Microsoft reckons the accursed Windows 10 October 2018 Update is finally fit for business

The Register ^ | Mar 29, 2019 | Richard Speed

[dayglored]

Only took five months, and look, 19H1's almost here

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 10 1809, aka the Update of the Damned, is now ready for "broad deployment."

The announcement – which comes mere weeks before the next version of Windows 10, 19H1, is expected to put in an appearance – means that the Operating System update is ready to be unleashed on businesses.

Handy, because so far only the most ardent of Windows fans could describe the adoption figures of the disastrous update as anything better than flaccid. 1809, which Microsoft named the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, memorably debuted during a Surface event at the beginning of October before being unceremoniously pulled a few days later amid some distressing quality issues.

The update was quietly re-released in November and has been gradually plip-plopping onto compatible Windows 10 machines ever since. While Microsoft has kept schtum about just how many installations now have the update, estimates hover around the 26 per cent mark.

A far cry from the hysterical rate at which the April 2018 Update was emitted.

As of yesterday, the release is now on the Semi-Annual Channel (SAC), having been on the soon-to-be-culled Semi-Annual-Channel (Targeted) since November last year. According to Microsoft, customers should "begin deployment of each SAC release immediately to devices selected for early adoption and ramp up to full deployment at your discretion".

So start your engines. However, be sure to take a good, hard look at the support notes. There are a few issues even in the most recently patched version, bedevilling Internet Explorer 11 and systems with multiple audio devices. For the latter, Microsoft has said it is working on a fix to "be available in late March 2019".

Only a couple of days to go, team, so no pressure.

The most recent releases to the SAC have usually occurred three months or so before the next update. For this one it could be a matter of weeks. ®

[dayglored]

> I read this yesterday and it is the source of my assertion.

Aha. That article used very carefully nuanced, and thus easy-to-misinterpret, descriptions.

It -is- mostly fair to call Linux a "Unix-like" or "Unix-type" operating system. Even though it's entirely separate, it was designed to be "like Unix" in how it appears to the user.

And it -is- correct to note that all are "POSIX-compliant" operating systems. POSIX was developed as a standard that could apply not only to true Unix, but also to the various "Unix-like" operating systems, so that they could share certain common characteristics.

So as to my nit-pick... the phrase "Unix under the hood" says that if you lift the hood, you see Unix. Whereas if you lift Linux's hood, you see something that mostly looks like Unix to the user, but which in fact has no true Unix anywhere in it, and if you dig into its guts, it's completely separate.

Writers of tech articles are seldom knowledgeable in such differences. But they're important. In the 1980's when Richard Stallman was writing the GNU ("GNU's Not Unix") operating system, he was extremely careful to never look at any Unix source code. It was essential that there was no common code, since at the time Unix was under legal control. Stallman's yeoman development work was the real kickoff to the "Free and Open Source Software" movement that gave Linus Torvalds the tools he needed to create Linux and many other worthwhile technologies.

(It's unfortunate that Stallman and Torvalds are unpleasant persons, not to mention Socialists, but hey, they're brilliant and have done good work despite that.)

[daniel1212]

Linux releases major updates to the kernel with typically negligible hiccups. But the various distros do their own thing -- some are conservative and stable, like RedHat; others are bleeding-edge adventurous. Not surprisingly, the latter generate the most complaints about incompatibilities and breakage. Read up on "systemd" some time.

I am running Winver (paste that in the Run command to find out) 1809 and have had no real problems with Windows 8. 8.1 or 10, thank God, except for not recognizing one of the USB ports (it says) and losing a printer connection. And am able to get

In contrast, as explained, the many Linux distros i have tried have been challenging, and lacking in scope of easy customization, and the latest one I tried would not configure either of my printers or USB wireless. However, it did connect me via Ethernet (or so it said) even though it was not plugged into the NIC, and the only cables from the modem were hooked up to the printer.

I should have experimented to see if it was actually connecting via the USB wireless, which it said was not available. Comcast would be interested if it actually was connected via Ethernet since I cancelled its Internet to save about $40 and use the downstairs wireless (with permission) instead.

Thank God for what we have.

[Openurmind]

Man... I appreciate you sharing that history, it explains quite a bit. I see how I was misdirected and misunderstood the hierarchy, branches, and pseudo branches.

