one get a reading or otherwise measure these bit flips?

This article will tell you how to do that. Assuming that your edac works on your chipset.

http://www.admin-magazine.com/Articles/Monitoring-Memory-Err...

There's no way the windows kernel is 1.89GiB. That's ridiculous.

Some things to note when talking about windows though; nearly their entire graphics stack lives in the kernel. They also have multiple environment subsystems running at the same time (POSIX, OS/2 and Win32) which, are running constantly and unavoidable, so I count them as kernel.

In addition they have things like the “security reference monitor” which resides entirely in the kernel.

It’s really apples to oranges, NT is truly heavy especially on server 2016 (which is where I grabbed the numbers)

I have comparatively fewer 2012r2 machines but I can aggregate the numbers for those too if you like.

And you hear stories about people being very afraid to reboot 30 year old mainframes / minis, so when moving buildings they are kept powered on, connected to ups...

Reboots are good because they test that your OS still works and you can make observations about which update broke what. They should be fast and painless though.

Given Microsofts track record with buggy windows updates, 'invisible background updates' is the last thing I want from them...

And they will probably A/B test them as well, and roll them out in different paces, so you'd no clue what you're running and what changed.

It is unbelievable how many people here complain about needing reboots on Windows AND who go on to complain about a rumor that maybe reboots won't be needed in the future on some unknown OS made by Microsoft.

I guess some folks just want to complain.

The complaints are mainly about not being able to choose when and if updates are applied.

If the complaint is that "I am not told when my computer will reboot" then that isn't really valid anymore. There are lots of notifications and dialogs that let users know about pending reboots days in advance.

If the complaint is that "I can't skip arbitrary patches at will" then yeah that's not possible, nor should it be if you're aware of security concerns AT ALL.

Windows users have a long history of not willingly patching against vulnerabilities that are actively being used by attackers in the wild, and for very odd reasons. Those reasons can include complete ignorance of the vulnerability or the patch which fixes it, fear of a wide array of conspiracy theories (I've heard all of these that I care to hear in 1,000 lifetimes), fear of post-patch performance problems, fear of home-grown automation breaking, and a bazillion other reasons, nearly all of which are complete nonsense in practice.

I was very happy when Microsoft announced that they would force updates on most users, because my own experience and Microsoft's telemetry both agreed that if given an option, users simply will not patch their systems.

Vox blogspam. This is the original URL:

https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2019/05/28/enabling-innovat...

If this is just windows done better that's interesting, if this is another chromium style stripped down OS I'm not sure how to feel about that - as long as it wouldn't impact main windows that's fine but gaming is a pretty important use case for windows, and hopefully a stripped down OS without strong support for computers that can do things like run more demanding software locally wouldn't become their flagship. For other use cases, thisbis definitely instep forward, chromebooks are great for people not familiar with technology who just want something that works, and not needing to fiddle around with updates will be a boon.

"Thin" OSs like ChromeOS, that basically provide web browsing in a safe, lightweight environment are great for some users who literally just want to browse the web and read email.

There's an interesting avenue for Microsoft to provide a ChromeOS-like experience, but with built in O365. This would cover the use cases of easily 95%+ of computer users (web+email+office).

That just leaves (simplifying a little) gamers, specialists (e.g. video+graphics editing), legacy enterprise app users and developers who need anything more.

>>This would cover the use cases of easily 95%+ of computer users (web+email+office).

I suspect if that were the case then Windows RT wouldn’t have been canned. I’m wondering what’s different now that makes this idea better. Marketing?

As somebody who had one of those Windows RT Surfaces, and still drags it to meetings when I forget my real laptop at home, I think they were just too early, as Microsoft often is. Office 365 was in a much less usable state three or four years ago when they rolled out RT, and it coincided with the Windows 8 UI debacle. It didn't help that the machines themselves were really quite wimpy, and a lot of the work that has made cross-platform apps more viable in the ensuing years hadn't been done yet, so there was a dearth of software that you could actually use on them.

