Win10’s new “Download and install now” option — is it for version changes only, or will we get it for cumulative updates?

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When Microsoft releases Win10 version 1903 later this month, we’re promised a new capability called “Download and install now” that will finally — fi
[See the full post at: Win10’s new “Download and install now” option — is it for version changes only, or will we get it for cumulative updates?]

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Well, maybe there is hope after all 🙂

https://www.itnews.com/article/3393243/microsoft-surrenders-in-its-windows-update-war-with-users.html

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Preston’s article is a good one, but it — like all the others I’ve seen — doesn’t address the discrepancy between what we’ve been promised, and what we’ve actually seen.

It’s a win-win situation. At the very least, Win10 Home users finally get a way to block version updates for many months at a time. At best, everybody gets an easy opt-in method for blocking all kinds of patches.

The “delay updates for 35 days” feature works independently. It’s also an excellent improvement, but you have to use it correctly. I’ll have more details as we get more experience.

I learned long ago to trust what the software does, not necessarily what the blog posts say.

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In the article, Preston Gralla wrote:

Why the change after so many years of Microsoft’s refusal to let people decide for themselves whether to install feature updates? It’s because Microsoft is a different company under Satya Nadella than it was under Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. It has shed its arrogance and is far more open to new ways of doing business and dealing with its customers.

/facepalm

I really wish they had a comments section on CW still.

We had complete control over Windows updates during the entire tenure of both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.  It wasn’t until Satya Nadella became CEO that the “so many years of Microsoft’s refusal to let people decide for themselves whether to install feature updates” began! All of the strife and angst Windows 10 has caused… WaaS, GWX and its the dark patterns meant to trick people into installing something they were trying to avoid, the telemetry that can’t be turned off, the intentional sabotage of Windows installations on hardware that MS has decreed shall only run Windows 10, the monetization, the conscription of paying consumers as beta testers, the ads, the crapware (Woody’s term!) that comes not just with the initial installation of Windows, but every time a feature update comes along, the unprecedented usurpation of control by Microsoft over computers that do not belong to them… the whole Windows 10 trainwreck has been 100% a product of the “new” Microsoft under Satya Nadella.

It doesn’t make any sense to laud Satya Nadella for partially rolling back just a few of the arrogant policies of Satya Nadella.  There still isn’t anything like the kind of control consumers and corporations alike had with every version of Windows prior to 10, with every CEO prior to Nadella.  Most of the things that make Windows 10 sour are still very much in place, and there’s still a very long way to go before Windows 10 is in the same league as any other version of Windows in terms of serving the user rather than Microsoft itself.  There’s been no evidence whatsoever that Microsoft is even considering making such a journey.  They’ve merely given back a small portion of what they’ve taken from us.  If a burglar breaks into your house and steals all your stuff, but after four years gives back a small portion of what he stole, he’s not a philanthropist!

It’s true that Microsoft is not the same company it was under Ballmer and Gates.  If it was, I might still be using Windows.

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Nadella became CEO in Feb. 2014. The first Win10 shipped in July 2015.

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Elly

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woody wrote:

Nadella became CEO in Feb. 2014. The first Win10 shipped in July 2015.

And only two months before that, the tech press reported on an insider report that the plan was to continue to move Windows 8.x in a more desktop-friendly direction.  Reportedly, the “threshold” update, which would have been Windows 8.2, targeted for an early 2015 release, would have brought back the Windows 7-style start menu, and may have also had a separate version and SKU number for desktops rather than trying to continue the failed “one for all” strategy.  That was under Ballmer.

And then, two months later, Nadella comes on board, and a year and a half after that, there was no Windows 8.2, nor would there be any more feature updates for 8.x at all, even though it was still well within mainstream support at that point.  What we did get was Windows 10 build 1507, also known as “Threshold,” along with GWX, WaaS, forced updates, telemetry with no off button, dark patterns, untested releases (Nadella famously got rid of the QA testers), monetization, and a self-congratulatory book from Nadella about how he got Microsoft’s soul back, which he gave to every employee of Microsoft, complete with his special annotations of wisdom in that MS-only special edition.

