Microsoft Windows updates while it's in use

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I don't seem to have any problems with Windows updates in general. Mine auto update at like 3am if the computer is active and not in sleep mode. I can't recall any time it's broken any drivers. I'd say my Mac computers are the most stable for sure but I've had good luck with Windows in general EXCEPT for Windows Me which was the worst OS they every released. I didn't like Vista either but the rest have been fine. I run 11 on all my PC's now. "Me" had an incredible amount of issues and was buggy. I probably reinstalled it every year on our PC just to keep it running right.

I've never had a Windows PC decide to update while I'm using it because I'm always sleeping at 3am. I'd suggest you check your settings and adjust your "Active Hours" so it will never update during that time range.

The about the last year Windblows Update has been adding useless stuff that you may or may not see in the lower right hand corner on the task bar. Things like local temperature, News, Microsoft Store and a few other totally useless things. Those can be gotten rid of easily in the Taskbar settings. Plus you may or may not still be able to completely shut off the Auto part of Updates. That's because of windows Defender being changed. I have not tried it yet, but I read in a forum that completely disabling Defender should work, but you had then better have a hardware type firewall at access to replace it. If all this baloney MS is implementing is a peek at Windblows 11 then I'll be using 10 till hell freezes over.

I just overhauled a half dozen Lenovo Tiny desktops and having to do the full spectrum of updates is a pain the first time around. Getting W-10 was the easy part, it just downloads from Microsoft on to a USB and each computer had a digital license in it already.

I've been so impressed by these Tiny Desktops that I bought one to replace my HP-Z600. They are incredibly capable and fast little computers in a 7" square by 1.5 inch box so tough you could pound in nails with it. One may still need a good GPU and regular type Work Station for rendering or other power hungry work. If any of you are interested in a "Tiny", one buy one with at least a GEN 8 Intel cpu. I bought mine as a bare bones and put the fastest CPU, two SSD's and 32 gigs of ram. It is also W-11 compatible. Far as I'm concerned towers are dead except for the most demanding users.

[Thomas Piccione]

What? Like running a 32-bit app on a 64-bit machine? Why would you want to? But... If you must... It can be done. All the way back to OS 10.4 (Tiger).

Not anymore; If you want a new machine, you're not running 32 bit apps natively, and if they're MacOS only, not at all. Versions of MacOS since 10.14 do not support 32 bit apps, and dual booting or emulating an older OS isn't supported. I know things like Parallels exist, but they are not a silver bullet and will only get you a Windows for ARM install on a new Mac. If you need to run 32 bit applications and modern software, then you're looking at at carrying around multiple devices.

Windows 10's silly updates and worsening search are an inconvenience, but both can be worked around or put up with. Being flat out unable to run software is more than just an annoyance.

[Dave Macaulay]

I haven't had Windows force an update while I'm working. I may have them scheduled overnight - I think I have opened a pc in the morning and found nothing open.
It will pop up "update and reboot now?" but I can choose not to. It has been annoying if I decide to reboot to try and eliminate show weird bug and it does an update, there is no way to reboot without updating at that point.
And it's generally on the second Tuesday of the month, rarely otherwise.
The updates may be pretty important. This week's included a patch for a pretty brutal vuln allowing silent takeover of a system, being actively used. I doubt we're a worthwhile target for state level hackers but it's best to be safe as possible.
Please don't bother recommending crapple. No thanks.
Linux (or other Unix types) are probably best for security but I'm comfortable with MS and not changing now.

[Mike Blakesley]

On my office computer Windows pops up a box in the bottom corner that says "Updates are available, click here to install." So I click here, let it do its thing, and then the next day I get the same box again. (This thing is getting pretty old anyway -- I inherited it from my mother in law who died in 2017 -- so I need to think about replacing it.)

[Randy Stankey]

Being flat out unable to run software is more than just an annoyance.

I'm sorry but I just haven't experienced that, except for one game I got long ago. The developer was bought out and, subsequently, went under so it wasn't being maintained, anyway. I had stopped using it long before it quit working.

The fix I alluded to let you run a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit machine by interleaving two 32-bit words into one 64-bit word. The computer didn't know the difference. You could switch between the old, 32-bit OS and the current, 64-bit OS by rebooting and selecting which one you wanted.

The OS 11 to OS 13 gap comes because of an update to the Bluetooth module but that can be patched, too. Frankly, I just don't feel the need to go that far.

The only times I have had incompatibility issues came because other people, using Windows, came to me with document files from old software that wouldn't run on their computers. It was up to me to extract information from those old documents and export it to apps that they could use. I did it using my current computer, a MacPro 3,1 built in 2008.

Currently, my only real compatibility issues come from Adobe Creative Suite. I'm using CS-4 which is well past EOL. I don't care to update because, A) it's too expensive and, B) because there's no stinkin' way I'm going to buy in to their subscription model. Instead, I'm transitioning to GIMP and Inkscape. They do everything I want and 90% of my files open in those apps without a hitch. For the few that don't translate, I keep a copy of the old OS on my machine and boot back to it when I need. I have four hard drives on this computer, in internal bays. The last one has a bootable partition on it, containing the OS and those few apps that run on it.

I have an old computer. I know that but I'm just no position to pay for another one, regardless of the brand. Someday, I'll get a new one when I have the funds. Until then, I'm happy with the one I have. It does everything I want it to. If I ever have an issue, my girlfriend has a current model MacBook that I can use to bridge my workflow.

Compatibility is little more than an afterthought, for me, even with a 15+ year old computer.

[Thomas Piccione]

Compatibility is little more than an afterthought, for me, even with a 15+ year old computer.