I think so much of it was also Microsoft realizing they need a really good answer for "why doesn't Win32 work on this Windows?" They may have thought they could do a transition like with the jump from Win16 to Win32 in the Win32 to (proto-) UWP jump in Windows 8, but they partly forgot how long they supported back compat for Win16 applications and they partly forgot that Win32's lifetime was more than triple Win16's and that means a lot more apps that people care about possibly losing.

It took a concerted push in Windows 10 to remove most of the "seams" between UWP and Win32 (to the point where now you can even have UWP Islands inside of Win32 apps). We're also seeing years later the fruits of labor to better emulate Win32 on ARM in the latest Windows 10 on ARM builds.

Though now with Chromebooks gaining popularity they are in danger of being too late again even though now they have an answer to "Can this Windows run Win32 applications, too?" because Chromebook and the increased market shares of iOS and Android have left an increasing number of people wondering what they need Win32 applications for. (The rumors that Microsoft might not even brand whatever this "Modern OS" project is as "Windows" and it may not even refer to current Windows on ARM efforts seems to maybe imply that Microsoft really is too late back to this market that they tried to enter earlier.)

The change in the landscape. When RT was released ChromeOS was very much in its infancy, and Edge was 3 years away. It was also Windows 8, which was a crock in its own right.

Microsoft has a quite long history of inside power dynamics driven decisions.

My Chromebook (Chromebook Plus) reboots for updates so it isn't like that necessarily gets you anything as far as updates either.

My company runs a medical device on windows. We have to control configuration tightly. Windows 10 is already out of control but they seem to be hell bent on making it worse. Time to jump ship I always tell management but the MS reps are very good at selling to execs.

Your company should be using Windows 10 Enterprise that gives you full control including update management? In fact, you should be using WSUS to control updates regardless if its Windows 10 Enterprise or even Pro.

Their company should be using Windows 10 IoT (the successor to Windows Embedded), which allows a lot more things to be turned off than the desktop or even server Windows editions.

Doesn’t that support only UWP store apps?

That's Windows IoT Core. Windows IoT Enterprise supports regular apps as well.

Funny, I'm sure you're being helpful but I can't tell if this is satire. Thank god for gnu.

It gets much better. Take a big stash of cash and try to buy windows licenses. It’s really difficult to spend money.

Would be nice if it were easier to get that info. Our MS reps never mentioned this.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot-core/windows-io...

It's all easily available online. Don't rely on anyone to give you the full truth on anything they are trying to sell you.

I am sure I had this conversation with you months ago, actually.

What if their company is a dentist and they just want a stable system to run their X-ray machine?

Not all businesses want or need enterprise-level IT management, and there are alternatives to having a full-time professional sysadmin that do not involve being the stereotype dumb user who forgets to apply security updates.

That's what enterprise LTSC is for. No windows apps, no gimmicks and completely configurable and long term support.

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. I meant, what if the business running the OS and using the device was a dentist? They might only have a handful of PCs in the whole place, but those machines would potentially be used to process medical records, review results of scans from specialist equipment, etc. In that sort of environment, you obviously have a need to deploy security updates straightforwardly, but you also want a lot of stability because your specialist software and/or the interfaces to your specialist equipment might break otherwise, and you certainly can't have computers rebooting whenever they feel like it. The Enterprise LTSC edition might satisfy the stability aspects, but is it even available to organisations like that on a reasonable basis and does it have the ability to deploy security updates easily without tying them up with any other changes you might not need or want?

I always see you comment negatively when Microsoft is mentioned. You also make comments that clearly indicate your Windows experience is not practical (meaning you maybe read about Windows minutiae far more often that you actually experience or understand them) and those comments COMPLETELY undermine your effort to bad-mouth Windows.

This article (which you clearly didn't read) makes no mention of this change happening to Windows 10, but a ChromeOS-like "Windows Lite" instead, and if you are capable of controlling Windows "tightly" then you would definitely know how updates can be managed in appliances or devices that run a version of Windows designed for those use cases.

