Almost as if.....
...they don't know what they are doing.
Microsoft has sneaked out a patch to get Windows 10 PCs back online after an earlier update broke networking for people's computers around the globe. Since the end of last week, systems in the UK, US, Europe and beyond have automatically installed software from Microsoft, via Windows Update, that broke DHCP. That means some …
I know the world is running out of network addresses, but refusing to give them to end users' PCs is going to help that problem.
Ooh, that depends. Maybe somebody at Microsoft has found a dusty old copy of "The Limits to Growth", or is a closet follow of Malthus? As befits a dinosaur like Microsoft, rationing is a good soviet-style solution.
But looking at the trajectory of Microsoft's business model, some might imagine that the code released was actually a broken bit of code actually intended to enable a future revenue stream of "internet connectivity as a service". Got a computer, Windows 10, and a broadband connection? Tough, unless you've paid this month's Redmond tax for the DCHP app, computer says no. An income stream as reliable as being an ISP, except that they don't have to have to build or own assets, or do anything gooky like run a big distributed telecoms network.
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"It's all part of Microsoft's cunning automated Suicide Plan for Windows 10 and the rest of their company."
If Slurp really did intend to commit suicide I'd like to say "Go right ahead, make it messy, make it painful, make it quick, and can I and millions of others watch?"
But I won't. 'Cause I've been running 'Nix since w98. Wouldn't want to obstruct someone else's view.
<< Smug>>
I think the rolling update plan, with different branches for each class of user is an engineering fiasco that could bring Microsoft to its knees -- along with millions of users. Is there no Quality Assurance team in Microsoft confident enough to say "No, this product is not fit for release"?
No chief engineer worth his salt would countenance such a scheme. And anyone who doubts that developing software for productive use requires engineering disciplines should not be in the business.
It's such a shame. Just when Microsoft looked as if was going to get Windows right, they've blown it.
Or, you know, you could run "ipconfig /release" and "ipconfig /renew" to get back online and then download the update.
I know, I know, bitching and moaning about how things were better in the past (they really weren't) is much easier than actually dealing with the issue. I can remember computers failing because the (audio-type) tape got tangled up in the mechanism... that was slightly more complex to fix than this "ipconfig /release" "ipconfig /renew"
"Or, you know, you could run "ipconfig /release" and "ipconfig /renew" to get back online and then download the update."
The slight problem being that the average user is not supposed to know these commands, doesn't know how to get admin access to their terminal window, and because the computer isn't connected to the Internet can't look it up.
My feeling is that every Windows PC should be supplied with a short, helpful user guide to the shell commands that may be needed, and how to use them, in case of emergency.
every Windows PC should be supplied with a short, helpful user guide to the shell commands that may be needed, and how to use them
Thirty years ago this is exactly what you found when you opened the box containing your nice new PC AT.
"Thirty years ago this is exactly what you found when you opened the box containing your nice new PC AT."
Exactly so. That was roughly when we bought a Dell with a 12.5MHz 80286 (!) which had comprehensive documentation. And a week later Michael Dell himself phoned up to ask what we were doing with it - it was the bleeding edge model.
But it also cost around £10 000 inflation adjusted.
Mac documentation of the period was also superb, including the interactive guide to train people on how to use a mouse.
"What it needs is a big red 'FIX' button in the centre of the desktop that can't be moved or removed and they press it for you before the software leaves the factory."
That's all well and a good idea, but what happens when an update bollixes the fix button?
(And you know it's a 100% certainty that'd happen!) ☺
My feeling is that every Windows PC should be supplied with a short, helpful user guide to the shell commands that may be needed, and how to use them, in case of emergency.
A good option that keeps with MS's new policies would be to include a sealed envelope with "open me in case of OS failure due to updates" printed on it. Inside would be a large, glossy picture of SatNad with a big smile, giving the thumbs up as he fucks your wife.
That kinda hits the Powershell vs cmd.exe dilemma though.
Since El Reg's doomsday warning about cmd.exe being put to pasture I've finally had a go at PS. For complicated sysadmin stuff, like real functions with computations and environmental access, ps is arguably a bit ahead of bash. But, for simple stuff, like a 'ls | grep foo' you have to struggle through the implications of 'everything is an an object, not text'. That makes it way harder than bash for quick and dirty adhoc commands, lots of reading to do. Not to mention that scripts are disabled by default.
If users couldn't get a grip on cmd they are gonna be totally lost with powershell.
"My feeling is that every Windows PC should be supplied with a short, helpful user guide to the shell commands that may be needed, and how to use them, in case of emergency."
Pointless for the average Joe; bit like the idea of self-driving cars handing full manual control over to the human, who until that point has been playing with their mobile...
Given, we were able to get a full OS complete with GUI into sub 1MB of RAM back in the 80's. I suggest we should be able to burn a complete PE recovery OS into the BIOS (This means the recovery OS is available for those occasions when either the HDD fails or is unable to boot into an OS.). User need only press the button typically engraved with cogs, spanner etc. that many vendors put on keyboards for maintenance mode to gain access and undertake various actions, such as uninstall updates, fetch new updates, enable remote access etc.
My feeling is that every Windows PC should be supplied with a short, helpful user guide to the shell commands that may be needed, and how to use them, in case of emergency.
It's almost as if you wish the old DOS days to be back!
"My feeling is that every Windows PC should be supplied with a short, helpful user guide to the shell commands that may be needed, and how to use them, in case of emergency."
