back to article Groundhog Day comes early as Intel Display Drivers give Windows 10 the silent treatment

The Windows 10 October 2018 Update woes continued for Microsoft last night with the announcement that Redmond had slammed the brakes for users of certain Intel display drivers. Microsoft appears to have confused Groundhog Day with Thanksgiving, as issues with Intel drivers contributed to the fiasco that was the original …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    You're updating it wrong !

    I'm sorry... got a little confused with Apple there....

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder how the amount of time/productivity lost due to failure to keep Windows updated compares to the amount of time/productivity lost due to SNAFUs caused by Windows updates.

    Curious minds would like to know.

    1. JLV
      FAIL

      Win10 telemetry had one job. And it failed.

      I have a win 10 laptop that hasn't been updated in 2 years. I rarely use it, when I do it's as a db server, there is nothing confidential on it and the whole thing doesn't venture outside its LAN. The biggest safety risk is my gmail login is saved in Firefox's password manager, password protected. FF is patched regularly and carries NoScript.

      I do play games on it, it's originally a gaming laptop (very good choice for workstations profiles, IMHO. they're beefy, gamers value quality and they love modularity).

      I'd say I don't really want to touch it much and 1809 is doing very little to motivate to think otherwise. I may actually install 1809 later, once all they've whack-a-moled at it sufficiently, it might actually be safer than betting on MS next build to be any better.

      For my limited expectations of it, sure, leave it as is. If it was confidential, then that'd be different, but my biggest take on Windows and confidential is that they're best kept on different computers.

      You know, this actually brings something to mind. OK, we get MS is "thinking outside of the box", QA-wise. We also get that the Insiders, whatever their (few) merits, sucks at doing QA. Or being a meaningful force for user feedback. We get that bugs were filed throughout at 1809, but no one in MS bothered to really follow those through. There's a crisis brewing at MS and they don't know to make things right.

      But... wasn't that the whole point of telemetry?????? Avoiding all the crap like 1809 because we are so instrumented that MS will KNOW something is wrong? With no need for insiders or followed-through bug reports.

      Wasn't that what - most unwillingly - giving up our privacy was all about?

      1. Christian Berger

        Re: Win10 telemetry had one job. And it failed.

        "But... wasn't that the whole point of telemetry??????"

        Why do you asume that it's for quality control? Why would Microsoft care about quality at all? I mean they had a short time when they cared about quality and every developer had to fix bugs before writing new code. That happened in the early 2000s, just after Windows XP. Although it was most likely a coincidence (Vista) managers probably see that as the reason why sales slowed down afterwards, so they do a U-turn.

        1. dajames

          Re: Win10 telemetry had one job. And it failed.

          Why do you asume that it's for quality control?

          Microsoft have always claimed that quality control was part of the reason for having telemetry in the first place -- it's their excuse.

          While most people recognize that Microsoft may have other reasons for spying on their users, it's reasonable to hope -- not assume -- that there may be a bit of quality control going on as well.

      2. Fred Goldstein

        Re: Win10 telemetry had one job. And it failed.

        How do you keep a Windows 10 system from auto-updating itself? I thought it didn't let you block updates. I am sticking with Windows 7 Pro, which lets me decide when, and if, to update. I leave tasks up overnight, a lot of things on my machine, and an update would bork the work I have left open (not everything wants to be saved all the time, especially if you are still working on it, and some applications don't auto-checkpoint). So I don't want an OS that would break my work because it has decided that a new version is out there. If I could tame Windows 10 that way, a newer machine would look more attractive.

        1. mark l 2 Silver badge

          Re: Win10 telemetry had one job. And it failed.

          "How do you keep a Windows 10 system from auto-updating itself? I thought it didn't let you block updates."

          There is no official way to stop feature updates installing themselves on Home/Pro versions. But you can set your internet connection to metered. This stops it downloading the feature updates automatically but still downloads security updates. I think you will only get security updates for 18 months from whenever the version your currently on was released doing this though, then you will have to update to a new feature update to carry on getting security patches.

