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Windows 10 - Deeper Impressions


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On 12/5/2018 at 4:57 PM, Dclem said:

Yes, I probably am one of the fortunate ones, however, I also believe we hear more from those with problems than those who are not having problems.   This presents a picture of disaster that is exaggerated more than actual.  I admit, I was very frustrated the first 2 weeks after my build just trying to get Windows 10 functioning and dodging all the hurtles and barricades the operating system presented.   Much of my frustration came in the form of not being familiar with the operating system and having no idea where to find what I was looking for to make adjustments.   As far as IMAGEFOLIO 4.5 goes, yes, I was very fortunate that most all of the program's contents were within it's folder, much like a portable app.  Much of what I learned about Windows 10 was what I could find online prior to making the move.   I certainly found folks with lots of problems, but, I also found good advice from others who communicated their experiences.   I just hoped to give someone else some encouragement to try alternatives to getting their system running the way they envisioned.

This is where I chirp in with the standard reply....."I also believe we hear more from those with problems than those who are not having problems." Not entirely true but on the other hand it isn't every day someone writes somthing negative from a company point of view...fixing computers for a living....

On 12/5/2018 at 1:35 PM, Paraglider said:

I have upgraded 3 laptops, 1 desktop and 4 VMs to 1809 build from the 1803 build. All have upgraded without problem.

Yes you have had success...depending on what you base success on....installing Windows 10 in VMware isn't the same as on a real machine and will never be the same as testing on the real thing....

Also your perspective isn't from a company point of view....The reason for negativity like I write is entirely based on experince with many computers where Windows 10 is the worst by far for failing.....to live up to any kind of expectations....and without someone saying....well google do that....Microsoft are very good at hiding by long drawn out agreements which cover their arses in just about any situation....

I have yet to see the stability and performance that Microsoft boast of with Windows 10 and to have a computer starting quickly isn't the be and end all of everything.....

And for many even if their laptop screens turn off (giving the illusion that it is fast) the computer is on for quite a long time after that....a lot of this performance sacrifices something along the way....

I wish the individuals that like Windows 10 and belive in its future...the best of luck....BUT for many of us we are going to need more convincing....

 

bookie32

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I noticed in version 1809 that they started using NDIS 6.x drivers by default (for portable devices with USB tethering feature), so no need to manually update them anymore to avoid connection stability issues due to bad backwards compatibility with NDIS 5.x specification.

Also the old Windows 8 bug with DirectDraw and DWM_DX_FULLSCREEN_TRANSITION_EVENT that caused 3 second delay on transitions from/to fullscreen mode when the app's screen settings (resolution, refresh rate) matched the desktop's is gone. Didn't think this one would ever be addressed.

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There has been a post today on blogs technet that could have been posted on April 1:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/filecab/2019/01/07/windows-10-and-reserved-storage/

In a nutshell, not happy enough with totally ruining Windows, in order to fix one of the issues/shortcoming of Windows 10 (and its stupid updates) they are going to ruin also NTFS:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/filecab/2019/01/07/windows-10-and-reserved-storage/

Besides the forced requisition of 7-10 GB of users' storage space (that may be debatable, but surely makes the Windows 10 install footprint some 30%-50% bigger, to the delight of anyone running it on small amount storage devices such as tablets or on devices with no replaceable storage) they are doing it using some form of changes to NTFS:

Quote


D.Pope MCSE
You have a “How Does It Work?” section and didn’t explain at all how it works. How is the storage actually reserved? NTFS quotas? VHDX? What?

22 hours ago
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Craig Barkhouse [MSFT]
Hi D.Pope, that’s an insightful question. Using a VHDX or even a separate partition were potential options that were debated. Those would provide guaranteed space for storing files needed during update. However those files would be in a different file system namespace entirely, which would overly complicate longstanding code, and would likely degrade update performance (for example some copying would have to be done in the end, since C: is ultimately the intended destination for the updated files).

Instead we designed an elegant solution that would require new support being added to NTFS. The idea is NTFS provides a mechanism for the servicing stack to specify how much space it needs reserved, say 7GB. Then NTFS reserves that 7GB for servicing usage only. What is the effect of that? Well the visible free space on C: drops by 7GB, which reduces how much space normal applications can use. Servicing can use those 7GB however. And as servicing eats into those 7GB, the visible free space on C: is not affected (unless servicing uses beyond the 7GB that was reserved). The way NTFS knows to use the reserved space as opposed to the general user space is that servicing marks its own files and directories in a special way.

