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I like my computer. It has served me well for a number of years. It does what I want it to do, most of the time. What I don't like is when I see that it wants to update......I almost always approach this with a lot of trepidation.

Update and restart...might as well go out to eat. But no, it seems the updates are downloaded pretty quickly but then it goes to restart and the fun begins. After the restart, well now you can go eat because depending on the size up the update, it could take a minute, or most likely more, to come back to life. But no, that doesn't mean it's ready to go.

Here is the area that I would like to talk to the programmers at MicroSoft about. Not every time but more times than I would like it says "Let's finish setting up your device!". I was happy with the way it was set up, if I wanted to change the way it was set up I would have already done that. Fortunately there is a skip button but I am sure that over the next few days the computer will nudge me again and again every time I fire it up.

Secondly, after hitting the skip button the home screen comes up and it looks like it's ready to go....just a tease. Here is the time to go get a cup of coffee and hit the head. If you just go ahead and try to open anything you will just get the spinning wheel of death. Here is where I would ask the programmers, why do you tease me like the computer is ready to go to work when really it isn't? I'd really like to have a count down timer to when the computer is going to be ready to go rather than an ubiquitous spinning wheel of death that doesn't tell me anything other than the computer is not ready to work and just frustrates the hell out of me.

Of course, there isn't any feedback to how the update went and do you have any suggestions. They might have thought ahead and decided to just nix the volumes of where they could stick their heads and how they should have sex with themselves.

Anyone else get this frustrated? I know I shouldn't but these updates almost always run concurrent with something I wanted to get done in a hurry. Almost as if they were waiting and knew I was in a rush. I liken it to when I was a dispatcher and the moment I sent the release, the operations manager would switch the airplane. No call of warning that I might want to hold off,,,just bang, change of aircraft and now I have to go cancel filings, check MELs, check the remaining fuel, re-enter everything and re-release the flight. Or the load planner would add or subtract thousands of pounds of payload which meant that now we didn't have enough fuel or were carrying way too much. Again, have to go back and rework the plan. Might have to go at a lower altitude or maybe now we could get above some weather or turbulence. The ETOPs solution was going to change if nothing else. Almost always, just before I could complete that and get everything refiled and re-released, the Cpt. or ops at the airport would pull the old paperwork so when the Cpt. did call for his briefing I'd have to ask if he had the new release with the new aircraft and/or fuel load....some took it well, others would be mildly upset. Towards the end I took to getting the Cpts number from crew scheduling and calling them if I saw they pulled the wrong paperwork to give them a heads up. Not a one of them was ever upset about that.

But I digress. Seems to me as the customer, the programmers ought to do everything they can to make this seamless. It's almost as if they were daring me to get an Apple product.

The work laptop's all controlled from central administration, although I do have local admin rights. (Can't start the development web server or database without them.) Usually, but far from always, there's a warning that pops up before the update. Often it's a complete surprise.

The machine stays on pretty much 24/7, and it's not uncommon for me to do a quick prep for the morning last thing at night. I'll have all the right code open and ready to go, ten or fifteen relevant browser tabs open, a scrappy idea of my thoughts on what to investigate next in Notepad, three or four Explorer windows open in relevant directories, and everything arranged just so across two screens.

Then I come in the following morning and the box has rebooted.

The IDE's pretty good at remembering the files I'm working on. If I'm lucky, Chrome will remember all the tabs, but far from always, half of what it does remember will need re-authenticating with another overly-complex password, and it'll likely open on the wrong screen. The database and web server will need the overly-complex admin password to start. The Explorer windows have to be opened and navigated back to where they were manually. And the to-do list has been nuked from orbit.

All that, of course, after typing yet another other overly-complex password just to log in, waiting for the desktop to appear, and waiting for the damned updates to actually update, something that could have been happening while I was asleep. Instead, as DXing says, I might as well have breakfast for a change.

I've learned my lesson, but they leave it just long enough between forced updates that I unlearn it. Thanks for the reminder, I must be about due for another lot...

As for Apple products, I've watched enough Louis Rossmann repair/rant videos to stay well clear of them. Also, some shit-for-brains has already registered an Apple account using my email address - which particular shit-for-brains, I'm not sure, there are at least two who think my email is theirs, and a third whose email is similar enough that I know far too much about his life - so I've no doubt that I'd have "fun" setting up the device. Not to mention that the whole thing's a cult. The product's perfect, you're just holding it wrong. These are people who need to be told that if your iShiny is stolen you should contact the police, not come crying to the Steve. On the rare occasions where I've been forced to use a Mac, it's been pain all the way down. No thanks.

