TR Forums

just brew it! wrote:

I agree that hibernate is kind of pointless with the amount of RAM many systems have these days, and the improved cold boot times of recent versions of Windows and Linux. If you can cold boot in half the time it takes to resume from hibernate, why bother with hibernate?

Ask my 19YO daughter, who won't plug in her laptop until it has saved itself by going to hibernate. She's not much for closing tabs or game windows, so wants them back after she plugs in.

Captain Ned wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

I agree that hibernate is kind of pointless with the amount of RAM many systems have these days, and the improved cold boot times of recent versions of Windows and Linux. If you can cold boot in half the time it takes to resume from hibernate, why bother with hibernate?

Ask my 19YO daughter, who won't plug in her laptop until it has saved itself by going to hibernate. She's not much for closing tabs or game windows, so wants them back after she plugs in.

There's no accounting for uneducated users, all the while that OS's don't try to teach the uninitiated how to get the best out of their systens, but personally I'd rather systems were better for people like JBI as this would nudge users in that direction.

Topinio wrote:

There's no accounting for uneducated users, all the while that OS's don't try to teach the uninitiated how to get the best out of their systens, but personally I'd rather systems were better for people like JBI as this would nudge users in that direction.

You succumb to the same fallacy as many others here, namely that our self-selected group is the majority of users and should thus drive OS development. It's just not the case, which is why OS development tends toward the coddling of clusers.

Captain Ned wrote:

Topinio wrote:

There's no accounting for uneducated users, all the while that OS's don't try to teach the uninitiated how to get the best out of their systens, but personally I'd rather systems were better for people like JBI as this would nudge users in that direction.

You succumb to the same fallacy as many others here, namely that our self-selected group is the majority of users and should thus drive OS development. It's just not the case, which is why OS development tends toward the coddling of clusers.

I don't. Really, I have 800 users with my phone number. I merely would like for systems to be a bit better for the more educated users, and for the coddling to stop: sure, treat the users as if they know nothing, but help them learn to know better if they don't reject that. Why treat them in an overprotective way, why assume they shouldn't learn?

Topinio wrote:

I don't. Really, I have 800 users with my phone number. I merely would like for systems to be a bit better for the more educated users, and for the coddling to stop: sure, treat the users as if they know nothing, but help them learn to know better if they don't reject that. Why treat them in an overprotective way, why assume they shouldn't learn?

The computer geek part of me wants to agree with you. But the bottom line is, in today's world most people view desktop/laptop PCs as being more akin to an appliance, like a dishwasher or a microwave oven. They don't care how it works, they just want to push a few buttons and have it do what they want. For a huge segment of the public, the primary method of interaction with the internet is their smartphone; they want their PC to behave similarly. And they're not wrong for feeling that way, as much as it may offend our geeky sensibilities.

Heck, my wife has a CS degree, but has never worked in the field professionally. She wouldn't know sleep from hibernate from a full shutdown if they whacked her over the head, and doesn't want to know. I still have to remind her occasionally that "Hey, you know things would be easier if you created folders under My Documents to organize your stuff." A few days ago she complained that she was having trouble sending e-mails... turns out it had been warning her that her C: drive was full for several days, but she didn't think it was important enough to mention, and didn't make any attempt to delete files she didn't need.

I could also draw an analogy with my brewing hobby. Most beer drinkers just want their beer to taste good, and give them a buzz. They don't care about ale vs. lager, different barley, hop, or yeast strains, or the distinction between styles (Brown Ale vs. Porter vs. Stout, Blonde Ale vs. Pale Ale, etc...), let alone the intricacies of how to brew their own. It's not their vocation, it's not even their hobby; the details of the brewing process are "someone else's problem".

just brew it! wrote:

But the bottom line is, in today's world most people view desktop/laptop PCs as being more akin to an appliance, like a dishwasher or a microwave oven. They don't care how it works, they just want to push a few buttons and have it do what they want. For a huge segment of the public, the primary method of interaction with the internet is their smartphone; they want their PC to behave similarly. And they're not wrong for feeling that way, as much as it may offend our geeky sensibilities.