You can see that this mechanism has similar free space characteristics as using a separate partition or a VHDX, yet the files seamlessly live in the same namespace which is a huge benefit. It’s not quotas. Whereas quotas define the maximum amount of space a user can use, this mechanism is guaranteeing a minimum amount of space. It’s sort of the opposite of quotas.

i.e. basically to the only thing that is still (IMHO) "rock solid" and "time proven", with the additional benefit that each and every data recovery tool (and possibly even built-in tools like chkdsk and similar of previous versions of Windows - that may still access the same disk/volumes in multibooting scenario's will likely have issues). 

jaclaz

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The things Microsoft does always has to deal with the largest common denominator. Rather, they are not saying "you should have a second hard drive to save your files/programs on, never save anything into your user profile and don't save anything into the C drive" and are only being concerned with the typical configuration where a Windows PC has 1 hard drive. Part of me also thinks that they are just moving 7GB from one place to another. It doesn't solve anything and they could possibly accomplish this without having to reserve space at all... if Disk Cleanup actually worked properly.

Quote

When it’s time for an update, the temporary unneeded OS files in the reserved storage will be deleted and update will use the full reserve area. This will enable most PCs to download and install an update without having to free up any of your disk space, even when you have minimal free disk space. If for some reason Windows update needs more space than is reserved, it will automatically use other available free space. If that’s not enough, Windows will guide you through steps to temporarily extend your hard disk with external storage, such as with a USB stick, or how to free up disk space.

You can see their plan here, saying they will come up with some method to automatically free up space if needed. They could just use this on a regular install and solve the same problem, right? And then they even anticipate that this won't work properly and give you the option to span your OS disk to external drives! If this becomes prime time, can we expect to see some of these issues appear:

1. The Reserved Space cleanup program deleted stuff outside of the reserved area?
2. After spanning C drive to USB key, OS won't boot with key removed?
3. Performance degredation after spanning C drive to USB key (say some poor chap spanned his SSD to a USB 2.0 drive)

Then again, if updates weren't 4+ GB, perhaps they wouldn't need to bother with this.

I wonder if they looked into expanding the System Reserved partition instead and writing some filter driver to store the files in there. This partition is typically hidden already and rarely ends up having anything inside of it besides boot files, or perhaps a winre.wim, despite usually it being between 250-500 MB in size. Oh but then again, perhaps they are not confident that their automatic cleanup tool wouldn't delete the BCD or boot files...

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Well, the real issue is that they call the horror they devised as "elegant", the C: (what an actual Microsoft Programmer would properly - please read as "improperly" - call "boot" volume ) is nothing but a conventional way to access a disk extent that they decided to "tag" - in order to keep compatibility with MS-DOS conventions - with a "name" or "drive letter" [1] [2]

The whole concept of GUID for volumes (and the assignement through mountvol), set aside the actual way disk signature and offset/length of volume for drive letter assignment work seem like non-existing if you read the post (actually the needed clarification in answer to a very legit question since the actual announcement missed any of the details).

jaclaz

 

[1] And yes, besides multi-hard disks system they seemingly ignore also the concept of multi-partitioning/multi-volumes, for these new guys you seemingly should have only one accessible volume, called "C:", which BTW is also the negation of the ONLY (IMHO) real advantage of GPT style disks (apart the 4 TiB size limit that is a non-problem since SSD became common and it won't be one until commonly used SSD's will go beyond 4 TiB) which is that of having the possibiliy of having a virtually endless number primary partitions (i.e. without the risks connected with the EMBR chain neded for logical volumes inside extended)

[2] only for the record, since NT 4.00 NO install of NT based system I ever did ever used C:\ as the drive letter for the actual "system" volume (the one that MS call backwards "boot").

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Hi guys!

I wish  I had the same understanding of the situation as you have.....but it is obvious that this is not a good development for those trying to have a small footprint....

For years I have (like many of us) always wondered why Microsoft can't fix general cleaning after installation of updates...?!....tons of files that are needed anymore are just left to clutter the system....Yes...disk cleanup can remove a lot of the rubbish...just don't understand why Microsoft don't have something in place like adobe....please don't shoot me but everytime adobe installs ex. adobe reader the installation file is removed afterwards which saves space....the average user in Windows just uses third party tools like ccleaner to do the work that Microsoft has never been good at doing....

Another thing that just annoys me is when Windows 10 adds a new version update it resets all settings made in the system instead of leaving them as they are....so if I build a computer with an ssd system drive C: and move the user to the separate D. drive then every update resets the user files and they have two of everything....just frustrating....

I get fedup with the so called happy email...Windows is doing this....Windows is doing that....why not just leave things alone...if it works don't fixit and if it doesn't work abolish it and make/build something better....