With a history like that it is a wonder any of them work at all let alone as well as they do for the most part. So many cooks in the kitchen making so many different dishes. lol

[TheNext]

We need to do a write in campaign to Sony to create an OS. It would be minimalist and be the greatest OS ever created. Lol.

[free_life]

Under Settings...Windows Updates...Advanced Options, you can pause Windows updates for up to 35 days. I will let the lemmings beta test this mess and wait for the fix update when the poo hits the fan.

[dayglored]

Good plan.

[dayglored]

Glad to hear you're doing well with Win10-1809. In the midst of all the noise and kerfluffle we must not lose sight of the fact that a ton of users do just fine with Windows 10, including the updates.

Linux, IMO, suffers from changing things just because they can. The beauty of open source software is also a major problem -- it won't hold still once it gets something right. Somebody always has a "better idea", and they're often half-baked.

My fondness for the RedHat (CentOS) family derives from that branch's relative stability. The flip side of that is that it is often significantly behind the curve of recent developments. Oh well. That's why I run both CentOS and Ubuntu -- the first is older and stable, the second is newer but a bit rickety at times.

Your networking conundrum is fascinating. Be sure to tell me what you find when you get it figured out. :-)

And yes, thank God for what we have.

[dayglored]

> Many of us have a large investment in time and money in Windows based applications that have no good alternatives on other platforms. And if you visit a large retailer like Costco 80% or more of the laptops and desktops they sell still have Microsoft operating systems.

And so it will remain, for a while. It's a surprisingly stable arrangement, and despite Microsoft's efforts to pull the rug out from under themselves, they're still hanging onto it, albeit prone and occasionally flapping in the breeze.

Linux totally owns the server world, from supercomputers* to most internet websites to the RaspberryPi and the IoT, and in the middle, the majority of engineering workstations. But it cannot, and I suspect never will, gain more than a niche percentage of the home user market for Office Apps, and business software that only runs on Windows.

Apple doesn't want MacOS to replace Windows as the dominant user platform. MacOS thrives precisely because it isn't for everyone. It's a significant market, but not the mass home/business market.

What will bring about the fall (though not the demise) of Windows will be that home users finally stop buying desktop/laptop computers, and switch over almost entirely to media devices. Very few Windows users outside business use it for anything except web access and email. Every year more switch from desktops or laptops to tablets, and the newer users are using phones.

After maybe 5, at most 10, more years, I expect Windows will be relegated to running business apps, and the die-hard gamers. The rest of the world will have moved on to other platforms, which BTW are already running some variant of Linux or Unix.

* Of the top 500 supercomputers in the world, all 500 operate on Linux. https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-totally-dominates-supercomputers/

[Still Thinking]

As keeper of the Windows Ping List I long for positive articles to post about what's going on in the Windows world.

I think I've detected a flaw in your strategy.

[SgtHooper]

LOL! You are in for a rude awakening!

[SgtHooper]

I installed the Win 10 1809 a few hours ago. No matter that I run Intel x64 and the file was named amd x64. All good so far. :-) I also image the C: drive routinely. It’s the only way to be sure!

[dayglored]

> I think I've detected a flaw in your strategy.

What? that I'm an eternal optimist? :-)

[dayglored]

The "AMD-64" vs. "X86-64" nomenclature makes little if any difference. Some of it is just marketing labels. There are a few Intel-only things in the most recent Intel (x86-84) CPUs that Windows 10 knows about and talks to, but that doesn't mean it won't run on an AMD CPU. And "AMD-64" was the default name for the 64-bit extensions of x86 because AMD got there first before Intel. Again, no big deal, they're very compatible.

The annoying thing is that Microsoft and Intel conspired to make the latest two generations of Intel CPUs INCOMPATIBLE with Windows 7. They claim it's because those newer CPUs have advanced security features that Win7 doesn't know about and thus can't enable.

Bull-biscuits. It's all about strong-arming Win7 users to migrate to Win10. Grrr-rr-r.

[topher]

MicroSoft = MicroStupid/MicroBroken in my book... Wait 5 to 10 years after a MicroBroken OS is released before using it. Then it might actually work...

[Still Thinking]

The OS is half-baked!

[fireman15]

What will bring about the fall (though not the demise) of Windows will be that home users finally stop buying desktop/laptop computers, and switch over almost entirely to media devices.

