Ever since I bought my new Dell Inspiron laptop with Microsoft Windows 10 Home Edition, it's given me such a tough time that I try to avoid using my new laptop and instead, almost always choose to use my Google Chromebook instead unless I really, really have to use my Windows system.
Home Removes All User Control From Updates and when you comply, it can take days to get an update done or fixed. I say that because it took me SEVENTEEN HOURS to update my laptop once.
The difference, or at least one of the differences between HOME and PROFESSIONAL is that you have granular control over system updates under Professional. My old laptop would adhere top my desire to not update until I sat down and interactively updated it. But Microsoft Home pretty much says FU** you, I'll update now. Or check of updates NOW.
To be fair, the problem is probably more with how I use my system or that how I use the Windows system exemplifies the issue. If I had the laptop on all the time, I bet I wouldn't notice the complete disregard to my wishes to not check for updates. But instead, I use it maybe weekly, so when it has the chance, like when I power it up, it has to check for those updates and it slows me down big time. I sometimes have to wait 5 to 10 minutes for a text file to open. A simple, Notepad like, text file.
So when I have a 5 to 10 minute task, and it takes half-an-hour or 45 minutes, well, (expletives go here) it. To the Chromebook I go!! Chromebooks do what they do and you barely even notice it. Hint, hint MS!
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It took me a bit but I figured out how to stop the Dell "Automated Assistance" stuff. But Microsoft made their Home version of their product an insidious piece of sh... software to the point that even if you've turned everything off, as in turning off services and other services, it still kicks in, no matter what. That's bulls***.
Basically, Windows 10 Home behaves like an aggressive virus and removes the ability for the user to have granular control over their own updates. To some degree I get that they've taken the heavy lifting of maintaining a consumers computer away from the user and make it easier for then to just use a system. And from what I can tell, most don't care. They pop open their laptops and use their systems.
The other thing is while it's doing its thing, I get to watch MS beat the crap out of my hard drive, while it sits there accessing my disk at 100% use. Which bugs me, considering the average lifespan of a fully used hard drive is about 4 years.
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While Home Edition decides to do what's 'best for the customer,' all it does is take over most of the background processes and slows down my interaction with my own computer.
Then there's this thing in the back of my mind, that being the issue that several of my friends have had bad experiences in losing their data because of a bad Microsoft update under Windows 10. So my personal inclination is to NOT let my system freely update my laptop.
---And right now I'm watching this OS dominate my disk activity with 99-100% disk use. Despite having no app opened. That and Task manager is NOT showing me who is doing that. (Like I said... virus!)
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In previous versions of Microsoft Windows on my older computers I used to be able to EASILY modify when and how Windows Update would work and then I could select my time and place of when I ran MS Update.
But with my new Dell laptop instead of starting it up and being ready to go in less than five minutes, there are days I have to wait TWENTY MINUTES to be able to use my web browser for a simple online task while the system does it's own thing in the "background" first.
Here's the horror of some of my experiences:
Some weeks ago I had stupidly cranked open my Dell around 9 PM to do something quick. Ha! Instead, Microsoft kept me up until 1 AM while it took over my work environment to do an upgrade. Keeping me up until 1 AM didn't go over well with me considering I get up a 4 AM for work. But I could not stop the update process because I fear the damage an interrupted update can do.
And after all that, it failed to complete the update because I had Symantec Endpoint Protection installed and the system insisted I uninstall it to continue the update.
Hmm.. the 'virus' doesn't like my anti-virus application. LOL.
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THANK YOU MICROSOFT. Right now you are making one hell of a reason to jump ship to Apple or Google permanently.
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On my second editorial effort, I had turned on my laptop at 9:12 PM to do something quick (You think I'd learn) and MS did not relinquish control of my work environment until around 2 AM. The first few hours I had no inclination to do anything on my system but the second half, it does give you the option to hide the process so it can work in the background (like a virus) but I declined because it creeps me out to hear my hard drive banging away like it does in the background.
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Here's the thing... I bought this Dell laptop almost a year ago and because of how MS Home has been trying to update my system, I've only really used it a handful of times.
It's a shame that Microsoft can't do the update process as seamlessly as my Google Chromebook does. But it dominates all the processes I try to run.
Over the last few months I've been spending close to half my time on my Dell laptop trying to get around this process. It's frustrating. My recommendation to any user who reads this: If you like some semblance of control over your chosen OS, NEVER get a Windows Home version. It will just make you want to buy something Apple or Google based.
IMO.
Apple Computers on Amazon.
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So I decided to bite the bullet and tackle this update thing for a third time... and transcribe the fun I'm having. NOT! It's merely for your visceral entertainment, in case you've gone through this yourself or are obscenely curious. Otherwise, it's not a critical read, but it accounts for the 19 hours I spent with this problem.
