Updating in Windows 10 Version 1703? You Win Some, You Lose Some

Topic

New Reply

Updating in Windows 10 Version 1703? You Win Some, You Lose Some
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/107195/updating-windows-10-version-1703-win-lose

by PAUL THURROTT
Posted on MARCH 18, 2017

Once you’ve upgraded to Windows 10 version 1703 with the Creators Update, you’ll notice some major changes to the ways you can configure software updates. Some of those changes are welcome and even necessary. Some, not so much.

As you may know, I’ve been critical of Microsoft’s Windows as a Service (WaaS) strategy: I believe Windows 10 to be too monolithic, too stuffed with legacy code, to ever reliably support such regular updating. And our collective experiences have thus far borne out my opinion on the matter.

But regardless of how you feel about Microsoft forcing users to keep Windows 10 up-to-date, things are indeed changing in the Creators Update. To understand the impact of these changes, we need to understand what updates are in Windows 10. And examine how updating works today, in Windows 10 version 1607. (To be clear, I am only focusing on how this works for individuals. Businesses are getting much better update install configuration capabilities in this new release.)

Microsoft provides two types of updates for Windows 10: Feature updates, which literally add new features, and “other” updates, which are quality improvements that can include security and bug fixes only.

……..

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

3 users thanked author for this post.

ch100, Noel Carboni, Elly

Reply | Quote

Replies

I wish they’d get this Creators version released already. I’m actually starting to become anxious to try it out. Not enough to rejoin the ranks of pre-release testers, mind you, but I do want to know what they’ve changed.

I honestly don’t think the changes described by Paul above will break my strategy of maintaining control over when updates get installed:

• Change group policy settings to stop automatic updating (which might not still work).
• Disable the Windows Update service and associated Task Scheduler items (which might not still work).
• Set up a 3rd party firewall to block all contact with update servers unless reconfigured to do updates (which will still work).

I can think of a few more things that could be done to block Microsoft’s insane desire to take over whenever they feel like it.

When thinking of how Microsoft is now couching Windows Updates I’m reminded a bit of the line from Star Wars delivered by Emperor Palpatine… “It is inevitable“. Yeah, we saw what he got in return.

-Noel

1 user thanked author for this post.

ch100

Reply | Quote

I wish they’d get this Creators version released already. I’m actually starting to become anxious to try it out. Not enough to rejoin the ranks of pre-release testers, mind you, but I do want to know what they’ve changed.

I am in the same situation 🙂

1 user thanked author for this post.

Noel Carboni

Reply | Quote

Noel Carboni wrote:

Not enough to rejoin the ranks of pre-release testers, mind you, but I do want to know what they’ve changed.

Unfortunately, if you don’t want to be an unpaid beta tester, you’ll have to wait for the Current Branch for Business, which is likely more than four months away.

Remember the mess we had with the Anniversary Update? Months before the biggest bugs were ironed out.

Reply | Quote

Unfortunately, if you don’t want to be an unpaid beta tester, you’ll have to wait for the Current Branch for Business

This is very good advice, but highly unlikely to be followed by Noel and me… and you 🙂
We always learn it the hard way, don’t we?

Reply | Quote

Thank heaven (and VMware) for virtual machines. And free disk space for as far as the eye can see…

-Noel

Reply | Quote

woody wrote:

Unfortunately, if you don’t want to be an unpaid beta tester, you’ll have to wait for the Current Branch for Business, which is likely more than four months away.

I figure pre-release program testers are alpha testers – from the engineer’s desks to us in days or even hours.

Actual releases (months BEFORE CBB) are beta, since there are actually WEEKS between the build and the actual distribution!

Could you ever have imagined a whole, insanely complicated OS could be distributed like this? It boggles the mind.

-Noel

Reply | Quote

My view

On Window 10 Distribution:

Experimental = Insider Program Fast Ring and Release Ring(If not released, this is deferred to CU Release)
Alpha = Insider Program Slow Ring and CU Release
Beta = CB Release and if one holds off in the CU release substantially.
Charlie = CBB Release and holding off on CU Release Extra Extended time.
Production Stability = Do we ever get to this???

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

Reply | Quote

Noel,

As I pointed out, in one of my Teaching Posts, is around AU/WU/MU and that I have watched the OS change my settings while I was observing in RegEdit. Locking down the the Permissions on those KEYS with BOTH access and Deny control on the System, containing it to R/O.

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

Reply | Quote

Noel,

Sorry to answer here a bit out of topic, but my Secure Attention Sequence thread is closed (I don’t know why). I had time to try the setting you suggested ForegroundLockoutTimeout and it didn’t change anything. I saw on the Internet that some people who switched from the default UAC setting to one lower (no desktop dimming) also had the UAC prompt appear behind other Windows and “locking” the computer until you press ALT-TAB.

For me, I set it to maximum setting (one over the default setting), but it is really when I activate Secure Attention Sequence on OTS elevation in group policy that the problem appear, consistently and regardless of the ForegroundLockoutTimeout you suggested. That’s bad because I like this SAS setting and I have been using it forever.

I hope they fix this in CU, but I don’t hold my breadth. Some people said they got a good amount of feedback on this issue. I wonder what they do with the feedback. Sometimes, those are stupid, easily fixable bugs. With this one, I still count two annoying bugs I found in AU: the search issue where Cortana doesn’t return any result unless you click on filter by documents once you moved the default folders to a second partition (even adjusting indexing options of course) and the fact that the apostrophe is not recognized if you use the French keyboard that has a slightly different apostrophe (one is curved, one is straight). They even had that bug in 8, they fixed it in 8.1 and it was back in 10 with Cortana! So much for organizational learning!

Secure Attention Sequence on OTS elevation:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\CredUI]
“EnableSecureCredentialPrompting”=dword:00000001

 

The setting

Reply | Quote

I’m sorry that didn’t work for you. Setting ForegroundLockTimeout to 0 was the only thing I could think of that I’d run across that might be related to a failure to bring an important pop-up to the front.

I have the distinct impression that the “really hard bugs” – e.g., those like “pop-behind” windows that have been in Windows through a lot of different versions – are things Microsoft just no longer wants to address. Maybe they’re just acknowledging that their current crew of application programmers aren’t up to the task of working on system software.

To this day I still occasionally see File Explorer pop “file exists, do you wish to overwrite?” messages behind open windows. Those have been in there since Vista or earlier, and apparently they’re there to stay.

-Noel

Reply | Quote

You might be right, although the OTS bug appeared with AU, not even 1511 I think, but certainly not Win 8.1 and prior.

Reply | Quote

Just in case your interested, your original Post “Secure Attention Sequence” is accessible again, I was just on it a “Subscribed”

Just Sayn’

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

Reply | Quote

Note that there’s no reply box, Crysta.

Recall that Woody, with the latest round of site updates, now has the site auto-close old threads after some inactive time. I’m not sure I think that’s a good idea.

-Noel

Reply | Quote

I see that now. I don’t know about you, I always have a hard time with false limitation in life.

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

Reply | Quote

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Isn’t this part of the name of the game with all Windows 10 upgrades to a newer version? 🙂

3 users thanked author for this post.

PhotM, woody, Noel Carboni

Reply | Quote

Compare that with this:

https://www.askwoody.com/2017/five-fatal-flaws-in-the-current-windows-10-and-how-theyll-fare-in-the-new-creators-update/

Reply | Quote