Windows Update Never Stops Sucking
Ok, you've heard this rant before, so I'll keep it short... I picked up a new netbook yesterday (more on that in the next day or two, when I have had a chance to try it out and load a few Linux distributions on it). It is VERY new, pretty much fresh off the production line, evidenced by the latsest AMD C-60 CPU for example. So, first I fire up Windows 7 Stupor Edition, and let it go through 30 minutes or so of "Initial Setup and Configuration". Then I go to Windows Update, which says there are 25 "Important" updates, of which 24 have been selected for installation. No hint as to why that last lonely update didn't get selected, nothing in the pitiful descriptions of the updates which indicates incompatibility of that one with any of the others. Never mind, let it install those 24, reboot, go back to Windows Update and select that last lonely one for installation, run that... SURPRISE! When that one has finished, a new one has now appeared. Grrr. Ok, select that one, install it (of course, each of these select/install updates causes a "Windows Recovery Point" to be created). Hmmm. Installing just that one new update is taking 15 minutes or so, thrashing around on the disk, not giving any status information other than "Update 1 of 1 is being installed...". Ok, that one is done, now it wants to reboot, so let it do that. Finally, updates are done... or not.... GRRRR! Now there is one "Optional Update" that has suddenly materialized in the list... Ok, select that one, and install it - creating yet another "Recovery Point" in the process. Gee, this at least provides ample proof for my description of Windows as "The world's only automatically self-destroying operating system". When that "optional update" has finally installed, reboot one more time just to be sure, and check Windows Update again. Oh my God. OH MY GOD!!!! Suddenly there are EIGHT MORE *IMPORTANT" UPDATES to be installed! Where the HELL did those come from?!?!?!
I wonder what kind of computers and operating systems the people at Microsoft actually use? It is simply not possible that any intelligent human being could be responsible for this monstrosity, and could actually USE it on a regular basis, and would not then either FIX it, or just go home and quietly commit suicide. The only other possible explanation is that the people who work at Microsoft are as brain-damaged as the operating system they produce.
Sigh. Ok. Select the EIGHT IMPORTANT UPDATES, and let it download and install them. Wait another 15-30 minutes for that to finish. Reboot. Check for updates... i hope you are sitting down as you read this. Yep, you guessed it, it's not done yet. ONE "IMPORTANT" update to install. Well if it's so blasted IMPORTANT why didn't you show it to me along with the first 24? Or the next one? Or the one after that? Or the EIGHT after that? You HAD to hold this one back, just to give the knife one more twist, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU!?!?
Ok, install that one. That's another 10 minutes... I'll tell you, these "Microsoft .NET Framework 4" patches are my favorites... Reboot... Check Windows Update again... WOW! It says "no updates available". I don't believe it, of course, so I leave it running for a few minutes, and then check again... leave it again... check again... come on, I know you're lying to me, I know you're not REALLY done... after several more rechecks...
Nothing to install. Isn't that great? A brand new computer straight out of the box, and it "only" took me most of a day to get it actually ready to use.
Microsoft, you should be ashamed of yourselves. You produce a crappy, bug-infested system that is riddled with security problems, and you include a totally idiotic "update manager" for it. Then you charge consumers money for the whole mess, and to top it off you keep charging them, over and over and over again. You smear yet another coat of lipstick on it, and give it a new name, spend a few zillion dollars marketing it trying to fool consumers into believing that this time, finally, you "got it right" (aka as "Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, but we're going to charge you full price for the 'update' anyway"), and in the end you just keep delivering the same old broken garbage. Shame on you.
Well, it wasn't as short of a rant as I meant for it to be. But I feel better now. I hope you do too.
jw
P.S. Note to any Microsoft apologists who want to post a comment that says "I've been using Windows for 75 years and I have NEVER had to install updates that required more than an hour to install or more than one reboot". YOU LIE. PERIOD. YOU LIE. I am an average consumer. I don't keep an archive of every patch or update that Microsoft has ever released on hand, so that I can magically install everything at once. I don't get my computers handed to me pre-loaded and pre-configured on a silver platter so that I can go and write nice things about Microsoft on them. I expect to be able to buy a new computer, take it home and use it without investing most of a day and most of my patience in wet-nursing it to the point where it is semi-useable. So don't give me any BULL about my experience being "atypical" or otherwise out of the ordinary - it is EXACTLY what the ordinary consumer can expect to be subjected to when they buy a new computer today with Microsoft Windows "Preloaded".