4-12-18 (day one)
logged in at 10:45 PM.
I've turned off all options to update itself on a previous session, yet despite that, it's installing the most current version of Windows 10. By 3 AM it announced it could not update my system. (Because of my Virus scan software)
That was four hours so far.
4-13-18 (day two)
7:35 PM: I thought I'd take a look at trying to fix why MS Windows can't update itself.
Last night's MS error screen showed me an error code, 0xc1900208, and it gave me a link to click on and to use. I started a suggested Windows Update Diagnostic...
Rebooted,
At 9:18 PM - I started the update process again. At 10:95 PM - Initializing updates. 11:23 PM - More updates. 12:14 AM - Windows won't update anything until I uninstall my Symantec Endpoint software to continue. This is a known issue with Symantec.
There's an "Enrollment restriction with Windows 10 Home edition devices. Microsoft doesn't support full MDM capabilities on Windows 10 Home edition."
I'll try to reinstall Symantec later so I uninstalled it and for the time being I am now vulnerable to virus threats out there.
At this point I wonder if I have to do this every time I update Home?
At 12:40 AM I finally caught up on all the updates, but now it wants me to upgrade to the latest 'build' of Windows Home. I think I'll wait until tomorrow night.
This was another five hours added to the four hours I already spent with 'updating' my MS Home based system. Nine hours so far.
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4-14-18 (day three)
7:30 AM - I initiated my laptop and get this build update over with.
8:30 AM - Features update to Windows 10 1709 is still downloading.
Here's the interesting thing... I clicked NO when I was asked to update to the latest build of Windows 10 Home.
I went for a bike ride and came back at...
10:30 AM - Something went wrong with the download or update. Please try again. OK.
1100 AM - 17% through the shut down/preparation process.
2:30 PM - I came back from an outing with my Frisbee dogs, and saw this notice after waking up the system: Important Updates Are Pending. Please restart. OK.
3:30 PM: - 20% done with starting to reboot.
4:00 PM - 35% done.
5:00 PM - 90% done.
5:30 PM - Done.
-Two hours to apply update patches.
I'm taking a break, but later I'll turn on my system to reinstall my virus scanning software.
I hope to god there's nowhere on the web that there's any marketing out there thatt says that Microsoft Home helps with productivity, because we're how many dedicated hours into this bullshit?
-Nine hours from before, to today's seven hours of effort: SIXTEEN PLUS HOURS so far.
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4-15-18 (day four)
10:15 AM - Looking to reinstall my antivirus application. The research on what I need to do is taking a few minutes... then.. Waiting while "Windows configures Symantec Endpoint Protection"
10:45 AM - It seems to have installed fine. Now I'm restarting.
It's now 11 AM and my Microsoft update took SEVENTEEN HOURS.
Now I'm seeing "Configuration system failed to initialize. Another Instance is Running." But that is for another day way down the road.
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4-18-18 (day five)
7:35 PM - it's the first time I've booted up since updating. I need to do something real quick, but things are loading kind of slow and the Task Manager is taking forever to load. I'm starting Task Manager to see what's accessing my disk so heavily. Yes, my disk is being accessed at 100% by 'Windows Modules Installer Worker."
Otherwise, it's slightly dodgy but tolerable use.
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UPDATE, 5-18-18:
After going through all that I did a month ago, this morning I fired up my laptop once again today. I started it about 30 minutes ago, but with Window 10 Home pounding on my hard drive at 100%, well, it's almost as if I did nothing to fix this piece of shit operating system.
UPDATE, 5-28-18
Here I am again... I turned on my Dell Inspiron laptop about 45 minutes ago, (noonish) but I'm dealing with the usual bull---- to date. It is forcing me to uninstall my virus protection, then, instead of having kept the downloaded updates, it's downloading the updates again.
Oh, and the last time I uninstalled my virus protection and updated my laptop, MS removed my ability to brighten or darken my screen manually. WTF people? W.T.F.?
It is now 7PM. I've been on the hook with Dell, whose response has been pretty spot on and efficient. We tried a few things, the man on the other end did a lot of stuff remotely to my system, and now I am waiting for the final update to complete. Again. Today. But I'm feeling good about this one. We did not go through the update assistant but rather, downloaded the update directly from MS and ran it. We can hope, right?
It's now 10:00 PM, the update process is almost done.
Though I received help, I'm adding this additional nine hour experience to my previous seventeen hours of tangling with MS Home 10 update which puts us now at...
Twenty-six hours messing with updating my laptop.
Grr. I don't blame Dell.. this is a MS issue.
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