If there was any doubt that the Windows 10 trainwreck was a creation of the Nadella era, one only need look at the progression since Windows 10’s release.  There hasn’t been any sudden change in direction, and this slight change in the update model, while welcome, is hardly the about-face that one would expect if the intent was to stop the arrogance of Windows 10 in a surrender to the demands of the users.  Nothing less than total control of updates, telemetry, what gets installed, what one may uninstall, and every other aspect of one’s PC is going to be enough, and until then, Nadella to me is the guy who caused all this, not the one who fixed it.  It’s not fixed, and even if it was, it would have only need fixing because he broke it.

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I’m greatly disappointed by commentators like Preston.

From his article:

And if you’ve been paying attention to shifts in the corporate culture in Redmond, the company’s surrender to its customers shouldn’t be a surprise.

Okay… but it is a huge surprise? What is Preston missing?

He ignores, or doesn’t know, that the degrading of customer control and experience came after Nadella’s ascent into the leadership position? No way… he’s been around too long, and knows too much for that.

People complained, long and loudly. Microsoft ignored them.

Well, he got that right!

What I don’t understand is what he is attributing the change to:

It has shed its arrogance and is far more open to new ways of doing business and dealing with its customers.

Because they are allowing customers to delay feature updates? Way too little change, coming way too late.

From my point of view, just like telling people they now have ‘control’ of privacy but providing no off button, Microsoft isn’t surrendering anything. They retain control of end users hardware and access and change things as they desire. They continue to assert their power to override end users wants and needs, rather than offering what customers want. This is a tiny bit of pacification, not surrender!

Under Nadella’s new openness, Microsoft has thrived… So expect to see more moves like this in the future.

Imagine… if Microsoft had focused on providing end users with increased privacy, stability, security, compatibility, and configuration options… rather than working out how to access, control, and monopolize their data to use for Microsoft AI development and exploitation!

Microsoft has it within their power to surrender to a business strategy that values customers, respects their privacy, and meets their wants and needs, with one… little… tiny, change.

Make the LTSC enterprise version available to individual end users at a reasonable price. That’s it!

It already exists. Its already developed and in use. It has the features and stability that we want, need, and deserve. Include a single ‘all telemetry off’ button, and it would be a huge winner.

My guess is it won’t be offered, because Microsoft really doesn’t intend to surrender, but to do more marketing, and better hide and disguise and continue in their predatory behavior. That is Nadella’s big contribution to Microsoft!

And it isn’t something I can laud or support.

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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“Customer control” is part of a large problem with Windows. It very much contributes to instability and greatly increased support calls and cost. Many users say they want more control over everything in Windows but particularly the update process. The ability to pick and choose updates to install is why the Windows 10 update model was developed. In spite of what is often seen in support forums skipping updates is not a good idea. Delaying updates is OK to provide a test period. The pick and choose capability leads to patches never being applied. This causes security holes being open that have been fixed. It also causes unnecessary support calls when something has already been fixed but the patch has been skipped. Many users will not go back to check skipped patches and install them.

“Compatibility” – what do you mean by this? Compatibility with what? Should Microsoft support every piece of hardware and software released since Windows 2000/XP? Even earlier? Legacy hardware and software support means a lot of very old code is in Windows. I would guess that like many software development organizations there were things done in that old code that is not documented and no one has a clue now why it was done. For security purposes Microsoft has changed driver interaction with Windows. To support old hardware OEMs would have to completely rewrite drivers. They don’t want to do that. They want you to buy new hardware. Is is up to Microsoft to provide anything beyond basic drivers?

Stability – How do you define stability? Is Windows 10 less stable than prior versions? By what measure? What is an acceptable level of stability? In my experience with a variety of systems used in a variety of personal and business settings Windows 10 is at least as stable as Windows 7 if not more so.

Security – What do you mean by this? Is Windows 10 less secure than prior versions? By what measure?

