We're hiring managers and engineers at a remote site, and the recruiter is setting up calls with skype for business. To use this-- even the web version, I have to run windows, so I had to dust off my windows VM to join. I fire up the VM, called "plague" in virsh, and...

Boom! An hour of updates and a half dozen reboots! And people wonder why windows is dying.

What are you expecting when you have to "dust off" an OS? No updates?

@thoxx sure. And then complaining why they have malware that was a zeroday half a year ago. I bet these people don't update anything under Linux either, not even the applications, because you know, Linux is secure and stuff.

@thoxx

I expect it to update like a real operating system. The only time when the system should be unusable should be at the point of reboot. It's unacceptable that one reboot unlocks the next unadvertised reboot, and the next and the next.

I don't let my linux machines get too out of date, but if I let a currently supported distro go two months, as I did with this windows VM, it would update in the background, and fully take effect when I reboot. That is not wizardry.

@Fast-Nop

WTF are you talking about?

@bahua that's pretty much what I thought with your rant. Not updating in an eternity and then wondering why updates happen.

Windows doesn't die on desktop because people use it more than once in a blue moon and let it do the updates when they go home or shut down the PC anyway.

@Fast-Nop

Yes, and your reaction has no basis whatsoever in reality. Hence my "WTF." I was not at all surprised that there would be updates. All computers need them.

What surprised me was that the updates would be blackbox-chained, and require exclusive use of the machine while they apply, after only two months. It's a half-assed model of updating. Disliking it and corellating it to the sharp decline in the use of windows in recent years forms absolutely no logical connection to my propensity to update my systems. Though perhaps it assists you in your cognitive dissonance.

@bahua you only have that issue BECAUSE you don't use Windows regularly. Second, there is no sharp decline in using Windows unless you mean server where it never was that widespread in the first place.

@Fast-Nop

Incorrect. When I used Windows regularly, it would still monopolize the entire machine when it would apply certain updates. That has nothing to do with the frequency with which a user decides to apply them. That's just how it's designed. And yes, Windows use, in the world, outside of gaming, is much, much lower than it used to be. Even in the corporate world, windows is losing ground to apple.

@bahua Maybe you overread the part why the updates are not an issue? Because people do them at the end of the day when the PC shuts down afterwards anyway. Obviously, that works only for people who use it more than every two months, which most people do. The loudest complainers about Windows updates are those who don't use Windows anyway, like you. Well and of course everyone hit by their declining quality, but that's a different issue.

And Windows isn't losing ground to Apple, it's actually the other way around because Apple is massively declining in quality and doesn't invest in the professional segment. Even in the graphics designer sector.

Actually, that's the reason why MS gets away with Windows 10, which is clearly worse than Windows 7.

@thoxx @Fast-Nop what are guys trying to accomplish here?

Are you seriously criticising a *rant* on *devrant*?
of someone complaining about windows updates of all things, one of the most hated windows features?

The windows update is awful. It forces after a while of postponing. There's no simple override. It can take hours. It can't run in the background. What case are you trying to make?

@thoxx it has no importance whether he's surprised. If the feature is terrible, it's valid for him to complain, even if he could avoided it.
Imagine you had a bad day because you didn't prepare for a shitty feature of some technology, and you let off some steam to a coworker and he tells you "well, what did you expect?" I don't think that's a cool thing to say.
Is complaining about bad things being naive?

@Fast-Nop presumptuous of you to assume that a user you never met is a noob that never updates.

@erandria reading the OP helps in making assumptions. I recommend you start doing that, too.