Do you have direct experience with that use case? I have been doing Windows development for a long time and since around 2010 I have become increasingly frustrated with their constant changes of direction. They can do great stuff if they set their minds to it (see SQL server for example or maybe MVC) but in my view the desktop development experience has worsened a lot in the last years . In addition my company has a lot of legacy stuff so we can’t just switch to their shiny new tools every few years.

Yes. I've been administering Windows in large enterprises (>100,000 end users) since 1996, and I've been developing software since about 2001.

Seems we are pretty even :). I have a few more years but that doesn’t really matter at some point.

Any reason you're not using LTSC on a medical device? It doesn't sound like MS is at fault for anything here, it sounds like you're using the wrong SKU. As far as I know, medical devices and such are one of the use cases for LTSC.

We do use LTSC (against strong advice from our MS rep who pushed semi annual). It’s still a pain to deal with.

I can't say that entirely surprises me. Reading through the other comments, seems like Windows IoT Enterprise is the best fit, which is something I didn't know about. I've always wondered how something like this is approached in the Windows10 era. They certainly have plenty of SKUs. I can see how you reached for the wrong thing, I can't say I would or would not have done all the research to find IoT Enterprise, may well have gone with LTSC myself if in your shoes.

There used to be windows embedded which had a different philosophy but was dropped on windows 10. Now we have IoT but figuring out the applicability and license model is tricky. It seems it’s another thing where MS isn’t sure what they really want so they crank out a ton of variations of the same thing and you have to guess what to use.

Use WSUS, ensure your policies and network are set for clients to only update from your own update server.

Test and approve any updates you want to release.

Also in your case it would also be worthwhile to look into whether you shouldn't be using the LTSB branch of Windows.

And pray your users never click the ‘download updates from Microsoft’ link you can’t remove.

We do all of that. It’s still a big mess that’s very hard to control.

I wonder what the balance between keeping devices updated on a medical device, and keeping them from updating is?

That doesn't sound easy, although it also seems like an odd choice for an OS for a medical device.

The medical device is basically a WPF app. There are a lot of similar ones on the market. The whole effort got started during windows XP time and back then windows made sense. Now with windows 10 you spend a lot of effort locking down features you never wanted and are hard to get rid of. At this point I would much prefer to go iOS, web or Linux. They all have their downsides and upsides but windows is becoming pretty developer unfriendly. Just getting a quote for licenses is a six month ordeal with multiple meetings and contradictory information from MS. They make it hard to give them money.

I work on a similar project but WinForms, but not as mission critical as a hospital setting. I'm currently decoupling UI from application logic as much as possible, and will move from .Net Framework to .Net Core 3.0 when it launches this year. At that point, I'll begin replacing WinForms with client-side Blazor. When there's just one current version of .Net again with .Net 5's release in 2020, those transitions will be seamless since I'll already be on .Net Core 3.0.

Full-stack C# which grants me easy flexibility on what I want to happen client vs server-side, with near-native performance. I can drop a Safari shortcut on home screens for iOS, and an Edge link on desktops for Windows. If you wanted some sort of iOS specific behavior that you can only access from there, the application could be wrapped in a webview. It'll also be seamless to package it as an Electron app for Ubuntu support. I don't intend to go with Electron or put it in a native iOS app, just browser links for whatever platform they want to use, but there's plenty of flexibility.

This is a webapp-done-right in my opinion and really a PWA. Perhaps the path I've set out for myself would work for you. The application I work on is critical to the daily functions of a large business, but not "medical grade", so I may be able to work on the knife's edge a bit more.

I have a similar plan but progress is slow in medical devices and our execs tend to believe salespeople more than our engineers so it will take a while to convince people to invest in a multi-people multi-year effort.

Ah, thank you.

Interesting, yeah I would think a chrome device, or android, iOS, some sort of base level secure focused linux might be a better place. Especially not 'home' flavors windows.

I know some folks working with some medical stuff and they've all since moved off of windows onto Linux, not an easy move, but windows just didn't make sense as their software moved into more of an "embedded" (not sure if anyone uses that term anymore) type setup than a desktop connected to a machine like it used to be.

