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26th May 2018, 11:06 PM | #41 |
Philosopher
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There's no stopping a Windows update!
It happened while I was out. Fortunately this one didn't do any mischief. |
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"At the Supreme Court level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections." Justice William O. Douglas "Humans aren't rational creatures but rationalizing creatures." Author Unknown |
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27th May 2018, 02:04 AM | #42 |
Illuminator
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Location: Bristol UK
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I had another Microsoft update yesterday and suddenly there was a pop up which said my computer had run into a problem and they were going to restart it. Then the computer froze, or crashed. Luckily it seems to be mainly working this morning. I complained to Microsoft and Dell using the internet forms provided.
Other computer companies advertise they can fix the problems but it seems like quite a hefty price to me. I think Microsoft stop supporting computers after a number of years, presumably to boost sales of new computers. I think my Dell computer may still be under guarantee. I have had similar sorts of problems on another now defunct computer, and my brother who is now abroad at the moment was able to sort them out then. This latest Microsoft update seems to be something to do with privacy concerns, and legal tangles by the European Political Union. There is no privacy, or computer privacy, in Britain and America. Topix forums seem to be blocked at the moment unless you agree to accept cookies, whatever that is, and even then nothing happens. Waitrose supermarket sent an email to say they would no longer send correspondence unless you agreed to some new privacy agreement, which must be for legal reasons. |
27th May 2018, 05:15 AM | #43 |
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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27th May 2018, 10:12 AM | #44 |
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This is another thing I hate about the Windows update process: there's no progress indicator or even context. When an update starts you have literally no idea if it's a quick five minute job or if your computer will be out of commission for a couple of hours. All you get is that damned spinner going round and round. You also have no idea if the update is progressing as expected or is stuck somewhere.
By contrast, a Linux distribution is comprised of separate packages, and when you do an update it lists all the packages it's going to modify. It then shows them one by one as it's doing the update. And for the most part it's possible to carry on working (editing text, reading email, surfing the web) while the update is running. When you're running Windows, you've given control of your computer over to Microsoft, a giant corporation that doesn't care about you. With Linux you're still in the driver's seat. |
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The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) |
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27th May 2018, 04:46 PM | #45 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Sure there is. The whole time it was telling me 4%...26%...11%...19%....
As long as there's some change every half hour or so, I'll let it go on. When BillG says "My Computer", that's exactly what he means. It ain't yours. |
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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant. |
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27th May 2018, 05:43 PM | #46 |
Nasty Woman
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27th May 2018, 05:50 PM | #47 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I don't even think I own my house.
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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant. |
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27th May 2018, 11:07 PM | #48 |
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The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) |
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27th May 2018, 11:23 PM | #49 |
Gentleman of leisure
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I own my own house, but not the land it sits on. I have a 99 year lease on the land that is due to run out in a few years.
As for owning books, you may own the paper and ink in the books, but not the actual words. That means you cannot copy and then sell the copies. Never could due to copyright reasons. |
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This signature is for rent. |
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27th May 2018, 11:53 PM | #50 |
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My Win10 installation was broken recently by an update. The installation completed, I could log in but had no desktop or start menu. When I tried to Win-R something it said "An attempt to access a non-existant token was made".
Only recourse was a reset. I hate Microsoft. |
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"If it can grow, it can evolve" - Eugenie Scott, Ph.D Creationism disproved? Evolution IS a blind watchmaker |
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28th May 2018, 09:53 AM | #51 |
Philosopher
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Yup. That's what happened to me: Desktop and Start Menu gone. Had to do a reinstall of Windows 10.
Where I begin to curse Microsoft is when I go to their support site for answers and what's given is useless. It's usually something that doesn't work and can't even be done. |
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"At the Supreme Court level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections." Justice William O. Douglas "Humans aren't rational creatures but rationalizing creatures." Author Unknown |
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29th May 2018, 03:31 AM | #52 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2003
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"You may continue working" was the most annoying lie Windows ever told me (on Win XP. It's generally gotten better since then, but every once in a while gets worse again).
In recent annoyances, Win 10 update told me something along the lines "Update failed. A reboot may resolve the problem." I mean, how can they NOT know if an update requires a reboot or not? Linux and Mac always do. |
17th June 2018, 11:29 PM | #53 |
Illuminator
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My brother helped me with my no sound on YouTube problem after this latest Microsoft update. At first he was a bit mystified by it, but he changed the headphone jack from front hole to the rear socket (green socket or port at back) and the previous deafening silence has now returned to normal sound.
