Patronising companies

[Walsingham]

Well, I guess I missed a meeting somewhere. It turns out I'm actually only nine years old! That's ra-hight, ladies and gents. It's Windows update time again.

 

Now, before my spine snaps with fury can someone PLEASE explain why, when I update windows I am suddenly obliged to shut down my computer. Actually, hold on. 'Obliged' has a certain courteous ring to it. Let's try 'forced', 'coerced' hustled into' or 'hijacked'. No other company feels it has the right to ignore instructions from me on my own bloody PC. But Microsoft thinks it's reasonable to repeatedly interrupt what I'm doing as if I had nothing better to do than quit, and start up my machine whenever the fancy takes them!

 

This strikes me as a symptom of a company totally out of touch with its customers. I was wondering if anyone shared my annoyance, and if any other firms had struck you in like vein.

[Pidesco]

Do you use automatic updates, or something?

[thepixiesrock]

Did you ever watched an episode of a sitcom and just didn't get any of the jokes?

[taks]

Now, before my spine snaps with fury can someone PLEASE explain why, when I update windows I am suddenly obliged to shut down my computer. Actually, hold on.

 

[snip, taks]

 

This strikes me as a symptom of a company totally out of touch with its customers. I was wondering if anyone shared my annoyance, and if any other firms had struck you in like vein.

annoying, yes, but also necessary, at least to some degree. the problem is that updates/changes/installs don't modify the current running kernel (or at least, its parameters which enable updates/changes/installs to work properly). instead, they modify what is saved on the HDD. in order for everything to work properly, one needs to shut down and restart so that everything comes up in the proper order. simply allowing such things to work as soon as the update/change/install was applied could easily lead to conflicts since some of the new parameters were not in place when other dependent processes originally started. keeping track of what to change within a running system would be a nightmare. you'd have to change every single instance of every global and local copy of each parameter. you'd also need to modify every dependent process to handle the new behavior of whatever has been changed. simply pulling a process out of memory then putting the new one back in is not sufficient particularly since many of them are staged to start in a specific order.

 

now, that said, i noted that it is necessary to some degree. i don't like windows' solution either. linux, OTOH, simply requires that the user log off, then back on, for changes to take effect. this is much more efficient and does not require the repeated stress of a power-cycle. the same goal is accomplished, the kernel is restarted with all the new parameters in place, but no power-cycle is required. it seems to me that windows programmers could manage to figure out a way to make this happen.

 

taks

[SteveThaiBinh]

[Walsingham]

Sorry for being unclear, taks. I entirely accept that I may have to shut down for an update to work. What i don't accept is that I should have to download the update, install it and then have only the following options

 

1. restart immediately

2. indicate that I want to restart later then be asked again in FIVE MINUTES if I would like to restart now. Again and again.

3. [missing third option] restart when it is convenient for me and not be constantly interrupted while I'm trying to work.

[Tigranes]

What's wrong with the old "You must restart before this works, will you do it now"?

 

I suppose their tech centre got some calls with people having problems ignoring that, so now it's forced. The interaction between Microsoft and its users continues to resemble the raising of a six year old, you know.

 

But yeah, I've had complaints from non-comp-savvy buddies who kept thinking it was virus or spyware or whatever. After examining their computers I would have to patiently explain this is actually Microsoft doing it, and no, Automatic Updates are not necessarily very convenient, and no, despite Microsoft's warnings about the coming of the Revelations, sometimes its better to leave that stuff off.

 

NZ has bandwidth limit as well, and I recall one particular time when I was running low with a few days to go, and Auto Updates downloaded some big updates that got me in the red. Heh. I just don't update my windows anymore, it rarely has huge problems.

[SteveThaiBinh]

There was a virus (or worm, or whatever) that went round the net a few years ago that restarted the computer after only a minute or so of use - a message appeared saying something like 'This station will shut down in 60 seconds'... Well, my computer got infected, except that the first couple of times it happened I assumed it was just Windows Update doing its thing. That's how much Microsoft has me whipped. :sad:

[Gorth]

2. indicate that I want to restart later then be asked again in FIVE MINUTES if I would like to restart now. Again and again.

That one has on at least two occasions cost me a lot of wasted work

 

Sitting there, slaving away at the keyboard, stuff needs to get done before leaving for the airport... and the abominable thing of course defaults to "Reboot now" every time it messes around with what you are currently doing, so even an innocent hitting of the enter key while typing can cost you dearly.