What configuration options are missing? Did they ever exist? Have you reported this in the Feedback Hub? Do you want Microsoft to extend pro and enterprise capabilities to the home version? IMO, the vast majority of home users don’t care. They don’t want to have to configure anything or have to change settings. All they want to do is use their system.

Privacy – The settings for data collection should be easier to access. BUT, I don’t get the huge hue and cry about this. Telemetry is not about collecting personal data. Choosing not to participate in telemetry means Microsoft has less information about Windows performance, stability, and security. Please enlighten me where Windows 10 collects and disseminates personal data.

Microsoft has made missteps in Windows 10. The GWX debacle to get people to upgrade was stupid. The slow response to modify the Windows 10 update process is frustrating. Not using the various preview rings to more thoroughly test releases is another stupid decision. As has gone on seemingly forever Microsoft’s communication about changes is terrible. They leave way too many questions unanswered. I’m sure there are many others.

--Joe

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Reposting to get the threading right, but it’s not indenting.  This is a reply to Joe’s message, but it’s showing the same indent as his.  Oh well, I guess.

Making things more convenient for Microsoft tech support agents is not a valid reason for having them take control of PCs that do not belong to them to benefit themselves in spite of the wishes of the PC’s owner.   If concern over costs of providing support is the issue, all MS need do is require that anyone calling in for Windows tech support be fully up to date on all of the patches rated as important or higher, unless the problem is the inability to get updates, for obvious reasons.

The problems of people requesting help with bugs already fixed is nothing new, and it’s not unique to Windows.  The solution that MS has provided, though, isn’t acceptable.  If (and this is a big if) patches didn’t ever break anything (like a webcam or a video driver) that used to work, didn’t change the way the UI behaved or break anyone’s workflow, didn’t move things around, didn’t ever change a user’s settings, never uninstalled anything, never installed anything other than the patch itself, didn’t delete a user’s files, then it would be less objectionable to deliver patches in the way MS has chosen to do so. Still bad and not acceptable on principle, but at least it would have been easier to justify.

Of course, what really happened is that the patches took a nosedive in quality just as MS moved to their ill-advised rapid update schedule.  More code being added or changed necessarily means more testing to maintain the same quality, but at the same time that WaaS came around, MS got rid of its professional QA testers to save money.  The subsequent poor quality of the patches was very predictable, and MS forced those insufficiently tested patches on people’s PCs without their consent, essentially forcing them to be the beta testers rather than the beneficiaries of beta testing.  The forced monolithic updates and mandatory telemetry are inseparable from the use of consumers as beta testers.

The practice of using consumers as involuntary testers has gone on for nearly four years now, so MS can’t claim that the poor quality of any given patch, as released to consumers, was somehow a surprise.  MS knows a thing or two about software development, so there could not have been any doubt right from the start that quality would fall off a cliff when the testers got their pinkslips, but now its been going on for far too long to think that MS is somehow unhappy with the situation.  If they were, they would have done something by now.  Some may have given MS the benefit of the doubt in 2015, but any remaining doubt is long, long gone.  This is all about saving Microsoft money (on tech support costs or on testing costs, take your pick) without concern for product quality, nothing more and nothing less.

Edit: Forgot to address this.

Privacy – The settings for data collection should be easier to access. BUT, I don’t get the huge hue and cry about this. Telemetry is not about collecting personal data. Choosing not to participate in telemetry means Microsoft has less information about Windows performance, stability, and security.

When they collect data at the highest level, there is always the possibility that stacktrace data can contain bits of personal files, for one thing.  It can’t be avoided.

The thing is, as a hypothetical Windows 10 user, I want Microsoft to have less information about Windows performance, stability, and security.  They used to pay people to collect that kind of data, but now they think they can use me for that while I pay them for the privilege.  I may have been willing to help them with this in addition to paying professional QA testers, but I’m not about to enable them in their unethical use of customers for that purpose, myself particularly.  The answer is no, and it doesn’t matter what data they’re taking without my permission.  The point is that they’re taking it without my permission, and that’s not acceptable, regardless of what my reason for wanting it turned off may be.