          I have also found that it won't install feature updates automatically if you have less than 10GB of free space on your device. Which bearing in mind some entry level Win10 tablets only come with 32GB of internal storage which about 12GB is taken up with just the Windows OS. So once you have put on a few programs you can find you have less than 10GB of storage available quite easily.

          1. h4rm0ny

            Re: Win10 telemetry had one job. And it failed.

            It's hard to blame MS for trying to force updates on non-Enterprise users. The overlap between those who would disable automatic updates and those who would complain about something not working on their systems is pretty much a 1-to-1.

            If you want to have managed updates, that's really an enterprise thing.

          2. Tom 35

            Re: Win10 telemetry had one job. And it failed.

            For a classroom image that gets re-imaged every week, so there is no need to have it update. I have a custom event filter in Task Scheduler that watches for the windows update service starting and kills it. It is a cludge but it works.

        2. steviebuk Silver badge

          Re: Win10 telemetry had one job. And it failed.

          The way I've done it on my VMs, but it does require a domain setup :), is to set a group policy to point Windows updates to a non-existent WSUS server.

    2. Herring`

      Well, if you don't update Windows then you have a possible risk from malware. If you do update then it's a probable risk from shitware. Not updating is safer.

  3. Howard Hanek
    Unhappy

    Yes I Had a Problem

    The USB speaker platform I use with my HP Elitebook for demos just would not work. It took several hours and quite a bit of effort to get it working no thanks to MS who totally Borked the drivers in Windows 10.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: Yes I Had a Problem

      Unrelated. The issue is with Intel display audio, not USB.

  4. Spacedinvader
    Facepalm

    Had this issue...

    When they first released 10. MS kept updating my graphics driver and breaking hdmi sound. Got fed up saying leave my shit along, it works. Reinstalled 7.

  5. DailyLlama
    WTF?

    Office 2010

    Why is anyone still using Office 2010 anyway? It's not like it'll even connect to Exchange servers anymore...

    1. Mage Silver badge

      Re: Office 2010

      Yes, Office 2003 was last decent version. LibreOffice is better.

      Why do you want to connect a document creation system to a bloated buggy Email & Appointments server?

      1. Nate Amsden

        Re: Office 2010

        not sure what version of exchange like functionality Office 365 has but I have outlook 2010 on windows 7 connected to office 365 no issues., have been since at least 2013 I think, prior to that the company I am at was using hosted Exchange at Rackspace and it worked fine there too.

        official support looks to conclude in Oct 2020 (updates etc). Haven't heard/seen anything saying when or if outlook 2010 will stop working with office 365 exchange.

        Most of my email is done via Outlook web access from Linux but I do keep outlook running 24/7 in my windows VM sometimes it is useful.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Why do you want to connect a document creation system to.[...]"

        Because it does offer features LibreOffice and a simple mail server can't still match?

        Of course when it doesn't crash on startup... <G>

      3. Bruce Ordway

        Re: Office 2010

        >> Office 2003 was last decent version

        I agree, I still use version 2003 on my personal workstation.

        While I do use newer versions at various sites I work with.... so far I have not been not impressed by most of the new features. No compelling reason to upgrade here.

        In fact I wonder if there is any room for Office products to change in any significant way?

    2. Mark 85

      Re: Office 2010

      Why is anyone still using Office 2010 anyway? It's not like it'll even connect to Exchange servers anymore...

      You just answered your own question It's because it's NOT connected any MS Exchange servers.

    3. Captain Scarlet Silver badge

      Re: Office 2010

      Yup still use Office 2010 at home and no I'm not updating as only use it on the odd occassion.

      Only reason I don't use Office 97 was Office 2010 was offered by MS as part of the volume licensing deal at work for I think it was a tenner.

