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Comment by tannhaeuser | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn‘t call the always–on feature stupid but deliberate. The purpose of modern Windows being an ad surface and capture device for learning everything the user knows from user interaction. Switching off Windows Updates, even on Windows Pro and Windows 10, is practically impossible, short of isolating it from net access.

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I suspect that the real reason for this change is to ensure that Windows gets updated even if the laptop is sleeping, and that this is a change that enterprise customers have asked for.

In the past where a computer would be connected to the corporate network all the time you could usually get Wake-on-LAN to work so you could boot computers at night to apply updates and ensure that users weren't waiting around forever. With laptops and people working remotely you need a new way to ensure that the bulk of the updates happen when they won't interfere with users trying to work - this is the solution.

Microsoft may well tout additional potential benefits, but that's more about selling it to consumers so they don't complain about changes as much.

And, of course, some manufacturers do a better job than others at implementing this. --I haven't had a problem with any of my Lenovo laptops or even the Surface laptop. Dell, on the other hand, doesn't seem to implement it well at all.

My company laptop has sleep _disabled_, and all the caches, cookies, browsing history etc. are cleared when I log off or shut down. I guess this is due to security reasons. No updates while "sleeping" in my case.

Is there a security reason to disable sleep mode? Or just part of the user hassle some enterprise departments sell as "security"?

It's probably better to have a switched off laptop stolen than a suspended one

Cellebrite is built around that reason: USB/Thunderbolt stack vulnerabilities, etc., that allow the full-disk encryption key to be extracted out of the RAM of a running system.

I believe iOS is capable of flushing most cleartext data on suspend until the passcode is reentered, so suspend should be as good as shutdown; I don’t know if macOS can do it. On desktop Linux it’s theoretically possible with systemd-homed, but in practice that needs desktop-environment support that’s as far as I know does not exist, so shutting down is more secure. I can’t remember anything about Android either way except for some features for disabling the USB port in some alternative firmware.

On Windows with a typical TPM-only setup, powering off is probably just as bad as suspending, because just powering the machine back on is enough for it to helpfully unlock everything. If you do need to enter a BitLocker passphrase at boot, then you’re in the same situation as typical desktop Linux, so powering off is more secure.

On macOS you can use pmset with the DestroyFVKeyOnStandby option to ensure that FDE key is purged from RAM on sleep.

> a change that enterprise customers have asked for

"enterprise customers" have proper security policies and tooling to enforce them in place.

My employer has a "small" utility that periodically checks for version of installed software and will warn me if I don't install the necessary updates. If I don't install updates for more then x days I'm cut off every network access to the corporate network, and I must first install the updates and then ask my manager to let me back in the corporate network (again, there's automated tooling for that).

So this push for "always on" bullshit is not what enterprises asked for.

Microsoft wants mac/ios/android-like experience, but just can't deliver such thing due to hardware fragmentation.

I never understood why microsoft doesn't go full apple and only allows certain top-tier features on surface laptops or other hardware they own from top to bottom.

If you're serious about software you can't underrate the role of hardware: Apple has clearly got this incredibly right, and it's a fundamental part of their value proposition.

While I don’t disagree with you, if Microsoft started gating premium Windows features to their own hardware, both the US and EU would serve them the antitrust suit to end all antitrust suits.

Apple does that, gating the entire experience to their own hardware and I don't see much fuss.

I guess Microsoft should go full-apple and allow microsoft windows ONLY on microsoft hardware?

Yeah, including for Cortana to keep listening while on suspend (to audio, but also nearby networks... any data she can get her hands on).

> I suspect that the real reason for this change is to ensure that Windows gets updated even if the laptop is sleeping, and that this is a change that enterprise customers have asked for.

But you don't want that to happen when your laptop is in your backpack.

It is bonkers that Microsoft and manufacturers both would remove the ability for the users to decide it is not a good idea to have an OS running. It effectively forces anyone to shutdown completely their laptops.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but trying to show ads when the laptop lid is closed and the machine is in "sleep mode" (with quotes) is not exactly smart, is it. But again, if MS can still charge their advertisers for such silliness, maybe it makes economical sense (for MS).

Having the microphone on to capture useful information from the environment would be helpful for ad targeting, though I don't know offhand where on the spectrum from paranoid to expected behaviour that would be these days.

Or maybe I just want my local email cache to be reasonably up-to-date when I take my laptop out of my backpack. Why is that such a bad thing?

Good for you. But I don't want that.

At the moment, the user cannot choose, but is forced to be always "on".

The user can choose to use operating systems and applications that let him configure which apps get to run in the background and at which times. You don't want email updates while asleep? Configure your OS to implement this policy. There's no reason that hardware makers should continue to support multiple and legacy sleep modes like S3 just because OS vendors don't give users appropriate policy knobs in software.

Why is S3 "legacy"? Just because Microsoft says so?

When it is working, S3 sleep covers my needs perfectly. And it is not about email updates. I don't want my laptop to do anything while in sleep. It's that simple.

You're right. Why should hardware vendors target operating systems that exist?

Sure, S0 on Windows makes your laptop turn on in your bag for impossible-to-disable updates, causing it to overheat or the battery to run down. And no laptops on the market will S0 on Linux without running down the battery in less than 24 hours.

Why should hardware vendors mollycoddle users who make the foolish decision to use either Windows or Linux?

Because the companies making the laptop recommend you to shutdown the laptop before puttint it into your backpack.

[1] - https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps/faq-mode...

EDIT: Added source cited in the article

That's CYA nonsense, up there with "Q-tips aren't for cleaning ears". (Yes, they are.) Nobody actually shuts down his laptop before chucking it in his bag.

> Nobody actually shuts down his laptop before chucking it in his bag.

I do. I had a few poor experiences with laptops accidentally turning on while in the bag between 1995 and 2010.

After the last time, in 2010, when the thing started beeping due to overheating, I started the habit of shutting down/hibernating completely instead of just closing the lid and popping it into the bag.

Laptops still occasionally do that. I'm kind of impressed that they manage to keep chugging even when the lack of airflow keeps them at >90°C for the entire time it takes for either me to notice that they turned back on, or drain their battery.

They don't, but the problem is the laptop manufacturers and/or Microsoft have fucked up the implementation sufficiently that it's no longer a safe operation.

I learned to turn my XPS 17 off after it almost cooked itself in my backpack a few times.

What an awful laptop.

I have opened my backpack to find it very hot because my laptop accumulated a bunch of heat in its cushioned pouch and subsequently drained all it's battery

It is not nonsense. I had my laptop turning on from sleep mode inside my bag and getting really hot, because of idiotic Windows 7 settings back then, which turned the device on, when networks changed. It is just ridiculous. Probably still in there that default. Since that day, I always shutdown my device completely.

Don't conclude from your own carelessness to others. Even just one person shutting down their laptop will instantly disprove your claim, that "nobody does XYZ". So you will basically almost always be wrong with such a statement/claim.

I know more than one person who ended in the ER with a perforated eardrum because of qtips. I honestly don't understand why we haven't outlawed them yet (in countries with universal healthcare, in the US you could just have a more expensive health insurance if you choose to use them).

So much better to have the battery drain in sleep mode, than clicking "get messages" button a single time once you use your laptop again.

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