The Actual "Why" M$ is issuing faulty fixes...

[Philip Rodowsky]

Hey all, the link I'm sharing takes you to an Ex-Employee of Microsoft. He's not a disgruntled past employee, not a nay-sayer or troll. He loves Win10. He used to work in the section that caught problems before any updated o/s was released. Talks fast, and a lot, but let yourself roll into the section where he describes "why" these consistent problems are happening. You'll find it leaves you with a better understanding as to the necessity of "Pausing Updates for a Month." And it tells us we may be facing a lot of hiccups in the future; it seems "power users" or "special applications" are in for diffiulties until they decide to accept that the system they're using now... ain't gonna hack it. The video tells all about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9kn8_oztsA

[Bob Denny]

I've seen this video and chose not to post it here because like so many news stories, it amplifies things way beyond the reality of most peoples' experience. "Bricked a quarter of all of the systems out there... well maybe not that bad...". Also they do not issue faulty fixes on purpose, which Mister Barnacules says in so many words (It's their fault because.....). Like so many media outlets, he's using shock and outrage to boost his channel. There is another side to the story which I got from a highly placed long time friend who worked for Microsoft for many many years. I'm not going to pass that along since it is essentially internal strategy and tactics.

The net result is what we all see, a decrease in the reliability of builds. How it's happening is secondary. We can hope that they do better in the future. Also we need to keep in mind that the OS technologies that are in use for astronomy (USB, COM) are not heavily used elsewhere in computing. Who else would get hit by a USB interruption at 2AM?? "My mouse froze for 1 second" "So what?" Who else strings long USB cables around with shaky power bricks for DC and not much attention to EMI shielding? One Update error last year affected DCOM, a really obscure OS service which no one uses... but is in ASCOM drivers solely to support the old TeleAPI plugin for TheSky 5/6 which used DCOM 20 years ago for its Internet Automation Software (IAS, long gone). But the WinUpdate DCOM botch affected COM and knocked out a large number of astronomers. It was easy to overcome and MS reversed the goof up in a few weeks with their subsequent update. So astronomy operates on the fringes anyway.

Microsoft is extremely aware of the quality decline at the highest levels, and they know it only takes a few of these sorts of things to permanently damage their position. Furthermore, they are hell bent on supporting the Linux ecosystem. They have really gone all out in this regard.

[Eric Dose]

This video is very far from giving the actual "Why". The actual why is not that Microsoft uses paying customers as beta testers to save money (since Microsoft obviously has SO MUCH LESS cash than the average user). The more fundamental why is somewhere within Microsoft's unilateral, brain-dead, and absolutely unforgivable corporate decisions to (1) effectively ship without testing and (2) pretend that their various platforms are equivalent when of course they are not (737 MAX, anyone?).

And nothing in this video explains, for example, why Microsoft intentionally kills paying customers' USB ports in the middle of the night, their latest "gift" to astronomy. What the video does explain is: the best and perhaps only defense against Microsoft's boneheaded decisions is for the user to do clean install after clean install. Microsoft just washes its hands of responsibility. Absolutely unforgivable.

EDIT: and now MS + Linux? Great combination: all the incompatibility of Linux with all the reliability of Microsoft. Oh. Yippee.

[Philip Rodowsky]

I debated whether to post the video or not, I did realized there was a fair measure of hyperbole in the delivery, I'll refrain from that type of sharing. I got hit hard, in a time crunch period while working on specialized things I do as well, struggled through it. I was strongly motivated to highlight circumstances by my on experiences with poor decisions, tactics,and financial actions within large corporations Especially when it effects a highly placed, essential product. I had hoped they didn't lean this way... but they did. It's a sad thing when users are impacted this way. And thank you for your insight, Bob. Hopefully action in high places will be soon coming.

[Bob Denny]

Phillip — I completely understand. Thanks for following up as well.