Zip it! 3 more reasons to be glad you didn't jump on Windows 10 1809 The problems with the Windows 10 October 2018 Update just keep on rolling in as users complain of borked zip file extraction, broken fonts and iffy brightness controls. The infamous file deletion bug and blue screen reports have drowned out other issues somewhat. So, allow us to present a round-up that could have been titled " …
What does Windows 10 tell us about the organisation at Microsoft?
It tells us they aren't too picky about minor details. All the bugs reported in this article are of such an arcane and minor nature that they are really really minor. Use 7-zip which is much faster and better at handling archives than Windows. And those 23 people worldwide using those characters in those fonts... well, ffs substitute another character or get a life.
OK it's not good that Redmond didn't pick them up earlier, and it's worse that they haven't fixed what sound like trivial problems, and it's terrible that a company the size of Microsoft who write literally reams of detailed legal conditions into every software release could overlook details like this, but it's really hard to find sympathy for anyone moaning about these nit-picks.
Don't you guys just love knocking Msoft and Windows. You had to trawl around to gleefully find a some minor problems with 1809 update which has millions of users. Yes, file deletion was not good, but, only affected limited number of users with a specific bespoke configuration.
I have had no problems at all, my setup is fairly standard.
As for putting down Notepad, it is invaluable for quickly converting copied formatted text to plain text into an app where cntrl shift V or paste special is not available; and a number of other tasks.
Of course I got down voted so many times for my comment, but, Msoft's growth figures out today show those down voters are counter to the general opinion & satisfaction for Msoft & Windows. Knock Msoft is the game here. No software release as vast as Windows will or can ever be bug free. My comments do not mean that they should not improve QA and a better balance (cost v customer satisfaction) tween what is fixed pre release that that fixed in the wild.
"Yes, file deletion was not good, but, only affected limited number of users with a specific bespoke configuration."
If you are one of that limited number it's a big issue.
"I have had no problems at all"
Have you considered the possibility that next time you may be one of the limited number of users affected? Have you worked out the possible financial impact is you are?
One of the requirements of an OS is to work properly for all users, not all except for a limited number.
>They're doing the equivalent of releasing a new version of Windows every six months. I'm surprised there's time to add and unit test a feature, let alone QA and beta test it.
Peter Bright over at Ars Tech is blowing it out of his ass that it's not the stupid biannual cluster fuck release schedule to blame but internal testing. It's the most MS fawning BS I've ever had the misfortune to read since I last read Ed Bott sometime in the 1990s.
When you put too much on the plate, diners choke.
"What the hell have they been up to to introduce so many random bugs in existing functionality?"
Windows is a huge, complex, system with innumerable interactions based on an immense, mostly undocumented database. Probably no actual written specifications for most of the components. I haven't (thankfully) worked with Windows for decades, but my impression back when I did was that functional partition within the os components probably wasn't very clean or clear.
My experience with large systems going back to the 1960s is that unexpected failures in areas that appear to have little or no relation to changes are going to be fairly common in a system with the apparent characteristics of Windows. I know of no way to catch them other than exhaustive system testing. I haven't followed the system testing world for several decades, but I doubt anyone has found another, cheaper, better answer while I was away.
I would observe that what Microsoft seems to be trying to do -- completely remove system configuration concerns from the domain of individual users who are mostly ill equipped to handle them -- is probably a really good idea. IF MICROSOFT CAN MAKE IT WORK. But it's also exceedingly difficult. Personally I doubt Microsoft (or anyone else) is smart enough to pull it off. Especially given their probably less than optimal starting point.
I'd also note that servers/workstations are different than desktop computers and personal computing devices. I always doubted that Windows can scale across that full range of user domains (Unix really can't either. User oriented Unixen -- Apple, Android -- aren't often used as mainframe replacements. Heavy duty Unix suitable for mainframe replacement can be coerced into personal computing, but tend to require substantial system configuration skills from the users)
Windows is a huge, complex, system with innumerable interactions based on an immense, mostly undocumented database. Probably no actual written specifications for most of the components. I haven't (thankfully) worked with Windows for decades
So your uninformed comment should probably stop there. While there is undoubtedly some shit in the Windows codebase it's no longer undocumented or unspecified. This is all about Microsoft's release management being hijacked by the marketing dudes.
"This is all about Microsoft's release management being hijacked by the marketing dudes."
It's not helped by them laying off their QA department and leaving it to the devs to fix their own bugs.
I suppose the "Windows Insider" beta builds are supposed to leave the testing up to the general public, but from TFA they're not even reading the bug reports they get anyway, so why bother?
"So your uninformed comment should probably stop there. While there is undoubtedly some shit in the Windows codebase it's no longer undocumented or unspecified. This is all about Microsoft's release management being hijacked by the marketing dudes."
The codebase is (usefully) documented and specified? Do you have any other fantasies you would like to share with us?
But I do agree that Microsoft's release management clearly has major problems. I'm not sure that firing the marketing folks will fix that. But, what the hell, it might be worth trying.
The codebase is (usefully) documented and specified? Do you have any other fantasies you would like to share with us?
While I am not privy to Microsoft's development process, essentially, since Vista most of the stuff is being handled by .NET components which has well-documented APIs. Fuck knows why the stuff is blowing up but it's got a lot less to do with the crap coding that used to rule in the MFC days than how they're putting the builds together and releasing them*. Not that I really care as I only have a Windows 7 VM and only have to put up with Apple's secret OS release blunders but at least these aren't force fed.
* Testing deliberately left out of this list because it doesn't seem to be happening.