Yup, and equally important is that power desktops are becoming a rare niche. Anything that gets a laptop or tablet from zero to desktop faster is usually a plus, and likewise, those platforms don't change hardware profiles much -- the need to reboot the kernel is pretty infrequent.

bfg-9000 wrote:

Under Power Options, pick the completely unintuitive "Choose what the power button does" on the left, then untick "Turn on fast startup."

I'll try that one. Thanks (and thanks to ludi also).

Topinio wrote:

That, and it doesn't bother with the normal-since-forever clean unmounting of the disk partition partitions (IKR, SMH), preferring to cause issues and potential data loss if there's subsequent access from other OSes e.g. a Linux install on another disk.

Mounting the NTFS partition in that state from Linux always turned up read-only even when I specified rw, so at least it's probably difficult enough to clobber data this way.

As far as startup vs shutdown times, why should we have to choose? My Linux install takes (all literally now) less than four seconds from UEFI->kernel handoff to a login prompt, less than two seconds from login entry to a fully functional desktop (most of that being Nvidia driver stuff I think), and less than three seconds from initiating shutdown to the PSU cutting power. This is a light setup, but comparing to other distros and Windows you'd think I don't even have a GUI. No special config was needed to get there unless you count elevator=noop (simplest possible I/O scheduler, good for SSDs). What's everyone else spending all that boot time on?

Shutdown time does matter a bit. SSDs solve this one, but I don't want to toss a mechanical HDD-equipped laptop in a backpack and walk off while the drive is still spinning. I also don't want to toss a laptop doing Windows updates on shutdown in a backpack for thermal reasons.

On user expertise and catering to it or not, software can go ahead and make all the defaults cater to those who don't know computers, but when the defaults aren't what I want, there had better be some way to override them that actually works and has non-zero discoverability. Microsoft and the New Linux crowd are both failing miserably at this: Microsoft's discoverable settings don't stick and the ones that work aren't discoverable (or some mix of the two), and Gnome/etc shortcut the problem by not offering any settings in the first place.

Literalist computer is nonsensically borked and wants me to go read a half dozen man pages to figure out where the problem even is? Fine, whatever. Know-it-all computer won't believe me when I tell it I know what I'm doing and does what it feels like regardless of my input? Not fine at all.

synthtel2 wrote:

it hogs the entire downlink (thereby ruining gaming) whenever it feels like it

This just got much, much worse. I want to do some gaming, it's downloading update 1703, it's going to take all night, it's got a bajillion connections downloading it in parallel so absolutely nothing else can get through (it took 15 minutes to load enough of TR to post this), it won't let me stop the relevant service, and it won't let me set a wired connection as metered (regedits to get around that are next). GODDAMMIT MICROSOFT.

That's odd, if you just installed 10 you should've got 1703 to begin with.

"Defer Updates" only stops the version upgrade for 6 months. If you want to defer it longer you have to use Microsoft's Wushowhide.diagcab tool from KB3073930 normally used to hide malfunctioning drivers. Click the link marked Advanced, untick the box marked "Apply repairs automatically," then Next and it will run for an especially long time to punish you if you are trying to keep 1511 (1607 isn't so bad). When it comes back up, click the link to Hide Updates and tick the box marked "Feature update to Windows 10, version 1703," then Next. If it successfully hid the unwanted upgrade, you will see the "Troubleshooting has completed" dialog. You can then use Disk Cleanup to remove the 8GB it downloaded for you.

