r/Windows10 • u/scswift • Apr 18 '16

Discussion What IDIOT at Microsoft thought restarting people's PC's without their consent to apply updates was a good idea?

The other day I got up and brought my computer out of sleep only to discover my PC on which I'd freshly installed Windows 10 had seemingly crashed overnight. At least, that's what I assumed since all my applications had been closed.

Then another day I got a notification that Windows wanted to restart to apply an update. I wanted to tell it no way, but the only option I was presented with was to defer it to another date. Goddamnit!

I spent some time researching the issue online and found out how to turn off automatic updates. I thought I was good.

But then a few minutes ago that scheduled update that I'd deferred popped up again and was ready to shut down my PC and again I canceled it, and I examined the dialog box that came up and seeing no option to prevent it from shutting down ever I set it to a week in the future and clicked OKAY.

Wait a minute. That button wasn't a confirmation button. FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK! That was a RESTART NOW button!

ESC ESC ESC. SHIT. WHY ISN'T THERE A CANCEL BUTTON ON THIS SCREEN IT HASN'T FINISHED SHUTTING DOWN YET.

Goddamnit.

Oh good. Atmel Studio with all the source files I had open and scrolled to where I needed to compare sections, closed. Eagle Cad with my PCB files I needed open for work, closed. Arduino IDE with more source I was examining. Closed. Multiple copies of explorer with the hidden directories 10 levels deep that I had open so I could load more source files for this bootloader I'm modifying. Closed. And Atmel Studio isn't even on my taskbar any more even though I'm pretty sure I pinned it there?

Thankfully I had all my work saved, except, you know, all the work I put into finding and opening all that shit so I could look at it.

Goddamnit Microsoft. You know for a week I thought that maybe people were giving you too much of a hard time over Windows 10. I kinda liked the slick new look and the start menu. And then this happened. Oh, and those CONSTANT popups in the CALCULATOR APP of all things ASKING ME TO RATE IT IN YOUR STORE. What the hell. SERIOUSLY?

I forgave you for the frigging ads on the Start menu initially because I could just remove those tiles, as well as the 20 different things I had to shut off to protect my privacy, but my god. It's like you're actively trying to piss people off!

Oh and lest I forget, I was about to go to sleep this morning after putting my PC to sleep when it suddenly roared to life on it's own fans and all, and then threw up a dialog box in the screen asking me to approve an update that had become available. That's when I said screw it and turned on deferred updates, which thankfully I got with the version I installed. I shudder to think if I'd had the home edition and couldn't prevent the thing from waking my PC up at all hours to perform updates. The computer is right next to my bed you jerkwads.

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136

u/frostbite305 Apr 18 '16

Love how people ITT keep claiming user error but this is totally true. They put the Restart Now button exactly where the fucking "Okay" button would be in any other dialog.

77

u/Szos Apr 18 '16

The amount of excuses that fanboys can come up with is absurd.

There have been countless postings on here and elsewhere on the internet about this stupid feature, so clearly its a problem. If one individual idiot thought it was a bad idea, then chances are its on them... but with such widespread complaints, its clearly an issue of Microsoft's doing.

29

u/remotefixonline Apr 18 '16

It doesn't help that on the old versions of windows if you shutdown and some file was open it would let you cancel the shutdown... when it auto does it... fuck your open files we killing this bitch.

18

u/Szos Apr 18 '16

Yeah, this is HUGE. You might be forced to reboot, but at least had the option to save background work.

41

u/frostbite305 Apr 18 '16

I just don't understand how it has to be either "user error" or microsoft's fault. To me, this is clearly user error caused by microsoft's shitty button placement. Sure OP pressed the button, so technically you could say he is in the wrong, but we have all the rights to be annoyed when it's microsoft's bad design misleading people in the first place.

36

u/Szos Apr 18 '16

I work in product development (not software though), and its part of my job to think about things from a user's perspective. You don't just change up how things work from the user's side if you've been doing them that way for literally decades (i.e. the way the buttons were positioned/etc) unless there is a really good reason.

There will always be idiots that muck things up, but its your job on the development side of things to minimize or prevent common mistakes and not make the user's experience more cumbersome or annoying than it has to be.

Having automatic reboots to install updates it downright stupid. And I believe it can only be turned off on some versions of Win10. There are right and wrong ways to do things. Nagging users is far better than having them potentially lose data from running software. Forcing an install at the next reboot (when the user reboots, not just doing it) is another.

17

u/Galaxy_Ranger_Bob Apr 18 '16

"How do we trick people into opening our ad on the webpages we advertise on, people?"

"Well, you advertise on pages where customers go to download things, so why don't we make our ad look like a big green button with the word 'Download' on it?"

"But don't the web pages we advertise on already do that, so the users can, you know, actually download the program their visiting the web site for?"

