Get it Together Microsoft! (Windows 10 Rant)

On 8th March 2016, Microsoft released Windows 10 build 1511, which as far as I have been able to tell is pretty good, apart from one minor detail. It broke all my computers!

Microsoft chose (wisely in my opinion) to force users to update Windows 10 to stop people running older un-patched versions full of security holes. More recently though, they have also started forcing users on Windows 7/8/8.1 to upgrade to 10 by making it a recommended update (probably so they can claim a high adoption rate).

I updated my desktop, and afterwards it would crash about 3 minutes after booting up. It turned out that the update had installed an old graphics driver for my Nvidia GTX 660’s. So after booting into safe mode, removing the drivers, loading up normally and using G-Force Experience to get the newest drivers, it all worked fine. Realising that because it installs when ever it likes, and that it might break my laptop at a inconvenient moment (when I’m away from home and a decent internet connection), I decided to upgrade it straight away. 3 failed attempts later the update still isn’t installed, no longer appears in the update list and I can’t install a definition update for Windows Defender… FML

Now I don’t normally get too annoyed when updates break stuff. I write software, I know its hard. Besides I break my computer all the time anyway messing around with hardware and BIOS settings. However, most of the 200 million+ users don’t know how to recover from problems like bad drivers. If they use a recovery disk, they will just get the update forced on them again and eventually call someone like me for help. I’m already busy fixing my own stupid problems without my family and friends bugging me to. The curse of competence I guess.

There are some pretty serious downsides to forcing updates on users, at least in the past you could just roll back and block a dodgey upgrade. If you have had similar problems maybe consider switching Mac, I hear that it ‘Just Works’. (Just works at making you poor)

Update (07/04/2016)

I managed to update 2 Microsoft Surface Pro 4’s without any problems. At least Microsoft can get updates for their own devices right.

Update 2 (12/04/2016)

I didn’t realise I was still on the insider preview for Windows Mobile 10, the latest update (10.0.14295.1000) broke most of my apps (including some Microsoft ones), the insider app included and has caused issues switching between apps where they just sometime close. Also the graphics driver issues with Windows 10 caused Firefox to blacklist my drivers (because they crashed all the time), which took me a while to get to the bottom of.