Almost a week after some Windows 10 PCs got trapped in reboot hell, Microsoft finally issued a patch — make that “a kludge of a script” — to finally enable affected Windows 10 users to get their machines working again.
The fix, “Windows 10 1607 Script fix to unblock update for Windows Insiders,” doesn’t explain what’s going on. It does work, however.
That’s nice. I’m glad that my Windows 10 PC is up and running again. Thanks.
I’d still like to know what the heck happened. The note that accompanied news of the fix wasn’t exactly informative. It reads:
We became aware of an issue with the recent Windows 10 cumulative update that impacted a small number of customers in the Windows Insider Program that were running a previous build of the OS. We have created a solution to resolve this issue.Small? One thread on the Microsoft forums currently has 383 replies. On most online groups I’ve known and run over the years, only one in a hundred people actively comment. If that ratio holds true, that’s 38,000-plus users.
That’s not many out of tens of millions of users, perhaps, but it’s still too many for a showstopping bug.
The issue, apparently, was a scheduled task that Windows Update added to users' PCs, meant to save XBox Live games. The problem is that it runs in the background even if (like Mr. Vaughan-Nichols) you don't have any XBox Live games to save, and haven't played an XBox Live game in years. Microsoft enabled a total system failure by way of an obscure registry entry for a program that most users will never have used, and don't intend to use, all in the name of integrating XBox Live with Windows 10.
Even worse, the workaround wasn't actually developed by Microsoft (credit apparently belongs to a Windows 10 Insider by the name of Dr. Peter Farquhasson), and it can't be installed via Windows Update -- users must revert to an older, still-working version of the OS, and then execute the script. This, in Microsoft's brave new Windows 10 world, is what progress looks like.
Have I mentioned today, how very glad I am, that I didn't "upgrade" to this mess?
Vaughan-Nichols has a couple of ideas about how Microsoft could have avoided this problem, beginning with better quality assurance. "Even as Microsoft has gotten much better with its server and cloud offerings," he writes, "Windows seems to be taking second place and becoming second rate," issues which apparently still extend to the Windows 10 Store.
Also, he writes,
It might also have been helpful if Microsoft still let you install only those patches you need rather than one large blob of updates. It’s bad enough that Microsoft has made this the default update system for Windows 10, but it is also bringing the rollup patch model to Windows 7, 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 and Server 2012 R2, starting on Oct. 11.
This is going to be so much fun!
Yeah. I'm thrilled. Can you tell how thrilled I am?
As Vaughan-Nichols concludes, "Windows has been fixed — sort of — now. But, it’s only a matter of time before it breaks again." Given how terribly Microsoft has handled absolutely everything about Windows 10's maintenance so far, starting with the Anniversary Update itself and continuing through every patch since, I have a strong feeling that he's right about that. And it isn't just Windows 10 users who will be affected by their incompetence; with this same broken update regimen coming to Windows 7 and 8, too, this is going to affect every Windows user.
GG, Microsoft. That's some next-level end game.
Linux is looking like a better idea with each passing day. Did I mention that I've bought a 2nd hard drive, specifically for use as a Linux partition? Now I just have to get off my lazy ass and install the damn thing... and then install Linux on the damn thing. I don't think I'm the only one, either, who's contemplating making that shift.