Microsoft must really want you to upgrade to 1703 because I had to hide it twice before it would stick. And you'll still get the huge monthly download of 20% of the operating system to update to the latest monthly mega-patch, but this isn't as time consuming as an upgrade, plus those don't uninstall your software or antivirus like the upgrades do.

just brew it! wrote:

The computer geek part of me wants to agree with you. But the bottom line is, in today's world most people view desktop/laptop PCs as being more akin to an appliance, like a dishwasher or a microwave oven. They don't care how it works, they just want to push a few buttons and have it do what they want. For a huge segment of the public, the primary method of interaction with the internet is their smartphone; they want their PC to behave similarly. And they're not wrong for feeling that way, as much as it may offend our geeky sensibilities.

The problem with this idea is that PCs do not work like an appliance. If microwaves burnt or undercooked or failed to defrost the food as often as PCs get things wrong, if dishwashers flooded the house as often as PCs crash, then I'd have some sympathy with the "it's an appliance" view.

Not saying it's not reasonable for users to want it to be that way, just that it isn't. In part, ofc, that's down to users' (collective, competing) wish to have the things be as cheap as microwave ovens, despite being far more complex.

Something that goes wrong as often as Microsoft Windows is IMO simply unacceptable, and doubly so for trying to pretend it doesn't by trying to hide the ways to fix it.

And I guess I'm never going to feel like people shouldn't try to have some idea about what they're doing/using: I know very little about beer brewing or e.g. hops or yeast strains, but I try to be enough of a semi-educated consumer that I'm at least aware of many different types, varieties, breweries, and individual beers themselves and can talk to those behind a bar or the counter in a craft beer store to try and improve my life slightly by getting a better pint than the standard nasty lager!

ludi wrote:

Topinio wrote:

It''s a stupid "feature"

It's a useful feature that works fine for a majority of users, and can be disabled by the minority who need a workaround. Why is that stupid?

Personally I think controls in the OS should do what they say. "Shutdown" should fully shutdown the computer rather than pretending to do that. I've had lots of problems with users' machines not being able to access the network because a network driver hasn't recovered properly from a fast shutdown. Select "restart" and the network comes back up.

"But I turned it off and on again" cries the user, "why did it work when you did it?".

If MS wanted this they should have called it something like "Quick Off" and left "Shutdown" alone.

EDIT: Doh just realised I was no where near the bottom of the thread.

bfg-9000 wrote:

That's odd, if you just installed 10 you should've got 1703 to begin with.

"Defer Updates" only stops the version upgrade for 6 months. If you want to defer it longer you have to use Microsoft's Wushowhide.diagcab tool from KB3073930 normally used to hide malfunctioning drivers. Click the link marked Advanced, untick the box marked "Apply repairs automatically," then Next and it will run for an especially long time to punish you if you are trying to keep 1511 (1607 isn't so bad). When it comes back up, click the link to Hide Updates and tick the box marked "Feature update to Windows 10, version 1703," then Next. If it successfully hid the unwanted upgrade, you will see the "Troubleshooting has completed" dialog. You can then use Disk Cleanup to remove the 8GB it downloaded for you.

Microsoft must really want you to upgrade to 1703 because I had to hide it twice before it would stick. And you'll still get the huge monthly download of 20% of the operating system to update to the latest monthly mega-patch, but this isn't as time consuming as an upgrade, plus those don't uninstall your software or antivirus like the upgrades do.

The 6-month deferral for 1703 is over. CBB has officially moved over to 1703. If not upgraded to soon, there won't be anymore security patches.

Windows is downloaded via a torrent process. You can cut it off via the Windows Update options.

WinKey + I > Update and Security > Advanced Options > Choose how updates are delivered

You can cut it off entirely, but I'd suggest just changing it from the default of "PCs on my local network, and PC on the Internet" to just "PCs on my local network." Of course it sounds like you don't have any other Windows based machines. So off is probably fine.

Linux and Windows cater to different audiences. Expecting similar treatment is just going to upset you. If this is a copy of Windows 10 Home, just surrender, it's meant to be an appliance OS.

Ryu Connor wrote:

The 6-month deferral for 1703 is over. CBB has officially moved over to 1703. If not upgraded to soon, there won't be anymore security patches.

