back to article Microsoft accidentally let encrypted Windows 10 out into the world

Windows Insiders eager to get their hands on next year's Microsoft OS were reminded last night that living on the bleeding edge can have its downsides: the update consumes RAM at a prodigious rate for some before falling over. It all began so well. Build 18237 was emitted with the usual degree of fanfare. Now given a …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    as the update consumed RAM at a prodigious rate for some before falling over

    Yes, that update has been out for years.

    1. chuckufarley Silver badge

      Does anybody here remember...

      ...the Internet Explorer 4 launch? It wasn't really an update to IE, it was a beta test for Win98 in disguise. A least in the here and now Microsoft is being a little bit more honest about what code isn't ready for mass consumption. Now that I think about it, I don't know a a single personal that I would consider "well qualified" in the IT world that participates in the Windows Insider program. Maybe that is a good thing, maybe it's not.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: Does anybody here remember...

        I could imagine people with test systems (pros/tech journalists/hobbyists) doing this for the interest and preparedness.

        Anyone putting it on a system needed to do stuff is just a looney.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Does anybody here remember...

          "Anyone putting it on a system needed to do stuff is just a looney."

          Agreed. Or a complete fanatic of Redmond's greatest :)

          1. Fungus Bob

            Re: Or a complete fanatic of Redmond's greatest

            In other words, a looney...

          2. mutin

            Re: Does anybody here remember...

            There are no fanatics. Either idiots or Redmond C-team on the pay.

            xNIX platform proved much much better in everything. I bet M$ will slide in Linux based system after W10 like MAC OS is based on BSD. W10 and other server versions cannot be better because they reach the summit entropy point. After that is simple chaos and system degradation. That is what we see in failing patches and updates. After 25 years of attempts to make such process stable.

            After 25 years of dominating IT OS market Redmond crap is going to die as OS. 25 years wasted and thousands of strokes and heart attacks.

            I remember W95 presentation and advertising clip. Completely stupid and idiotic. With Bill of Redmond as the star. Behaving correspondingly. That was the label for all Windows OS versions I used since that.

      2. Anonymous Bullard

        Re: Does anybody here remember...

        I do. I'm in their "insider" program, receiving early releases from their ring.

        But it's only to test our own stuff, see what they've broke next and fix our products before their general release. It's all in a VM (as is nearly all our Windows machines), and mostly automated.

        I have zero interest in making Windows better. You're fighting the largest company in the world with that.

        In fact, I discovered a bug and reported it (twice) over a year ago. I probably "reported" it more times, via telemetry. It's still there now, I just work around it. I've spotted a few more, but I'm not wasting my time with them.

        Had it been something preventing cortana starting, they would have flew in a team of developers.

        1. fidodogbreath

          Re: Does anybody here remember...

          Had it been something preventing cortana starting, they would have flew in a team of developers.

          Or interfering with slurp telemetry.

        2. A.P. Veening Silver badge

          Cortana

          "Had it been something preventing cortana starting, they would have flew in a team of developers."

          But you wouldn't have reported that in the first place.

        3. Lusty
          Trollface

          Re: Does anybody here remember...

          "You're fighting the largest company in the world with that."

          Walmart? Why would they stop you improving Windows?

        4. oneguycoding

          Re: Does anybody here remember...

          Honestly, exactly, what do these people get out of testing windows for MS for free?

          1. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: Does anybody here remember...

            I don't like rollercoasters, either. But some people.....

          2. jelabarre59

            Re: Does anybody here remember...

            Honestly, exactly, what do these people get out of testing windows for MS for free?

            Entertainment value? Finding new-found appreciation for your primary machine that's running Linux?

            Actually, I have an old scrap laptop running the tech preview, mainly so I know what shit is coming down the tubes before friends and family encounter it.

      3. Baldrickk
        Mushroom

        Re: a single "well qualified" in IT person that participates

        I do, but none on their main machines, and none at work.

        icon: because, well, the effect of potentially volatile beta code

        1. EnviableOne

          Re: a single "well qualified" in IT person that participates

          alpha code please, the final product that makes it to the peons is still beta code (in any organisation that isnt run by SatNad)

      4. Random Bits of Carrion
        Coat

        Re: Does anybody here remember...

        Internet Exploder 4 with it's introduction of Active Desktop to NT4 was the shiitake!

        For an Admin it 'was' cool to provide an interactive internal directory of stuff on the Desktop.

        For a User it was an awesome way to fill the disk and compromise the PC. Some were walked out based on content they had viewed that had been inadvertently set to be included in the active desktop experience.