I'd go further than that; every Win 10 PC or laptop ought be be supplied with a free USB stick or DVD on which there's a Linux distro which can take over temporarily or full time when Win 10 stuffs up (as it tends to do on multiple occasions).
"My feeling is that every Windows PC should be supplied with a short, helpful user guide to the shell commands that may be needed, and how to use them, in case of emergency."
My feeling is that every Windows PC should be supplied with a bid reg emergency button labelled "In case of emergency: Press to Install Real Operating System"
There FIFY
I don't have Windows 10 but I know people who do. Now I am very lucky in that I have a friend whose son manages a computer repair shop so if I get stuck I can always pick his brains or if I can't be bothered I pay him to do the work. As you say most people wouldn't know where to start so how about you & others on here writing a more detailed explanation on how to solve the problem I sure El Reg wouldn't mind. Then people like me who have no where near your knowledge but are few steps ahead of the masses could help those who haven't got a clue.
My mother does not even understand the fundamental difference between a website and an app... so how is she supposed to go to the command line? oddly enough, it was my elderly father (almost 80) who had to go to the command line and do it.
So, when the command line gets substitued by a modified powershell, how is he going to fix things?
Nope, ipconfig /release and /renew alone certainly did not work for me, it was the first thing I tried before discovering there was something else more subtle afoot. It needed those previously published pair of netsh commands plus a restart.
It didn't work for one machine I tested. Looking at my DHCP server logs, it was getting halfway through the "DORA" cycle (Discover, Offer, Request, Accept).
The client shouted out for a server, the server answered back, but then the client clamped its hands over its ears while singing "la-la-la, I can't hear you" and self-assigned itself a 169.254 address.
Not such much "DORA", more "DOH" (Discover, Offer, Hard-of-hearing).
So far a straight release and renew has not worked on any affected machines I have tried it on. However this has worked:
netsh winsock reset catalog
netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log
Also I have noticed that its not uncommon for the problem to only strike one network interface, so I have been able to successfully fix some laptops remotely via wifi even though their ethernet was borked.
It would be simple, as you explain, but how may Win10 users know of the CLI, let alone are able to use it to control their PC. Macroshaft and others have dumbed-down the userbase with their WinDoze to such an extent that even something as basic as this fix would be impossible for a significant part of the userbase.
And anyway - DHCP has been round since Methusla was in short trousers, so WHY were MacroShaft messing with it...It implies that they either got it wrong a long time ago and only just realised and patched it, or they were up to some other badness, probably related to chasing users for their data (paranoid? Moi?...Nah, just a realist!)
Microsoft have never been that great at DHCP. There was a feature of the way Win2000 and I think some other versions cached DHCP leases between reboots which caused us problems with our high availability cross site DHCP setup.
I forget the details, but I *think* it was something to do with the machine preserving a lease between reboots and refusing to allocate an IP address if it couldn't contact that particular DHCP server even if there was DHCP active on another IP address. If I recall correctly it meant that if a server had to be taken down for maintenance then clients rebooted with an active lease would fail to get an IP address, but clients rebooted that had no cached lease would work just fine.
Once we were able to cluster DHCP on a single IP address it became much less of a problem, but it seemed plain dumb that DHCP forwarding as per RFC lets you specify multiple servers for resilience but Microsoft's caching effectively broke or at least bent that resilience.
I think you got it right.
In order for you not to be able to opt out, they are mangling the network... so even if you put some things as 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file, windows will ignore it and give you info.
Maybe they are doing the same with DHCP in case the DHCP does the trick.. and they mangled it.
Or, you know, you could run "ipconfig /release" and "ipconfig /renew" to get back online and then download the update.
Sure, that was the first thing I tried on the Misses' laptop and it worked.
But
There is zero chance I'm going to be able to get my mother to type those commands on her's. She now reads emails and will finally even read text messages on her phone, but despite having worked as a typist in the past she is not prepared to send email or texts. The chances of getting her (and I'm extrapolating from her) and millions of similar people to do an ipconfig... are zero.
If she gets the problem it will have to wait until I can drive over and see her. In the mean time I'll just hope she's not been affected, and hope even more that if she has, my father who as debenture hasn't tried to fix it for her.
@ipconfig /release /renew
Seriously? Do you realize the horrendously small percentage of computer users who would even know how to open a command prompt? Expand your world view and realize how useless this suggestion is to the masses...
Ah that's all fixed then, isn't it? You did validate the assumption that the large number of users* who are well past the age of geek-ness fully understand " run "ipconfig /release" and "ipconfig /renew" to get back online" - didn't you?
* btw you do FULLY appreciate the difference between a user and a subject matter expert, yes?
"Or, you know, you could run "ipconfig /release" and "ipconfig /renew" to get back online and then download the update."
But that would require the command-line, which as everyone knows, is reserved for those weird Linux neckbeard types. Windows is far too modern to need any of that nonsense, we're told. Can't we just ask Cortana to fix it for us?
"know, I know, bitching and moaning about how things were better in the past (they really weren't) is much easier than actually dealing with the issue. "
Couldn't agree more. Stuff happens, deal with it. People who don't know it? Well it's always been like that and always will be like that. They keep "The Tech Guys" in business. And the alternative that is trotted out ad infinitum is "Install Linux". Right.
The assumption seems to be that Windows has to be bulletproof and any deviation is a result of the resident Satan at Microsoft. I'm not saying the update process is great, but at least there is a fix, and people can either choose to work it out and research, or call their local IT expert and ask them to fix it.