You have most likely studied that demographics of this, but I find this very difficult to believe. You can read your email on a tablet or even phone, but even with voice recognition software even to efficiently answer or create emails efficiently it really takes a keyboard. I have little one which work with a tablet using Bluetooth, but it is still not a very satisfactory method. Not that I haven't called things wrong before...

[dayglored]

> I find this very difficult to believe. You can read your email on a tablet or even phone, but even with voice recognition software even to efficiently answer or create emails efficiently it really takes a keyboard.

Your point is well taken. I do a lot of non-trivial email work, and it is significantly more difficult on a tablet, and there are some things that a touch-screen just can't do, if you're using a program with a user interface made for a mouse. Since I enjoy sitting in a recliner in the evenings reading FR on a tablet, and do a lot of replying, I found it necessary to get a keyboard/case for my iPad, which I found from this outfit: https://www.zagg.com/us/en_us/keyboards.

That made all the difference in the world for my use of the tablet. And it made it quite clear to me how a person could get along just fine "without a computer", if their use of it was for web and mail. So many applications that used to require a real computer are now available online -- Google Docs and similar services remove the need for local copies of Office, which was the big remaining local application suite.

I can't really claim to have studied the demographics in any depth, just superficially. But it does seem evident that the world has changed, and most people don't need a full-up computer at home any more. And they're discovering when it comes time to replace or upgrade their existing desktop or laptop, that a tablet is sufficient for their needs.

[fireman15]

But it does seem evident that the world has changed, and most people don't need a full-up computer at home any more.

I have to admit to having purchased more than my share of tablets and accessories for them over the years. None of them have ever come close to being a laptop replacement. Do you have a tablet that you would do your taxes on? Not if you itemize. Do you have a tablet with enough storage space to do any serious video or even photo editing?

One of the reasons SUVs are so popular is that people like to have a vehicle that can perform in challenging conditions. People like devices that are more capable than what they use it for most of the time. Microsoft and Apple have both predicted for at least ten years that tablets would replace laptops and desktops. This has been about as accurate as global warming computer models.

The only thing that I will concede is that because they are cheaper, we have purchased more tablets in the past few years than laptops. But we use them for reading books and emails, internet browsing and entertainment. Occasionally I make posts using a tablet, but infrequently and the auto-spell and predictive auto complete always results in screw ups, and it is much more difficult to add html even just italicizing.

[daniel1212]

Glad to hear you're doing well with Win10-1809. In the midst of all the noise and kerfluffle we must not lose sight of the fact that a ton of users do just fine with Windows 10, including the updates.

I forgot to add that W/10 drops 5G wireless (which before it did not even enable), though the Troubleshooter will reset the USB adapter (and Windows says I have the latest driver). But I see Linux users having the same problem.

Linux, IMO, suffers from changing things just because they can. The beauty of open source software is also a major problem -- it won't hold still once it gets something right. Somebody always has a "better idea", and they're often half-baked.

A fair synopsis.

Your networking conundrum is fascinating. Be sure to tell me what you find when you get it figured out. :-)

I did. Running Linux (MX Linux or Mint 19) under Oracle VM then it connects to the Internet as Ethernet, Wired connection 1, as it did running Linux off a USB, but if i physically remove the USB wireless then the connection fails, meaning it is really connected via wireless. And the only networking hardware MX Linux says it detects (Mint does not name anything) is a Intel Gigabit Ethernet controller, but which I do not have or use on this AMD machine. As

And yes, thank God for what we have.

Amen, esp. salvation living faith in the sinless shed blood of the Lord Jesus.

[dayglored]

> Do you have a tablet that you would do your taxes on? Not if you itemize.

Indeed, I use an installed, paid H&RB app on my Mac. But I note that the same outfit provides a free web-based service that can do basic itemization. I suspect a lot of folks are finding that adequate and easy enough.

> Do you have a tablet with enough storage space to do any serious video or even photo editing?

No way for serious video editing, but that's not a large percentage of users; similarly engineering simulation, etc. is a small minority; professional photo editing likewise. But most people aren't doing pro work -- they're using an online photo editing site to play with a few canned filters, crop, and post a JPG on social media, where pro-level editing is overkill and thus inapplicable.

I'm just speaking from loose observations, not solid data.