Eh?

CBB still has 1511 until 2017-10-10 and 1607 until 2018-03-13 (probably). 1703 is on the SAC.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/win ... d-aligned/

Thanks for making my point for me.

"The 6-month deferral for 1703 is over."

The Defer Update button/GPO (formerly CBB now SAC) no longer stops 1703. This leaves only the manual tool or a WSUS server to block it.

"If not upgraded to soon, there won't be anymore security patches."

I really don't think you want to quibble over "soon" either. One month left on 1511 and six months on 1607 is soon. Neither of them equal the 18 months of the new CBB/SAC 1703.

1 != 18
6 != 18

Soon.™

Are you suggesting a user who can barely handle Windows now should go further down the rabbit hole so he can blow up the forums in a few months from now about the new problem we created?

Windows 10: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Topinio wrote:

The problem with this idea is that PCs do not work like an appliance. If microwaves burnt or undercooked or failed to defrost the food as often as PCs get things wrong, if dishwashers flooded the house as often as PCs crash, then I'd have some sympathy with the "it's an appliance" view.

I feel like we're diverging from "this feature is stupid" to "this OS is stupid." Windows isn't Linux. I use both (Linux, less, and mostly in GUI...filthy casual me) and have done so off and on for about 15 years. For the desktop user Windows has finally become the OS that usually starts and runs without drama whenever you need to get to work. Linux is the crotch rocket that is many times faster and more agile, and can be built up into an indestructible MadMax contraption if desired, but will also throw the rider into oncoming traffic if he tweaks anything at the wrong time. Both have a purpose and overlapping capabilities, but they're not the same thing.

cheesyking wrote:

Personally I think controls in the OS should do what they say. "Shutdown" should fully shutdown the computer rather than pretending to do that. I've had lots of problems with users' machines not being able to access the network because a network driver hasn't recovered properly from a fast shutdown. Select "restart" and the network comes back up.

Sounds like an administration issue to me. If there's a known problem with a driver flake-out on multiple deployed machines, then perhaps the Fast Startup/shutdown ought to be disabled by Group Policy.

I've got nothing against 1703 (AFAIK) and don't want to defer it by more than a few days. What I've got a problem with is Windows using 30-50 connections to 8.254.250.206 to download it and making the connection completely useless for anything else. I did have torrents disabled, and all of the connections were to that one address.

It took me 5 minutes (literally!) last night to load two pages (DDG and something from Microsoft) to find a guide on how to regedit Windows into believing an Ethernet connection is metered.

I share this slow connection with other people and can't have my OS doing that (everyone else is on either Win7 or Linux for this exact reason). One download stream at an unpredictable time at least only wrecks gaming, but leaves general internet use barely affected. At 30-50 streams, the internet connection barely exists for any other purpose, no matter how light.

There is no "defer updates" - 10 Home probably doesn't have it (I'll be damned if I'm paying MS more money for this garbage when it isn't even my full-time OS).

ludi wrote:

For the desktop user Windows has finally become the OS that usually starts and runs without drama whenever you need to get to work.

It doesn't though. (Not trying to pick on you, this sentiment is all over this thread, you just stated it clearly.) In this case, the car analogy is that when it needs maintenance (which is unpredictable and somewhat arbitrary), it goes and drives itself to the shop autonomously, and then I step outside to drive somewhere and think "WhereTF is my car?" So I walk over to the shop and find that it's going to be stuck there until 5:00, I've got somewhere I need to be at 2:00, and there's no internally documented/discoverable way to get it to cut it out. Some internet research shows that I can pull a particular fuse to shortcut this stuff, but that fuse turns out to be soldered in place. More internet research shows that I can get debug access to the nav computer and tell it there aren't any shops in the area, so I do that and it lets me drive where I need to go.

That isn't appliance-ification, that's total bull****.

