Windows 11

Windows Windows OS
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So this a Windows 11 and later versions of Windows 10 concern.

I’m not on board with firmware updates being delivered via Windows update. Yes they are extremely important, but our experience with Surface devices, HP,s and Lenovos is that inevitably they seem to come at the same time as significant Windows OS updates.

And it seems that in about 1/3 of cases, one or more things goes awry during the process, typically with Window getting in to a funky state that at best may take multiple restarts to resolve, but more often than it should requires the safe mode recovery routine.

Or the firmware update itself gets tripped up. This happened to me and one of my engineers this morning with the newest firmware for our Pro 8s.

Both he and I saw the alert that there were updates to be installed and both went ahead with out looking closely at what was being updated.

On my system, I saw the firmware update being installed, and when it seemed to complete, the system just abruptly shut down and didn’t automatically restart.

So I thought well…and pushed the power button and instead of restarting it just briefly flashed the Windows/Surface start up icon and then appeared to shut down.

I tried several things, but ultimately what was successful was to completely disconnect it from everything including my dock and for that matter even my keyboard cover.

It was then able to complete what must have been a two step update process and after yet another restart, it seems to be back to normal.

Similar results with my other engineer, except that in his case, it seems to have permanently borked his orientation sensor, so for the moment at least he’s stuck in portrait mode.

So yes I know better and should have been paying closer attention, but OTOH the average user wouldn’t know better and they shouldn’t have to IMHO.

And we’ve seen multiple variations on this in our customer base with Lenovos losing WifI and HPs not recognizing anything connected to them, where the only fix seems to be manually reinstalling the firmware patch, assuming you can get the system to boot at ll.

TLDR. All of these companies need to find a better way to do these updates. Yes UEFI has helped and it’s now fairly rare for a firmware update to outright brick a system, but even if it is ultimately recoverable, it may require skills the average users doesn’t have. so the net effect is the same, which is an unusable system :frowning:

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463

And yet one more gripe about 11 and it’s update system. Why is it that every time the Android Subsystem gets updated, I have to tell Windows firewall again that’s it’s ok to go through ? I’ve already approved it seems like six times now.

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464

I like my walled garden…oops…wrong thread… :vb-devil2:

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I can personally attest to this. I had a work machine that got soft bricked from a firmware update throwing BitLocker into a frenzy from the cleared TPM. Thankfully, we have a policy to catalog all the BitLocker recovery codes or it would have meant a full clean install for me. I know of others including consumers who have not been so fortunate especially since Windows tends to default to BitLocker being on even on consumer builds. As a result, some have lost all their data from these firmware mishaps, which is of course why regular backups and cloud storage become eye-openers to them.

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I am religious about storing the bitlicker code.

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I turn BitLocker off when I get a new Windows computer, though I sometimes forget till something reminds me. Such as today with a new laptop the Lenovo BIOS update warned that BitLocker has to be turned off before it could do its thing. It had the option of temporarily turning it off right then, which I did, and after that I turned it off permanently.

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Weird, it’s not supposed to turn on encryption until you log in with a Microsoft account, and when it does that it backs up your key to the cloud. Unless I guess there’s some OEMs who aren’t following this policy, that wouldn’t really surprise me now that I think about it.

(And domain joined machines should also have their key backed up to the AD.)

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I couldn’t decide which thread write this in, or whether to create a new one; I think I’ll just write it here:

Got some pretty sad news. I found out yesterday that Clip Studio for desktops is going subscription-based starting with v2.0. However, v1.x will remain as a one-time payment, so you won’t be cut out of your license. You just won’t get anymore updates. It will at least have that going for it over the way that Adobe does things, and I mean, maybe a lot of people will be able to be at peace with how solid 1.x is and seriously use it for many years to come without being drawn away.

I feel like this kind of killed my last link to Windows — any possibility that I was going back — but who knows.

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470

Yeah, @CrazyCat was commenting on the same elsewhere:

On the one hand I loved the “buy once get upgrades forever” from the old days of mobile app stores, but I also understand that if a developer makes ever more advanced versions, at some point they might need to get paid. Steinberg who makes Cubase for Mac/PC and Cubasis for iPad has been doing an occasional major version update, requiring you to pay all over again, but keeping in-app purchase iirc. That’s OK with me, I pay them 30-40 bucks every few years, but only if I like the upgrades, and meanwhile the old version keeps functioning (while they work out the kinks…).