    4. irrelevant

      Re: Office 2010

      I use it, simply because I paid real money for a however many licence many years ago. I see no reason to throw more money at Microsoft when we only use Word/Excel maybe a couple of times a month, and other parts way less. It still works, does its job, and the family are familiar with it.

      1. grumpy-old-person

        Re: Office 2010

        If you are not using the more esoteric features of Office then give FreeOffice a try - you will be pleasantly surprised , and it's fast.

        If you are impressed and want more functionality then go for the paid version which gives 5 licences for a very reasonable price.

        1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
          Unhappy

          Freeoffice et al

          None of these alternatives have email client - the only reason we have Office 2010 on our machines is because we all use email and occasionally need to open a word document or excel spreadsheet - that's very occasionally, we use email all the time but there's no alternative to Outlook.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            None of these alternatives have email client

            There are standalone email clients in the world. You didn't mention whether there was any indispensable feature that depends on bundling or even integration with an office suite.

          2. Danny 14

            Re: Freeoffice et al

            exchange 2019 doesnt support outlook 2010 but 2016 does. We are now actively looking at transitioning from MS office to libreoffice and using OWA for email with our exchange server. Afterall, if you use office 365 then it is browser based anyway so why not just use OWA? Apart from additional CALs it will be significantly cheaper for us in the longer run.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Freeoffice et al

            I've never used Outlook on my own machines.

            In my experience, Thunderbird is more useful than Outlook, even though we have a bunch of people to support email at work. There are features with Thunderbird that are not available from our enterprise outlook solution, at least in our not small (thousands of users) organization... like standard end to end encryption that can be used with people outside our system.

            Add a cleaner interface, a raft of optional configurations, high speed, trivial setup for multiple offline mail backups, easy setup for multiple email accounts and servers... I wouldn't use Outlook if it were free.

    5. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
      Meh

      Re: Office 2010

      Why is anyone still using Office 2010 anyway? It's not like it'll even connect to Exchange servers anymore...

      I'm using Office 365 and frequently have the same problem...

      1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Office 2010

        Oh are you an Office 362 user (I think El Reg is now down to that number)

    6. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Office 2010

      We are still using it and it is connected to our Exchange Servers.

      It still connects perfectly well to Exchange servers of the same vintage.

    7. J. Cook Silver badge
      Flame

      Re: Office 2010

      Why is anyone still using Office 2010 anyway? It's not like it'll even connect to Exchange servers anymore...

      It *does*, but you have to install at the very least a service pack for Office 2010 along with a handful of patches. At least that's what I spent 9 long, painful, stress-filled months trying to tell our in-house support team, whose primary action for anything outlook related is "escalate the ticket to the Exchange admin". (which is me.)

      Outlook not connecting? send it to the exchange admin. User can't connect to exchange through outlook because their account's been locked out in AD? Send it to the Exchange admin. User can't send an email with an attachment that's 523246871454233154 Mbytes? Exchange admin. User can't send or receive email because they've used 5 GB of their 1.5 GB mailbox quota? Exchange admin. Computer on fire? Exchange admin. Computer spewing neon green slime and asking for the Keymaster of Gozer? Exchange admin!

      (Yeah, I'm more than a little sick and tired of the 'it MUST be a problem with the exchange server' excuse.)

    8. acousticm

      Re: Office 2010

      Oddly enough, my outlook 2010 happily connects to my exchange server.

      Given the ugliness of 2013 and 2016 i'd much prefer to stay on 2010 if at all possible.

    9. Tom 35

      Re: Office 2010

      No, it's 2007 Outlook that they broke for O365. 2010 works for a bit longer.

  6. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    MS : From bad to worse to pathetic

    This has gone way beyond a joke now. Their cockups are causing people all over the place to spend hours (often uselessly) fixing their problems and MS does not care one little bit.

    If this was Apple their stock price would have dropped by 5% at least but as this is MS people who decide these sort of things just shrug their shoulders and give them the benefit if the doubt yet again.

