I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, philosophically, the user should be in charge of their PC, and updates should happen at a time of their choosing.
On the other hand, people are idiots. Especially the type of people who think they know everything but in reality don't. The type that will search for registry hacks or scripts that disable updates, and proceed to live without any security patches, putting not only their own system/data at risk, but others too.
It's probably a necessary evil that MS forces security patches on users.
What isn't so forgivable is them pushing all the other crap on people, or why the updates take so fucking long on shutdown/startup. That's what they need to improve. Far fewer people would care about avoiding updates if a reboot after an update was imperceptibly different to any normal startup, like it is on Linux.
MS is a $3tn company. They can achieve this if they want to, but they see spending money on Windows as a waste of money - why improve something when you've already cornered the market? It doesn't benefit them. It doesn't make them more money. Windows is dominant either way, they get their licensing fees either way. Improving Windows damages Microsoft.
You're the reason Microsoft has to force it on the rest of us.
Everyone would still be able to shut down without updating, if people actually rebooted once in a while when Windows asked. Instead of leaving it in a perpetual sleep cycle of multiple years, and then blaming Microsoft when things go tits up.
At least the Pro version is still able to do so, since then the user can blame the IT department instead.
I think you mean enterprise? I don’t believe Pro allows you to completely disable auto updates. Furthest I think you can do is turn them off for at most 2 weeks?
Unless you mean with group policies or disabling services, which I believe is still possible even in Home.
Agreed, and I say that in every one of these discussions. :)
The only time auto updates should be disabled is on machines with an uptime requirement, which should have regularly scheduled maintenance which includes updating their software. And of course any critical security updates should be installed asap even if it’s outside the normal maintenance window.
I agree 100%. I don't like autoreboots, but fully understand why they exist. People, in general, just stopped rebooting regularly. I have disabled autoreboot for a select few PCs in our environment, but I follow up with them within one week after I get notified that their computer updated and they haven't rebooted. Most people in this group reboot within a day or two. I usually have to remind only one person.
The computer ain't gonna tell me when to restart. I decide that, not it. And it's not getting regular restarts. Hell, my phone bugs me about restarting after i don't do it for a month, and the fucking notification won't fuck off. Can't bloody stand it
People who shutdown their desktop computer everytime they're done using it are so bizarre to me. Why? What are you trying to protect? I only reboot when updates are needed and otherwise my computer is on 24/7. Been doing this since ~2004 and have never had an issue.
Edit: I'm not saying you're wrong if you shutdown everytime. I'm just saying it's weird to me because it hasn't been necessary since the mid 2000's or probably earlier.
Yup, Also, I hate having a million LEDs lighting up my house like it's Christmas year round. I sleep better when it's actually dark. I make a point to only get stuff that's actually off when I turn it off.
You can put it to sleep/energy saving mode. If you Google how to you can also put it to hybernate.
I don't think the original commenter does it, but I recommend it.
Or I could just not do any of that and turn it off. It doesn't hurt anything to turn your PC off. I promise. Especially since standby mode comes with those stupid LEDs I hate, and hibernate takes longer to boot back up then a cold boot.
A shutdown and a fresh start also deletes files that aren't used anymore and the PC does check itself for hardware problems. Starting a PC could take a long time in the past, but my current 7 year old system starts in about 10 seconds, a newer system could start faster. I also turn off all peripherals like monitors and printer etc. with one switch after the computer is off, to make sure there is not a single light still wasting electricity. Standby devices in a common houshold use so much electricity, that it amounts to a lot of money over a year. But I guess we are still in the phase of convinience over climate and people have money to waste too.
That seems like a bad faith argument, but I'll indulge. Gasoline internal combustion engine aren't made to run indefinitely and have many components that can wear over time and require regular maintenance. Modern computer hardware has no problem with the task and my "newest" computer which was built back in 2016 has run pretty much non-stop for 8 years now with 0 failure. At this point the hardware is more likely to be replaced due to age than failure. The only argument I can see making sense is maybe the cost of electricity aspect; but even then modern power supplies are so efficient I'd be surprised if it costs me more than $10/yr. to leave my PC on so I don't it's a very strong argument.
For anyone who wants to do this, use Kill Windows Update. It's simple. and it works. There's several million reasons why conventional wisdom demands that you NOT do it, but I don't give a fuck and if you don't either, then this program is for you.
Updates patch major security vulnerabilities. It’s cute that you think nuclear secrets existing in your hard drive are the only reason why you should care if your PC is infected with malware but it isn’t. Malware can steal your keystrokes, granting attackers access to your bank accounts and every other place you sign into online. Malware also uses background processes to do bad things, so your “multi-day” processes will take even longer when your computers resources are being hogged by nasty stuff.
Without intending to circlejerk, the only linux updates that I have encountered that required a reboot were kernel updates, and they don't force a reboot, they just don't apply until you do. And when you do update the kernel, the update is downloaded and set up without interrupting anything. You can just power off when you're done, and next time you power on, it's already updated. None of those "Please wait 5-10 minutes, and don't power off your PC" messages.
But that's how Windows updates go. They update and then ask for a reboot, which you do when you switch the PC off. The people than complain about windows updating when they logged on are people that delayed the security updates so long that they were beyond critical y the time windows said that enough is enough.
Yeah but for some reason Windows updates hang on the login screen for what seems like an eternity on shutdown and startup. No idea what Windows is doing, but it's super frustrating.
We already have them, they called Windows XP and 7.
Although this is an issue, but it's pretty safe to say that "it's their fault". Also Pop!_OS has the annoying for me pop-up once in a while that tells me that there are updates available. With this users probably will still update sometimes.