It's true that this probably isn't a big issue for someone with a 20 Mbit internet connection. A great deal of the USA can't get a 20 Mbit connection, period. Are those geographically unfortunate enough to be stuck with slow internet just supposed to accept that their computers become randomly unusable for hours at a time, or what?

synthtel2 wrote:

It's true that this probably isn't a big issue for someone with a 20 Mbit internet connection. A great deal of the USA can't get a 20 Mbit connection, period. Are those geographically unfortunate enough to be stuck with slow internet just supposed to accept that their computers become randomly unusable for hours at a time, or what?

Windows 7 would do this, though. It just wasn't as frequent because patches and service updates tended to come in larger lumps, but less often. I know your pain because we had a 1.5 mbps DSL connection up until this year. But it wasn't just the PCs that would saturate the connection when applying updates, it was also phones and tablets. I got fairly good at knocking non-essential machines or updates offline until we were turning in for the night, and then hoping they would be done my morning. It was an unwieldy process and completely unworkable when guests were visiting. In the end, I bit the bullet and got cable.

Unfortunately, with so many possible paths to vulnerability, a user pretty much has to accept periodic updates delivered in real-time, or get pwned. The user-friendly Linux distros aren't immune either, they're just a bit lower profile of a target and a bit more friendly about letting you choose when to update. Were you able to find the setting Ryu Connor indicated to turn off the torrent-esque update feature?

Also note that you can designate a specific connection as "metered" in Windows Settings => Network & Internet => Connection Properties, which among other things, will cause Windows Update to download only priority updates when using that connection.

just brew it! wrote:

Heck, my wife has a CS degree, but has never worked in the field professionally. She wouldn't know sleep from hibernate from a full shutdown if they whacked her over the head, and doesn't want to know. I still have to remind her occasionally that "Hey, you know things would be easier if you created folders under My Documents to organize your stuff." A few days ago she complained that she was having trouble sending e-mails... turns out it had been warning her that her C: drive was full for several days, but she didn't think it was important enough to mention, and didn't make any attempt to delete files she didn't need.

As an IT guy who supports programmers, I have zero trouble believing you. They can be as bad at over-specializing as some PhDs I know - enough computer knowledge to get the job done, not an iota more.

ludi wrote:

Windows 7 would do this, though. It just wasn't as frequent because patches and service updates tended to come in larger lumps, but less often. I know your pain because we had a 1.5 mbps DSL connection up until this year. But it wasn't just the PCs that would saturate the connection when applying updates, it was also phones and tablets. I got fairly good at knocking non-essential machines or updates offline until we were turning in for the night, and then hoping they would be done my morning. It was an unwieldy process and completely unworkable when guests were visiting. In the end, I bit the bullet and got cable.

Win7 doesn't make it a pain to choose when updates happen, and I've never seen it do this thing with 30-50 streams before. IME Android is worse than Win7, but not half as bad as Win10.

ludi wrote:

Unfortunately, with so many possible paths to vulnerability, a user pretty much has to accept periodic updates delivered in real-time, or get pwned. The user-friendly Linux distros aren't immune either, they're just a bit lower profile of a target and a bit more friendly about letting you choose when to update.

There are occasional vulns that need to be patched ASAP, but the vast majority (including most of the biggest downloads and things like 1703) can be deferred a couple days with very little chance of consequences. For instance, who updates Arch Linux every day? Weekly is a normal (or even slightly fast) schedule, meaning average updates are 3~4 days stale by the time you get them. Daily updates aren't even on anyone's radar there, because there's no point.

ludi wrote:

Were you able to find the setting Ryu Connor indicated to turn off the torrent-esque update feature?

I already had turned it off, and that one did stick - all of those connections were to 8.254.250.206.

ludi wrote:

Also note that you can designate a specific connection as "metered" in Windows Settings => Network & Internet => Connection Properties, which among other things, will cause Windows Update to download only priority updates when using that connection.