"since Vista most of the stuff is being handled by .NET components which has well-documented APIs. Fuck knows why the stuff is blowing up"
you answered your own question. In a big way, I blame ".Not" and _EVERYTHING_ that came with it! It was, from my perspective, the *BEGINNING* of Micro-shaft's downward spiral.
I knew this when I observed the *PIGGY* performance of W2k3 server, compared to W2k server, on the SAME HARDWARE. No actual improvement in 'stuff' (other than maybe bug fixes and slight enhancements), but LOTS of *PIGGY* performance added! So grossly inadequate, I stopped using it immediately, even for evaluation purposes. I don't like 10's of seconds waiting for a mouse click response... that's one example!
And, it was obviously being caused by shifting the UI over to use ".Not" !!!!!!!!!
since Vista most of the stuff is being handled by .NET components
Not true, I'm afraid. (The situation might well be better if it were.) I've just confirmed that on the Win7 x64 system I'm using at the moment, only a handful of Microsoft-branded processes have any .NET assemblies loaded. The same, of course, is true for third-party applications. Add in the kernel, system DLLs, and drivers - all native code - and you have relatively little .NET running on a typical Windows box.
In total less than 10% of the processes running on this machine have any .NET.
And even .NET code will eventually P/Invoke native code for much of its low-level functionality.
Now, all that said: Much of the Windows source base is, in fact, documented. Much of that documentation is public. I have on occasion seen internal documentation for some interfaces that aren't public, so I can say some of those are documented as well. Certainly it's a gross exaggeration to claim that it's mostly undocumented.
Six month release cycles can work just fine if the releases are at the end of a pipeline that is longer than six months, and the last substantial portion of that pipeline is testing AND correction of problems found.
That does, however, require product and program managers who can actually comprehend multiple streams in development+test at the same time.
In March this year (2018) I composed an email prophesying events such as this, and said that unless Microsoft established a Quality Assurance team with the power to veto a flawed release the company was heading towards ruin. I have not found a way to get that message into Microsoft before making my message public, but I could not send it directly to the Chief Executive Officer (bounced, not surprising) but even the support team just ignored it. No bounce, no reply. I don't think I can hold back any more.
No engineer worth his salt would countenance such a cavalier approach to product development and maintenance. Insiders are no substitute for formal QA answerable only to the CEO, and failing to act on known reports is unforgivable.
The 1809 update should be withdrawn immediately, and no new release issued without the organisational changes I suggested.
> I have not found a way to get that message into Microsoft
Buy a share. That gives you the right to attend the annual shareholders' meeting and to put forward a question to be answered at the meeting. The other shareholders get to see your question so if your proposal makes financial sense (aka raises the stock price) then they'll be interested and the board will have to give a credible answer. On the other hand, if your proposal is long, rambling and written in green ink then no one will complain if the response is glossed over.
I haven't [...] worked with Windows for decades
- and yet you are prepared to write a 275-word treatise on how bad it was back in the day.
Windows is a huge, complex, system
Yes it is
[...]based on an immense, mostly undocumented database
Oh no it's not. Unless you work at Microsoft, how can you possibly make such a wild assertion?
Windows has been completely re-written (twice, AFAIK) since 3.11. Yes by that time it was patches on top of patches and there were many secret features but since then the use of undocumented calls has been fairly ruthlessly eliminated.
More importantly, "undocumented" in your post appears to refer to *internally* but that is not possible - a development environment the size of Windows' could not get anything out the door without internal documentation.
I haven't (thankfully) worked with Windows for decades, but my impression back when I did was that functional partition within the os components probably wasn't very clean or clear.
A deliberate design decision was made in the 90's to do that to make it harder for Anti-Trust bodies to order MS to pull out certain functionality without breaking the OS. E.g entwining unrelated IE code into core OS libraries and modules in a mostly random fashion.
"What the hell have they been up to to introduce so many random bugs in existing functionality?"
My conclusion: they're re-doing things because, according to THE NEXT GENERATION at Micro-shaft, "It's _OUR_ turn now!" Like immature young-uns, they REJECT what "the old guys" came up with, in favor of whatever new, shiny PIPE DREAM they've excreted.
Because, "old is bad" in their eyes. It *MUST* be re-invented, re-written, and so on, because THEY know BEST [and will CRAM IT up the asses of EVERY customer to PROVE it!].
This pervasive "our turn now" attitude infiltrates just about EVERYTHING that the Halls of Redmond excretes these days. At least, from MY perspective, it does...
it's why they're so quick to use 'Modern' in a PEJORATIVE sense, to INSULT us ol' fuddy-duddy stick-in-the-mud 'refuse to change' 'refuse to learn' LUDDITES that STAND IN THE WAY of their 'greatness'.
And, they've been taught ALL OF THEIR LIVES that their OWN personal self-esteem is the MOST IMPORTANT THING. And, they *FEEL* *BETTER* about themselves when they IMPOSE THEIR WILL upon the rest of us like that!
Nearly all of the GOOD developers left Micro-shaft during the 2000's, I'd stake money on it!
My conclusion: they're re-doing things because, according to THE NEXT GENERATION at Micro-shaft, "It's _OUR_ turn now!" Like immature young-uns, they REJECT what "the old guys" came up with, in favor of whatever new, shiny PIPE DREAM they've excreted.
I went to El Reg Forum and got the psychology of Progressivism explained for free.
If you think these few bugs are so numerous, you obviously haven't been keeping up to date with the history of Apple's High Sierra update. There are entire forum threads on macrumors.com documenting each one as it appears, one of which I had to personally add, and most of which have gone unfixed. Windows, as of yet, has nothing on Apple's record for bugs, it just gets more flak for the few it does amass because most techies don't like Microsoft.
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