    What we need is a large business to issue a profit warning or worse due to thee issues caused by the frankly shoddy stuff that MS calls software they shove over the wall with them saying 'there you go' while they run for the hills.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: MS : From bad to worse to pathetic

      Yes. After THIS many failures, it has stopped being funny, and has NOW graduated to PATHETIC. And, PITIFUL. And, SAD.

      Micro-shaft, GET A CLUE, will ya? Stop 'majoring in the minors' and GET BACK TO BASICS.

      You know, like it was with 7. And XP. All of that 'feature creep' in Win-10-nic, and you can't even get the BASIC FEATURES (intel drivers) right. *FACEPALM* "Ay,yay,yay,yay,yay..." (like Desi Arnaz used to do on 'I Love Lucy')

      An updated version of 7 (just tweeks for new hardware), with an extended support period. That'd be worth purchasing. Hint.

    2. Dave K

      Re: MS : From bad to worse to pathetic

      "What we need is a large business to issue a profit warning or worse due to thee issues caused by the frankly shoddy stuff that MS calls software they shove over the wall with them saying 'there you go' while they run for the hills."

      Not going to happen. Large businesses are often way behind the home-user peons that MS uses for testing. By the time most of them look to roll out 1809, many months will have passed and the bugs will probably have been patched by then. The "very large" company I work for are still on 1703 for most users - those that have Windows 10 that is. I very fortunately had my laptop refreshed one month before they rolled out Windows 10, so I've still got another good 15 months of reliable Windows 7 on my work laptop.

    3. a_yank_lurker

      Re: MS : From bad to worse to pathetic

      This will only happen when one of the nasties hammers an major company. This would need to be a nasty that would not be caught by alpha/beta testers aka home users. This is a scenario that will almost certainly happen as alpha testers will not be testing most enterprise features. When it does watch for a nasty, noisy lawsuit that will be widely covered.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: MS : From bad to worse to pathetic

      "If this was Apple their stock price would have dropped by 5% at least"

      Actually Apple's share price has dropped 20% in the last month, 2.5% just today.

      Why didn't Hitler ever travel on the Hindenburg? Because nobody wanted to let a prick near a balloon. Unfortunately several pricks in Silicon Valley seem to have combined to burst a bubble.

    5. Martin Summers Silver badge

      Re: MS : From bad to worse to pathetic

      Any sensible business isn't rolling out the latest update anyway. You create a Guinea pig group in WSUS and unleash it on them when you've got no choice but to and hopefully when the worst of the crud is fixed.

      1. Danny 14

        Re: MS : From bad to worse to pathetic

        1709 here, our first W10 was 1604. 1809 is being missed out of course, we have a while to see what the next whack-a-mole stable version is.

  7. Mage Silver badge

    Last time win10 affected me

    It was the Intel/MS Mobo audio driver in a major windows 10 update. I solved it eventually by deleting device and pointing installer at windows.old

    None of MS remedies worked.

    Also had problems on Win7 & Win10 with Wacom tablet, Brother printers and Epson scanner.

    All worked fine on Linux Mint. I did have to download the Brother driver from Brother, easy to find and their Debian installer tool worked perfectly. Recently added a new Brother MFC colour laser and was amazed that the scanner works on LAN to Linux Mint too (in GIMP via SANE). Mate Desktop, Traditional OK theme and some mods.

    99.9% of what I do is on Linux now. Sadly some other people I know only use Win7 or Win 10.

  8. Sureo

    Is it still the case that consumer versions of W10 still can't turn windows updates off? I shudder to think.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "Is it still the case that consumer versions of W10 still can't turn windows updates off?"

      Why would they let their beta testers not test?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Nor can they avoid signing over control of their computers and the contents thereof to Microsoft.

      For a real horror story, read the W10 consumer EULA.