      5. spearfishhunter

        Re: Does anybody here remember...

        when I wrote for computer magazines I always had one or more beta test computers. But obviously, no one in their right mind would pollute a fully functioning PC with a beta or even the first integer release and at least 2 dot releases of any OS changes, especially from Microsoft.

        Traveling down memory lane. I remember the first few versions of MS DOS and PC DOS that were simply a licensed hack of CP/M and called QDOS for Quick and Dirty Operating System. Microsoft either licensed or bought it from a Seattle developer for $50,000 and became billionaires off of it.

        Windows release versions are still terribly bug ridden. I read that Microsft has two QA testers for every programmer. Security researchers are making plenty of money reporting vulnerabilities (aka bugs) in that horrible operating system.

    2. Kevin Johnston

      Wasn't that the Cortana Rampancy update?

      1. joed

        I'm not sure about Siri wannabe but 19H1 sounds like some flu virus strain. Very much in line with Windows' behavior of late.

        1. P. Lee

          19H1

          Half-life 1?

          Hmmm, at least half-life had 3d textures...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reliability

    Let’s hope it’s more reliable than Azure when it comes out

  3. onefang

    The entire OS was encrypted? Did Microsoft accidentally release their, soon to arrive on every ones desktops, the up coming "Windows 10 Ransomware Edition"?

    1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge
      Joke

      Ransomware Edition

      $50 in Bitcoin to stop us installing it, say hello to Clippy :-O

    2. wayne 8

      Accident or a test?

      Accidental release or by design? What exactly were they "testing"?

      1. Mark 85

        Re: Accident or a test?

        What exactly were they "testing"?

        The gullibility of users? So of like the forced Win10 "upgrade"...

      2. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Accident or a test?

        Microsoft does not do "testing" any more. It's why they have minions insiders.

        And they probably don't have a sense of humor, either.

        Hey Micro-shaft: it's ready AIM fire, not ready FIRE aim. Or, in your case, patch, TEST, upload to servers, not what YOU did: patch, upload to servers, test.

        Well, that's right - you don't do "test" any more! So you REALLY did patch, upload [no test].

        icon, because, facepalm for the OBVIOUS 'lameness' of this moment

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And in what sense was it "encrypted", if people were able to download and run it?

      Did they just mean "b0rked"?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the actionable controls up in the visual hierarchy while maintaining their accessibility

    I see Stanley Unwin is alive, well and working for MS.

  5. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    FAIL

    How dare you!

    Mention Stability and Microsoft in the same sentence.

    Go sit on the naughty step and say 1000 times, I will not download any release from Microsoft until at least 3 months after it has gone Gold.

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: How dare you!

      "I will not download any release from Microsoft until at least 3 months after it has gone Gold."

      And certainly don't try running beta software as your main operating system.

      (In a VM, as a test, or for fun, sure. But as your main OS? Crazyness)

    2. Waseem Alkurdi
      Trollface

      Re: How dare you!

      until at least 3 months after it has gone Gold.

      What? So you're insisting on downloading a release from Microsoft?

      Make that 3000 times on the naughty step.

    3. N2

      Re: How dare you!

      I will not download any release from Microsoft until at least 3 years or more after it has gone Gold.

      Just looking at a change to 7, maybe next year.

  6. elgarak1

    Would you trust Microsoft if they were doing any other kind of technology for production?

  7. The Central Scrutinizer

    Ah Microsoft, you gotta love 'em. No, wait....

  8. Alan W. Rateliff, II
    Paris Hilton

    Logical-sounding name

    "19H1" sounds more like a virus we should get immunized against in the next round of seasonal shots.

  9. WatAWorld

    It is an early test version -- only an idiot would install it and not expect problems

    It is an early test version -- only an idiot would install it and not expect problems.

    Sheesh, 19H1, skip ahead version.

    I know, MS should have "test version" superimposed on the Start Menu and Desktop of every Insider version, they don't. But still, after all this time who would not expect an early test version to have serious problems?

    1. oiseau
      Stop

      Re: It is an early test version -- only an idiot would install it and not expect problems

      Hmmm ...

      But still, after all this time who would not expect an early test version a General Availability release to have serious problems?

      There, fixed it for you.

      You seem to forget that it is MS we're talking about.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The next time these chuckleheads boast about their quarterly profits, remember part of that largess comes at the expense of having anything resembling a responsible QA process.

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Joke

      Microsoft

      ..... Putting the K in Kwality since 1981.....

      1. Waseem Alkurdi
        Joke

        Re: Microsoft

        I'm sure you'll find it's "C"uality, not "K"wality.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      "The next time these chuckleheads boast about their quarterly profits, remember part of that largess comes at the expense of having anything resembling a responsible QA process."

      cannot be emphasized enough

      (insiders and end users - those are the new 'QA department', with forced updates to perpetuate it)

  11. wayne 8

    19H1 - virus id?

