Posted on 05/23/2018 3:07:09 PM PDT by dayglored
[Dayglored note: This problem report involves AVAST! antivirus breaking the April Update. AVAST personnel deny the claim...]
Apps fingered in vanishing desktop snafu
Updated The troubled Windows 10 April 2018 update is facing another issue, with some users losing access to their desktop after installing the new code.
The problem, which first appeared in a posting on a Microsoft support forum on 14 May, has gained a bit of traction over the last two days with users taking to social media as they go through the three stages of installing this update: frustration, fury and despair.
The affected users report that after accepting the request to "restart and install" Windows 10 and waiting the requisite hour or so for the update do its stuff, users can find themselves staring at a blank desktop with no icons. An alarming message stating that the Desktop file could not be accessed is then shown.
The error suggests that something fishy has happened at a system file level.
The Register spoke to Computer Cellar, an independent computer repair outfit in Durham, North Carolina, which took to Reddit to point the finger at the Avast antivirus application after spotting what appeared to be a commonality in the wave of complaints. The shop recommended that uninstalling the AV tool would likely be a good idea before letting the April 2018 Update loose on a working copy of Windows 10.
Afflicted users have found that none of the Windows 10 built-in repair options deal with the issue and have had to resort to creating a fresh install of the operating system. Microsoft helpfully provides a tool to do this very thing, although you will need a working PC on hand to make it work – something that might be a problem if your only PC has been borked.
Antivirus tools have long been a bit of a bête noire as far as Windows 10 has been concerned, with Microsoft chastising some vendors for making naughty calls to places where they shouldn't in the Windows kernel. Redmond also attracted the ire of Kaspersky for allegedly removing third-party antivirus software during updates – before the antivirus company backed down in August 2017.
While the issue is relatively widespread, it does not appear to affect a catastrophic number of users. Windows 10 users who have already successfully installed the update are not affected.
The Register asked Microsoft to discuss the matter and was told it is probing the situation. We also requested a comment from Avast. ®
A spokesperson for Avast told El Reg:
"We have tested this and couldn't identify any problems affecting Avast Antivirus consumer users specifically. Online user comments show that many are unfortunately experiencing problems updating to Windows 10 ‘1803’. We cannot rule out that a small number of Avast users may be having difficulties updating, too, but we don't see any indications that this is caused by Avast."
Microsoft really wants you to use THEIR antivirus (for Win10 that's "Windows Defender"; for Win7 it's "Microsoft Security Essentials".
Everything else is a little more dicey as far as stability. But MS's antivirus ratings aren't as good as some of the others.
That is good to hear. I'm suspicious that it's more than just AVAST, but it may be a while before all the facts come out, if ever.
For those with Win10 who might be experiencing this issue:
“Windows 10 1803 Upgrade Issues - The Black Desktop Of Death And How To Fix It”
http://www.thecomputercellar.com/windows-10-1803-upgrade-issues-the-black-desktop-of-death-and-how-to-fix-it
Google tags your unique machine identifiers. Google adware on pages tags you even if you are not logged in. Use an ad blocker like ghostery or a browser like Brave
“Google tags your unique machine identifiers. Google adware on pages tags you even if you are not logged in. Use an ad blocker like ghostery or a browser like Brave”
—
I’m too lazy to use Ghostery, Ublock Origin works fine. Also, if you give Opera browser a whirl it, uses a build-in proxy (you can switch it off, tho.
You probably already tried this but it can’t hurt..have you tried toggling the ScrLk (Scroll Lock) key? It changes the inputting behavior in Excel.
I've thought for many years that, it's the left leaning corporate culture within the big tech companies that drives down standards of excellence among the staff, and results in substandard, crappy products.
Unless the corporate culture changes, the staff will continue being substandard, and so will the products.
> “Windows 10 1803 Upgrade Issues - The Black Desktop Of Death And How To Fix It”
Excellent!
Exactly. Yet another user and password of the 50 or so that I have to memorize and remember otherwise the software may not work. Thank goodness I had it written down. Btw, you are not suppose to write it down. And I feel sorry for someone who is not tech savvy.