  9. ivan5

    One would think it is time M$ called a halt to the 'development' of 10. It was a nice try but doesn't really work, and start afresh with a completely fresh slate. Dump all the old bug ridden code from the days of 3.1 and the tacked on patches over bugs that are themselves patches for prior bugs, remove all the backdoors and telemetry code and produce a real UI that looks good and is practical.

    If they managed that more people that have left the windows fold might think of returning. They could even consider calling the new OS 'doors' to remove the stigma of windows.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Unhappy

      "start afresh with a completely fresh slate"

      Please... NO! Not with *THIS* group of "developers". Look what they did to 8 and 10, when they had a perfectly good 7 that they could've just MAINTAINED.

      I can't imagine the horrors of a 'start from scratch' based on their current history...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Bombastic Bob...

        Even a stuck clock is right 2 times a day... XD

        1. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: Bombastic Bob...

          one of my loving fans? THANK you!

      2. J. Cook Silver badge

        Please... NO! Not with *THIS* group of "developers". Look what they did to 8 and 10, when they had a perfectly good 7 that they could've just MAINTAINED.

        I'll take a service pack 2 for windows 7; it beats having to dink around with putting USB3 support in using tools normally intended for OEMs and enterprises.

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Not with *THIS* group of "developers"

        It depends on what you mean by "start from scratch". Scratch might be a new team of developers.

    2. ThatOne Silver badge
      Alert

      > One would think it is time M$ called a halt to the 'development' of 10. It was a nice try but doesn't really work, and start afresh with a completely fresh slate.

      I don't know why everyone assumes their goal is to make a good, solid product they can be proud of. Preposterous. Their goal is to make money, lots of money, by any means, and the current situation already does that just fine.

      Besides, why would they spend even a penny to reinvent an entirely new OS when their whole business case relies on compatibility with older Windows versions? It would be commercial suicide: They could make The Perfect OS, and yet nobody would ever touch it with a 10ft pole "because my programs don't run on it" - haven't you heard that tune already somewhere?...

      The power of Windows is that it is Windows. And as long as it remains windowsy enough, users will accept everything Microsoft decides to do to them, because Windows is the only Windows. Amazing, when you think about it...

      1. Fred Goldstein

        All true, of course, but a "clean slate" OS could simply be Windows. The Window OS "on paper" is not bad. Its nominal capabilities are pretty good and when it works it is pretty decently usable. The problem is quality control, with lots of old code and new code probably in conflict.

        So if they took the official internal specifications (including the "secret" APIs) for Windows and had a team of good programmers write it from scratch, they could, at least in theory, get rid of the old bugs. However, there are a couple of problems with this idea. One is that new code brings along new bugs, and it would need a lot of debugging before it was safe to use. Two is that it would take too long -- isn't the WINE project, to implement the Windows API with clean code on Linux, somewhere around the Win2000 stage now, after maybe 20 years?

        1. Kanhef

          WINE is also a volunteer project, made by people in their spare time. They also had to reverse-engineer the entire Windows API, including its many, many quirks. Considering that, they've done pretty well.

          Rather than re-implementing the same, 30+ year old, crufted together API, I'd rather see them design a new, modern OS with a WinAPI virtualization layer. Somewhat like what Apple did with OS X and the Classic environment.

    3. cutterman

      "They could even consider calling the new OS 'doors' to remove the stigma of windows."

      [Chorus]

      This is the End

      Beautiful friend

      This is the End

      My only friend, the End

      Mac

      ;-)

  10. Zog_but_not_the_first
    IT Angle

    Drivers?

    Are they still a thing?

    An old IT colleague used to use "it's yer drivers mate" as a standard get-out to any computer support problem.

    1. Shadow Systems

      Re: Drivers?

      I'm not entirely sure if you were merely being (rightfully) snarky or what, but you're too close to being on the mark.