Never been brilliant att maths but as I see it we are heading for 4 b*****years of this crap and they still say it is the best ever......

Most of those that think and say that have their heads up their a****!

bookie32

 

 

Edited by bookie32
swearing...sorry
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The progression of sizes of spindle disks should have solved this years ago, right when 1TB became "the" standard size for disks. Then things changed. SSDs came out and they were far superior, but their storage sizes were quite small in comparison. How long have they been around for now? You can get yourself a 500GB SATA SSD for under $100 USD, so still not quite good cost wise vs a 7200rpm disk. Then the situation where desktops stopped being the king of computers and was overtaken by notebooks, and to a greater degree, mobile systems. Microsoft seems to be following a model where Windows is generally the same across all of the platforms. And this makes sense if you consider that they didn't invent a new OS to run on low end mobile devices with low amounts of storage. They ported Windows over to fit into that space. So if cheap computers with small storage sizes make up the majority of the Windows platform, we can expect that any changes made to Windows are for those things. And since they don't seem to actually have a separate product for different devices, you are going to see those "features" show up in the desktop space. That is why your desktop computer running Windows 10 has a tablet mode and an airplane mode.

And it is quite interesting that they did not bother to segment those features obviously designed for the low end products so that... say.... Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise wouldn't have the same stuff as whatever they put on the Surface Pro. Especially considering the fact that Microsoft has tons of different SKUs for licensing where you have to use specific OS versions on various different devices. It seems that the licensing department knows more about the differences between computers than whoever is making development decisions.

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  • 1 month later...

Isn't it fun when data (real world data) completely contradicts what you have been told by the know-it-all guys till now?

Quote

Microsoft Ironically Proves Forced Windows Updates Don’t Make Any Sense

Most exploits going after zero-days, not patched flaws

https://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-ironically-proves-forced-windows-update-don-t-make-any-sense-524897.shtml

 

The actual .pdf has a lot on nice new words and concepts (at least for me),  example:

Quote

Rising tensions between hostile and multitenant isolation

:w00t: 

and it is IMHO worth some time reading:

https://github.com/Microsoft/MSRC-Security-Research/blob/master/presentations/2019_02_BlueHatIL/2019_01 - BlueHatIL - Trends%2C challenge%2C and shifts in software vulnerability mitigation.pdf

jaclaz

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well this popped up in my mail box yesterday evening...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What the **** has Microsoft to do with Linux....why are we seeing them on the same advert.....

Microsoft is **** and Linux is something to be admired....they should not be in bed together!!

 

 

crap.PNG

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On 2/12/2019 at 1:24 AM, jaclaz said:

Isn't it fun when data (real world data) completely contradicts what you have been told by the know-it-all guys till now?

https://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-ironically-proves-forced-windows-update-don-t-make-any-sense-524897.shtml

 

The actual .pdf has a lot on nice new words and concepts (at least for me),  example:

:w00t: 

and it is IMHO worth some time reading:

https://github.com/Microsoft/MSRC-Security-Research/blob/master/presentations/2019_02_BlueHatIL/2019_01 - BlueHatIL - Trends%2C challenge%2C and shifts in software vulnerability mitigation.pdf

jaclaz

 

and then there were these recent articles:

https://news.softpedia.com/news/updating-windows-10-is-a-nightmare-for-home-users-research-finds-525116.shtml

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-new-study-shows-home-edition-users-are-baffled-by-updates/

 

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Had to happen before or later, magic spells applied to Windows 10 Updates:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/01/slow_ring_windows_10/

Quote

If at first you don't succeed, you may be trying to install that Slow Ring Windows 10 build
Click your heels together three times and say 'there's no OS maker like Microsoft'

 

OK, you may not believe El Reg, but here it is the original:

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/02/20/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-18342/

Quote

Update 2/28: At around 18% of the installation phase of the update, some devices are rebooting back into the previous build. After this happens 3 times, the next try should change the upgrade path and successfully update you to 18342.8. We appreciate your patience while we investigate the cause and get a fix out.

:whistle:

jaclaz

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The update that was supposed to bring version 1809 closer to the state in which it should've been released in the first place. Didn't seem to accomplish the goal. Am I too optimistic by assuming that was the goal?

The frequency of new feature updates should really be reduced. What's the point of releasing a bugged OS every 6 months, only for it to take another 6 months at least to fix it when another bugged build is released into the wild?

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  • 2 months later...

More new features coming to win10 1903:

But what I can't get over is the order in which the OSes evolve at the end. The lack of quality control has spread to M$ marketing!

 

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