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You may be the owner of the PC but you are not the owner of Windows. You are a licensee who has agreed to the terms in the EULA. Microsoft gets to decide the direction of Windows both in new development and support. If you do not like the direction you can try to get it changed. Though it took too long, that is what has happened with the WU changes.

There would be a large amount of wasted time and effort to determine if a machine is up-to-date and then getting the owner to update and call back when a system is not patched. Having worked in customer support both officially and unofficially I can attest to the difficulty of getting the real facts from someone on the phone or via e-mail. People who say “All MS has to do is require this” or “ensure that” have never done front line support.

--Joe

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cmptrgy

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I hear you Joe and that includes your comments in #1402441.

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We had complete control over Windows updates during the entire tenure of both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. It wasn’t until Satya Nadella became CEO that the “so many years of Microsoft’s refusal to let people decide for themselves whether to install feature updates” began!

Actually, Steve Sinofsky was head of the Microsoft Windows team when Windows 8.0 was developed. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were CEOs of Microsoft during at least the beginning of that time period. That was when user choice got pushed aside. First there was the all-Metro interface, then the Frankenface with the two dueling desktop types. After that (or concurrently) there was the no choice but to automatically download and install all updates as they came along nonsense with which many of us are still doing battle to this day. And it was under Sinofsky’s tenure that all the telemetry and Cortana and Inking spyware and all the Windows Store crapware got introduced.

Development of the Windows 8 model and WaaS began in 2009. The changes which resulted began to reach end users in 2012, and this stage of Windows development continued until 2015. Sinofsky left Windows development in 2012 (effectively, 2013) in the midst of this development. But the major damages to user choices happened early on, and have only been back-pedaled slowly and reluctantly under Sinofsky’s successors.

It really did not matter who was CEO — Gates, Ballmer or Nadella. The changes we have railed against here at AskWoody began under Sinofsky and continued under his successors in the Windows Division. Most of the Customer Arrogance can be laid at the feet of that Division, even though the CEOs were the spokespersons for the changes Windows 8 (and later, Windows 10) imposed.

-- rc primak

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Windows 8 had a ridiculous interface that made it a flop in the marketplace, but it wasn’t the first time Windows had fallen on its face.  During Ballmer’s time as CEO, Windows 8.x, like Vista during Gates’ time as CEO, was an initial flop, but it was moving in the right direction in response to customer complaints right up until two months before Ballmer’s retirement.  Bringing back the non-tiled, non-Metro start menu and separating the product into tablet and desktop versions would have been a huge improvement, and there’s no reason to think it would have stopped there.

Windows 8.1 had the same update controls and telemetry controls as Windows 7 had prior to Nadella’s rise to CEO, and its patches were fully tested by professionals until he canned them.  That decision was all Nadella, not Sinofsky or Ballmer, and forcing updates and mandating telemetry is all part of using consumers as beta testers, which was only necessary because Nadella had fired the paid testers.  Windows as a cloud service has Nadella’s fingerprints all over it, since he’s the big cloud guy.  Sinofsky may have dreamed up the ill-fated idea of using a weird half and half desktop Windows to try to create a presence in the mobile market, a feature 10 shares with 8.x, but that’s hardly even a concern compared to the other stuff that’s wrong with 10, and that stuff is all part of Nadella’s “vision.”

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Elly

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“The new ‘Download and install now’ option provides users a separate control to initiate the installation of a feature update…option will also be available for … Windows 10, Versions 1803 and 1809, by late May.”

I had ‘Download and install now’ on Windows 10 Pro 1803 and have it on Windows 10 Pro 1809 after setting Windows Update to ‘notify only’ in Group Policy for both feature updates and cumulative updates.

This will be great for Windows 10 Home users and for Windows 10 Pro that don’t know how to use Group Policy.

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rc primak, woody

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When you set Group Policy to “notify only” on Pro 1803 and 1809 – did you get the same “Download and install now” link shown in the screenshot?

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Well, Microsoft has imho the possibility, to set each update as ‘Download and install’ – but the explanation one month ago says explicitly ‘Feature updates’ may be delayed.