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471

Regarding CSP, I think most people are overreacting over some news article like “CSP forcing subscription on PC” etc. Perpetual license still exist, but from 2.0 on you can only buy license of 2.0.x, 3.0.x, 4.0.x etc everything inbetween would require the update subscription. Also they are still providing stability update for 1.x until 3.0 come out, so no, your current copy of CSP is not obsolete just yet.

We can treat the 2.0, 3.0 etc as the actual version, while everything inbetween early access that you have to pay for subscription to use.

Again, many popular art software have gone years, decade even, without update and people still use them. You are not forced into subscription to use your perpetual license. And it already have a crap ton of feature. You still get bug fix, subscription only bring new features. It’s a software for art, not rocket science, and doesn’t really need continuously more features to be usable.

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I have been hateful of subscriptions for a long time - until I finally bit the bullet on the first one - Office 365, which added a lot of value with things like 1TB Onedrive for each user in the family, etc.

My unending opposition is to the new “every channel wants its own subscription” in the cord cutting wars - especially thieves like NBC who split their subscriptions between TWO services (Hulu and Peacock) so if your two favorite shows are on two different subscriptions, you are screwed. Not to mention wholesale moving of series to your subscription only services - LOOKING AT YOU CBS.

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I’m still opposed to subscription and won’t do what CSP recommend (buy update subscription and if the subscription stop, you get dropped straight back to 1.x. just imagine if you had been on subscription from 1.x to 4.x, all that build up for nothing).

If 3.0 come out, I might buy it, as it would have all the previous improvements from 2.x, and stability update until 5.0 come out. If they won’t upgrade above 2.x then even better, my 1.x license would still get stability update during the lifetime of 2.x development.

Also subscription is bad that there would likely be more frequent online check, and if you are in a bad wifi spot, that would be very annoying.

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Microsoft still offer Office programs as perpetual licences too though (even if they are stupidly expensive as individual products - Word, Excel, PowerPoint bundles are priced decently).

I didn’t intend it this way, but I mostly have Office 365 for the OneDrive storage. For that alone, it’s competitive. While I need the Office programs too (including Publisher that is silly to buy one off), they’re almost like a bonus.

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This is not directly related to W11, only tangentially… But is anyone else using the OneNote Beta UI yet on desktop? It’s mostly fine, but what is really upsetting to me is I can no longer add favorite pens to the Quick Access Toolbar.

I used to be able to add “Favorite Pen 1” (black), “Favorite Pen 2” (red), “Favorite Highlighter 1” (yellow), and eraser there and immediately switch between colors with a single tap. Now that’s completely gone. (I can put “Pens” there, but it’s two step process now - tap that and then tap the pen I want.) :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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Uggghhh, do we need to go and beat the OneNote team up verbally (textually?) on one of their forums/comments sections again?

Hopefully they aren’t like the Windows team and might listen to feedback rather than siphon it off to ‘never-be-seen-again land’.

Seriously, I swear Microsoft didn’t used to be this arrogant and dismissive of their users.

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They think they can do things like Apple and enact edicts to their peon-customers, but if they do that, they forget they cater to a totally different culture and customers. Plus they lack the brains to “go it alone” like Apple does.

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For what it’s worth, the feedback button in the beta points to:

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/c06dcc30-2e1c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472

Direct link to this specific feedback is at this link, but it doesn’t look like Microsoft is paying much attention to anything there: Community

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Probably the same place the Feedback Hub is: we don’t give a **** server.

I wonder if they even have a backup of it. :rofl:

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I’m sure I ‘be asked this before, but is it possible to “freeze ourselves in time” if we buy a retail copy of Office rather than subscription and block updates? Or has MS tied our hands and avoiding updates is impossible.

Yes, I know we end up with virus/malware risks, but frankly many are tired of of the changes for change sake when we already use only 10-15% of Office’ features, but those are the ones they change to force us onto the upgrade treadmill. I am FINALLY understanding all those businesses that staid on Windows Xp or Windows 7 forever…

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Sorry for that mini-rant, but after 38 years of DOS, Windows, and Office I am so tired of upgrade hassles - any guess how many that could be - just count patch Tuesday for a start…I know my suggestion is childish and this is a nasty @$$ world out there, but the treadmill is looking pretty bare at this point, and it may have been one of the biggest contributors to my looking for greener grass on the other side of the hill.

What I fear is that while it may be greener, it’s still the same old alfalfa…

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