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History of Windows Update servicing and how it turned into a disaster


xpclient

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This is the history of Windows servicing as I eXPerienced starting from XP: (I won't go into the era of Windows 9x/Me and Windows 2000 updating)

With XP, the servicing mechanism which originated in Windows 2000, based on update.exe was improved greatly over its lifetime. User was always in full control. It performed fast, had no corruption issues or disk space issues. MS debuted their cool delta update technology which reduced update size. Also started were monthly security updates, non-security updates, and service packs but they abandoned service packs after SP2 before delivering SP3 very late. Overall frequency of service packs over lifecycle TOO LESS.

With Vista, MS delivered regular security updates, non-security updates and regular service packs but quickly abandoned the OS itself. The Vista servicing stack is completely screwed up badly and suffers from endless performance issues, disk space issues and corruption issues.

With Win 7, MS delivered regular security updates, non-security updates, but forgot occassional rollups and service packs after SP1. Finally delivered Convenience rollup very late but have NOW started regular cumulative update rollups. Overall frequency of service packs TOO LESS. Frequency of cumulative update rollups after they changed their update policy in May 2016 - TOO FREQUENT but can be handled due to small size. They should ideally ship only non-cumulative update rollups and occasional/yearly cumulative update rollups. Win7 servicing stack has better performance than Vista, and less severe disk space consumption issues. Performs horribly on HDDs, but well on SSDs. Occassionally gets corrupted and requires downloading the CheckSUR tool to fix it.

With Win 8.1, MS delivered regular security updates, non-security updates. Started regular cumulative update rollups for non-security updates. Took a break from Jan 2015 to April 2016 but have now resumed cumulative update rollups. THIS MAKES THEM TOO FREQUENT and TOO LARGE because of their cumulative nature. Should ideally only be non-cumulative update rollups and occasional/yearly cumulative update rollups. Windows 8 servicing stack is self-healing, offers even better performance than Windows 7, and lower footprint. Performs well on HDDs, excellently on SSDs.

With Win 10, you lose all control over updating completely. From Windows 8.1's updates which used to be in KB, the size of monthly updates has ballooned to 400-500 MB. :o:crazy: WTH! The "Enterprise" edition has a lame "Download" button to start the updating. But you have no idea how much is being downloaded, what is being downloaded, when it is being downloaded, detailed download progress, skipping specific updates, when it is being installed. Everything is out of your control and mandatory. Your bandwidth is abused, PC resources are abused when you need peak performance. Performance of system while installing updates is abysmal and user has no idea what's happening. After big "upgrades" which are delivered as an entire OS upgrade instead of MSU updates, all your settings and configurations get reset, unwanted crap gets reinstalled again and desired configuration is lost. So MS can shove this POS down their @#$%$ until they fix it.

These are my experiences with Windows Update with each OS. Update size (especially for rollups and cumulative updates) has also ballooned tremendously starting with Windows 8. Also we now have automatic app updates to contend with from Windows 8. They are not (yet) forced.

Edited by xpclient
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5 hours ago, kosamja said:

but its easier now, you dont have to worry about updating, OS is smart enough to do that for you. :w00t:

Well, sort of... nowadays the OS got really smarter, so, no, one really has to worry about updating no more... now one just worries about the OS, period! :P

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There is a workable long-term "user-in-control of when" strategy for Win 10.

1.  You can disable the automatic updating initiated by Windows via group policy or my simple tweaker.

2.  If you're wanting to be especially careful, you can reconfigure the Windows Update service to Disabled, and only Enable it when you want to do updates.  However, I should mention that Windows Update is becoming more and more integrated with other things, so just disabling the service could result in unexpected faults.  It doesn't cause any problems, based on my experience, but I don't use Apps so my experience is necessarily limited.

3.  You can use the KB3073930 "WUShowHide" tool to check for updates without actually requesting that they be installed.

4.  You can press the button in the Settings App to initiate an actual update, after delaying or doing research on what you've seen in item 3.  The important part here is that you can do with the OS what you need until it's convenient for you to put in the latest cumulative update.

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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it is going to be a scary day when (if) I ever turn Windows update back on I have had them off for so long I bet there is a good back log, but I am going to stick to my guns wait and see what happens on the 29th. I looked on my Win 8.1 system just to see how many updates I had on it I only seen 2 an update for my monitor and a game controller. 

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sorry but this "not working well on HDD and SSD" is total BS
its personal experience, not global, so don't mix both please

with 2000 I never had HD or MFT issues, 2 years of use
XP same, 8 years of use
7 same, still using it

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3 hours ago, vinifera said:

sorry but this "not working well on HDD and SSD" is total BS
its personal experience, not global, so don't mix both please

with 2000 I never had HD or MFT issues, 2 years of use
XP same, 8 years of use
7 same, still using it

So if I get it right, what the OP wrote is BS (according to you) because it is personal experience (and it is wrong to use personal experience to make a global statement, while the OP actually stated how they represent his personal experience) and you use your personal experience to counter the claim?

What do you mean by "MFT issues" (that you didn't have), $MFT corruption on NTFS filesystem(s)?

I don' t think those were mentioned in the OP :unsure:, the CHECKSUR tool repairs corruption in the Windows update mechanism and database, not anything in the disk or volume/filesystem, AFAICR.

jaclaz


 


 

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