In the course of my research into the problem I noticed that somebody said the his mother's friend in America had been defrauded out of $130000 by these so-called Microsoft support and Windows support internet fraudsters in India, and she now has no money, and she is trying to get the money back from Mumbai. Something needs to be done about these crooks. |
18th June 2018, 09:09 AM | #54 |
Penultimate Amazing
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18th June 2018, 10:01 AM | #55 |
Penultimate Amazing
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In my experience, the progress is often not even linear. The first 30% may take 1 minute, the middle 3% may take 25 minutes, and the last 29% may take 1 second except for the final 1%, which can take 30 minutes. Not very useful for planning out one's time.
My favorite however is watching rapid progress and completion on a progress bar, which then hits 100% and disappears, leading one to (false) optimism. Which is then followed by the the appearance of another progress bar. And later another. And another. Often each helpfully labeled: "Downloading" "Checking files" "Installing" "Optimizing" "Mulling it all Over" "Doing nothing but annoying the user" etc. Or going away for lunch during a long installation only to find on one's return that the installation paused at 10 minutes waiting for your response to a useless prompt, such as "This installation will retain the use of your wireless mouse. Click okay to continue." |
18th June 2018, 10:44 AM | #56 |
Penultimate Amazing
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So last week I was trying to figure out why my video capture card wouldn't work in Windows 10. I found a year-old video showing how to solve the problem if it was a conflict in device drivers; but device manager found no conflicts. So I finally found out that if the serial number was below a certain number (mine was), that it was not compatible with Windows 10. So I went out and bought a new card, installed it and it worked just fine that first night.
Next morning Windows tells me it's got an update that might take awhile. Okay, so I set it to go and the frigging thing takes like 3 hours. Anyway, when it's all done, I go to start up the video capture program and it doesn't work. The preview screen is black instead of blue (ready for input). Well, I remembered that was the problem the guy with the video said he could solve. Sure enough, I went into device manager, found the conflict and resolved it. It does irk me though. It's almost like my computer sent a message to Microsoft telling them about the new card that worked and they decided to promptly sabotage it. |
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My new blog: Recent Reads. 1960s Comic Book Nostalgia Visit the Screw Loose Change blog. |
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18th June 2018, 12:14 PM | #57 |
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18th June 2018, 12:18 PM | #58 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 26,646
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Apple uses a progress bar on their various products. Is theirs "correct"?
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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18th June 2018, 01:45 PM | #59 |
Loggerheaded, earth-vexing fustilarian
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If the s/w does a deep scan of the work it's going to have to do, then yes to that. It should 'know'.
If it kicks straight off on the basis of typical estimates of fairly clean Win systems then I can get that it can be wildly wrong in its estimates. I don't housekeep this laptop much, as I create/acquire precious little new data, though no doubt i have countless useless versions of the same logs and whatever. Don't much care if my C: drive is heavily fragmented, as I/O performance is of little importance to me. Having said all that, the Win updates still drive me mad |
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"There ain't half been some clever bastards" - Ian Dury |
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18th June 2018, 01:49 PM | #60 |
sinning sybarite
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My sound has never been the same after upgrading to Windows 10.
It's constantly breaking and most of the time it sounds very muffled. Never had a problem before that fateful day. I've updated drivers, deleted and reinstalled drivers, nothing works. I've given up trying to fix it and just live with it. |
18th June 2018, 02:14 PM | #61 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 17,646
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Nope. Just as screwed up.
Apple also appears to prefer little circles over bars for indicating progress in downloading apps and music/video files online. More and more of a sector of the circle changes color as the file loads. But at least on my devices, actual functionality takes many minutes after the circle reports a complete download. |
18th June 2018, 02:32 PM | #62 |
Master Poster
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It also doesn't take a programming genious to imagine a scenario where the progress is not linear
E.g: The speed with which files are copied can vary quite much depending on multiple parameters. So do you choose bytes copied vs total bytes to copy as the progress value or the number of files copied vs total files to copy? Both values can fall victim to the "last percent takes forever"-problem. With a single progress bar covering a multitude of different tasks it almost guarantees that the progress will be jerky with some percents taking a lot longer than others. In the end it's not there to provide you any sort of clue to when it's finished (because it can't other than when reaching 100%). It's there to say "I'm still working. Don't shut me off." |
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"If it can grow, it can evolve" - Eugenie Scott, Ph.D Creationism disproved? Evolution IS a blind watchmaker |
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18th June 2018, 07:32 PM | #63 |
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As a programmer who has also written many programs with progress bars, they can be trickier than you might think. Sometimes the time it would take to make a good estimate of the total time and how each step compares to that as a percentage is not inconsiderable. And since you really don't want to increase the time required for the task by any serious fraction to get a good estimate, lots of times you punt and the progress bar is not very accurate. But I agree they could be better in many cases.
