So has anyone found out why Windows likes to use your CPU so much?

[Rroff]

You have a choice you don't have to install or use Win10, plenty of Operating Systems out there, I'm the sort of person that if I don't like it won't use it.As to business choice wise you get paid to work with the tools they give you, so sorry no sympathy here especially if you are hired to work with Windows 10, it comes with the job as they say.

In reality it isn't that simple - eventually games, etc. are going to require Windows 10 as a minimum like they did with XP and Vista/7, etc. a lot of software I use has no non-Windows equivalent and/or stuff for work can only be accessed via Windows, etc. etc.

I'm not talking about using the OS as an employee at work but how suited the OS is for business use - we've ditched two trial rollouts at work (nothing to do with me) due to its lacking suitability.

 

[V F]

You have a choice you don't have to install or use Win10, plenty of Operating Systems out there, I'm the sort of person that if I don't like it won't use it.As to business choice wise you get paid to work with the tools they give you, so sorry no sympathy here especially if you are hired to work with Windows 10, it comes with the job as they say.

I find it amusing how you seem to think Windows 10 is some sort of perfect OS. Never any issues, everything works perfect for you, everything does what it is supposed to. The pulled Microsoft updates were perfect and everyone is a dummy. You always sound like a second hand car salesman.

 

[Scort]

I'm meaning the official MS run forum for Windows 10 not the thread here. Its slowly descending into a bit of a mess lately with moderators threatening to "throw" people out for voicing frustration with the OS which is kind of unprofessional. While telling people they should be submitting feedback through the hub which is fair enough but those issues have been being complained about and often in the top 10 complaints for like 2-3 years now and ignored so it doesn't seem to be working.

Ah I see, sorry. Mind you, most of the time, these official Microsoft forums seem to get plagued by completely inept people - who have heard X, Y or Z from a mate; and have deleted things to 'boost performance' or whatnot. Bit of a sweeping generalization I admit, but considering how many Windows 10 machines I have worked on, and deployed, if it were in such a state - we would have pulled it from our deployments. The cynical side of me can't help shake the feeling that a good portion of these vocal people have probably contributed to their woes.

Windows 7 was far from ideal update wise - it could easily tie up the system for hours, fail entirely or just fail leaving the system unusable but the key thing was you had front end control over when and how it worked and could better organise doing it when you had time to sort out and fallout, etc. and it wouldn't interrupt what you were doing.

Windows 10 still offers much the same, if not more, control over updates though... under Advanced Options you can control what update Branch or Channel you are on, whether a Feature update is delayed, and whether Security updates are delayed. They have even added the (albeit slightly dubious) torrent-style delivery of updates via the Delivery Optimization. If anything, I think that Windows 10 offers the end user (business or home) the same level of control that Windows 7 did; just directly - rather than a list of XXX updates with tick boxes; you now have drop downs and radio buttons.

Out of the box though, yes, Windows 10 will quite happily go and hoover up a big chunk of bandwidth to grab the latest 2GB 'feature' pack (I'm looking at you 'Creators' update) - but harking back to my previous remarks, those settings are fine for the masses. One of the worst things about home users, from my experience, is them ignoring the prompt to update - leading to their copy of Windows 7 not updating for years and years. In a way, I expect Microsoft have set 10 to be more hand-holdy and fluffy, so your average home user needn't worry about being behind with their updates - it's all done by the all seeing and knowing Microsoft Seriously though, I don't see the difference between WU in 7 vs 10 - in terms of functionality and control over it (imo of course).

There is an increasing amount of background stuff going on in 10 that is likely to break at any time - see all the people who randomly have the start menu stop working entirely, explorer suddenly going super slow, etc. etc. with 7 mostly once you had a working install it stayed that way unless the next lot of updates messed it up and while its become a lot more complicated recently (fortunately someone has been posting lists of which updates contain telemetry, etc.) you could fairly easily just not install non-critical updates, etc. and keep the system as free of extra stuff as possible.

But surely that's just a byproduct of the march of progress - more functionality added = more background processes, and any system can break, at any time. The years I have spent in support roles, I've been asked countless time, in varying ways "why did this break" or "why is there an error" or "why has Word stopped working".... and I always try to explain that a computer, even at 'idle' is probably doing millions and millions of calculations - any one of those runs the risk of 'corruption' which could then lead to the problem they reported.

I'm currently self studying towards my CCNA, and getting down and dirty into 'bits', really opens your eyes as to how absolutely incredible computers are, it all boils down to electrical impulses that happen at speeds we will never comprehend; and although this is based on networking, these potentially volatile/fragile 1s and 0s are the bases for it all - and things falling over is just a fact.