    19H1 - sounds like a flu virus identifier.

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Re: 19H1 - virus id?

      How contagious is it?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 19H1 - virus id?

        >How contagious is it?

        Quite from the look of it, wayne 8 seems to have caught it from someone around here earlier, Alan W. Rateliff, II.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 19H1 - virus id?

        It must have taken the contagious to think of that name.

  12. Giovani Tapini

    What is the point of the login screen image at all then?

    It's so blurred its a complete waste of settings, images, company logos spent on it.

    It looks to me to be more blurred than the half life model (will have to go check when I get home) but even compress you only know the pic is dunes because we know the original.

    As far as I am concerned, have images, or no images, big blurs are a waste of time, and frankly can be procedurally generated without all the tedious mucking about with large hi res image files that look that the were scaled from an icon to full HD resolution.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What is the point of the login screen image at all then?

      I hate looking at blurred stuff like that. It makes my eyes hurt, trying to re-focus.

      Surely the development time of that could have been better used on something that we actually useful?

      1. Richard 12 Silver badge

        Re: What is the point of the login screen image at all then?

        Most frameworks have a sample blur filter. They probably turned it on for a laugh and then a product manager accidentally saw it.

        1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

          Re: and then a product manager accidentally saw it.

          I'm sure that's what happened.

          It will be useful for Opticians to stick in their windows - their shop windows, that is - to convince punters they need their eyes testing,

          1. Waseem Alkurdi

            Re: and then a product manager accidentally saw it.

            What's with the hate of blur?

            I'm one big ADORER of blur. Much like "frosted glass" in my opinion. And that lockscreen screenshot looks good, actually. (Finally, a new feature to actually like in Windows 10!)

            I've even brought it over to Linux - magic of compton ;-)

      2. Gene Cash Silver badge

        Re: What is the point of the login screen image at all then?

        > I hate looking at blurred stuff like that. It makes my eyes hurt, trying to re-focus.

        Oh hell yeah, even on the image in the article. I can't imagine it full-screen.

    2. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: What is the point of the login screen image at all then?

      Is it to be a blurred showing of a real image or jus a blurry image. If the latter it can be changed. If it blurs real images specially, who knows. Microsoft's habit of removing functionality for no good reason is pretty remorseless in this regard.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This Fluent Design blurry stuff is all very well, but after the last OS update I got a notification telling me one or more apps are looking blurry and I should change my screen settings.

  14. Kyorin

    Insider edition or not, Windows 10 of any release is not stable enough at all!

    I recently had a failure after a Windows 10 update, it failed to install an update, then failed to roll back, then just looped through this cycle repeatedly. Tried several things in an attempt to fix it, and actually eventually managed to get it to boot, but it would blue/green screen after a few minutes. I thought the RAM might be faulty but it seems ok in another PC.

    In the end I started with a new SSD on different hardware. All that's installed on this PC is Firefox and Office 2016. But recently it's started crashing instead of waking up when the mouse is moved. It doesn't do it every time, but often enough to be really annoying.

    And just yesterday I needed to install Office on a domain PC, and it failed with a really cryptic and long message that meant nothing. Of course, this message only came up right at the very end of the installation wasting more time. Installing Office with admin rights (on a domain PC) no longer works on the current build of Windows 10, you have to log off and log in with the LOCAL admin account to install Office. It's like Microsoft actually hate their customers and are deliberately pushing them towards other solutions.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Devil

      Dear Valued Customer

      It would seem you have some trouble with an enterprise-grade IT installation. Our Microsoft Opportunity Department will shortly dispatch two representatives to explain the advantages of our brand new Business Support Initiative and the low, low price at which you can get this incredible offer (only one newborn to sacrifice per month!).

      When your handlers arrive, be sure to be happy to see them.

      Or else.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lemmings deserve every last bit ....this isn't the nineties anymore...

    RC's are mostly Alphas now...

    Might as well be AppleFanBoys.

    1. Mark 85

      Awww.... don't drag Lemmings into a discussion about Windows. Lemmings was a great game.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        And then Psygnosis was bought by Sony and you hardly see it anymore...

  16. EssentialTremor

    Perhaps a deploy to prod instead of to dev? That would be a notable first.

  17. N2
    Trollface

    Amazing

    "The update consumed RAM at a prodigious rate for some before falling over"

    Nothing new then?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Micro$haft

    Dirty butt f*****s.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: Micro$haft

      Oh, come on now... at least point out something we can snark at, not just make fun of their name and use profanity.

