Once wasn’t enough, it appears.

Published on August 11, 2015 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

Well, that’s a misleading title, so my apologies.

MS has a long history of borked updates. KB3081424 is yet another. No big deal, right? Wrong. Some users are reporting it causes an endless cycle of reboots.

When will MS learn that the policy of mandatory updating hasn’t been well enough thought through or isn’t being timed well?

In theory, supposedly all patches/updates, etc. are first distributed to a certain group of users for testing. If all goes well, it is then distributed widely without choice (for W10 Home users) and installed automatically.

Well, for a second time, the QA has been proven to be inadequate: See here.

“The update tries to install, gets to a certain point, fails, and then displays the unhelpful "We couldn't complete the updates, undoing the changes. If it stopped there things wouldn't be too bad, but because Microsoft now forces updates onto Windows 10 users, the OS kept trying - and failing - to install the update, which in turn placed the system into a periodic crash/reboot loop that put quite a dent in my productivity. To make matters worse, the tool that Microsoft released to hide or block toxic Windows 10 updates (as reported by my ZDNet colleague Ed Bott) didn't allow me to prevent this update from attempting to install. So I was forced to either abandon the machine until a fix was made available or try to fix it myself.” – ZDnet

The fix requires registry editing…not something everyone feels comfortable doing…but actually involved a legacy nVidia driver.

The fix/es can be found here.

This just illustrates a certain point. This problem won’t happen to everyone, but G*d help you if that’s your only computer and you need it to do your job. In that case, I hope you have an understanding boss and a good IT dep’t. to take it to for the fix.

The point is that rigid, unyielding policies cause problems. MS has to devise a way to install it’s updates virtually (at least at first) and if ok, to proceed to regular installation. To me, that seems reasonable.

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/11/windows-10-broken-update-endless-reboot-loop

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-cumulative-update-causes-reboot-loop-havoc-for-some-users/

http://www.drivethelife.com/windows-10/fix-reboot-loop-after-windows-10-update.html

Comments

DaveRI

on Aug 11, 2015

It would also make a lot of sense to me for MS to split out the hardware updates from the required ones. Their track record on driver updates just isn't that good, I honestly don't understand why they're putting themselves in that position. I would even understand if they just threw up their hands and got out of the driver distribution game.

Daiwa

on Aug 11, 2015

I've never let MS do driver updates, always gone to the source. Boggles that they would include those in mandatory OS updates.

ElanaAhova

on Aug 12, 2015

I'm a neophyte in all these OS /PC thingys. But I have always refused MS installing / updating drivers (except plug n play when installing new hardware). Perfer going to manu for drivers. Old fashioned I guess.

Uvah

on Aug 12, 2015

Its always a good idea to go to the manufacturer, like nvidia, for drivers. That way at least you know what you're getting. MS has no business trying to include them for the very reason that they have caused so many head aches. It is inconceivable to me that MS refuses to listen to common sense.

harpo99999

on Aug 12, 2015

who ever said that ms was common?

or ever had cents, they usually try to get ALL the dollars and ignore the cents

harpo, the ghost NON-subscriber

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