I probably sound like the biggest Windows 10 fanboy ever in this thread, but I can assure you I'm not, I'd have preferred to stay with my tweaked up cut down Windows 7. But a free OS is a free OS And besides, in my line of work, I need to be able to get around the thing, troubleshoot and fix it, which shying away from wouldn't have achieved.

Is Windows 10 the best version of Windows to date? Possibly not - I like it, it looks good, it runs well, but I can't help think this is more Windows 9 or 9.1 - it's like a half ***** transition to some new Android-like Material design philosophy, that hasn't yet been fully decided upon. It has gremlins that are annoying, but not show stopping (black screens with cursors at startup..), it has a mishmash of horrible new idiot-proof 'Settings' menus, and those comforting old ones from Windows past (please don't leave us Control Panel!!!).

Microsoft certainly have gone down some odd routes - one of the upcoming things I have heard of, is having some window pinning system, whereby you can have tasks that relate to each other, all in one window - the example given in heir cringe video was someone working on a school project - they had Word, Excel, Edge and Outlook all locked together in this one window - with tabs to switch between the apps. The first thing that struck me... what happens when the process handling that window crashes? You lose all the apps I expect! Why on earth would they think people want something like that? What's wrong with the task bar and clicking or tabbing through the windows you need??

An recently - the announcement of 'Workstation' editions....! They want businesses to take this OS on, but are only just launching what I'd consider a business edition? One without all the Consumer rubbish... I mean come on, it smacks of a rush job release to me. If Windows 10 is guilty of anything imo, it's being released a year or two too early.

My current Windows 7 install hasn't had any major updates, other than selective security patches, since ~2014 and is working fine, reliably and smoothly.

Indeed, my Windows 7 was like that as well, though I had spent time tweaking it to be how I wanted it - I knew where things were, and how they worked. With Windows 10, its going to be more learning, and more tweaks - but chances are, when we get to Windows 12 (or 11, if they don't skip it); we will be saying the same thing about how well our windows 10 is running

 

[Elevon]

I find it amusing how you seem to think Windows 10 is some sort of perfect OS. Never any issues, everything works perfect for you, everything does what it is supposed to. The pulled Microsoft updates were perfect and everyone is a dummy. You always sound like a second hand car salesman.

As I stated it's not perfect, not even my favourite Linux distros are perfect, however I have no problem running Windows or Linux distros in general without issues, when I say issues I mean things like crashes etc, all the updates have worked fine on all of them in fact last time I can think of an update issue was on my brothers Win7 PC where it kept failing updates, fix was to reinstall his Win7 which fixed the issue.

Things like telemetry tracking, layout and options are not an issue IMHO on 10, this is my point.

Again don't put words into my mouth like Win10 is perfect, there can never be a perfect OS.

Never any issues, everything works perfect for you, everything does what it is supposed to. The pulled Microsoft updates were perfect and everyone is a dummy. You always sound like a second hand car salesman.

New low even for you trying to throw out cheap insults, if you can't comment without insults then stay away from here. Yes I'm aware people get issues ,you can't have a PC or OS without issues, I have had my fair share many years ago mainly on XP.

You almost sound jealous that my two Win10 PCs (and even my Linux distros) are working great, sorry I don't have a magic wand here, just the way it has been for me.

In general Win10 is fine, Microsoft will always throw a duff Windows update out, that has been going on well before Win10 was ever released and if we are honest will probably continue after it has died.

I would like their browser and anti-virus improved in Win10, reason why I use third party software for those.

 

[Scort]

Telemetry, etc. is a concern for many businesses and hard to justify when it doesn't seem to be being effectively utilised to improve the OS - MS have been bulk collecting it for several years of development of 10 now yet many of the same fundamental issues remain.

It will be interesting to see if/how this data is considered within the scope of GDPR, if at all? How are we to know that if we are working on a Word document about a client, that some logging system phoning home, doesn't include data currently held on clipboard or in the auto save?

 

[Rroff]

Windows 10 still offers much the same, if not more, control over updates though... under Advanced Options you can control what update Branch or Channel you are on, whether a Feature update is delayed, and whether Security updates are delayed. They have even added the (albeit slightly dubious) torrent-style delivery of updates via the Delivery Optimization. If anything, I think that Windows 10 offers the end user (business or home) the same level of control that Windows 7 did; just directly - rather than a list of XXX updates with tick boxes; you now have drop downs and radio buttons.

