We have exactly two mission critical Windows dependent apps we need to run at my office which is otherwise entirely Apple Mac. Both of these are Cloud based database for which the companies that maintain these databases absolutely require a Windows interface. The last three forced updates at my office has broken the use of these interfaces. . . and one of those three hosed the entire virtual machine so badly it would not drop back to a recovery point or even allow the re-installation of ANY version of Windows at all. . . even after removing every vestige of the hosed Windows 10 install!
After talking to Microsoft, their advice was to reformat the virtual drive (I.e. recreate it) and re-install from scratch. I had to do just that.
This occurred despite the fact I had locked down the Windows 10 system from accepting ANY updates at all. Microsoft ignored those settings and pushed through an update anyway. I researched this and discovered that they have changed their lockouts. You CAN lock-out the updates by telling the system you have a metered internet connection if you connect via WIFI. . . in which case it will not automatically download the updates. However, we use Ethernet. . . and if you use a wired connection, Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom does NOT allow such a lock-out! It ignores that setting, and goes ahead and downloads and installs the update regardless of your settings!
A half-hour AFTER I had re-created the new virtual-machine, the user on that machine announced that the Windows virtual-machine had announced that it wanted to install a new Windows 10 update! She was given a now or later option. I had her select the later option and immediately had her shut down the virtual machine. We made an exact copy of the entire 68GB virtual drive. She now starts up the Windows 10 instance, does what is necessary, and then quits the entire virtual machine, not giving it a chance to update! If it does accidentally update, I have a back-up virtual drive I can copy and in a couple of minutes we are back in business. Got my fingers crossed that this will do the trick!
That's basically what it did to my desktop. It seemed to have hosed the boot record entirely. The two big Windows installations that I still work with part time are running it in a virtual machine environment. We were assuming that was the bullet-proof way to run it. Thanks for the heads-up. But, if it hoses your VM server, then, you are truly hosed.
The method I described earlier for modifying the Windows Update service to "Manual" is a good, safe way to avoid the automatic update problem, and still allow you to manually trigger an update when you want. Although this is what I did, I still sat right there after manually triggering an update, and watch it kill my desktop without any indication that there was a problem.
The bottom line is that my particular desktop exceeds all the hardware requirements for Windows 10. If Microsoft isn't sure, then they shouldn't publish the requirements.