All of that, apparently, was deemed to be acceptable growing pains for a new OS by the tech press. They noticed, and they noted how odd it was for an update that followed such a massive testing and refinement process to still roll out with so many debilitating issues, but there wasn't really an outcry about it all.
That is, until now. Because now that Anniversary Update is being installed on their machines by default, rather than being run on a virtual machine (because the tech reporters are all on the Insider fast track, and can all do things like that); and that has forced them to realize that the A.U. also breaks their webcams.
From Thurrot.com:
On August 2nd, Microsoft released the Anniversary Update for Windows 10 and when the bits arrived on computers around the globe, it brought with it new features and also broke webcams for millions of consumers. If your webcam has stopped functioning since the release of the Anniversary update, you are not alone but the good news is a fix is coming, hopefully in September.
Microsoft made a significant change with the release of Windows 10 and support for webcams that is causing serious problems for not only consumers but also the enterprise. The problem is that after installing the update, Windows no longer allows USB webcams to use MJPEG or H264 encoded streams and is only allowing YUY2 encoding.
Why did the company remove these options? The short answer is that with the Anniversary update there are new scenarios for applications to be able to access the webcam and the MJPEG or H264 encoding processes could have resulted in duplication of encoding the stream (poor performance) so the company limited the input methods to stop this from happening.
Because of this change, which Microsoft tried to defend but then realized the scale of the impact this change has caused, means that when a webcam tries to use MJPEG or H264, the device will freeze. If you use Skype and your webcam freezes after about a minute, this is the reason.
People have been complaining about Skype being crap forever, and prominent streamers and YouTubers like Totalbiscuit have already rolled back to Windows 7 because Win10 broke video streaming and conferencing on their machines, but the Tech press didn't take much notice... until it affected them, personally. And make no mistake, that is why this one bug is getting so much attention.
And, boy, oh boy, it is ever getting a ton of attention.
Windows 10 Anniversary Update completely borks USB webcams. Yay. Official Redmond response: Customers love Win10
Thanks to Microsoft's strongarm GWX tactics, Windows 10 is running on something like 350 million machines right now. This problem breaks webcams on several million of them... which sounds like a lot, until you realize that it's probably a single-digit percentage of users that are affected by this. Plenty of people don't even have webcams plugged into their PCs. Mark Zuckerberg has his webcam taped over, something which security experts described as a not a bad idea, back when it made news.
Unlike Windows 10's privacy and security issues, which affect everybody, this webcam problem affects a relatively small percentage of users. So, why so much coverage? IMHO, quite simply, because the people doing the covering happen to be directly affected. They care that their webcams stopped working, and so that's news... unlike all the people whose PCs stopped working completely because of the same update, but who weren't part of the tech writing club.
It all smells to me like... how do you say.... horse shit.
Don't get me wrong: this webcam bug is a fuck-up. Microsoft made a unilateral decision about what peripherals people got to use on their PCs, and how they'd use them, and forced it on users without any prior consultation, notification, or choice, with the predictable result being chaos, and none of this is new. This is Microsoft's recent corporate strategy in a nutshell: depriving users of choice, limiting what they can do, how they can do it, and what they can do it with, all unilaterally and without any notice whatsoever.
In fact, it's exactly the same philosophy that's driving their Universal Windows Platform initiative, among other things, only UWP was mostly lauded by tech writers as a smart business move, while borked webcams are a Huge Deal. I wonder if any of those same tech writers are starting to have second thoughts about handing that much unilateral power over their PCs to Redmond. How about it, tech writers? Now that you've seen how this really works, now that it's adversely affecting you, personally, is it still just smart business to shovel exactly the same shit into other areas of the same OS?
I don't give a shit that webcams have stopped working. I unplugged my own webcam ages ago when moving around the furniture in my den, and never plugged it back in because I never use the thing. I'd guess that there are lots of people whose use of webcams is infrequent, assuming they even own webcams, and for whom this issue is unlikely to cause any inconvenience at all before Microsoft patch it. Borked webcams are the very least of Windows 10's issues, with implications that are far less worrying than, for example, the fact that the same Anniversary Update will reinstall bundled applications that users had previously removed from their PCs.
Hey, tech writers! How about giving some more coverage to the things which are actually problems, and which could have lasting and far-reaching implications for everybody with a PC? But, no, we get a freak out over webcams. It's all ever so slightly ridiculous.
Public confidence in news media, generally, it at historic lows right now. Journalists are widely regarded as being little more than mouthpieces for moneyed corporate and political interests, and are only slightly more favourably regarded in the U.S. than a Congress that barely agree to vote to keep their own fucking lights on, and who've accomplished nothing else of note in five years. People in the news media often comment on how poorly they're regarded by the public, and they always sound so baffled, and often even hurt, when they do so. It's all a big mystery to them. Why don't people like them more?
Well, I've got a candidate for the reason why people don't like them more. The fact that this kind of trivial crap gets a ton of attention while so many far more consequential and important issues get glossed over or passed by... I think that's a big part of the reason why journalists are less trusted than ever, and why media outlets are generally viewed with suspicion.
And it's not just tech writers; actual games journalism (in the sense of real reporting being done, tough questions being asked, and so on) is almost non-existent, with gaming media outlets largely just parroting PR copy from AAA developers, helping to feed a hype machine that regularly leaves consumers disappointed with the expensive final products, and looking for someone to blame for the fact that they got taken in, yet again.
Microsoft's GWX strategy was entirely dependent on a compliant tech press being willing to repeat their every PR utterance as fact, while doing very little critical thinking, fact checking, or independent analysis. And it almost worked; it was only in the final months, when they'd clearly reached a point of diminishing returns but were still trying to squeeze a few more drops of blood from the same stones, that it started to turn on them. The hype machine kept pumping out the hype for months after it had clearly ceased to be relevant or accurate, and they were still at it just a week ago. Until Microsoft borked their webcams.
I guess we'll see how long this moment of clarity lingers. In the meantime, remember... don't believe the hype.