      I'm using an Intel NextUnitOfComputing (NUC). It is *entirely* Intel chipsets from audio, video, wireless, LAN, HDD/SSD, mobo, *everything*. I read other tech fora dedicated to doing interesting things with a NUC including keeping it running in the face of Win10 shitty updates. MS can't even get an entirely Intel based machines drivers right! I *might* accept some brand x generic mobo by some 99thParty maker that used such dodgy chipsets that even the manufacturer couldn't write working drivers for the bloody thing, but this is *Intel* we're talking about. FFF MS & Intel have been in bed together so long the duolopy is known as "Wintel" for a very good reason. And MS can't even get proper drivers working for their bed buddy.

      At what point does a regular Joe Average on the street simply throw up his hands & say "ENOUGH!"? If MS can't even keep a *NUC* working then there's SFA hope for "obscure" makers like Alienware, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, & others.

      1. JLV

        Re: Drivers?

        Honest question.

        We all know "it's not MS's fault that they have to look after so many devices". "Apple has it easy with their closed ecosystem".

        But what of Linux? It gets to support a massive bunch of drivers and devices on _multiple architectures_.

        Why can't MS uncouple things like the Intel driver, provide an apt-get type repo and let Windows download the drivers? They're not like regular application level software, you pretty much have a license to use it, by virtue of having the hardware. They're not sold separately. Then it's Intel's fault, not MS's. Why bake it all together, unless it works out better than on Linux?

        Is that because the kernel-level separation is so much clearer in Linux? I seem to recall a number of kernel-level changes in Linux are motivated by hardware support: 4.19 has x, 4.20 has y. So Linux doesn't get out of jail by dumping it all into userland. What makes Windows such a unique sh*t sandwich?

        Now, that's not claiming there are no driver issues in Linux land. But a significant % seems caused by hardware vendors not providing Linux drivers. Or specs. i.e. Windows-only. But those vendors DO have an interest in keeping Windows drivers tuned up.

        Why not decentralize hardware support as much as possible?

      2. big_D Silver badge

        Re: Drivers?

        @Shadow Systems to be fair, you mean Intel can't get an entirely Intel based machines drivers right!

        Microsoft don't write drivers for hardware, the hardware manufacturers do.

        My ThinkPad has an Intel update program that pulls down new drivers about twice a week at the moment.

        The updates that come through MS Update are provided by the manufacturers, they aren't written by Microsoft.

        1. Dave K

          Re: Drivers?

          You'd think though that if MS are going to force out drivers via Windows Update that this would mean they've tested them first...

          1. big_D Silver badge

            Re: Drivers?

            On the machines I have, they work.

            I'm guessing that they worked on the test machines as well.

            That is the problem, it depends on the configurations - and you would expect that Intel would have at least tested them on a NUC, before releasing them to Microsoft.

      3. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Drivers?

        I've got a NUC and I knew right from the start that I wanted to put Windows 7 on it, and if not that then Windows 8.1. A Windows 7 install is not as easy as it could be as you need to get the USB 3 and SSD drivers on to the install image, but worth it because it's not a coin toss every six months as to whether the device keeps working or not.

        1. Danny 14

          Re: Drivers?

          NUC here at home under the TV, it dual boots KODI with a secondary of W8.1, no way 10 was going on it. They are great little machines and perfect for steam streaming or media boxes.

      4. SleepyD

        Re: Drivers?

        It's funny you mention the NUCs having issues with Windows 10. I have a Gigabyte Brix PC which is their version of a NUC. It's all Intel except for the sound. Many versions of Linux run beautifully on this PC. Intel drivers are now a part of the kernel. MS is so sad. I would love to get family members to switch to Linux. Windows 10 may finally make that possible.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Drivers?

      Yes drivers, it's always going to be drivers...

      Like when DOOM came out and dozens of my after works clients buzzed my phone.

      Black or white screens after start.

      Update your vid drivers....then all was gewd.

  11. Jeyell

    What Microsoft needs is a...