Out of the box though, yes, Windows 10 will quite happily go and hoover up a big chunk of bandwidth to grab the latest 2GB 'feature' pack (I'm looking at you 'Creators' update) - but harking back to my previous remarks, those settings are fine for the masses. One of the worst things about home users, from my experience, is them ignoring the prompt to update - leading to their copy of Windows 7 not updating for years and years. In a way, I expect Microsoft have set 10 to be more hand-holdy and fluffy, so your average home user needn't worry about being behind with their updates - it's all done by the all seeing and knowing Microsoft Seriously though, I don't see the difference between WU in 7 vs 10 - in terms of functionality and control over it (imo of course).

Nowhere does it allow you to take actual manual control or even pause or force restart in progress updates - the rest is meaningless without that - things like "active hours" are entirely laughable. I'm quite happy for there to be a curated/automated process for the average mainstream user (although the afore mentioned forums seem to indicate even a lot of those are becoming unhappy with the current process) but its lacking proper options for the more advanced user - even stuff like using GPEdit in Pro don't really cut it.

EDIT: I'd even be happy if it meant I had to pay extra for the Professional edition to get what I wanted even if the Home edition was kept as the curated experience.

But surely that's just a byproduct of the march of progress - more functionality added = more background processes, and any system can break, at any time. The years I have spent in support roles, I've been asked countless time, in varying ways "why did this break" or "why is there an error" or "why has Word stopped working".... and I always try to explain that a computer, even at 'idle' is probably doing millions and millions of calculations - any one of those runs the risk of 'corruption' which could then lead to the problem they reported.

There is some aspect of that but in a lot of cases Windows 10 has an inordinate amount of things going on for the feature it supposedly supports.

It will be interesting to see if/how this data is considered within the scope of GDPR, if at all? How are we to know that if we are working on a Word document about a client, that some logging system phoning home, doesn't include data currently held on clipboard or in the auto save?

To my knowledge it doesn't send back direct data but builds a generic profile i.e. more along the lines of it might say you have 8 characters stored in the clipboard but it won't send back what the actual content is and/or it might try and identify generically what is in there i.e. your clipboard contains words about colours, etc. but again not what the actual content is. However that does potentially open up a lot of issues especially if thing go wrong and we all know things do go wrong from time to time.

 

[Elevon]

To my knowledge it doesn't send back direct data but builds a generic profile i.e. more along the lines of it might say you have 8 characters stored in the clipboard but it won't send back what the actual content is and/or it might try and identify generically what is in there i.e. your clipboard contains words about colours, etc. but again not what the actual content is. However that does potentially open up a lot of issues especially if thing go wrong and we all know things do go wrong from time to time.

Microsoft have to be careful on how far they can go, I'm sure they are aware of concerns from users and people in general, I also think this is a grey area law wise, end of the day we need better legal understanding from Governments and Microsoft on how far they can legally go and what is considered fair.

I can understand having options to turn it all off telemetry wise.

 

[Scort]

Nowhere does it allow you to take actual manual control or even pause or force restart in progress updates - the rest is meaningless without that - things like "active hours" are entirely laughable. I'm quite happy for there to be a curated/automated process for the average mainstream user (although the afore mentioned forums seem to indicate even a lot of those are becoming unhappy with the current process) but its lacking proper options for the more advanced user - even stuff like using GPEdit in Pro don't really cut it.

But why do you need to pause a download? If it's downloading, it's working - why stop it? Yes, the downloads will often sit at 0% or a low percent for what seems like eternity, but be patient - they always work. And it's all happening behind the scenes, so again, why worry?

Edit: apologies - I missed you ninja posting skills, so didn't answer points.

EDIT: I'd even be happy if it meant I had to pay extra for the Professional edition to get what I wanted even if the Home edition was kept as the curated experience.

You know what, I am with you 100% on this. In the same way Microsoft have now realized their mistake, and are going to do a business edition (Workstation/Workstation Pro), they ought to have done a Home and Power edition - the former for PC World customers and the latter for Overlockers members

BUT.... that would just restart the old debacle that was editions of Windows 7 - what were there, six or seven of them originally? That would drive the easy-life-loving public mental. As a poster mentioned previously, the likes of Apple and Android, have made a lot of people lazy in a way, and they just expect everything to work quickly with a single press of a button. those who have used computers for many years, know this is often not the case.

There is some aspect of that but in a lot of cases Windows 10 has an inordinate amount of things going on for the feature it supposedly supports.