Having said that, here's the obligatory XKCD link: https://xkcd.com/612/ |
19th June 2018, 12:04 AM | #64 |
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Windows helpline training document found
https://xkcd.com/627/ |
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It's a kind of a strawman thing in that it's exactly a strawman thing. Loss Leader 'When you're born into this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show. If you're born in America you get a front row seat.' George Carlin |
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19th June 2018, 12:59 AM | #65 | |||
Gentleman of leisure
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Here is a YouTube on the subject of why progress bars are not very reliable
There are several reasons, including it is not a priority for software people and another task may start that slows progress. |
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19th June 2018, 01:07 AM | #66 |
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"Your deepest pools, like your deepest politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than expected." Walter Scott. |
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16th July 2018, 03:01 AM | #67 |
Illuminator
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Location: Bristol UK
Posts: 4,127
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Ever since that Windows update disaster I have been receiving continual emails saying 'Server Alert: we will terminate your email in the next 24 hours' and of course nothing happens. My sister has also said she has been getting emails supposedly from the Inland Revenue asking for financial and bank details from her. Something needs to be done about this internet fraud.
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16th July 2018, 03:40 AM | #68 |
Penultimate Amazing
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1st August 2018, 02:25 AM | #69 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Bristol UK
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I received this email form my brother about my no sound on YouTube problem:
Here is the link for the Britec help video that helped us sort the problem out! Hope it stays working! Subject: audio link https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...BF&FORM=WRVORC ix windows 10 audio problem - Bing Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you. www.bing.com |
24th August 2018, 02:28 AM | #70 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Bristol UK
Posts: 4,127
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Since that windows update disaster I have been getting pop ups saying do not switch off your computer because it is in grave peril and phone this Microsoft number which consists of bank fraudsters from India. This is getting on my nerves and I now just ignore it.
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24th August 2018, 03:47 AM | #71 |
Loggerheaded, earth-vexing fustilarian
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24th August 2018, 05:47 AM | #72 |
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Far safer to do a complete drive wipe and re-install Windows from scratch, you can never be 100% certain malware has been removed. This is especially true when you've experienced update problems and then malware appears, it is often a symptom of very clever malware interfering with malware patches in the update. If the malware has successfully prevented the patches it is also very likely it can hide itself from malware scanning.
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24th August 2018, 06:08 AM | #73 |
Loggerheaded, earth-vexing fustilarian
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"There ain't half been some clever bastards" - Ian Dury |
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29th August 2018, 09:04 AM | #74 |
Penultimate Amazing
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For licensed copies of Windows 10 you can download the Media Creation Toolkit
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I suspect you are a sandwich, metaphorically speaking. -Donn And a shot rang out. Now Space is doing time... -Ben Burch You built the toilet - don't complain when people crap in it. _Kid Eager Never underestimate the power of the Random Number God. More of evolutionary history is His doing than people think. - Dinwar |
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29th August 2018, 09:11 AM | #75 |
Fiend God
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29th August 2018, 12:49 PM | #76 |
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For those with a modicum of technical skills, one can set up a secondary computer with a Linux distribution (CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu) and the Pi-Hole ad-blocking DNS resolver. Then in its admin console (Blacklist > Wildcard Blocking) one can set up the names of the Windows telemetry and update servers:
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The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) |
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29th August 2018, 01:02 PM | #77 |
Loggerheaded, earth-vexing fustilarian
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"There ain't half been some clever bastards" - Ian Dury |
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29th August 2018, 01:36 PM | #78 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 4,472
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From the relevant Microsoft Support Database entry:
Quote:
It reduces the number of automated updates to whatever they call security relevant (if they do a proper job, that could be good thing. Previous events indicate they do not), but does not turn them off completely. |
23rd September 2018, 08:00 AM | #79 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Bristol UK
Posts: 4,127
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I still think Microsoft could do more to prevent audio problems and internet fraud when they do their updates.
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24th September 2018, 05:38 AM | #80 |
Illuminator
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Posts: 3,632
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