Another Screwup Brought To You By Windows Update

[NoelC]

The other day, when I ran it, Disk Cleanup literally ran for over an hour, consuming roughly 2 cores of CPU continuously. 

And now note how much space Disk Cleanup claims to be able to free on drive C: through Windows Update Cleanup vs. how big drive C: really is.

This is yet another good example (couple of examples) of why Microsoft needs to test its own software, and not send it out to the world in an unfinished state...

It takes a new level of not caring to turn Disk Cleanup into a CPU-intensive activity, then to report a bogus result like what's shown above!  Thinking about what must be going on in Redmond, I'm seriously reminded of the old "if an infinite number of monkeys..." joke.  And I'm not laughing.

-Noel

[jaclaz]

3 minutes ago, NoelC said:

This is yet another good example (couple of examples) of why Microsoft needs to test its own software, and not send it out to the world in an unfinished state...

Yep, and imagine how happy was the average user to find himself/herself without Internet connection (think of your mom or uncle and how they would feel - righteousy - outraged to be asked to visit the MS sites for suggestions on how to solve the problem ...):

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38301548

Quote

Microsoft has also offered guidance to those experiencing difficulties.

"Some customers using Windows 10 have reported difficulties connecting to the internet," said a spokeswoman for Microsoft.

"As a first step, we recommend customers restart their PCs.

"If this does not resolve the problem, visit our website for further support."

jaclaz

 

[NoelC]

One wonders how, without that internet connection, they'd be reading the instructions to "reboot your PC" in the first place.  And is that not most everyone's first action anyway?

Probably they'd visit the web with their iPhone or Android and do a Google web search.

For what it's worth, there is not a consensus that a recent Windows Update caused the "DHCP connectivity" problem.  It might have been latent and triggered by something.  Microsoft's response may just be damage control, since a lot of the web "journalists" are attributing the problem to Windows Update, whether or not it's true.

-Noel

Edited December 14, 2016 by NoelC

[xman charl]

some updates made win 10 not bootable, suggested use ISO win 10 installation, select repair

selected repair option, fix boot problem, or startup

noticed when system did boot, along with partition c:, there was now partition d:, e:

win 10 ver 1607

Charl

[cc333]

And this is yet another reason why I refuse to downgrade to Windows 0! (no, that's not a typo!)

I'm sorta feeling like Dibya. XP, for all it's technological deficiencies, represents the apex of the Windows UI, and everything thereafter is just meaningless medlling (yes, there are some newer features I like, but many, if not all the features I actually want can be added to XP via third party tools). That being said, XP x64 has a somewhat more modern, 64-bit kernel and architecture, yet retains the best of XP's UI.

I use my Macs for most things, though, so I'm OK with even Windows 95 (though 2000 is my practical minimum for using Windows in a modern context (*maaaybe* 98SE, but that's stretching it quite thinly)).

c

[xpclient]

Personally I think that if you rule out third party software which deeply integrates with the operating system and makes it behave a whole lot better as the user intended, Windows ^XP was the ultimate peak of software engineering just by itself without needing any big third party fixes. It was Windows 2000+a huge number of features that few people are aware of. Of course, Windows Vista and Windows 7/8 were huge improvements in many, many areas but that's when they started compromising on quality of existing stuff to push new stuff. Regressions began to crop up which made some things a deal-breaker. If the regressions completely start ruining the experience, it isn't worth it. However, with third party apps fixing the superficial, less severe problems in Windows after XP, the experience of these OSes becomes very much superior to Windows XP. For a LONG time I refused to let go of XP and believed it was the best OS. But once I could get the Windows XP experience on Windows 7 with third party apps, I could see how Windows 7 was objectively better than XP if you consider everything you get as in the whole package. Windows 8/8.1 was another huge letdown but again not impossible to fix with third party software. Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell and a few other essential apps like OldNewExplorer, is currently IMHO the best OS (it works for me at least, the way I want it). Bob 10 is a joke, definitely the worst and whoever came up with the idea of an operating system as a cloud service should be banned from working in the industry and all his qualifications and degrees taken away/canceled.   Nothing can fix it since Microsoft gutted the user experience at its core. The kernel may still be solid but what good is that if the UX is so unstable? It will change when you go to sleep one day and wake up the next.  And the usability/GUI is so awful! It's still a phone UI put into a desktop OS. But then most of the gullible users are id***. What do they know about good UI anyway?  

Edited December 15, 2016 by xpclient

[NoelC]

I guess it boils down to what you consider the "operating system" to be. 

Me, I always think of what the system can be made into (because, like you xpclient, that's what I do with it), with the goals being high usability, an strong level of stability, and minimal maintenance.  Windows 10 gets 95% of the way on the first, maybe does a bit worse on the second, and is way worse - in the wrong ballpark worse - for the last.  It's just not better, or even as good. 