    Backstop to 1809 then magic bitcoin will technologically solve the crisis.

  12. NorthernCoder
    Coat

    Groundhog Day comes early...

    Feels like it were only yesterday...

  13. Don The Elder
    Go

    Since you mentioned the Pennsylvania Polka, have a listen to Pennsylvania Turnpike, I Love You So, by Dick Todd. There's a video version that shows construction and early travelers, but I could only find the more recent version in a quick scan this morning. I was born in the only town that's mentioned in the song.

  14. MrKrotos

    Audio applications

    This just confirms to me that Windows 10 isnt any good for audio applications. One of the previous "updates" knocked out my ASIO driver and killed the audio sub-system. I tried it for 2 weeks untill that happened.

    So..... back to Windows 7 for me on my Music Production and DJ machines!

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: Audio applications

      I've heard good things about a couple of open source DAW's that run on Linux. You could dump windows ENTIRELY and NOT have to maintain 'bleeding edge' hardware because their OS demands it...

  15. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Can Microsoft Windows Systems Supply Future Greater Service .... or Not?

    Do they have MS Kernel Server Drivers Support or Not? And would that be them Rebelling or Revolting or them Discovered Completely Unaware and Totally Ignorant of Current Vital Experiences in Virtually Realised Experimental Operations?

    to OEMs that accidentally turned on unsupported features in Windows".

    Accidental? Why be so unsure? It could be Oriental with the East making a Great Quantum AI Leap into Wild West Futures with Global AId Derivatives for Virtual Trading Partners .... Revered Colleagues Future Building.

    Such would be an Unexpectedly Powerful Feature for AIdDevelopmental Windows Deployment .... Universal Presentation ..... Real Virtualisation.

    Whether IT is the Holy Grail Sought by Many is Never in Doubt for it is Practically Omnipotent and Pragmatically Omniscient in Service and Servering of Core Source Ores for Immaculate Intellectual Property Processing/MegaMetaDataBase AIMining.

    Sounds Cool ..... an Erotic Exotic Eastern Put in a Wild Wacky Western World AIdVenture.

    Bravo, China ... 问候和欢迎/問候和歡迎

    1. Bowlers

      Re: Can Microsoft Windows Systems Supply Future Greater Service .... or Not?

      What?

      1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

        @Bowlers Re: Can Microsoft Windows Systems Supply Future Greater Service .... or Not?

        This must be your first time encountering amanfrommars1

        He/She/It is a legend around here.

        PS - Welcome to the club.

    2. Cliff Thorburn

      Re: Can Microsoft Windows Systems Supply Future Greater Service .... or Not?

      Why did your post make me think of this amfM? ...

      https://youtu.be/gag6sN_uuOg

  16. big_D Silver badge

    24.20.100.6344

    My laptop (ThinkPad T480) is running these drivers under 1809 (has been for over a month) and I still get sound out of the onboard speaker and when I plug it into an external monitor (TB3 dock DisplayPort->DisplayPort to a Dell monitor) I also get sound.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: 24.20.100.6344

      You STILL get sound? What ritual did you perform in order to get this to happen? It must have involved at least one rubber chicken and man wearing armor...

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: 24.20.100.6344

        It must have involved at least one rubber chicken and man wearing armor...

        Oh, I know that one, usually enacted to censure one who has got too silly though

  17. AS1

    Airgap

    My Win7 box on 5400 rpm rust has never been internet connected, no updates, Office 2000 from a CD, various other maths based s/w. Starts and shuts down in under 10 seconds each. Why would I want to update it? It boots faster that the M.2 SSD Win10 box mentioned below.

    Alas the paired 20 year old HP printer has finally bitten the dust, and I await to see if the new HP printer plays ball.