But again, it's probably down to the march of progress.

I remember when I was studying IT at college, and one floppy disk could hold a couple of assignments - these days, one Word document with a paragraph of text would probably need a floppy disk to itself! It's almost like all the added features in Word 20XX have resulted in more information being written into files, regardless of the content within. And though this is probably a poo analogy, new features within a new OS are likely as resource hungry as Word documents over the last decade or so.

Just look at that waste of time Cortana - a single new feature, which has probably 2-3 services and umpteen processes running, most/all of which are running away 24/7 when the machine is on! I'm no programmer, but I guess this is just how things are changing - you are no longer able to jump into taskman and kill off a single process; as there's a bunch of others, and those will probably just respawn the process you killed.

To my knowledge it doesn't send back direct data but builds a generic profile i.e. more along the lines of it might say you have 8 characters stored in the clipboard but it won't send back what the actual content is and/or it might try and identify generically what is in there i.e. your clipboard contains words about colours, etc. but again not what the actual content is. However that does potentially open up a lot of issues especially if thing go wrong and we all know things do go wrong from time to time.

One to watch then I guess, though I can't help but think we'll see another court case in the future, where a clueless judge doesn't understand how the logging works and demands something impossible - think there was something like that years ago where someone 'got done' for not providing data from their RAM

 

[Rroff]

But why do you need to pause a download? If it's downloading, it's working - why stop it? Yes, the downloads will often sit at 0% or a low percent for what seems like eternity, but be patient - they always work. And it's all happening behind the scenes, so again, why worry?

The OS does preparation work and other maintenance tasks before downloading, sometimes during and often after as part of the process of applying updates, it will often do things like restarts of its own accord and often makes sporadic heavy use of system resources during the process and generally ignores if you are trying to game, stream video, etc. on the device or whatever - especially if you are on a slower connection at the time and/or trying to manage bandwidth.

It might be happening behind the scenes but its rarely seamless and often inconvenient.

Also those times when you either don't have time to deal with Windows updates if it decides to launch into a feature update and/or you've got a weekend clear for gaming and the last thing you want to do is spend a big chunk of it dealing with the fallout because an update has failed.

Just look at that waste of time Cortana - a single new feature, which has probably 2-3 services and umpteen processes running, most/all of which are running away 24/7 when the machine is on! I'm no programmer, but I guess this is just how things are changing - you are no longer able to jump into taskman and kill off a single process; as there's a bunch of others, and those will probably just respawn the process you killed.

I've a lot of experience at programming - going back around 20 years - albeit mostly focused on video game development and some UI stuff but I've also built custom window managers for RISC OS and Debian while dabbling and created something very similar to Calmira for Windows 3.1 (gave up on development when I realised Calmira existed and was more advanced). A lot of stuff in Windows 10 is horrendously convoluted for the level of feature provided just as basic features never mind the evolved stuff.

I agree with your main point that a lot of things have necessarily become more complex as things progress - what might seem like a simple feature could have components related to syncing the profile remotely, pulling data from online, etc. etc. but the way they go about it in 10 is really not very efficient. I mean they've not even finished making the core platform robust and in a good place to leapfrog from and already moving onto producing project Polaris which will depend on it so you have ongoing progress on that while ongoing progress on the core stuff which is just going to end up a mess

 

[Scort]

The OS does preparation work and other maintenance tasks before downloading, sometimes during and often after as part of the process of applying updates, it will often do things like restarts of its own accord and often makes sporadic heavy use of system resources during the process and generally ignores if you are trying to game, stream video, etc. on the device or whatever - especially if you are on a slower connection at the time and/or trying to manage bandwidth.

It might be happening behind the scenes but its rarely seamless and often inconvenient.

Also those times when you either don't have time to deal with Windows updates if it decides to launch into a feature update and/or you've got a weekend clear for gaming and the last thing you want to do is spend a big chunk of it dealing with the fallout because an update has failed.

With a system spec like yours, I'm amazed it would impact you at all! I only run a ****** old i3 HP ProDesk, 128 GB SSD and 16GB of RAM and it will happily fly along with media tasks whilst doing a full on update, out of a fresh installation. Likewise, all the HP machines at work, they all continue running without issues when updating.

I guess in the instances you suggest, your only option would be to stop the WU service - yes I appreciate that you shouldn't need to do that, but I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft have been hit with some form of legal conditions; that it needs to ensure that it's operating systems are kept up to date when connected to the internet. Maybe a spin off from being forced to provide security updates to XP and Windows 7 past EOL?