Do you think of anything as improved when you think of Windows 10?  Apps?  Cortana?  Easier to keep running?  Mobile?  Cloud storage?  3D?  Security?  All of these things are what MICROSOFT wants us to think of, and their marketeers are relentless at telling us that, but do any of them actually do something better than what we already had?  I really, really have tried to find the good in it, but I just can't answer yes.

I did tweak XP too (and all those that came before; remember tweaking DOS with SMARTDRV in high memory?), but we've never had the tremendous resources of the Internet that we have right now, today.  All that shared knowledge and experience took a while to accumulate, and good apps took a long time to write.  Decades.  Dibya and others still using XP are probably using it more adeptly today than I did more than 10 years ago.

Was XP truly better out of the box?  Or did we just expect less of it?  Or NEED less of it?  Certainly our computers were nowhere near as powerful back then, our monitors and networks not as good - and frankly even we users have learned a lot since then.  I still use skills and good habits today that I learned going all the way back to before Windows or even Microsoft existed.

-Noel

[jaclaz]

4 hours ago, NoelC said:

... Cortana? ....

Which may soon make its (her? ) appearance in your thermostat or A/C control panel   , JFYI:

https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2016/12/13/cortana-skills-kit-cortana-devices-sdk-announcement/

Cortana "unbound" (but tied to you)

About the Internet (actually seemingly DHCP) mess, if it wasn't broken, why would they (attempt to) fix it? 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3150013/windows/microsoft-rushes-out-windows-10-patch-to-fix-broken-internet-connections.html

Quote

December 13, 2016—KB3206632 (OS Build 14393.576)

...

Addressed a service crash in CDPSVC that in some situations could lead to the machine not being able to acquire an IP address.

...

 

jaclaz

 

Edited December 15, 2016 by jaclaz

[xpclient]

Well I can think of only one thing that Windows 10 does better for me: it can stream to DLNA-compatible receivers a lot more efficiently using WMP than earlier releases. That's one feature. Vs literally a million regressions and unwanted behaviors. Any chance I might use it? Are you kidding me? No way in hell for the next many years!! I hope to find a decent DLNA server/controller that works with TVs as well as Windows 10's DLNA controller. DivX with its Media Server works with some clients/renderers but not all. Any other suggestions? Note that it has to support DLNA's controller and server roles and has to be compatible with DLNA client and renderer roles in devices like Samsung, Sony TVs.

Update: There is a CRAPPY Videos app in Windows 8.1 which lets you stream to DLNA TVs too using the Devices charm (Win+K) -> Play option. So now, Bob 10 has nothing for me. Absolutely nothing of value.

Edited December 16, 2016 by xpclient

[dencorso]

Delenda Cortana! Long live 7 of 9!

[aviv00]

had cleanup taking too much time in task manager its calling dismhost over and over

i used dism with  /cleanup first and then this

hope it will help

Edited December 15, 2016 by aviv00

[NoelC]

13 hours ago, jaclaz said:

About the Internet (actually seemingly DHCP) mess, if it wasn't broken, why would they (attempt to) fix it? 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3150013/windows/microsoft-rushes-out-windows-10-patch-to-fix-broken-internet-connections.html

I didn't say it wasn't broken.  What I said was that there is some question whether a recent Windows Update was at fault (yes, I'm picking nits). 

People are apparently uncovering evidence that the problem is occurring in systems that have not been updated.  One theory is that it was latent and something triggered it.

But it doesn't really matter, for the purpose of criticizing Microsoft for releasing untested code, whether it was broken by a recent Windows Update or came with the "Anniversary" version, or whatever.

-Noel

[Dibya]

3.99 TB update back up?

[cc333]

55 minutes ago, Dibya said:

3.99 TB update back up?

That is most definitely a bug! How can someone have 4 TB of data on a 128 GB disk? There must be some excellent compression at work!

@NoelCWhat happens if you try copying in the Disk Cleanup executable from either an earlier Windows 10 build or from Windows 8.x?

c

[NoelC]

Just a hunch, but I'm guessing the fault lies in the servicing database maintenance tools (e.g.,, DISM, et. al.) rather than in cleanmgr.exe.

It's probably not a big problem; maybe a number is 1 byte too small (causing 0 to go to 0xFFFFFFFF).  Notably when there IS something to clean up the number is more reasonable.  The 3.99 TB appeared after I ran a cleanup.  But that showed the second problem - the process taking over an hour to complete - which I suspect could be related to the problem Windows 7 people are seeing where update checks take a really long time.

This seems to me to be new levels of bloat, never before seen even at Microsoft.

-Noel