Clicking "Check for Updates" in Windows 10 Makes You Download "Preview" Patches - Says Microsoft

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, porina said:

FFS I often do a lot of benchmarking on systems that might not be on otherwise. On Win10 systems, to prevent them from downloading and installing updates while I'm benching, I do a manual check to get it out of the way. Didn't know I was asking for trouble by doing that. I really should stop being lazy and re-introduce network-level blocks against the updates which I lost when my previous router died. Network level blocking seems to be the only reliable solution to this mess. Can't trust software settings on system.

If you want to block the update at the network level you do it very easily. Just don't connect to the internet at all. It's full proof. 

[Adams990]

again !!! 

[voiha]

9 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

It makes sense but I hate how unclear windows 10's garbage is. I paid for the OS, I want to be in control and aware of what's going on.

 You paid for your phone, but they clearly use your data without you willingly giving it to them. Buying doesn't mean you have it, and Microsoft shove that in our throats, we are buying licence to use they're software/devices...nothing more than an user.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

if i want previews, which sometimes i do i enable the insider program. 

 

why are they doing this? they already have a model for people who want to test upcoming stuff... 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

3 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I'll be honest, I routinely forget that button even exists.

 

I have Windows on all my devices that have it configured to download them but not install them without telling me, so I never have to check for updates.

how do you configure that on Windows 10?

[S w a t s o n]

I thought microsoft had the windows preview insider rings or whatever. For the love of bill gates why the fuck is checking for updates now opt-in for effectively beta

[asus killer]

still on 1803, checked for updates, no limits to updates. Just wanted the dark mode feature. I give up trying to understand windows

[porina]

3 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

If you want to block the update at the network level you do it very easily. Just don't connect to the internet at all. It's full proof. 

As said earlier, I do need network access.

 

MS even provides a guide of what to block to stop WU working, although they kinda express it the other way around. It is a guide for network admins how to open up their firewalls to make it work  With the list of MS servers, it is easy to block them all if I wasn't reduced to using my ISP router for now.

[jagdtigger]

32 minutes ago, porina said:

As said earlier, I do need network access.

Then only block internet access in firewall, even the most rudimentary firewall i had could do it. If it needs net then make a filtered proxy server.

[porina]

Just now, jagdtigger said:

Then only block internet access in firewall, even the most rudimentary firewall i had could do it. If it needs net then make a filtered proxy server.

As stated in previous posts I know what I need to do, and have done so in past up to the point my then router died. I'm slumming it with ISP router for now which has zero functions beyond giving me net access. Debating if I want to go pfsense or other route.

[jagdtigger]

17 minutes ago, porina said:

I'm slumming it with ISP router for now which has zero functions beyond giving me net access.

Sorry, the ones i seen so far(ISP supplied routers) had a web UI where you could set some basic stuff(like port forward and control what hosts can get access to the net, wifi password, etc). Our ISP even tried to get my father to rent a router from them because ours(FVS336G) was ancient and couldnt handle 100Mbit/s(we were upgrading from 50 Mbit/s i think). Luckily he called me so the tech guy got totally shot down by me .

 

/EDIT

BTW seeing the state of consumer firewalls i would say go for pfSense or a business grade firewal solution...

[D13H4RD]

So you mean to tell me.... 

 

...that I've been downloading preview patches for all this while?! 

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

So you mean to tell me.... 

 

...that I've been downloading preview patches for all this while?! 

If you have clicked on the "check for updates" button during certain weeks of the month, then yes. You've been downloading previews of updates scheduled to be released up to 20 days later.

[Speed Weed]

So this explain the 1809 issues.

 

Well, I am doing a full disk backup with AOMEI and Macrium before installing 1809. 

 

I had some people are already installed 1809 this week, and they ran into a lot of issues. 

[Doobeedoo]

Holy shit I'm a prophet!

I was always installing updates mostly once they were released. And I tended to manually check for them from times to time because I noticed there were updates after regular cycle. I though regular update cycle didn't work properly always or some update were released a bit after main ones because maybe they didn't managed to include them in initial package. Then I searched those  individual updates what they're for. So asid from fix and optimization one, they were some that were looking to be beta like updates along. 

[bcredeur97]

I really just dont understand.. updating should be sooo simple.

[FPSwithaWacomTablet]

11 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Same here.  Whenever I'm working on a computer at work, I automatically check for updates (sometimes repeatedly) to make sure that it's all up-to-date.  I had zero idea that I was introducing potentially unstable updates to a customer's computer.  This is completely outrageous.  There's a reason MS has the insider ring option.  Those people understand they're beta testing and are willing to accept the risk.  There is absolutely NO reason for a company the size of MS to use its customers as guinea pigs like this, especially not without their permission!

This is what happens when MS fires their entire desktop QA division back when Win10 was new. Not to justify their behaviour, but they would have no way of finding out what people want.

 

If anything, isn't MS more focused on Azure stuff now? I swear Windows is no longer their biggest priority.

 

I would like to say switch to Linux, but IBM just bought out Red Hat and Novell bought SUSE a while back. Apple, Google or Microsoft might buy out Canonical just to catch up on the Linux side of things. You could go and switch to a Stallman-certified Linux distro, but you would also lose out on functionality. Not to mention, those same big 3 Linux companies are the ones doing most of the Linux kernel patches. Linux as a whole will fragment according to a corporation's needs, and might even go the route of OpenSolaris.

