I love Linux, use it almost daily
, but those windows update horror storys aren't happening when I'm using windows.

I think those days are gone, and people are just hating.

"I think those days are gone, and people are just hating."

I thought that too one year ago. Then a Windows update rebooted my PC without warning, wrecked all partitions on the SSD and somehow made Windows only throw bluescreens for months even after reinstallation.

Stuff like that doesn't happen often but it happens, and it would be completely avoidable if Microsoft would give a shit.

The problem is transparency. Windows pushes broken updates for very specific platforms sometimes (let's say, computers with an older Intel CPU running a specific version of an office language pack.)

Suddenly you have weird problems, like application crashes or a hanging computer on shutdown.

The horror is that windows doesn't make you aware of what you updated (in Linux you often vaguely remember: "I just saw an update for that driver in my update manager"), it's confusing to search through aggregated kb update packages for causes, and logs/corruptions are very difficult to track down.

So yeah, most people won't experience problems. But once you do... it's true horror. Microsoft support forums tend to give generic solutions which don't work, Often you hope the problem will just disappear with future updates, or you just reinstall your OS... while in Linux it would be a clearly documented forum post, a few cat log things, some apt-get purge, service restart, config file edit, fixed.

I agree with @Torbuntu, some people may have it good while others struggle from objective reasons.

But most of the hate for windows updates comes from users that fail to properly maintain their machines. Disabling and postponing updates, without updating manually will eventually cause some unpleasant moments to happen.
People can switch Linux distros monthly but can't give their machines 5-10 minutes to update? Give me a break.

My GF's laptop installed an update yesterday and it removed her graphics card and audio drivers.

I think shes had to re-install windows 4 times now in the 2 years shes had that laptop.

My mothers laptop installed an update 3 months ago where it decided to ignore DHCP and just default to an ip on a different subnet to what she was on.

Windows is the biggest heap of shit ever inflicted on this world

I have a question for active Linux users: Is it really true that Linux updates never fucked with your system?

I am not being sarcastic, it's a genuine question

@Torbuntu hey, i agreed with you that it just doesn't work for some people. I've even installed Ubuntu on my parents laptop.
I was talking generally about windows rants

@Torbuntu all is forgiven in that case, i can understand that :D It wasn't aggressive at all, I just needed to sum up my comment :)

Well I had a similar experience in these 15 years using windows :) it happened maybe 2-3 times in all these years.
I want to switch to Linux for no particular reason, but not having the time and will to become a power user and all those 'hurr durr Linux is better than Microshit' posts are keeping me away.

I guess that my point is that if you can maintain your own Linux machine when it fucks up for some reason, you can sure as hell maintain it on Windows (family and badly supported computers excluded)

Those days are not gone.

I have to use Windows at work and updates are PITA.

Updates forcefully reboot if you're not quick enough. Recently had that 3 times. Left the PC running over night to complete some tasks. Next morning it was rebooted and work lost. I had set the registry setting to prevent it, but it had been reset somehow (updates?).

Many updates take forever without visible progress. Just last week after an external meeting I shut down the laptop and it started updating. 20 min later still "Installing update 1 of 5". I wanted to leave, so put the running laptop on the passenger seat, hoping it would finish before battery.

Updates download without restrictions. If I'm away on business I often only have mobile internet access. The limit is usually enough for work related stuff. I once got a message that my data is used up although I hadn't done much. When I shut down the laptop I knew why...

That's all better on linux. I update when I want and it takes just a few minutes.

Yep! Never faced that issue!

@nikola1402 "Is it really true that Linux updates never fucked with your system?"

No, I've had my share of issues. But those were all a couple of years ago, nowadays most distros are noticably better in terms of hardware support and stability.
It reached the point where I'm now using a rolling-release distro productively without a single hickup in half a year. Yes, when I install like 1000 package updates Firefox hangs for 2 minutes or so during a critical moment, but that's nothing compared to unpredictable reboots just to fucking update a few little components.

Meanwhile I've seen Windows install updates for one hour IN THE WRONG ORDER, which means it had to roll them back and update for one fucking hour once again.

And what I particularly like about Linux is that installed programs are also updates via the same mechanism, so there are no annoying "new update available" popups.

@nikola1402 The package managers on linux systems do an awesome job. They manage the dependencies, show them and solve them for you if you want. They show you what they do and what will be updated, not just a fucking notification and a useless screen that just lets you watch helplessly.

