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blog: windows update ate my PC
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Re: blog: windows update ate my PC
Sometimes you just want to shoot the MS dufus who wrote the (seemingly benign and infinitely bland) phrase "Install this update to resolve issues in Windows". Pummel the bugger into the Earth so he can tell it to the worms.
I remember about a year ago (before the gargantuan KB3125574 (post-SP1) "convenience" rollup came to salve all our ills), there was a series of updates to the updater itself, claiming that it would reduce the number of restarts necessary when applying future updates. I'm still waiting on that part... someone seems to have forgotten the fineprint. Probably the same MS dufus.
It is, in the end, usually simpler to just reinstall Windows which these days on an SSD with a decent machine underneath only takes about 12 minutes (minus download time). This should be done annually anyway, and is never as bad as one's imagination suggests.
Considering that MS still can't seem to stop updating the pointless .NET library, god knows how long they'll spend rewriting the underwritten UWP library they're flogging these days. Some homily about the 10 plagues of Egypt comes to mind...only 8 more to go... (I separate the Win32API from that... I quite like its foibles... but I'm weird that way...)
Or, when in doubt, just keep an image backup of an untouched fresh install and use that - which takes even less time (pesky UEFI niggles aside - "extensible" me arse).
If you stuck with the same install for the lifetime of your laptop, you're just asking for trouble.
I remember about a year ago (before the gargantuan KB3125574 (post-SP1) "convenience" rollup came to salve all our ills), there was a series of updates to the updater itself, claiming that it would reduce the number of restarts necessary when applying future updates. I'm still waiting on that part... someone seems to have forgotten the fineprint. Probably the same MS dufus.
It is, in the end, usually simpler to just reinstall Windows which these days on an SSD with a decent machine underneath only takes about 12 minutes (minus download time). This should be done annually anyway, and is never as bad as one's imagination suggests.
Considering that MS still can't seem to stop updating the pointless .NET library, god knows how long they'll spend rewriting the underwritten UWP library they're flogging these days. Some homily about the 10 plagues of Egypt comes to mind...only 8 more to go... (I separate the Win32API from that... I quite like its foibles... but I'm weird that way...)
Or, when in doubt, just keep an image backup of an untouched fresh install and use that - which takes even less time (pesky UEFI niggles aside - "extensible" me arse).
If you stuck with the same install for the lifetime of your laptop, you're just asking for trouble.
Re: blog: windows update ate my PC
images won't help much because you'd have to download all the later updates, including whatever caused the problem... so it will come to haunt you soonish
Re: blog: windows update ate my PC
Actually, I've had pretty good luck with the "download en masse" method of updating... there's something quite satisfying about seeing "533 updates installed successfully". I avoid the "optional" ones, as they're mostly gunk. But again, that's why we have the large "SP1-to-2016" update cached on a harddrive somewhere. 
Do an image after that one and you're flyin'.
Thankfully, these days, Win7 limits itself to useless things like the monthly removal-tool, etc (which never seems to find anything anyway...) Takes about 10 seconds and back to the trenches we go. Fairly painless.
(Although I do find it amusing that it keeps putting a WMP shortcut back in the start menu every couple of months or so. Who launches WMP from drydock? That's what file-associations are for.)
Do an image after that one and you're flyin'.Thankfully, these days, Win7 limits itself to useless things like the monthly removal-tool, etc (which never seems to find anything anyway...) Takes about 10 seconds and back to the trenches we go. Fairly painless.
(Although I do find it amusing that it keeps putting a WMP shortcut back in the start menu every couple of months or so. Who launches WMP from drydock? That's what file-associations are for.)