[Crunchy Dragon]

8 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

how do you configure that on Windows 10?

I'll be honest, I don't remember how.

 

Somewhere in the update settings, I think. It's been just short of a year since I had to do it..

[GoodBytes]

30 minutes ago, FPSwithaWacomTablet said:

This is what happens when MS fires their entire desktop QA division back when Win10 was new. Not to justify their behaviour, but they would have no way of finding out what people want.

Microsoft still has its QA team. They make telemetry data collection system in Windows 10, and they make the internal tools to analysis and draw reports and have a system in taking action such as identifying issues and blocking updates for the affected systems.

 

The model they use has changed, however. Now, the new model is that developers makes unit test and component testing (before, dev where making code, and the software dev in Test used to make all the testing work). The new model reflects the more modern world of soft dev. After those, you have several layers of testing internally, then you have Insider Fast Rings, then Slow Rings, then Release Preview, then, now, you, if you pick "Check for Updates", then wide distribution via automatic update.

 

Keep in mind that if an update causes issue, you can always revert back. Windows has this feature (assuming you didn't disable it), which allows you to bring back your system in time without affecting your personal files. This feature is called System Restore.

 

The issue is that you have developers that have never made unit tests before and component testing, asked to make ones.. they lack the skill and knowledge on how to make good tests. Regardless, while people are more vocal, and people like to call for alarm, there is less problems with updates than previously.

 

That said:

• I don't fully agree with the Microsoft model, as it is more of "let's take action when problem raises", instead of "let's be pro-active to ensure no problem comes out" (even though problem always still managed to get out).
• Since the October update fiasco, Microsoft has been hiring contracted company to do pro-active testing. So it looks like that they'll do a hybrid approach, somethings we should start shining with or after the following update version of Windows 10.

 

Quote

If anything, isn't MS more focused on Azure stuff now? I swear Windows is no longer their biggest priority.

Azure is the right move. Microsoft is really far back from AWS. This is because under the previous CEO, the company did nothing. You wanted Azure (for some reason), you were stuck with crappy servers, Windows Server only, few data center locations... made 0 sense.. AWS was the best choice). The future is cloud computing. A simple example, is that you are a company (say), and you want to sell your product to a large market like the US or worldwide. There is no way you can get the servers needed to meet such demand, and you'll need them at multiple locations around the world, if you are selling world wide, or say: US/Canada and Europe, you need minimum 3 locations, and you'll have a lot of consumers complain about your website taking ages to load (due to distance or server/connection can't meet demand). It is far cheaper for you to go AWS or Azure. You have the servers, you have support, server side is all managed by them, so you don't need to hire IT staff for such task, and you can deliver a great experience to all your consumers. You just get to focus on building the website, and the back-end.

 

Microsoft focus on Azure is to offer greater flexibility than AWS, on MAY be cheaper, depending on what you do (Microsoft like to push that they are cheaper than AWS by a large amount, but the reality of things is that it really depends on what you do, price always changes for both companies, and you can end up paying more with Azure easily). AWS will offer you a more mature platform, a more solid/reliable connection and larger and more datacenters at your disposal.

 

So far, Azure is going great for the company... despite massive amount of work still needed.

[Fasauceome]

18 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

It makes sense but I hate how unclear windows 10's garbage is. I paid for the OS, I want to be in control and aware of what's going on.

Lucky you, there are those of us who have foregone the right to complain about our money going to waste

[dalekphalm]

This is 100% not okay.

 

When I, as a user, click on "Check for Updates", I'm essentially double checking that Windows has downloaded all of the stable release updates. I have not consented to download or install preview ("beta", etc) updates.

 

If I want to download preview updates, I will join the Insider Program under the fast ring.

 

This should be OPT IN at minimum. And no, clicking "Check for updates" is not opting in.

[RejZoR]

That's dumb. Unless I explicitly specify I want "preview" versions of updates, they have NO FUCKING RIGHT to install some untested stuff I never asked for. I click "Check for updates" because I don't want to wait for FINAL versions of updates to be delivered to me a month later. I want them now. But I never asked to get me some preview stuff. WTF Microsoft.

[Yongtjunkit]

Wow, don’t they have the insider program to do the test? So my system is running the beta version of windows 10( not in the insider program) just by clicking check for updates when you want to ensure that you got the latest stable update on your pc ? And not to mention that users(especially those who aren’t tech savvy) are going to think that they are downloading the latest stable update by just clicking check for updates 

[TechyBen]

19 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If you have clicked on the "check for updates" button during certain weeks of the month, then yes. You've been downloading previews of updates scheduled to be released up to 20 days later.

THIS!!!!!

 

Thank you LAwlz!!! Thousands of posters and IT "professionals" have been "no, Windows does not do that" and "my current branch is fine"... completely suggesting the user is at fault. Turns out all along, MS was giving different versions of Windows to different folks, hence why some got errors and others acted smug on the internet when they were really ignorant.

[Nicnac]

So glad I'm not depending on that pos-OS and those ridiculous updates.