What we have seen with Update kb4497093 is just a test of the new delivery method imho – as I explained within the following article.

https://borncity.com/win/2019/05/04/windows-10-v1903-update-kb4497093-with-new-distribution-method/

Ex Microsoft Windows (Insider) MVP, Microsoft Answers Community Moderator, Blogger, Book author

https://www.borncity.com/win/

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woody

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woody wrote:

When you set Group Policy to “notify only” on Pro 1803 and 1809 – did you get the same “Download and install now” link shown in the screenshot?

Yes, First I get a notification with a notice of new Windows updates, Than on Settings – Windows Update I got similar notice ‘download and install’ with list of updates.

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woody

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Fascinating. Any chance you could post a screenshot?

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woody wrote:

Fascinating. Any chance you could post a screenshot?

I would gladly post a screenshot when I get an update to 1809. So far there is none 🙂

edit: Group Policy Settings.

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Cayennejim

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Is using Group Policy to make Windows 10 inform you before downloading or installing windows updates worth looking into? I see that it was brought up for discussion back in 2018 but nothing came of it. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/make-windows-10-notify-you-before-downloading-or-installing-windows-updates But now I see it’s up for discussion again. Or is the new feature Download and install going to be good enough so it won’t be necessary to use Group Policy? Thanks.

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To start with, see my Win10 settings here. I understand SAC may not be available in 1903, but here’s how it works:

I defer Feature Updates 365 days, but install them when I want by setting the deferral to 0  and using SAC(T). That seems to keep the Feature Updates away.

For CU’s , the SAC setting means I will only see the Patch Tues patches (security) and not the non-security Previews offered on C, D, E weeks.

I set Group Policy:
Local Policy>Administrative Templates>Windows Components>Windows Updates  Configure Windows Updates = Enabled, value = 2 (notify download/install)
What this does is , with the quality updates deferral set = 0 is cause the updates to appear in the update queue as soon as they are released – BUT they do not download until you hit the “Download” button. If they aren’t on the computer, they can’t install.

Before I look at Windows Update in Settings, I run wushowhide and hide the updates  don’t want (4023057 for example). Then I run the procedure described in AKB2000013 to clear the update queue.

Once that is done, and I am sure what is waiting, I run Windows Update. I have yet to suffer the consequences of “seeker” doing it this way.

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PKCano, thanks for the great explanation. You always come through.

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So, let me get this straight: “Download and install now” is a feature that lets you choose what updates to install and when to install them, while “Check for updates” immediately installs updates without giving you any choices?

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Elly

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Thanks for the reply.
The gist of my post was to ask about using group policy to make windows 10 notify me before installing updates automatically and if using group policy would be a good and reliable workaround. Or would the new May 1903 update, download and install now option, would work good enough so I wouldn’t have to worry about editing group policy? Sorry if I wasn’t coming across clearly.

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Cayennejim wrote:

Or would the new May 1903 update, download and install now option, would work good enough so I wouldn’t have to worry about editing group policy?

If the new ‘download and install’ feature will be implemented for both Feature update and Quality updates AND deferral feature SAC/Feature update/Quality updates remain unchanged, then Group Policy for Windows Update won’t be needed.
I wonder for how long users will be able to defer installation with the new ‘download and install’ and if we’ll get ‘download and install’ even after selecting ‘Check for Updates’.

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Cayennejim

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As Woody said, we’ll have to see what Microsoft delivers but the original intention as I read and understood it from MS was:

As respects Feature updates to have a separate new update section with a “Download and Install now” link that would do just that when you clicked on it or automatically Feature update when your current version of Windows was near its end of life.

As respects updates cumulative or otherwise, whether delivered automatically or via the Check for Updates button, a new section that would allow you to Pause the installation of those updates for up to 7 days, up to 5 times for a max total of 35 days then they would have to be installed. The Check for Updates button could finally be used to “check for updates” without concern of being Feature updated/upgraded.

Currently different sites are showing different variations of the above (eg: PCWorld is showing the Pause screen, while some others the Feature screen).

Guess we’ll have to wait for the actual to arrive.

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