I saw that happen once in a big presentation.
There was a team of students presenting their work to ~200 people. Right in the middle, a pop-up says updates are finished and the computer needs to restart. It has a helpful 60-second countdown, but “cancel” is grayed out, so all they can do is watch.
I was only in the audience and I still have nightmares.
Then it proceeds to take 10 minutes to boot. Happened to me before an important meeting once and i just couldn’t believe it. wtf makes Microsoft think they can get away with shit like this?
Probably that they very obviously are!
Just blame the users. Easy.
Usually for large businesses like universities IT can choose when to push updates.
Some versions like Home and Education might lack the options, but most Enterprise versions and LTSC versions can let you delay updates via the menu or disable updates completely via group policy fuckery.
Still bullshit that they have to, though.
Shutdown -a or whatever the flag is should abort it if I remember correctly
our work uses macs but also Kandji for software management, which also locks you into restarts during business hours 😎
They think they can get away with it because they keep getting away with it.
wtf makes Microsoft think they can get away with shit like this?
I’d wager a guess it’s people dumb enough to constantly put up with shit like this?
Combined with myopic developers who always have the newest hardware and fastest connection.
Because the alternative is people getting compromised and getting their computer crypto locked, accounts stolen or their bank account drained.
Other OSes can update everything while running and you just reboot to the updated system. Microsoft could definitely fix their update process they are not incompetent, they just don’t care.
Those kids are still wincing to this day
The super duper shitty thing is that they could have canceled it by opening the Run dialog box and typing “shutdown -a”, so it’s not even like canceling wasn’t an option. M$ just decided to be dicks about it
M$ just decided to be dicks about it
A most concise yet comprehensive company bio.
Maybe? If I recall correctly, this was Windows XP. Also the computer was owned by the school, so the students didn’t have admin access.
That screen didn’t exist in Win XP. If it had, it would have been a different shade of blue. This is either Win10 though I suspect it’s Win11.
The event I’m referring to wasn’t OP’s photo. Mine was back in 2004 or 2005, long before Win10 was released.
shutdown -acouldn’t help in that situation?For every 1 person who knows how to use the windows command line, there are 50 people struggling because they didn’t embed their video into their PowerPoint, or worse, their USB stick only contains a shortcut to their actual .ppt file
That’s a very generous estimate. I didn’t know about it and I work in IT.
They didn’t know, but yea.
I love these comments. If you need to use the command line (the largest argument people have against Linux) why are people still arguing to stay on Windows? Hell, Linux you don’t even need the terminal if you don’t want to use it and choose the right distro.
(I recognize that for schools and offices, people don’t have a choice. These students were probably on a personal laptop though, so they could have a choice. The issue is Windows comes as default and no one actually makes a choice. They don’t choose Windows. They just have Windows.)
Windows always gets a pass from it’s fans. They also tend to overestimate average users’ proficiency with computers (meaning windows) way more than linux users.
Most windows users would be afraid to change stuff on CP or Settings never mind opening up policy editor or registry editor.
They regularly fail to install applications on windows (a big part of them would probably not even try) or install something different than intended.
Usually they end up running million unnecessary things on startup, having completely unresponsive systems. They just shrug and cope with it till they pay someone to format their computer or they buy a new one.
The arrogance of some Linux users… You just can’t fathom that most people just want to use the OS their PC came with. These people don’t want to struggle with the incompatibilities that come with Linux systems. Troubleshooting Linux systems is a daunting task for most casual users. It’s great that you use Linux because fuck greedy corporations. But stop being so uppity about it. This toxic behavior is what steers people away from Linux forums.
You just can’t fathom that most people just want to use the OS their PC came with.
No they don’t they want to get a task done. The vast majority of users doesn’t know what an OS or a browser is never mind that there are alternatives.
These people don’t want to struggle with the incompatibilities that come with Linux systems.
Most people are simply not aware of Linux systems let alone linux system incompatibilities.
