To turn off bloody windows bloody updates?

[Juells]

I have a newish laptop. Bought specifically to use just for wordprocessing, I have another big powerful laptop that's eight years old for my heavier programs. Stopped updating my old laptop at some stage, can't remember why, and it's never given me any problems.

Anyhoo... decided to turn over a new leaf and be very virtuous with this new laptop, and go with the Update Automatically option. When I turned off last night I got a notification that it was updating, thought no more about it. Got up at 7.15 this morning to do some work, turned on new laptop, it's taken TWO HOURS to update!!!!!!!!! What the heck? Is this normal?

I don't even know what my question is, I just can't understand how MS can justify locking down someone's computer for two hours. Why do they think people buy laptops? To glance at occasionally? Just spitting with temper. I'd buy a Mac if I could afford it. 😡

I've turned off updates completely. Likewise, takes ages on my laptop.

On another related note, my phone updated over the weekend and went from working perfectly, to randomly switching itself on and off so many times within 1 minute that it was un-usable. I had to do a factory reset, erase and re-install everything.

Yeah OP, buy a Mac if you can.

I'm wondering - what is the point and purpose of updates anyway...?

My laptop can't get an update through because bloody Cortana keeps blocking the update and restart option. Can't delete Cortana easily anymore (Microsoft likes the data it sends back to then so removed the easy shut down options) so have to wait til our IT manager is less busy then ask him to go into the registry and delete it there.

No point to this post but just wanted to say I feel your pain!

Advice for you, if you don't update your PC you will end up with a PC that won't work, I say this from bitter experience.

I've been googling, because I can't find out how to turn off Updates in Win10, and came across this

Thus, you are stuck. Windows 10 will keep on downloading updates as soon as they are available and will occupy your computer resources, when you may not want it too. Some of us will want to keep the automatic downloads to be stopped so that we can install the updates manually when free – when we are not working on something urgent. That is to say; some users would want the liberty and option to download and install updates when they want and not when Microsoft provides it.

They really don't give a shit about their users, do they?

The website I've found gives a workaround, with this caveat...
But since Windows is a Service now onwards, you have to keep your computer updated. To be able to install the next set of features or a newer build, you will require the earlier updates to be installed. That’s why if you use the above workaround, you will have to go to the Windows Services Manager and turn it on once in a while to download and update your copy of Windows.

I don't quite understand that - I don't need any 'additional features' or a newer build. It does what I need it to do right now. I'm relieved that I never updated my old Win8.1.

The problem is if you don't keep updated, you can very quickly become vulnerable to all sorts of nasties that exploit bugs. And, as you have discovered you are totally at the mercy of Microsoft on this one.

I switched to Linux Mint 4 years ago, and haven't looked back. No tracking software, automatic updates, and rock solid (to be fair Windows 7 seemed pretty stable too). The killer punch is it's free (as in beer).

@A4710Rider

Advice for you, if you don't update your PC you will end up with a PC that won't work, I say this from bitter experience.

I've never had a problem with my Win8 laptop, it works like a dream, loads in seconds, programs load instantly. This Win10 laptop is like treacle compared to it. :( All I need from it is bloody WP, how difficult is that?

The price difference between a Win and a Mac laptop is huge, though. I can't see myself spending a thousand for a Mac any time soon.

I’ve just had to renew licence for ms office this morning and I guess in light of new GDPR laws it’s asking me if I want to send the details of all the sites I access, the words I type of my documents, location details etc.. all to improve my experience. Or I can just opt for basic version and not share this personal info.

Opted for basic and my computer seems to be on a go slow ever since. Buggars.

all to improve my experience. 😂

I use Open Office.

www.openoffice.org/why/index.html

Mine was unusable for nearly 2 hours this morning too.

My hatred of Windows is almost equal to my hatred of Apple software so basically I'm stuck.

And my Samsung phone updated overnight recently, and downloaded a virus. I had to reset it back to factory settings and lost everything on it as I'd forgotten to back it up for a few months.

I HATE UPDATES.

If you use OpenOffice, you don't need Windows, unless you are doing something very niche with MS Office (which I have yet to see).

The only fly in the ointment is there's no decent equivalent to Outlook .

Opted for basic and my computer seems to be on a go slow ever since. Buggars.

Companies are not allowed to strongarm clients into consenting to share data. Be an interesting area of contention once GDPR kicks in.

My hatred of Windows is almost equal to my hatred of Apple software so basically I'm stuck.

linuxmint.com/ ?

Thanks for the warning OP. Mine has been bleating at me today that it needs to do updates so I'll set it running before I go to bed.

However I can schedule them in/turn off the auto install thingy, which might be an idea for future use? The various options are under "Update Settings" if you search.

@DGRossetti

If you use OpenOffice, you don't need Windows, unless you are doing something very niche with MS Office (which I have yet to see).

The only fly in the ointment is there's no decent equivalent to Outlook

I use OO for everything, WP, Saving As PDF, Presentations etc..

What's Outlook? Is it a mail program? I route all emails through gmail.

Thanks @ShotsFired I'll do that. What a palaver though.

What's Outlook? Is it a mail program? I route all emails through gmail.

Outlook is the MS Office email/calendar app which integrates with Exchange at the Server end. It's generally the goto app for organisations that run Windows on the desktop. And (Penguinistas take note) it just bloody works. There's nothing to match it in the open source Linux world. (despite them having 20 years to work on it). Every time I've tried to reduce licensing costs by suggesting a switch away from MS it's failed because there's no Outlook.

As you've found OO matches Word & Excel which is the other 80% of MS Office use, with Powerpoint filling the gaps.

I hated updates until I went on a cyber crime awareness seminar. They pointed out that security updates effectively notify the nasty hackers of exactly where the vulnerabilities are within their system, hence why it’s important to do them.

YANBU however to hate them. I hate my computer and laptop most days. It look my laptop longer to boot up the other day than to do the task I was starting it for.

I was looking at a Mac book but then I had to use iTunes the other week and the rage I got from that was mad. I couldn’t cope with a whole laptop like it!

We're all agreed then... we hate them all.

My laptop is stuck in a perpetual restart and update loop which I’m guessing means the last update failed in some way. I’ve had at least 3 weeks of it restating about 8 times a day. I don’t have time or patience to try to work out the best way of fixing it either.

Ohmigod I'd go ballistic if that happened to me, @Curious2468

A good reminder to back up my work though, thanks.

but if it's the first time it's updated in a while (new laptops will sit unused for up to a year before being sold) the first update is always mega. The following ones less so.

Just leave it on auto and you will barely notice it.

It's when it has to do loads that it takes a while.

Most updates include security patches, so if you don't run them and your computer is capable of connecting to the internet you're leaving your system progressively more vulnerable.

It's updated since I bought it.

That will only have patched known bugs and vulnerabilities up to that date, though. Any ones discovered subsequently are unfixed/unprotected.