You can mess it up, but usually it's the users fault. Like if you start updates with unresolved dependencies (which are clearly shown in all package managers I know), then it's not the systems fault.
Or if you uninstall crucial parts of the system (what I once did, because my fingers where faster than my brain...), it's not the systems fault.

If you don't want to be bothered with the details, and you don't have a highly modified system (which is very unlikely in that case), then just allow all updates and let the package manager automatically resolve dependency issues.
That's what I do most of the time on my Debian systems and I never got a problem caused by the update process over the last 15 years.

@Torbuntu holy shit man. Yes. Happy wife happy life is so so so true

Trust me. Those update horrors are still there.

Windows updates are a black box. They take an inordinately long time, with no explanation of what is actually happening.

I really hope you’re joking.

At primary job #1 we’re strictly windows based and I can’t tell you how many fucking times updates strike at the wrong time. And although we manage updates with our WSUS, shit still slips up. It’s a pain in the ass.

Then, at my business most of my costumers run windows and they don’t know how to “Facebook” let alone push updates. The first time I work on a users computer, there are so many fucking updates. After that I schedule them to automatically install the important ones, but everything else I monitor.

Windows updates are there, always... it sounds like you’re either automatically downloading and installing or your machine has so many that the first search only pulls “16”, but run it again and I promise you’ll have hundreds.

All those horror storys... Sorry for you guys :)

Guess I've been lucky for all the time.

@nikola1402 In my case, yes.

I had hoped that updates wouldn't be as much of an issue with my current hardware. But last ~5/6 months have been pretty dire. The overall performance has been spiralling out of control and intel is yet to push a working spectre/meltdown patches so this isn't even the worst of it...

@linuxxx @ddephor @7root @deadlyRants
Well I haven't heard anything new really, but obviously Linux is more stable and better maintained than i thought.
At least it makes me happier about the coming switch to it one day.

But i still think that a large number of Windows rants are created because it's popular to rant about (like Java) and users not properly maintaining the system.

@nikola1402 I just fucking hate it's guts.
Not because 'its windows' but for different reasons.

@linuxxx Hating something that for some reason ruins your workflow or because it goes completely against your philosophy is okay I guess... Also I don't recall any of your Windows rants being shallow or being posted just for the sake of it, so my comments don't really apply to you.

The ammount of rants bashing it for no apparent reason is astonishing. I still remember the one where someone compared design languages of Windows, Mac and Android. It was explicitly stated that Fluent is bad because Microsoft developed it. Or the numerous ones where people raged because their system updated suddenly after they've postponed it for weeks (during the WannaCry shitstorm). And so on...

And trust me, you don't hate them as much as I do for ruining their mobile platform

@nikola1402 Oh I'm so happy that they ruined windows mobile! ;)

@linuxxx Oh I know that you are :D But since spyware is omnipresent on all (mainstream) mobile platforms, I actually prefered w10m (still using it, sadly)

@ArcaneEye That won't work, the laptop usually connects via WiFi, I don't want to put a cable in all the time. And when on a trip I use the smartphone with hotspot mode so it's still WiFi. The laptop doesn't know the difference.

But I got used to start up the laptop in a normal WiFi before I set off and let it run at least half an hour to give it a chance to download updates. Since I usually have to prepare things the day before, that happens without additional effort.
But that is not a reliable solution, as I don't know when updates are released.

@nikola1402 Linux has a lot of issues, but package management is definitely one of its strengths.

And you have to distinguish between kernel and userspace. Kernel is quite stable, but so many userspace software lacks comfort and very often things are heavily changed without any need (one of the big issues of the, let's call it "unplanned" development of many open source projects).
Not that this doesn't happen on windows, but my experience is, that windows userspace software often has a more persistent UI.

My windows 10 install currently doesn't boot. All I do with it is run a couple of Adobe apps. Last thing I saw was the 'please wait while windows installs updates' screen and it hasn't booted since. The basic windows boot repair tools fail to fix it this time and I have real work to do in my Arch Linux install, which hasn't had an issue since I installed it about a year ago when I got this new computer. Btw, it isn't my first windows update fail... Not even the first in a while... Not even the first in a while on other computers either. Last stable windows OS was XP SP3. They should have built off that stable branch since MS always takes years to stabilize new code. Windows update is synonymous with failure still for a reason.