- Oct 16, 2014
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I found this interesting discussion on Microsoft's policy to "Force" updates on Windows 10 devices/computers, and taking away users choice to select updates.
You can disable the update service or block it with a firewall- but this will prevent you from installing any of the available updates. And if you don't do this, you must install ALL of the available updates.
I can see this causing some issues:
1>Updates will download at random times. Although the BITS service is supposed to use only idle-bandwidth, but experience suggests that if you're on an already slow connection and Windows starts downloading an update in the background, browsing becomes almost impossible.
2>Microsoft pushes out bad updates at times, just this last year, MS pushed a Bluetooth driver which caused my Bluetooth to stop working, and a webcam driver which caused my webcam to freeze. Interestingly, these updates were marked as "important" and i had the "Windows update driver install" option in device manager disabled when this happened. Apparently, Windows 8.1 did not honor this setting. In Windows 10, you cannot set updates to "Notify Only". Updates will install automatically. There's a tool made available by Microsoft which might solve repeated bad-driver install loops (you uninstall the driver, but Windows re-installs the bad driver again in the next update check), but this tool only works "after the incident". By default, Windows 10 will download/install ALL updates, then if you encounter a problem, you have to remove the update, and use the Microsoft tool to blacklist it.
3>Windows updates might install something which you don't really want on your computer. Like the "Diagnostics Tracking Service" installed in Windows 7/8.1 by Windows updates, about 2 months back. In Windows 10, you cannot avoid these kind of updates- you must install them, then uninstall them, and then use the tool MS provided to block future installation of this update.
4>Metered connections don't always work. For example, in my computer, I only have the ability to set up WiFi connections as metered. I have a 3G USB dongle which connects to the USB port. This is obviously not a WiFi connection, and hence cannot be set as metered. In Windows 10, updates would download over this connection, and eat up my meager 2GB per month download limit in no time. I use this only for emails on the move, not for downloading stuff.
5>Real-time performance of the PC might take a hit. Suppose you're recording studio-quality music on your computer. And Windows 10 decides to install an update in the background. This update will use up PC resources, and might result in clipping/jittering of the recorded audio. You must disconnect from the internet before performing such tasks.
I for one, am not sold on the argument that this will dramatically reduce Windows infections globally.
Like people have pointed out in the original discussion, almost all infections in Windows PCs are caused by the end user's inability to understand what's going on- he requests the browser to download a song, the browser starts downloading song.exe, and he executes this file thinking it's a song- just an example. Yes unpatched vulnerabilities can be extremely dangerous if exploited, but in the real life, when was the last time you've seen an average users computer getting infected by exploiting unpatched OS vulnerabilities in a modern 7/8.1 system?
This is of course my personal opinion, and I have been using PCs for a pretty long time.
I'd be interested to hear what you guys think about this move by Microsoft.
I think Windows 10 is a wonderful OS. Sure there are bugs, but these will definitely be fixed soon.
But this forced update policy is something which by most chances is not going away.
You can disable the update service or block it with a firewall- but this will prevent you from installing any of the available updates. And if you don't do this, you must install ALL of the available updates.
I can see this causing some issues:
1>Updates will download at random times. Although the BITS service is supposed to use only idle-bandwidth, but experience suggests that if you're on an already slow connection and Windows starts downloading an update in the background, browsing becomes almost impossible.
2>Microsoft pushes out bad updates at times, just this last year, MS pushed a Bluetooth driver which caused my Bluetooth to stop working, and a webcam driver which caused my webcam to freeze. Interestingly, these updates were marked as "important" and i had the "Windows update driver install" option in device manager disabled when this happened. Apparently, Windows 8.1 did not honor this setting. In Windows 10, you cannot set updates to "Notify Only". Updates will install automatically. There's a tool made available by Microsoft which might solve repeated bad-driver install loops (you uninstall the driver, but Windows re-installs the bad driver again in the next update check), but this tool only works "after the incident". By default, Windows 10 will download/install ALL updates, then if you encounter a problem, you have to remove the update, and use the Microsoft tool to blacklist it.
3>Windows updates might install something which you don't really want on your computer. Like the "Diagnostics Tracking Service" installed in Windows 7/8.1 by Windows updates, about 2 months back. In Windows 10, you cannot avoid these kind of updates- you must install them, then uninstall them, and then use the tool MS provided to block future installation of this update.
4>Metered connections don't always work. For example, in my computer, I only have the ability to set up WiFi connections as metered. I have a 3G USB dongle which connects to the USB port. This is obviously not a WiFi connection, and hence cannot be set as metered. In Windows 10, updates would download over this connection, and eat up my meager 2GB per month download limit in no time. I use this only for emails on the move, not for downloading stuff.
5>Real-time performance of the PC might take a hit. Suppose you're recording studio-quality music on your computer. And Windows 10 decides to install an update in the background. This update will use up PC resources, and might result in clipping/jittering of the recorded audio. You must disconnect from the internet before performing such tasks.
I for one, am not sold on the argument that this will dramatically reduce Windows infections globally.
Like people have pointed out in the original discussion, almost all infections in Windows PCs are caused by the end user's inability to understand what's going on- he requests the browser to download a song, the browser starts downloading song.exe, and he executes this file thinking it's a song- just an example. Yes unpatched vulnerabilities can be extremely dangerous if exploited, but in the real life, when was the last time you've seen an average users computer getting infected by exploiting unpatched OS vulnerabilities in a modern 7/8.1 system?
This is of course my personal opinion, and I have been using PCs for a pretty long time.
I'd be interested to hear what you guys think about this move by Microsoft.
I think Windows 10 is a wonderful OS. Sure there are bugs, but these will definitely be fixed soon.
But this forced update policy is something which by most chances is not going away.
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