      Like maybe that they treat end-users like Minions instead of Customers, by FORCING us into 2D Flatso, spyware, adware, forced updates, strong-armed 'Cloudy Login', 'the Store', yotta yotta. And being their QA department.

  19. Crazy Operations Guy

    From my cold dead hard drive

    Seeing how Windows has gotten over the last couple of years, I am so glad I still have my old-ish computer and my Windows 7 Pro (KN) ISOs and CD keys. Not getting any new patches is fine by me, the code is pretty stable at this point and any remaining bugs are easy to avoid or at least recoverable. Security patches will keep coming for another 2 years and even then, my prevention mechanisms seem to work just anyway: Network firewall / proxy system running privoxy and ClamAV, A different AV product on the desktop, regular backups (with how little space Win7 takes up a pair of 2 TB external drives have lasted me quite some time), frequent scanning with the sysinternals tools (weekly on the live system, booting into a MDOP/DaRT DVD and scanning the offline system either monthly or after something unusual is afoot).

    But, really, I have yet to see a compelling reason to even move to anything newer and every reason to stay the hell away from anything after Windows 7, especially when it seems that every time Microsoft releases a new feature, they just end up undoing it in the next version, but making it crappier than it was before (EG, the Start Menu). Especially since these new features seem to do nothing that would make life easier for me, and instead just expand my system's attack surface and punch holes everywhere.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi
      Pirate

      Re: From my cold dead hard drive

      Security holes. BWHAHAHAHAHA.

  20. GrumpyKiwi
    Big Brother

    Ninja Cat?

    I prefer Ninja Kitty (NSFW in case anyone is tempted to google that).

  21. herman

    Ayup - I'm a Windoze Insider, but W10 only gets installed on a virtual machine on a Mac.

  22. largefile

    Well folks, I've been running insider builds since 2014 on three different computers as time has progressed and I've yet to brick one of them. Sure, there are some clunker builds with various issues but all in all, it's been a pretty smooth process and feedback is well received and things get fixed.

    Just since 1803 I've probably done 20 installs of upgrades on my laptop and not ONE has been a deal breaker.

    There are hundreds of thousands of insiders. Sometimes I think ALL of the people who can't run windows properly inhabit the readership of The Register. Thanks for your consistent hatred of something most of you probably lie about having used. I'm betting most of you still have XP on whatever POS old computer you use for windows.

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      Just had a quick look at your previous posts. I think it is fair to say that you are somewhat monotonous on the topic of Microsoft (or an astroturfer).

  23. VerySlowData
    Coffee/keyboard

    Still waiting for Windows 9

    another wierd release of whatever Microsoft thinks "Windows 10/UWP/???" is. I am still waiting for the desktop OS upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 9; the one with improved performance, total compatibility with Win 7 drivers (both 32bit and 64 bit!) no change to the appearance and a start menu with desktop for PC's and laptops; no catering to funny phones or fondleslabs or cutdown ports to Raspberry Pi etc...

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: Still waiting for Windows 9

      If it walks like Windows 7 and quacks like it, then it gotta be Windows 7 xD

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    19H1

    FTFA: "Now given a disappointingly logical codename of 19H1"

    Is it just me or does that sound like the code name for a deadly virus?

    "H5N1 - Home Edition"

    /Good luck and use sanitiser

    //[Edit] - Apparently it isn't just me and I need to read the comments more carefully

    ///*sniff*

    1. onefang

      Re: 19H1

      "Apparently it isn't just me and I need to read the comments more carefully"

      The idea that 19H1 is a codename for a virus seems to be contagious.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Jesus..

    Every incarnation of Windows 10 is a major clusterfuck.

  26. Blodger

    At least Half-Life 2 was exciting.......

  27. mintus55

    windows mixed reality

    To make VR work properly with WMR HMDs, the latest features are only available via windows insider.

    So I am forced into having this on one of my machines.

  28. Byron "Jito463"

    The last time I ran a Windows beta

    The last time I ran a Windows beta was XP Pro x64 after RC2 launched. I was gung-ho into 64-bit (this was around the launch of the Athlon64), and it was stable enough for me to run as my primary OS.

    1. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: The last time I ran a Windows beta

      Older, more innocent days.

  29. Smartypantz

    Modern IT sucks

    Because there are waaaaaay to many "UX designers"! All scrambling (at their masters bidding) to lift the same old shite to look like its NOT the the same old shite, with another evil twist to own your data.

  30. jimbo60

    dang...now I have to try it

    Half Life 2 loading screens? Whoa, that jogged some memories. I enjoyed that so much I may have to try the blurry bits.

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