 

[Elevon]

The OS does preparation work and other maintenance tasks before downloading, sometimes during and often after as part of the process of applying updates, it will often do things like restarts of its own accord and often makes sporadic heavy use of system resources during the process and generally ignores if you are trying to game, stream video, etc. on the device or whatever - especially if you are on a slower connection at the time and/or trying to manage bandwidth.

It might be happening behind the scenes but its rarely seamless and often inconvenient.

Also those times when you either don't have time to deal with Windows updates if it decides to launch into a feature update and/or you've got a weekend clear for gaming and the last thing you want to do is spend a big chunk of it dealing with the fallout because an update has failed.

I can see how this can be an issue, however end of the day updates have to be installed at some point, you could look at it the other way and say if you had a user that kept refusing an update, it would lead to having to either do a huge download of updates to get it up to date and more chance of a WU failure or breakage if the WU list is huge, also a PC that has a bigger security risk because of the lack of updates or fixes etc...

To be honest I don't why Microsoft want to take more control of the Windows Updates away from users , but I guess they must have their valid reasons, regardless of what you or I think of the way it's actually implemented in Win10.

 

[Rroff]

I can see how this can be an issue, however end of the day updates have to be installed at some point, you could look at it the other way and say if you had an user that kept refusing an update, it would lead to having to either do a huge download of updates to get it up to date and more chance of a WU failure or breakage if the WU list is huge, also a PC that has a bigger security risk because of the lack of updates or fixes etc...

To be honest I don't why Microsoft want to take more control of the Windows Updates away from users , but I guess they must have their valid reasons, regardless of what you or I think of the way it's actually implemented in Win10.

At some point that is going to happen - whether that is someone taken ill and going into hospital for 6 months or working abroad, etc. etc. so that isn't a valid argument - especially not a good argument against WU back end robustness. After some of the debacles with MPE, etc. (I'm surprised how much that got shoved under the rug aside from some incidental tech articles) MS really can't take high ground about security anyhow.

If MS really cared about security then they'd spilt real actual critical security updates off again and make them far more streamlined to install - most people wouldn't begrudge say an extra 10-20 seconds at boot time if they streamed in security updates efficiently.

 

[Scort]

I've a lot of experience at programming - going back around 20 years - albeit mostly focused on video game development and some UI stuff but I've also built custom window managers for RISC OS and Debian while dabbling and created something very similar to Calmira for Windows 3.1 (gave up on development when I realised Calmira existed and was more advanced). A lot of stuff in Windows 10 is horrendously convoluted for the level of feature provided just as basic features never mind the evolved stuff.

I agree with your main point that a lot of things have necessarily become more complex as things progress - what might seem like a simple feature could have components related to syncing the profile remotely, pulling data from online, etc. etc. but the way they go about it in 10 is really not very efficient. I mean they've not even finished making the core platform robust and in a good place to leapfrog from and already moving onto producing project Polaris which will depend on it so you have ongoing progress on that while ongoing progress on the core stuff which is just going to end up a mess

If you pardon the expression, it sounds like you've been around the block Fair play though, you are undoubtedly looking at Windows 10, with a level of professional criticism, which I [and many other no doubt] do not - so I can understand where you are coming from a little better now.

Windows 10 must be Steve Ballmer's baby, as he was mental - so might go some way to explain this mashup of different screens we have, [possible] inefficient programming, and any other oddities in the OS. There's certainly something gone awry though, for them to now introduce more forks in the lineup, though those only seem to be for business - so hopefully we won't see anything similar for consumers.

 

[Scort]

If MS really cared about security then they'd spilt real actual critical security updates off again and make them far more streamlined to install - most people wouldn't begrudge say an extra 10-20 seconds at boot time if they streamed in security updates efficiently.

That, is actually a great way of doing it - but I can't help but feel, that as the OS gets older, and fuller, this boot delay would simply increase. But nonetheless, it's an interesting take on keeping an OS nice and secure at least.

 

[Rroff]

Not sure about professional but I've certainly been around the block when it comes to software development - I've only spent about 3 years total working in that industry the rest is just dabbling.

 

[WantoN]

The Auto Update thing used to drive me absolutely mental.

I find it conseridably better now, it feels much less intrusive. I'm not a huge fan of it downloading data to my drive without consent and preparing the update, but at least the first I'm aware of the update is when I restart or shut down, instead of half way through an important document, or a game.

I don't get people saying choice is a bad thing, at all. Perhaps you should have more granular control in the more expensive versions, but "some people might break it" is a very poor argument. People have purchased the software it's up to them what they do with it.