"embedded" (not sure if anyone uses that term anymore)

They certainly do. There's an entire industry that builds control software for network-connected devices. These days you probably run an embedded web server and/or provide a network-accessible control protocol over something like TCP or UDP with separate software/app that runs locally on the user's device. Then on the back end you link to whatever functionality the device has rather than just storing everything in a database as a typical CRUD application would. There's a wide range of tools available for things like putting together a minimal Linux base and cross-compiling your code as well.

“There's a wide range of tools available for things like putting together a minimal Linux base and cross-compiling your code as well.”

That’s what I would do now. Much easier to build up a device from components than trimming down Windows 10.

I hope it won't have two different and overlaping control panels this time.

Or 5+ types of context menu [0]

[0] https://i.imgur.com/rHRD1Xa.png

I still miss Windows when working on Linux though..

No, there'll be a fresh new one. Just like there was last time. So there'll be 3 overlapping systems.

Maybe it's just the presentation, but to me this reads like a big push to dumb down what's left of personal computing to the level of tiny mobile apps and simplistic web/cloud software. There's a great irony that just as everyone finally has seriously powerful computing hardware sitting in their pocket, the industry seems to be moving away from powerful creative software and programming tools that could make use of it.

If we're destined to become mindless, media-fed automatons, I at least want my self-driving flying car in return.

It's a marketing piece full of fluff. No different than people making flying cars of the future back in the 70s.

If you just gave users some actual control over updates it wouldn't be as big of a pain.

I feel like I have a lot of control over it. Am I missing something?

on windows 10 home edition?

try installing security updates only. try denying a specific update. try freezing you installation at a specific build number. try running a machine unattended for a month without it rebooting. and next time you update, check your settings. chances are good that something, somewhere, got silently reset to defaults.

the only option for personal windows 10 installations (i.e. non-enterprise) is to blacklist the windows update service. and with each update, you have to find a new way of blacklisting the service. the settings allow for some changes -- you can defer certain types of updates for up to one month -- but eventually microsoft _will_ push new updates to your device and they _will_, if needed, reboot your PC.

I can delay updates for a while but if we're talking about a 'home' OS... updates should happen eventually. There are good security reasons for that.

if they only forced the security patches, that would be... well, at least it would be justifiable. but they also force the "quality" updates. quality updates i never asked for like making the voice assistant more intrusive, or installing some 3d painting software with no way to remove it, or digging microsoft online account tie-in further into the windows shell.

windows 10 is (for me) worse than when i bought it. i get that some people wanted these updates, but i didn't. all i want is the software i paid for three years ago.

and yes, i recognize that this is a problem with all "evergreen" software (internet browsers in particular jump out). but choosing an OS is a commitment, moreso than any other type of software, and when you commit to windows 10 you have no way to know how that commitment will pan out a year or two later.

so anyway i'm back to `sudo dist-upgrade` and i'm pleased as punch about that.

> I can delay updates for a while but if we're talking about a 'home' OS... updates should happen eventually. There are good security reasons for that.

You can delay them for a while. Is that the control you alluded to in the above comment? That doesn't sound like much control over anything, if anything it's just a temporary delay of the inevitable.

I can delay (for a long while last time I did it, I don't recall getting forced anytime in the past few years) and do what I generally need to.

If the requirement is to run for month(s) without updates, I suspect a 'home' OS was the wrong choice.

I think for your typical home user required updates with the option to delay is very reasonable.

The scale of bad bot activity out there would be tremendous without requiring updates. We see enough security discussion oh HN to make that clear.

The best solution I've found so far is setting your internet as a metered connection, then telling windows not to update over a metered connection. The OS complains every time you boot up, but thats a small price to pay for control over when an update is installed.

I've resorted to using a third-party tool that periodically updates the Active Hours setting, so that Windows will never decide that my desktop has been idle long enough for it to be okay to install updates, reboot, and dump all the stuff that I have open. That way I can apply updates when it is convenient, and cuts down considerably on the swearing when I come in on a Monday morning.

What about an OS for people who have some idea what they're doing, though? The enthusiast power user, the independent professional, the small business? Basically the target market for what Pro editions of Windows used to be.

