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Do you reboot your machine regularly as a matter of course? I do not. My desktop machine is always up -- except when I am forced to reboot by Microsoft.

As far as I'm concerned, the problem is that the system is unable to update itself without rebooting.

My MacBook needs to reboot to install updates. It never bothers me though because of nice little features like letting me choose when to do it. My Windows machine seems to reboot anytime I take my eyes of it for a few seconds.

My Windows machine lets me defer updates for up to 30 days. I do that. But then I have to go through a whole dance of updating, rebooting, deferring for 30 days, then putting all of my workspaces back together.

If I wanted basic functionality to be locked behind tedious admin tasks, I'd just install a Linux distro. As it stands, I just use Windows for games. So it's no big deal when it craps itself.

> As far as I'm concerned, the problem is that the system is unable to update itself without rebooting.

You are absolutely correct! There was a brief period during XP, I think, where this was the case. Irrespective of that, reboots are a fact of life if you have Windows installed, and allowing and choosing the best time for Windows to reboot is a part of having Windows installed.

Don't use Windows if you can't deal with the reboots. Use Mac or Linux.

Macs reboot pretty often to install updates though.

They force it on you too. I'm not sure if they ever go ahead and automatically restart / update. But the OS constantly nags you to update.

Like hell they don't. I'm still on two generation back because I don't want to loose 32-bit support. In no way has Apple force me to upgrade and the nagging is even relatively mild.

> I'm still on two generation back

Perhaps that's why you aren't asked?

The nagging is getting much worse, though. You get the options "Yes," "Try in one hour," "Try tonight," and "Try tomorrow." How about I'LL UPDATE WHEN I WANT TO UPDATE. DON'T ASK AGAIN!?!?

I yearn back to the good ol days, when you would issue a command to a computer and it would execute that command and then wait for the next command. The user called the shots. Now computers do all sorts of things that their manufacturer wants, or the OS vendor wants, or the application developer wants. My desire as a user is secondary or unimportant. Automatic software installation, sudden reboots, notifications, Try YouTube Premium!, analytics collection, ads on my browser, ads in the start menu, ads inside applications, Try YouTube Premium!, Setup Cortana!, Setup Siri!, Setup Windows Defender!, Setup your Microsoft Account, Turn on virus protection, Take a Tour, Here's What's New, Keyboard Batteries Low, Disk Not Ejected Properly, Try YouTube Premium!

Just stop it!

I wish computers would stop just doing things on their own, and that I could go back to my computer only doing things that I ask it to do.

While macOS does constantly nag you to update, it never actually forces you to, unlike Windows 10. Hopefully, Apple won’t follow Microsoft’s lead here in Big Sur…

Does Linux allow replacing e.g graphics driver without rebooting now? I found that to be a key benefit of Windows back when their new driver model came.

Yes.

In any case, yes:

If it's a userspace-based model with kernel modules (like nvidia) - yes, you can insert/remove kernel modules without rebooting and exchange userspace libs freely.

If it's an in-kernel driver part like the i915 module that comes bundled with your distro's kernel, you can kexec the new kernel, which is simple with systemctl kexec.

It will likely require to exit and restart the graphical session though.

> Do you reboot your machine regularly as a matter of course? I do not. My desktop machine is always up -- except when I am forced to reboot by Microsoft.

I don’t either, but also the forced reboots only happen once a month for me, right after patch Tuesdays. I’ve found that setting updates to manual and proactively updating on that day gets rid of almost all forced reboots. Of course now you have an extra thing to remember, but it does generally fix the problem.

Same is true in Linux. Unless livepatch is enabled, kernel updates require a reboot.

Given the widespread use of "A/B testing" and targeted/algorithmic ads/UX/content, I don't understand why anyone would expect consistent behavior from any software.

Unless you have matching SHA-256 hashes, the default heuristic should be to assume that you might have a "customized"/testing variation of the software. We really need to get in the habit of including hashes when talking about software behavior.

It's likely that the author is running Windows 10 Home edition, which is probably more aggressive than the Pro version about annoying users.

Usually I would agree, but a few days ago, my Pro machine did a forced reboot, for the first time.

Pro does it fairly often. I have 2 notebooks and a desktop that experience it. It's possible to disable it via group policy as far as I know.

The annoying thing is that the advance warning is gone, probably some default setting says that it will reboot sometime, but I very rarely get notified that updates are pending and that today/tomorrow I'll get a forced reboot. It just does it when I lock/close/sleep the laptop/desktop.

On the higher versions (Pro, Enterprise) you can turn off the automatic reboots relatively easily. Otherwise it might be that your usage pattern fits how it expects it - e.g. if you only use it during the workday, the "work time" settings match and you shut down and install pending updates each day it might never trigger for you.

Side point: Whatever this article says, you don’t have to use scripts. You can simply change write permissions to the windowsapps folder, which is where the crapware gets installed

It stops windows store auto-updates, and I’m not sure about this, but I think it might stop you installing apps from the windows store without granting the permissions back temporarily, but either way I’ll take that trade-off

I'm pretty sure most people are not aware of the LTSC builds, which are the only sane way to use Windows. All the regular builds have a ton of garbage included, like who wants to look at politicians' faces and read about their stupid antics when they open the menu?

I don't see why people pay for that stuff.

Doesn't happen to me either. I can get 120 days of uptime without a problem. Could probably go longer, but I do updates at least quarterly. I also don't have those tiles or ads turned on in my start menu, or any of the other stuff people complain about.

I'm in the same boat. Maybe how my work has configured my laptop or something, some group policy?

You can definitely turn off the random reboot with policies, on Pro and up.

Yep, if you're a home user, get bent. Your wishes don't matter to Microsoft.

There are two ways to have fewer popups:

- switch to linux (ubuntu might be the exception)

- Do what they want. Install the app. Turn on automatic updates. Do not worry when they change something and adapt to the new normal.

Same here. I often run both my home Win10 PC and corporate Win10 laptop for weeks and they never force reboot. But rebooting to update at least once a month or so is just a sane thing to do. On laptops especially, they start to overheat a bit after prolonged heavy usage and it is good to spin them down sometimes. Sure, it would be nice to have in service updates on Win10, but that is a minor annoyance compared to breaking issues on Linux desktops.

Maybe you disabled internet on your machine? /s