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Posted on 03/13/2019 8:06:09 PM PDT by dayglored
Install. Uninstall. Boot. Repeat
Microsoft has quietly updated a support document to let us know that Windows 10 will have a crack at uninstalling borked updates – just in time for patch Tuesday.
Windows 10 endures enjoys a near constant stream of updates and patches to, as Microsoft put it, "keep your device secure and running at peak efficiency". This is all well and good, but as a significant section of customers would agree, things sometimes go wrong and a hasty uninstall is required.
Microsoft has therefore tweaked Windows 10 to spot a recovery from a failed startup (after all, a reboot after a patch seems de rigueur, even in 2019) and bring a hobnailed boot down on the offending update.
A cheery message saying "We removed some recently installed updates to recover your device from a startup failure" will be shown to the affected users as Windows 10 attempts to fix things by uninstalling recently installed updates.
The uninstallation only occurs when all other automated attempts at fixing things have failed.
To stop Windows Update trying to install what Microsoft has delicately described as "problematic" updates again, the borked patches are blocked for 30 days while engineers work on the issue. Then Windows 10 will have another go.
All editions of Windows 10 enjoy the automated de-borkage according to the support article.
We contacted Microsoft to check if this functionality would be able to deal with patches that didn't affect startup but still left the OS a sad place to be, such as the recent 1809 update that caused much upset among Destiny 2 players, or whether it could back out the likes of the whiffy firmware inflicted on some Surface Pro 4 owners over the past year, but we have yet to receive a response. ®
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If you have Windows Enterprise LTSB you can avoid borked updates.
No new features. Just security and maintenance fixes.
Patch Tuesday. Infamously known as Bork Tuesday.
This is why we use Win 7 at work and I use a Mac at home.
Microsoft has now put band-aids on top of bandages on top of crap updates ... the ONLY way to run a stable Microsoft system these days is to disable updates all together ...
If you run LTSB, you get only fixes that enhance security and maintenance.
None of the new feature crap Microsoft foists on other Wndows versions.
I prefer long term stability over dubious new features that don’t add real value to Windows.
Borked is what the Democrats did to judge Robert Bork during his confirmation hearings in the Senate.
Feb Update trashed the root sector of my hard drive, infinite reboot and unable to patch.
Yep, and that travesty was so egregious that it put the word "bork" into the language, as both a verb and an adjective.
Me
Vista
10
8 was no prize either.
All you need is Windows 10 Professional and you can change the settings of the group policy editor to not take automatic updates. You still get an annoying nag notification from Windows Security. There are plenty of articles about how to edit the registry to disable automatic updates if you do not have Windows Pro or above.
The problem is that Microsoft's goal for several years now has been to eventually get Windows users switched to a subscription type service. All these constant updates are probably at least partially intended to condition users for the changes coming in the future.
If it were not that I have some much time and money invested in software that runs on Windows and not on other operating systems, I would have switched. The other issue is that most new laptops come with Windows installed and many are difficult to get all the features enabled. I have one that is several years old that no one has figured out how to get a version of Linux.
I still have my old Lenovo laptop running on Windows 7, but the thing is literally falling apart.
I changed the registry on my machine and it took 3-4 cold reboots for the registry change to take.
I guessed that the OS was having trouble with an update, and it wouldn't look at the changed registry until it got an all-clear behind the scenes about the OS updates.
I had to screw around with the UEFI boot option on my Toshiba laptop to test a Ubuntu OS, and it borked my Windows installation.
Took me an hour to figure out how to get it back.
You probably have a similar issue - you have to screw with UEFI stuff, and the machine won't like it.
“The UEFI settings screen allows you to disable Secure Boot, a useful security feature that prevents malware from hijacking Windows or another installed operating system. However, it can also prevent other operating systems — including Linux distributions and older versions of Windows like Windows 7 — from booting and installing.”
It is actually a cheap little Windows 10 Chinese touchscreen Walmart / SamsClub special, called a Nextbook. They sold a ton of them and there was an active community of people trying to get the most out of them. The issue was a lack of certain essential drivers. So no one that I know of was ever able to get full functionality. I wasted quite a bit of time myself, but it always turned into a dead end. It was things like no wifi, no sound, no touch screen and touchpad drivers and stability problems. It has limited resources so I am sure that Linux would make more efficient use of the thing if it were not for the lack of drivers.
“It has limited resources so I am sure that Linux would make more efficient use of the thing if it were not for the lack of drivers.”
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Too bad it wouldn’t install on your machine - Linux brings it’s own array of drivers that can be pretty impressive.
Some of the obscure distros (versions) of Linux may not be so impressive, but if you stay close to the Ubuntu/Mint family things usually work out okay driver-wise. Most of the time the Linux drivers have done just fine from the get-go for me.
Get ready... It’s going to get real slow around here...
I don’t know because I don’t use it, but does win 10 have a “restore” tool like Win 7? Just in case so you can return it back to the state it was in before they do these Borks?
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