I just updated our Windows 10 machine running Avast! without any problems.
I ended up with an F drive on my computer that was supposed to be invisible and kept getting a message that it was low on space. I found instructions on how to make it invisible and it’s apparently one of the problems with this update.
It's still there. You just have to know how to find it. Do a search of "how to boot win 10 into safe mode."
Interesting - thanks!
Filed under “learn something new everyday”
Unfortunately BitLocker interrupts the process but I’ll play with it more..
Where do you get a copy of Win 8.1?
Got 10 on a current HP laptop and absolutely detest it.
Is your Win 10 machine running just fine, and doing everything as well as you expect it to, and you have good antivirus and antispyware protection, outside of Windows own efforts?
Then quit allowing Win 10 updates; you likely do not need them as they “fix” nothing that concerns you.
And yes you can stop Win 10 updates.
No matter how your system connects to the Internet, whether by a cable to a modem or router, or by Wifi somehow, you can set a setting for that specific connection - the specific “network” connection you use - to “metered”, which says to Windows you pay for that connection by some method that charges you by the minute or hour. It does not matter if that is true or not, you can set it that way.
Believing you must pay for your Internet connection time, (once your connection is set to “metered”), and knowing not how long the Win 10 update will take, the Win 10 update process is forced to stop and ask you if it is ok to run the update.
I have found it does not ask until after I have an activated working Internet connection, and once I decline the update, it does not ask again until I have either shut off that connection and then reconnected it, or have shut down the machine and then started it back up, and made an active Internet connection again.
You are their unpaid beta tester.
The only reason I look at these threads is to make me smile at all that I'm listening. Been using Linux since before Redhat was a thing.
You cannot turn off Windows 10 updates completely or permanently.
None of the so-called "disable updates" mechanisms that abound on the internet are reliable, much less permanent, other than removing internet access. They all turn out to "defer" updates, not "disable" them, or they merely disable automatic installation -- you do the installation manually, but the updates are still forced on you.
Microsoft has stated repeatedly that you cannot avoid Win10 updates. Period. You can only defer them for various lengths of time based on which edition of Win10 and how you manage your machines. On Microsoft's forum site:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/how-can-i-disable-updates-in-windows-10/40b37a2b-e9f3-4766-9e44-44ab33af488e
we see that using GPO, "feature updates" can be deferred for up to a year, and that appears to be the limit. "Security updates" (a.k.a."quality updates") cannot be deferred as long as "feature updates", about a month.
Microsoft has also stated repeatedly that they will not tolerate Windows machines that are not doing updates being on the internet, and religiously identifies workarounds and hacks and makes them fail. MS has lots of capable engineers whose job is to anticipate and defeat attempts to avoid updates.
The hack of disabling/killing the update service is unreliable because Windows will turn it back on if it sees that it's off. Repeatedly killing it is merely a battle against a stealthy intelligent opponent who has all the advantages.
The hack of setting the network connection to "metered" (to avoid downloading updates) only works with WiFi, not Ethernet. There are random uncertified programs that fiddle with the system networking in undocumented ways to allow Ethernet to be "metered" (e.g. https://www.rizonesoft.com/downloads/windows-10-update-switch/) but they are not guaranteed to work, or to be bug-free, or even malware-free.
If you are a masochist, consider the "Windows Update for Business" settings, which give the most control and longest defer times:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-wufb-group-policy
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-configure-wufb#pause-quality-updates
But regardless, you will lose the battle, because if you're connected to the internet, you WILL take the updates eventually.
Period.
That said, I invite anyone who truly believes they have a working method for completely and permanently avoiding Win10 updates, to describe the method, and then wait a year or so, and demonstrate that their so-called "block" method wasn't merely a "defer" method.
> You are their unpaid beta tester.
Correction: YOU ARE PAYING MICROSOFT for the privilege of being their beta tester.
Your statement applies more accurately to Linux, where you still get to deal with bugs, but at least the OS is free so you're not out the cost of a Windows license.
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