Troubleshooting Linux systems is a daunting task for most casual users.
No shit, troubleshooting windows is a daunting task for most casual users. They either nag/pay someone to try and fix it or simply cope with it. And windows fucks up all the time, especially for most users.
It’s great that you use Linux because fuck greedy corporations. But stop being so uppity about it. This toxic behavior is what steers people away from Linux forums.
People don’t just randomly get on Linux forums, especially linux memes forums. Nor is my previous comment in any way or form toxic. I just pointed out the blind spot of windows fans, you just can’t handle criticism.
“Don’t turn off” is the worst kind of status message.
When it eventually hangs for various reasons, you actually do need to turn off your pc for it to complete or to let it roll back in an error state.
When “just hang in there” is still present on the third day you’ll start wondering why you bought that piece of furniture and won’t mind the consequences of turning it off.
What should it say instead?
Console output with status of the current operation, including error and warning messages
The average user does not want to see that and does not need to see that. That’s how you end up with thousands of support requests of “why is my computer showing these errors?”
Things should be abstracted from the users by default. There’s no need for grandma to see a console output every time windows needs to update.
I disagree. I think that some aspects of the software should be open about what they’re doing to everyone. Otherwise people just get used to the idea that everything is a black box that they have no real control of. It also helps educate people on IT and its concepts overall.
Even if they can’t specifically tell what is going on, they can see something is going on. And as long as this does not make it harder to use, the more info the better.
Should make that screen the first slide of the PowerPoint
One in the middle, including the pop-up notification about a pending restart before that. Hahaha nice
I know what to do next time I’m teaching on 4/1…
Also do it on 4/20.
You should start your defense saying the same thing.
And then just sit silently and spin around and around on the chair for 15 minutes.
Unorthodox, but the boldness we need for this brave new world.
Its the final boss.
You need to fight the windows update!
It’s* the final boss.
The worst is when it’s actually its, the one time it’s their time to shine and the whole thing just flies over their heads. Smh my head
Good luck on your defense! Goodspeed
Windows disagrees with the thesis.
So did the rest of the committee.
Oof
Is this a joke, or did your friend really fail? Would be interested to know what happened, if you don’t mind sharing
No, he passed.
What’s the thesis on?
And good luck!
Its on transients in astronomy. I’m not defending tho.
anything exciting?
Black holes eating stars? Aliens? something blow up?
hehe.I’d say ‘be gentle’, but uh, brutality is kind of part of the formality, right?
Good luck! You got this!
Every day, my work computers force a shutdown-update, take 20 minites, fail the update, recover from the failed update, and then force a 24-hour timer to do it again that I can’t turn off. IT doesn’t care.
If it’s happening every 24 hours it sounds like they’re the ones that set the policy.
Depending on how the windows network is set up, this may happen every time someone logs in
This might take several minutes
…or itcould take several hours
Then failed half way through, and needed another hour to “reverse changes”.
or itcould take several hours
only if you have a shitty computer full of garbage. My windows updates only take 2 minutes or less. even feature updates only take about 4 minutes to reboot.
Windows is only shitty if you don’t know how to use it. Just because you know what the buttons do doesn’t mean you know how to use it.
How does that “garbage” affect update time?
Trigger warning! Updating my linux systems takes 15 seconds ;)
Troll successful lol
My favorite windows update was when I was attending an onsite coding competition hosted my Microsoft. We were all in this large meeting hall that looked like a theater, and we spent first 10 minutes or so at the start of the competition just looking at Windows update, with the Microsoft rep apologizing to us, because his pc decided to do the “Forced update restart you cant postpone any more” literally two minutes into the presentation
When your dog food tastes like dog food
As a presenter would be mortified.
As an attendee, hilarious.
As an attendee, would be somewhat annoyed
As someone on the Internet, hilarious
That’s probably the presenter’s fault for not updating it earlier. Keep on top of your updates so they don’t force you to do it at an unfortunate time.
the thesis was on why you should move to Linux