The Pro SKU for Windows still exists and does offer more options for Update control.

Even if your OEM won't sell you a Pro edition license, it's also easier than ever to move a Home SKU to a Pro SKU because it's a one-time $99 purchase in the Microsoft Store and an in-place software update.

Windows 10 Pro offers more options for controlling things like updates and telemetry than Windows 10 Home, but it still doesn't meet the minimal acceptable standard, which is that the user can decline to install any update they don't want and can turn off all telemetry.

I think we definitely disagree on what a "minimal acceptable standard" is here.

Declining updates in general weakens herd immunity.

Pro does let you turn off the "Basic" telemetry that is mandatory on Home and that turns off "all" telemetry in the OS itself (you may still have to opt-out for some applications). Keep in mind that turning of "Basic" telemetry also turns of Windows Error Reporting and crash/BSOD telemetry, which can also weaken herd immunity.

Anti-telemetry and "update control" arguments kind of sound a lot like anti-vaxxer arguments.

Declining updates in general weakens herd immunity.

No, declining security updates that are applicable in your situation and that actually work weakens herd immunity if the threat is contagious.

On my system, I'll be the judge of when that applies, not some external organisation, and certainly not an external organisation with a track record of both abusing an automatic update mechanism to push changes that their users don't want and pushing changes that break things.

Anti-telemetry and "update control" arguments kind of sound a lot like anti-vaxxer arguments.

Anti-vaxxer arguments are not grounded in science and evidence. They advocate not taking effective preventative measures by denying the existence of the harms those measures prevent.

Given that the risks from both bad updates and data leakage are well established, if anything I'd say the argument that we shouldn't care about controlling our own systems and uploads from them is the one analogous to anti-vaxxer reasoning.

Arch Linux

I have Windows 10 Pro on a laptop and still have to use 3rd party software to control how much bandwidth all of the update mechanisms in Windows Update use or nothing else will get updates/stream (or flat out function), folks with higher bandwidth or corporate internet access will not feel this kind of pain.

A "new modern Windows OS"??

s// I thought new versions of windows were a thing of the past. Aren't we now just all supposed to be on "windows" with everything forward of today being an update rather than a new OS? We aren't supposed to talk of any sort of "new modern windows OS". This should be described as a potential future update, not a new OS, because there will never be a new 'version' of windows. //s

Microsoft has zero respect for its users. Windows is now a layered cake of CPU-hogging crap.

This is just incorrect. Windows as an OS is amazingly stable considering how many devices it supports and how backward-compatible it is. Windows as an ecosystem less-so, but I mainly fault crappy drivers written by budget commodity hardware manufacturers like Realtek and Conexant. Windows is not a "CPU hog" either; install Windows fresh with only the manufacturers' drivers installed and you'll be running at 0% of CPU unless a background task like Windows Update is running.

> unless a background task like Windows Update is running.

That is his point. Even on the VM I run on my macbook for work, there is always a background task running. Windows Defender, Windows Update, a bunch of incoherently named things... the list goes on.

Linux as an OS is a lot more backwards-compatible than Windows (including having better backwards-compatibility support for Windows software, via Wine, than Windows itself!), and runs usably on a wider range of (x86-like) hardware. It tends to fail altogether only on low-quality hardware that, even on Windows, is only ever supported via the crappy OEM drivers you mention.

...Also, nice trick statement at the end - Windows Update is always running!

I'm a fellow Linux user and... Well, please don't do this.

All I know is that I'm staying on LTSB for as long as possible.

Didn't they already do this with RT?

sounds like they want something new to compete with ChromeOS

Can MS make the ugly Windows 10 UI invisible as well with those updates? If so, I'd be interested.

Can they make all the other shitty "features" invisible? Like the abhorrent start menu and all the other "modern" crap they've added? I want my Windows XP style UI back without 100,000 processes running fuck-knows-what in the background

Classic Shell is still invaluable. It gives you a start menu where you can actually search for things that are in the start menu, and it will find them, which is a huge improvement on the default experience.

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