[taks]

3. [missing third option] restart when it is convenient for me and not be constantly interrupted while I'm trying to work.

this may be an option you can set... i don't recall getting bugged every 5 minutes... vista or XP?

 

taks

[Gorth]

3. [missing third option] restart when it is convenient for me and not be constantly interrupted while I'm trying to work.

this may be an option you can set... i don't recall getting bugged every 5 minutes... vista or XP?

 

taks

It would sure be nice if that was possible

 

In XP, it pops up every 5 minutes or so, with the Reboot Now button being the default and on top of any other active window you may currently be working in, stealing away focus from your current application (and usually results in accidental, immediate rebooting).

[LostStraw]

You can just shove the "do you want to restart" window so it's mostly off the screen. This keeps it from popping back up and taking the focus and since it's not really in the way of anything else it's not too much of an annoyance.

 

Or, if you're on your own computer, there's a way to get rid of it: http://blog.adglobe.net/2006/06/29/take-of...prompt-message/

 

Edit: From the comments in the blog "disabling" it sets it to a 10 minute default. The max time limit for the reminder pop up is one day (which is hopefully good enough for most people).

Edited December 13, 2007 by LostStraw

[LadyCrimson]

Would it help to turn auto-updates off, until you have no work on the table and actually want to update right now, so to speak?

That kind of persistant interruption annoys me, as well - I don't even like uninvited popup reminders of 'update available do you want to download?' - which is why I don't have auto-updates turned on for any program.

[Hell Kitty]

I have XP SP2, and after an update I get the message to restart now or later every ten minutes. It used to be that if you didn't choose an option a timer would count down to an automatic restart, so if you stepped away from the computer for a moment you couldd lose whatever you were working on. I guess they changed that in an update.

[Humodour]

I hate the forced restart. But if you get the "Restart now or in 10 mins?" option, just drag it to the bottom corner of the screen and you'll never see it again.

[taks]

It would sure be nice if that was possible

 

In XP, it pops up every 5 minutes or so, with the Reboot Now button being the default and on top of any other active window you may currently be working in, stealing away focus from your current application (and usually results in accidental, immediate rebooting).

i suppose that usually if i hit "reboot later," i'm actually installing something else as well and it doesn't interfere with that. i don't reboot till i have all my installs done.

 

taks

[Gfted1]

Um, cant you just set the time for automatic updates to take place in the middle of the night or some other time your never using the computer?

[taks]

yeah, you can do that, too. i have to be careful with such an option, however, since windows sometimes decides that matlab is OK to close, even though it is running a simulation. i kicked off a 48-hour sim once on friday only to return monday morning to discover that winders shut it down friday evening right after i left. grrr...

 

taks

[Walsingham]

I hadn't considered simply dragging it into a corner and ignoring it. But even so...

 

I don't have auto-update. But I understand the real importance of updating regularly. I just want o be able to update when I have some spare time, like making coffeee, but not have to reboot at the same time.

[Deraldin]

I absolutely hate this thing and it has caused me to lose large amounts of work several times. I have the auto update set to go off around 2am, but because I'm a horrible, horrible slacker, that's when I do most of my assignments for Uni. Several times I've done like Gorth says and have been typing away when the pop-up comes around and immediately rebooted thanks to an errant keystroke. More often than not though it will appear just as I look away to write something down on paper and don't notice that it's popped up until it's restarted my computer.

[Gorth]

In my case, it is company policy that it has to be enabled. Disabling it is not an option :sad:

[Walsingham]

So, to summarise we should form an armed mob?

[astr0creep]

Also, according to most EULA for software, you don't "own" your copy of Windows. You only bought the right to use it and since it's technically still their property, legally they can probably do whatever they want with it.

 

Like a radio, you own the hardware but not what runs on it...

 

Maybe.

[Spider]

Those EULAs have still to hold up in any court. From what I've read, the general idea is that they are a nice try, but if anyone pushed the issue they EULAs will probably not hold up.

[Walsingham]

That's just about the most patronising attitude yet. Man, I could go for one of their chaps tied to a chair in a brightly lit room with a baseball bat. I mean seriously. What is the real commercial benefit of that? They're just run by freaking sociopaths.,