That's how I fixed it. It was many times more complicated though, because Windows won't let you set an ethernet connection as metered. Regedit (with key permission changes) was required.

synthtel2 wrote:

The first is that Linux prefers the system clock to be UTC and Windows prefers it to be local. It's easier to fix the Linux side, but I don't care enough, so Windows just thinks my time zone is UTC. No big deal.

You can configure windows to recognize and work with a system clock that is set to UTC via the registry. I've been doing that with a dual-boot system for a few years now at both home and work.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ti ... in_Windows

Using Windows 7 nowadays is actually far more pleasant than it was when the free update to 10 was being pushed so hard. Back then, they were trying hard to annoy you into upgrading so any early single-core Pentium 4 or A64 suffered badly at 100% CPU for 6-8 hours every day just automatically running WindowsUpdate. I'm still unsure if they broke it like that on purpose or just didn't see the need to optimize their old but still supported OS, but they just couldn't seem to understand that without XD/NX-bit on P4 (or CMPXCHG16b for 64-bit on A64), no upgrade to 10 would work anyway.

Nowadays you can happily run Win 7 with automatic updates disabled, and just run the monthly Security Only Quality Update patch every month on Patch Tuesday. If you have Office installed you can then manually run the update whenever you like afterwards.

BTW you will really like this change in 1703:

Features removed on version 1703
Windows Update will no longer postpone the download of certain critical updates if the device is connected to a network that was designated by the user as being "metered". Although meant to prevent the updates from utilizing data allotments, this behavior had been used as a workaround by users to defy the requirement for all updates to be automatically downloaded.

Don't you dare try to defy Microsoft! They know what's best for you and you'd better like it.

ludi wrote:

cheesyking wrote:

Personally I think controls in the OS should do what they say. "Shutdown" should fully shutdown the computer rather than pretending to do that. I've had lots of problems with users' machines not being able to access the network because a network driver hasn't recovered properly from a fast shutdown. Select "restart" and the network comes back up.

Sounds like an administration issue to me. If there's a known problem with a driver flake-out on multiple deployed machines, then perhaps the Fast Startup/shutdown ought to be disabled by Group Policy.

That is exactly what has been done. Tbh it's what I'll be doing on every deployment I do from now on. Too many risks for too few gains.

Ryu Connor wrote:

The Defer Update button/GPO (formerly CBB now SAC) no longer stops 1703. This leaves only the manual tool or a WSUS server to block it.

Forgive me, but the GPO seems to still be stopping 1703, all 1607 machines here with this policy set are still on 1607 and are not prompting for 1703 to be installed.

Maybe this is because 1703 was released to SAC on 2017-07-11, and the GP which defers for 180 days would start then. This means the end of the 180 days would be 2018-01-07 (unless an additional "pause" is added).

Ryu Connor wrote:

"If not upgraded to soon, there won't be anymore security patches."

I really don't think you want to quibble over "soon" either. One month left on 1511 and six months on 1607 is soon. Neither of them equal the 18 months of the new CBB/SAC 1703.

1 != 18
6 != 18

Soon.™

Who's quibbling? My points were that (1) the deferral is still active, and (2) security patches for 1607 will continue long enough that its EOL is not soon. Or Soon™.

This second point is somewhat subjective, but as the remaining just over 6 months is nearly 40% of the entire lifespan of 1607 CBB, I don't view that as a short time in that context. Obviously you disagree quite forcefully but IMO it's not unreasonable to stay on a CBB track until near the end of its run, e.g. to jump off 1511 for 1607 this month (with 1 more Patch Tuesday to go).

Ryu Connor wrote:

Are you suggesting a user who can barely handle Windows now should go further down the rabbit hole so he can blow up the forums in a few months from now about the new problem we created?

Windows 10: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Nice quote, but I can't see how you get from what I wrote to that suggestion. Presumably this relates to bfg-9000's reply to synthtel2 with instructions for nobbling upgrades, but that wasn't me. All I was saying is that CBB still allows users to stay on 1607 (or 1511) and not have the machine download 1703.