    Alternatively, the Win10 box has auto updates and just this week got a KB that purported to stop Specter Variant 2 (worryingly that was microcode from intel too). It took two attempts to install, the first to a black screen of doom, the second reducing the game frame rate to 2 fpm (yes, minute is intentional). That got rolled back pretty sharpish on the grounds that someone crafting an SV2 exploit on it is unlikely and a lower impact than essentially bricking the PC for its intended use.

    1. Danny 14

      Re: Airgap

      serious question but why not install a lightweight linux and libreoffice on it? That way you can even surf the odd internet site and do email etc.

  18. TeeCee Gold badge
    Facepalm

    Barking up the wrong tree.

    The problem borks audio from affected PCs, with playback from screens connected via HDMI, USB-C or Display Port silenced for some users.

    Actually this happens quite readily on certain machines with no Intel graphics and with the sound provided directly from an on-board Realtek chipset, so I call bollocks on their version of events.

    Methinks MS are blamestorming this one...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get Win 10 Pro...

    ...select a delay period for “feature updates“ of 365 days and security updates of 7 days and you’re sorted!

  20. elvisimprsntr

    Excommunicated MS (and more recently, Crapcast) from my home 10+ years ago. Life without computer induced frustration is amazing. I highly recommend it.

  21. Tree
    Coffee/keyboard

    SO glad I blocked GWX

    Microsoft Windows 7 does not cause these particular problems. Telemetry isn't as bad either. Trying to maintain privacy and avoid unnecessary changes for the worse has led to fewer hassles.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: SO glad I blocked GWX

      Uninstall the telemetry KBs.

  22. zekepliskin

    Dunce caps all round

    I'm trying to decide who's been the bigger fools over the past 2 months - Microsoft for epic failing Windows 10 related updates/ads in Outlook, Apple for pricing themselves too high on the iPhone XS and talking about putting the iPhone X back in production (bet shareholders are loving that backpedalling) or Bethesda for releasing a buggy alpha Fallout 76 and then releasing a console patch that is almost 100% the size of the original game install.

    Whatever it is, I think all three companies need to break out the dunce caps and seriously pull themselves together because this is absolutely pathetic. All of them should know better.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MS’s fault? ¿Que?

    So Intel sends borked drivers to OEM’s and ofcourse Microsoft. The _Intel_ drivers try to activate a feature that is not supported within Windows (10), so Windows kills the drivers from runtime and possibly Blue Screens itself.

    The difference between Linux and MS Windows is where they load drivers for the hardware they run on. Linux has a kernel where (basic) drivers for hardware are compiled into the kernel. This has the advantage that drivers are very well inspected begore being compiled into the kernel, whereas MS has a kernel where drivers are loaded in a later stage, but are not a part of the kernel (signed drivers with certificates, mind you, thus controllable).

    Either way, if Intel would have passed the borked drivers to Linux and had them compiled into the kernel in some way, probably the same would have happened with numerous Linux installs.

    The most probable cause is, I think, because Intel HAS certificates that are trusted by Windows and any signed drivers they release are trusted because of that certificate, Intel was able to include the borked drivers with 1809. Thus even though everyone likes to blame MS for this error, Intel is the one to blame here.

    1. Michael Habel

      Re: MS’s fault? ¿Que?

      Thus even though everyone likes to blame MS for this error, Intel is the one to blame here.

      You might be right... But, what has happend to In-House Testing? MicroSoft, may not deserve ALL of the blame here, but surly some part of it. After all it IS there own Software!

      Oh yeah thats right the Pleb-World + Mans best friend get to play M$ Housecleaners now. which is exactly why you never seen M$ ever screw --it up quite this badly before. And, not with something ad basic as Intel Drivers.

      As to Linux... How does Intel deal with that? Like nVidia, and just release a closed source blob? Or the exact opisite of that? How up-to-date are the Intel Drivers any way?

  24. ironstar
    Facepalm

    Oh Microsoft

    I've updated my work computer to check if it will all go smoothly before we roll it out to users and....they have no official RSAT download for 1809. Bloody hell, who approves these things for release?

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