Microsoft - every hear the word "test"?

The BBQ Pit
1

The main POS (point of sale) system in my bookstore was a real POS (piece of shit) this morning. As best I can reconstruct things:

7:00pm yesterday - I leave. Computer is running auto-backup. Life is good.

3:07am - Windows XP loads an automatic update and attempts to reboot

8:15am - I come in to discover dead computer

8:20am - I’m unable to boot in safe mode or use last known good config. I call tech

9:25am - Tech arrives. Phone has been ringing off the hook with dead XP/Vista machines all over town

10:30am - I open the store a half-hour late with an almost-functional computer

Did this happen to anyone else, or did Microsoft just drop a bomb on southern Montana? The store next to me is down. Another business in town is all Vista, and they can’t log in to any systems in the building. No passwords are working. Other systems have the same symptoms as mine.

Now that you no longer get Windows install disks with your new computer, it’s difficult to recover from this kind of catastrophic situation on your own unless you happen to be experienced at it and you made your own recovery disks.

I really do try to be operating system agnostic, but this is exactly why I have Macs at home and do my Web development on Linux or FreeBSD. Somebody needs to teach Microsoft the concept of actually testing things before foisting them on the unsuspecting public through automatic updating.

2

My new Dell came with Vista operating system disk.

3

I haven’t heard of any bad Windows updates…

Let me try it on a test box here and see if it blows up…

You’re saying XP AND Vista?

4

Why do people say that they’re operating system agnostic? Do they mean they’re not sure if there is an OS? :wink:

5

Dammit. I just downloaded that update and I’ve been putting off doing the re-start.

6

Obviously you (and others you’ve encountered) have got problems…

But…

If it helps any, I downloaded and installed the patch, rebooted, and haven’t had any problems at all. XP Pro machine.

And, um, nobody at work had problems, either (mixed bag of XP Pro and Win 2000).

Maybe they DID target Montana? :slight_smile:

IF $state == ‘Montana’ THEN Boom!

7

I tried it on both. Did a full Windows Update.

Rebooted, no problems.

8

Hmmm. Strange. I know of at least six people in this little town of 2,300 that had the problem this morning. Here’s what everyone had in common:

  1. All XP or Vista. No 98, Me, 2000, etc. Four XP and two Vista.

  2. All had left the computers on all night

  3. All had automatic updating turned on

I just checked - it was update KB927891

9

I installed it on my XP machine today, rebooted, no problem. I also installed 2 available updates on my Vista box (though KB927891 was not one of them), and that rebooted normally.

10

Don’t most MS updates require rebooting?

If auto-install of updates was turned on in the OS while an application was doing a backup or something, that could cause a problem. High-importance tasks like backups should disable anything that changes the OS while they are taking place.

If I was administering a system I was going to let run unattended, especially for important tasks like backups, I certainly wouldn’t let OS updates happen during that time; I’d do them manually during an otherwise-free block of time. At the very least updates should be scheduled.

And if the Windows defaults are to auto-download and auto-install OS updates, those defaults should be changed on any mission-critical system.

11

It’s particular to XP and Vista, because my home machine (2000 Pro) downloaded, rebooted and kept on chugging with no problems. What did Montana do to piss of Lord Gates?

12

Personally, I’m an aOSist…believe what you want; it’s all binary in the end.

13

My machine is on 24/7, and I have it set to automatically download updates, but not install them until I tell it to, and the latest patch worked fine with both my home machine and work computer.

14

As I don’t think my computer has even heard of Montana, I took this thread as a reminder to run an overdue manual check for update. No resultant problems.

15

Ok, could we say that Microsoft probably did test the patch and that this was just another pointless Microsoft-bashing by someone who has no real technical knowledge of Microsoft Windows (or professional experience from competitors’ products, which - to put it nicely - isn’t necessarily all too flawless in the updating business…?)

Also, if updating is a problem for you, please mention the free Microsoft product WSUS to your “tech guy”, which allows you to test the patches in your own specific environment (all environments are different) before they are installed on business critical systems.

Operating systems are pretty complex and tech guys could use some training, even if it’s Windows. The fact that you yourself are able to login to a Micrososft system and run both Notepad and Defrag doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re qualified to allow system file changes on business system.

Or do you think that Novell, Sun or Linux system would work like a charm around the clock on millions of computers around the world if you let any schmuck do anything they like to them, and where the so called tech guys know nothing about what the heck’s going on beneath the GUI?

16

Downloaded, rebooted, no problems. Maybe it’s some other app in your system? Do the other sites use the same programs?

I’m wondering if it’s something with your ISP since it’s localized.

17

As a windows user, I can know that I have a system, but it’s anybody’s guess as to whether it’s operating.

18

Ironically, MS calls KB927891 a “reliability update.”

19

Downloaded. Rebooted. No problem.

20

Well, this pathetically rude bit of snark might be apt if it weren’t for the fact that Microsoft is releasing updates to fix current problems with Windows Update. So Microsoft is acknowledging the fact that they are downloading software onto their users machines that is not ready for primetime.

Or it could be the widespread problem currently affecting Windows Update on systems using Norton. Now one could argue that it’s not MS’s job to worry about Norton, but one would be a fool to argue that, because it would be either a pathetically clueless company or one that didn’t give a rat’s ass about its customer base that would not test their system on one running Norton, since it’s installed on millions of “their” machines.

Might want to keep abreast of current issues, Wakinyan.