As synthtel2 has anyway since said that it's Home edition, that's irrelevant in this case.

Topinio wrote:

Forgive me, but the GPO seems to still be stopping 1703, all 1607 machines here with this policy set are still on 1607 and are not prompting for 1703 to be installed.

I'm glad the GPO is still blocking at this time for you. It is not still blocking at this time for me. Manual intervention was required until such time as the image was ready for deployment.

Microsoft is pushing to CBB machines now.

synthtel2 wrote:

Win7 doesn't make it a pain to choose when updates happen, and I've never seen it do this thing with 30-50 streams before. IME Android is worse than Win7, but not half as bad as Win10.

It's worth mentioning that 1703 brings in a new update process that makes future updates a lot smaller. So yeah that update is painful, but past that should be significantly easier to deal with.

Ryu Connor wrote:

I'm glad the GPO is still blocking at this time for you. It is not still blocking at this time for me. Manual intervention was required until such time as the image was ready for deployment.

Microsoft is pushing to CBB machines now.

That ... is suboptimal.

We have had to update our policies after every release, as this thing changed every time. I presume you did too, making the new ones and and re-specified the period for versions that let you? If so, gah.

(It's quite annoying that the deferable period also changed, "till the next upgrade period (at least a few months)" in 1507 -> 0-8 months in 1511 -> 0-180 days in 1607 -> 0-365 days in 1703.)

Topinio wrote:

That ... is suboptimal.

Meh. LTSB feels too slow, CBB was a nice way to dodge the major bugs, but has always felt very fast. CB is an express elevator to hell. Maybe SAC is the sweet spot.

My concern is driver support. NVIDIA has been dropping releases. They've already dropped 1507 aka 10240 support (first LTSB).

Ryu Connor wrote:

Meh. LTSB feels too slow, CBB was a nice way to dodge the major bugs, but has always felt very fast. CB is an express elevator to hell. Maybe SAC is the sweet spot.

Maybe it is, but for me the old ~3-5Y release cycle was enough, LTSB is still too fast. It'd be nice to have a longer than 10Y support option, because non-PC machines last 20+ years.

Ryu Connor wrote:

My concern is driver support. NVIDIA has been dropping releases. They've already dropped 1507 aka 10240 support (first LTSB).

That is truly ridiculous, very un-NVIDIA, and not in the release notes. Windows 8 RTM is still explicitly supported despite being EOL as is Windows 7. Maxwell was/is even supported on XP...

The first time (night before last) I fired off the updater, it threw a highly ambiguous error and wouldn't do anything. Last night, it looked like it was working, but now it's hung here at "preparing to install updates 16%" with no CPU or network use. Reboot and try a third time I guess? This is sloppy UX.

Veerappan wrote:

You can configure windows to recognize and work with a system clock that is set to UTC via the registry. I've been doing that with a dual-boot system for a few years now at both home and work.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ti ... in_Windows

As I said, I don't care enough. Thanks though.

bfg-9000 wrote:

BTW you will really like this change in 1703:

Features removed on version 1703
Windows Update will no longer postpone the download of certain critical updates if the device is connected to a network that was designated by the user as being "metered". Although meant to prevent the updates from utilizing data allotments, this behavior had been used as a workaround by users to defy the requirement for all updates to be automatically downloaded.

Don't you dare try to defy Microsoft! They know what's best for you and you'd better like it.

Argh.

LostCat wrote:

It's worth mentioning that 1703 brings in a new update process that makes future updates a lot smaller. So yeah that update is painful, but past that should be significantly easier to deal with.

Smaller is good, but what it really needs is to use one download stream instead of 30-50. At that stream count, an unscheduled 10 MB download will knock me out of a game just as surely as a 4 GB one.

If they were being smart they'd have it figure out what your maximum downstream is, then back off and use a percentage of that to avoid tanking your bandwidth and latency. They wouldn't have nearly so many people trying to figure out how to disable it if it didn't cause massive disruptions.