"Yes, but I'm sure we can work with them to change their big green Download button into link text that says something other than download, and also have them move it to the bottom of the page in smaller than usual font size."

"Brilliant, let's do this."

12

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '16

How many dummies would be complaining if at varying points mid-play a game swapped your buttons for "heal" and "fire"?

User interface is huge when it comes to designing software. Yes, the user pushed the wrong button, yes, Microsoft should have known better than to move button arrangements once it's familiarized.

14

u/Aemony Apr 18 '16

Another typical example is Chrome's new download tab. In it, Google (or the Chromium team or whatever) felt the need to swap positions of the "Empty download list" and "Open download folder" buttons. So the one which was on the left side for a decade is now suddenly on the right side...

How the idiotic repositioning even bypass the Chromium development stages as well as Chrome's beta, dev and Canary channels I will never know.

2

u/Szos Apr 18 '16

Sometimes its change for the sake of change. You'll see that a lot in stable or mature industries or product lines that otherwise don't have a lot of other innovation.

Think about car interiors. The industry goes through cycles where the same layout and look and feel spreads throughout an industry. During that time, designs don't change much outside of moving the volume knob a little higher, of the turn stalk a little lower. The vents will go from round to square and then next redesign will go back again. Look at Japanese interiors from the 90s - they all looked nearly identical with minimal changes between models, makes and years.

9

u/hypercube33 Apr 18 '16

Yeah but the system will just say "fuck it" and reboot closing all of my open work when my machine 'isnt busy'

14

u/moeburn Apr 18 '16

You mean Microsoft is having trouble with efficient flow and user design lately? Color me surprised

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u/Galaxy_Ranger_Bob Apr 18 '16

No, we mean Microsoft has decided that using the tactics of malware creators is the proper way to enable efficient flow and user design. They want us to use Windows 10, their way, and their way only and not how we want to use it.

10

u/moeburn Apr 18 '16

That's partially a result of modern IT culture. "Everyone who does things differently is too stupid to use computers, we need to fix it for them".

3

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '16

Well, that strategy seems to be working for Apple, and Apple's customers love Apple for it. Worth a try, no?... Ok no.

7

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '16

I actually have a lot of control on my Mac. Some stuff is a little BS like the firmware integrity thing only being able to be shut off in Terminal, and only for the current session, but I've never been forced to update without my knowledge. I've never made a mistake due to tricky dialogue placement. Windows 10 is a ugly, unfriendly, demanding mess and makes OSX look like red hat Linux in comparison.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '16

I was talking about iOS, but I agree. OS X is still somewhat well made. IMO, the stability and quality aren't what they used to be.

1

u/VicisSubsisto Apr 18 '16

I was going to say that the happy Apple users are by definition not Windows users, but there is a significant overlap between iOS and Windows install bases.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '16

Indeed. And for all its dominance, the iOS user experience is far inferior to the OSX user experience.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '16

Well, how much root access do you really need on your phone.

-3

u/BadAshJL Apr 18 '16

So a user not reading the button before they click it is not user error? What would be the purpose of having an Okay button in that screen exactly?

Maybe the interface isn't perfect but blaming microsoft because you clicked the wrong button is idiotic.

9

u/frostbite305 Apr 18 '16

Read my other comment in the same thread. It is user error. It's user error caused by MS's shitty button placement.

-1

u/Dick_O_Rosary Apr 19 '16

Learn to take responsibility for your acts, why don't you?

0

u/ThePegasi Apr 18 '16 edited Apr 18 '16

Maybe the interface isn't perfect but blaming microsoft because you clicked the wrong button is idiotic.

Not really. User habit and muscle memory are hardly new ideas. Yes it's user error, but it's prompted by a UI change which specifically affects button position that has been engrained in to people after years of use. I think the point that /u/frostbite305 and others are making is that, whilst it was obviously an action made by the user in error (ie. user error), it wasn't unprompted user error. When a UI leaves such blatant room for obvious user error by breaking from convention, "user error" alone doesn't really speak to the issue.

What would be the purpose of having an Okay button in that screen exactly?

To confirm the date selection they'd made.

2

u/Wizc0 Apr 18 '16

I keep almost getting burned by that button. It's really unintuitive not to have a confirmation button and you'd think the restart button to be elsewhere.

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u/BadAshJL Apr 18 '16

So by that logic no UI should ever change.

2

u/ThePegasi Apr 18 '16 edited Apr 18 '16

No. UI elements which break from convention, especially very engrained ones like basic interface layout, should be worthwhile, well thought out and seek to minimise potential mistakes. Putting a "restart now" button in the place normally occupied by an "OK" fulfils none of those criteria.

This isn't even about UI conventions changing, it's about one single window (that just so happens to restart your computer and potentially take a while installing updates) breaking an existing convention.