I write code that's deployed on Linux servers (love Linux as a server OS, as long as it's not RedHat-flavoured), so it should make sense for me to ditch Windows and use Ubuntu as my daily driver. Most of the scientists at work use it, although I'm not sure that they're given a choice. I've got 25 years of Windows experience (and the PTSD to prove it), I just know where everything is. I can usually last a couple of months with a Linux system before something crops up that needs to work right the hell now, doesn't work right the hell now, has had a bug open for a full decade because it didn't work right the hell ten years ago and is apparently too hard and/or unimportant to fix, and is somehow my fault for being a n00b who c4nT gr0k t3h l1NuCk5. If I spend a week editing random source code in a language I've never touched - 'cos it's open source, so you can do that, yay freedom - perhaps it'll "work" well enough to do the job, but perhaps it'll hose my video driver, who knows? No, God damn it, I use a computer to get shit done, not to play with my computer. That's the point where I sling the penguin out on its arse and go back to the evil Micro$oft.

The MS updates may be annoying as all hell, but the damn OS does actually work, all the time. I guess it's like democracy, it's the worst system I've tried except for all the rest!

I saved all my stuff to the cloud and bought a refurbed Dell desktop on Amazon for $260. Best decision I made in a while.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TB ... UTF8&psc=1

DXing wrote:Anyone else get this frustrated?

The only time I've encountered issues like that is for the major updates to the OS. I've seen it happen with the major updates with the Mac too. I've never encountered a case where I've had to reselect all my customizations other than maybe desktop and screen saver.

Give this a shot to help ease the pain of future updates: Go to File Explorer and right click on your C: drive. Choose "Properties" and then on the menu that comes up (should default to the "General" tab), select "Disk Cleanup." Then select "Cleanup System Files." I'm pretty sure you'll have to be logged in as Administrator. Select all the items in the list. It will tell you how much disk space you'll recover. You may be shocked.

Windows likes horde stuff from previous updates, "just in case" you ever want to roll back an update. Most are security related, so it's unlikely you'll want to do that. I "clean house" after each major update or at least once a month.

ShanwickOceanic wrote:On the rare occasions where I've been forced to use a Mac, it's been pain all the way down. No thanks.

I just wanted to say that I'm typing this on my MacBook...running Windows 10.

Seriously though, once you strip away all the hype and cult-like behaviors, Mac vs PC is a six of one, have a dozen of the other type situation. Unless you have applications that are only available on one platform, or course.

ShyFlyer wrote:Give this a shot to help ease the pain of future updates: Go to File Explorer and right click on your C: drive. Choose "Properties" and then on the menu that comes up (should default to the "General" tab), select "Disk Cleanup." Then select "Cleanup System Files." I'm pretty sure you'll have to be logged in as Administrator. Select all the items in the list. It will tell you how much disk space you'll recover. You may be shocked.

Windows likes horde stuff from previous updates, "just in case" you ever want to roll back an update. Most are security related, so it's unlikely you'll want to do that. I "clean house" after each major update or at least once a month.

Thanks for that. Will give it a try. If you don't see a post from me for awhile you'll know I screwed the pooch.

I tried to add a web video-saving program to my computer this morning. Well, not only did I get a video saving program, but the sneaky bastards threw in a proprietary browser that I didn't want. Long story short, the best way to remove said nefarious browser was to do a reset to a point before the download. "Restore point," I think it's called. So, I picked 11/11/2020 as a restore point date and hit "enter."

After watching a spinning thingy on the screen for an hour, I thought, "Should I power off, then up?" Sure. Why not? Power back up and the hard drive light is churning and grinding away for ten minutes. Now I'm getting nervous. Then it stopped. Nothing on the monitor. Power off, then power on. And wait.

A Dell logo appeared on the monitor with the words, "Automatic repair mode." Never saw that before. Three more minutes of spinning thingy, then blank screen. Power off, power on.

Finally, the computer came alive. Thank God! I'm not sure when in time the computer thinks it is, but I'm not picky. Maybe if I were a 20 year old kid, this kind of stuff wouldn't rile me up so much. But, to be honest, only being 95% sure of what I'm doing with computers doesn't cut it in the confidence department.... Know what I mean?

ShyFlyer wrote:I just wanted to say that I'm typing this on my MacBook...running Windows 10.

I cleared out the cache and files that the disk cleanup said were unnecessary. Computer is still working and no smoke in the cockpit so I am going to assume I didn't delete anything critical.

Let's see what happens with the next unwanted update. It's like it's the only way someone can validate their job is to just punch out updates on a regular schedule.

Sure enough, as predicted, today I got a pop up notice in my notifications about "Let's finish setting up your computer". It just won't take no for an answer!!

Maybe it's thirsty and it needs a drink of water.

Here we are 28 days later...wasn't there a movie? ...and on start up..."Let's finish setting up your computer!". It just won't let it go!!

If it makes you feel any better, sometimes when there is a major update to the MacOS, it sometimes acts like it's a brand-new set up.