The lovely thing about it however, is that I can have a multi drive setup, separating the OS, libraries, Games and Media onto different disks, so if I have to do a fresh install (which is such a breeze these days!) it's immensely simple to be back to fully working order.

 

[V F]

The Auto Update thing used to drive me absolutely mental.

I find it conseridably better now, it feels much less intrusive. I'm not a huge fan of it downloading data to my drive without consent and preparing the update, but at least the first I'm aware of the update is when I restart or shut down, instead of half way through an important document, or a game.

I don't get people saying choice is a bad thing, at all. Perhaps you should have more granular control in the more expensive versions, but "some people might break it" is a very poor argument. People have purchased the software it's up to them what they do with it.

The lovely thing about it however, is that I can have a multi drive setup, separating the OS, libraries, Games and Media onto different disks, so if I have to do a fresh install (which is such a breeze these days!) it's immensely simple to be back to fully working order.

We’re apparently dummies though.

 

[asim18]

the old adage of 'nothing to hide' applies to most I guess.

That's an utterly poor excuse for allowing big corps to milk your data for cash.

It's got nothing to do with nothing to hide. Its about Google, FB, and now Microsoft, trying to milk and mine your data to generate cash.

Windows 10 was basically rammed down people's throats under the guise of being "free" using the GWX deployment virus, the truth is that nothing is free and you're just paying for it with your data, it's not an operating system anymore, its a virus. FB is only worth billions because all your data belongs to them. Microsoft et al are now competing for more data market share.

This is why new directives such as GDPR are being brought out, they don't promote privacy, they erode it. All it does is relinquish your rights to your data and gives the data mining corps the explicit right to use your data as they please. Most of the big buttons on the new popups are "I accept all data collection" lol.

Same as the old "Privacy policies", there is nothing about privacy policies which is on the side of the consumer for goodness sake, they're just saying hey we will milk your data and you cant do nothing about it. Cant believe how brainwashed/mind controlled people are.

Anyway back to the topic, has anyone actually found out exactly what Windows is doing on your computers? I've been sitting here running Windows update for the past 4 hours. It wanted to download 700MB, it says Downloading updates but they are blatantly lying as i have been monitoring the connection for 4 hours and nothings being downloaded whatsoever.

At the start There was 1 sustained download for about 20 seconds. it saturated all 110Mbits of my connection for about 20 seconds.
Ever since then it's stuck at 95% downloading but the connection has not been used at all for almost 3 hours.
During those three hours however my hard disk has been reporting random monentary reads and writes up to 100MB/s its basically been hammering my SSD with random reads and writes for almost 4 hours now.

So Windows is lying that it's downloading something because nothing has been downloaded for 3 hours. And it's hammering my SSD for absolutely no apparent reason. It's also been using 50% cpu for 3 hours so maybe they are mining bitcoins under the guise of slow windows update. I wouldn't be surprised considering windows update has been used as a virus deployment tool in the past.

My poor SSD, it must have written almost 10-20GB.

I'm assuming there's a mandate to destroy old PCs not running the latest data collection crap.

 

[Rroff]

So Windows is lying that it's downloading something because nothing has been downloaded for 3 hours. And it's hammering my SSD for absolutely no apparent reason. It's also been using 50% cpu for 3 hours so maybe they are mining bitcoins under the guise of slow windows update. I wouldn't be surprised considering windows update has been used as a virus deployment tool in the past.

I've always put it down to simple incompetence rather than malice or some other goings on - my assumption is it downloads some kind of manifest then moves files around/creates dummy files, etc. to prepare downloading and updating.

The whole process though is poor - I mean if security updates were so important as they keep banging about to justify the heavy handed implementation of Windows update then I refuse to believe they couldn't make it possible to slip them in at boot time in an extra 10-20 seconds or so and make it easier to stay on top of out of band updates.

Honestly though I try to stay balanced and reasonable but I sincerely hope a lot of people at MS are fired (which isn't a very nice thing to wish for but I'd hold myself to the same standards) and replaced with people with actual vision and who give a crap about the end user quality of life experience.

 

[asim18]

Good grief it's gone mental now. It's now jumping between 10MB/s and 100MB/s every 2 seconds. Must have written 40 GB to my ssd now.

Any way I can just bill M$ for a new SSD?

I have now convinced myself that they have some sort of mandate to remotely destroy machines running old windows versions. Goes hand in hand with the mandate of not letting windows 7/8 not run on new hardware.

What has the world come to