Legacy compatibility is so good for you specifically because you're running an older computer. This sort of compatibility is not possible on Apple's new machines, full stop. They made an architecture swap and this sort of compatibility is not a thing anymore, not even close. Even before the switch to ARM, when they dropped support for 32 bit apps, you'd better hope whoever developed the software you depend on was able to port it to 64 bit.

Anything even remotely modern from Apple, and support for legacy applications is out the Window(s).

Unfortunately, running a 15 year old computer is not a good or sustainable options for me and a lot of other people.

[Randy Stankey]

Yes, you can run 32-bit on 64-bit machines. You just have to know how.

[Marco Giustini]

Well, I'd say that Microsoft is also somewhat stuck between a rock and a hard place... while I loathe the amount of control they're taking away from power users, I can understand the policies for the millions of potential zombie PCs out there, that would otherwise never see any updates and almost certainly would become part of some botnet or have their local hard drives and shares encrypted...
.

I don’t mean to defend MS but I’m glad someone sees this side of the medal too.
MS are trying to avoid being the ones with the more vulnerable OS. Way too many people used to just disable updates with windows 7. Hence MS forced their hand.
can that be improved? By all means. But I feel it’s improved a lot from the early days of windows 10 and even windows 7.

for windows 10 to force an upgrade I think you might have ignored many of their ‘please upgrade’ messages.

its much less intrusive now - but it’s normal to just ignore the option to ‘shutdown’ or ‘update and shutdown’ until after many weeks they just remove the ‘shutdown’ option and you’re forced to update.

heck, the PC now updates, restarts, completes the updates and THEN shutdown. This to avoid the dreaded ‘finishing updating windows 10’ when you start working the following day.

[Frank Cox]

Actually, I've never seen a "please upgrade" message on that laptop, ever.

It occasionally replaces "shutdown" and "restart" with "update and shutdown" and "update and restart" on the main menu, but that's it.

I turn the laptop on when I walk into the projection room to start everything else at the beginning of the night and I turn the laptop off after the show when I switch the other stuff off.

When it's running I use Firefox to talk to the cinema server.

And that's literally all I ever do with it. I've never tried to do anything else with it or bothered to go poking around on it at all.

[Marco Giustini]

Is that a ‘Home’ version maybe? My PCs send several messages in various shapes and forms before getting a bit invasive.
I think eventually windows shows some dialogue with options and if no answer is given it might decide you’re given silent assent?

as Steve said try changing your active hours.

in the end I feel an upgrade strategy should be part of using a computer (any computer). Disabling updates IMHO should not be an option unless the computer is offline. And windows home should not be used at work, the clue is in the name ?

[Steve Guttag]

So long as I OWN the computer, the option to not update should ALWAYS be available. It is not the operating system's computer. Furthermore, I'll use whatever browser I please and I don't want the house brand forced upon me, begged to be left running, have its shortcut returned to a desktop after I deleted it.

As mentioned earlier, I now have update blockers on my Windows machines (aside from my 24/7 desktops...they get updates regularly as they will happen in the middle of the night and are the most vulnerable.

I reiterate, they are MY machines, not Microsoft's. MS has no business forcing updates or any of its "stuff."

[Randy Stankey]

I reiterate, they are MY machines, not Microsoft's. MS has no business forcing updates or any of its "stuff."

Yes! I bought and paid for a computer. It is MINE and I am the final arbiter of what happens to it, what software and documents get stored on it and I have the last word on whether software updates occur automatically, manually or not at all. PERIOD!

[Darin Steffl]

Take a deep breath guys ha. Yes, it's your hardware and you own a license to use Windows. But maybe there's something in the user agreement that requires you to update it at some point if you want to use it. I don't know this because I haven't read it.

For computers that serve a simple purpose like a booth pc that doesn't have people surfing the web downloading stuff, updates are less important. For anyone else who uses the computer for normal activities, I'd say updates are important for you and the rest of the connected world. Infected pc's form large botnets that are used for malicious purposes like DDOS attacks on ISP's and entities like schools, govt, business. Or phishing attacks on people with infected pc's, stealing their personal information, money, etc.

So while I understand blocking updates for single purpose pc's that aren't surfing the web, I highly recommend anyone else allow updates that are recommended to stay secure.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

If anyone is really worried about intruders or hackers then consider an active firewall. I used Untangle for many years but now use Opnsense. Besides being excellent firewalls, these active firewalls also provide you with a glut of useful data.

[Randy Stankey]

It's not necessarily about whether updates occur. I can't imagine that anybody, under normal circumstances, wouldn't want to get them.

Some people, for business reasons or otherwise, might elect not to update at all. Maybe they have their system in a particular configuration to work a certain way and they don't want to upset that. I'd say that circumstance would be rare but it is valid.

However, in my experience, there are some updates that break things (drivers, peripherals and such) and I want to be able to check into a particular update package, before I install, to be sure that nothing unexpected will happen. Maybe, after reading about an update, I don't think it's important enough to stop what I'm doing and spend time updating. Further, if the computer is in mission critical use, I might not want to stop the computer, shut down the systems that the computer controls or, in other cases, interrupt a presentation or show. It might be better to wait until my system goes off-line for maintenance or until there is no show or presentation to interrupt.

These are all valid reasons. Maybe, I'm just an old, stick in the mud and don't want to update anything, ever. Regardless, my computer...my choice.

Software companies have right to protect their business interests. They have the right to stop people from copying or transferring software without permission. They have the right to set certain ground rules for its use. (e.g. Using free/low-cost versions of programs, meant for home use, for commercial purposes without permission.) They have the right to say that people can't use their products without paying and to use means to ensure that people don't.

Once, the computer/software goes "out the door," so to speak, their right to tell me how, when where or why I use it also goes out the door.