Windows update, gun to my head situation?

I have noticed something odd related the Windows Update on my mini PC, Nuc 6i7KYK.

On a few occasions now when I turn the PC on certain function are broken, generally wireless stuff. I have turned it on twice now and it will refuse to recognise that my Bluetooth keyboard exists. The first time I had a wired mouse to try and troubleshoot it and ended up checking windows update which miraculously made it work again like nothing happened.
The second time I had a Bluetooth mouse too and it continued working perfectly, wirelessly, while the keyboard again was not picked up. Again a windows update made everything right.
I have checked the board it had battery in both these cases and connected to my phone just fine but windows would not have it.

Then yesterday I turned on the PC and the WiFi was showing no connection. Looked into it and it could pick up and list my neighbours WiFi fine but would not even list mine which was no more that 2m away. Once again one windows update later and it was like nothing happened.

In every case the Bluetooth and WiFi were both active and working but it would “choose” to not connect to my things, anyone else’s fine but not mine.

Is this some sort of new tactic to force people to update. Once windows know and update is available it disables stuff so you have to update to get it working again even though it was working anyway last boot.

I have gotten so f@cking tired of having the following happening:

  • Recieve phonecall about network not working or some other problem.
  • Walk over and find the restart to finish updating icon
  • Tell the user that we need to restart his pc
  • User has to wait a looooooong time for update to finish
  • User curses and talks about technology supposed to make things easier/faster but that’s the opposite of Win10
  • Pc logs in and all works again…
  • I walk away cursing at Microsoft in my head.
  • Sit down to my Linux devices and wish everyone would make the change!
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Yup sounds right but why disable it for things that I am connected to only, why not just kill the Bluetooth or WiFi entirely. Selectively kicking me off my peripherals and networks is bizarre.

They clearly still work. The drivers have not been removed.

MS laid off their entire QC department, or maybe it was just the Windows QC. Either way, expect the bugs to get worse and weirder until their users all leave or they pull their head out of the sand.

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Having used Office, especially Sharepoint and Access, Microsoft seems to have adopted the tried and tested tactic from the game making industry: Let monkeys write the code, then just ship it.

Which is all understandable in the mess that has resulted but this seems… targeted.

of course how else can they pay for their lawyers when the file the patent infringement lawsuits?
its a shame really when you try to talk to some people about linux you are usually treated like a pariah.
too many are afraid to admit that they are too afraid about trying something new.

I will admit I was a bit nervous about it myself when I first switched But it was also an interesting journey and a definite learning experience.
and Im thankful of all the people who helped me ease into it.
quite frankly I will never go back to micro-sith.

somewhat targeted ? one big question in my mind is since win 8 -win 10 are so push add oriented you cant do anything without adds popping up on your screen.
it makes me wonder if the updates are more of an attempt to see what add blocker software you are using so they can engineer ways around!

I cant say I’ve run into this situation on any of the machines I’ve dealt with, though its relatively small ~35 or so. What version/build are you on?

Maybe to try and force people to do Windows updates. This path is kind of a conspiracy, but the way that MS has been with Windows 10 I wouldn’t really be surprised.

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Win 10 pro 1809

Did it start with this build?

Nah it was some months back when it started. It comes and goes, some updates pass with no events, other updates makes their availability known by disabling so far specific Bluetooth devices and WiFi connections at boot which is very annoying.

so it started with 1803 you think?

I cent remember the build at all unfortunately from the time.

they are year/month so 1809 is sept 2018

Man I can barely remember what day it is currently or what happened yesterday let alone months ago. It is entirely possible it was but I can’t tell you for sure.

Generally theres a major update every 6 months, a monthly update with bugfixes/small changes/etc, and then security updates/drivers in between when available. I dont know if those security updates might play a part in this but my work machine is still on 1709 and home on 1803 and I havent seen it happen. I let the other machines update at their discretion and havent seen this yet, or at least no one has complained about their internet dropping out to me.

You might try changing to the business update channel, I believe they call it semi annual. One will be called targeted and the other just semi annual, the latter being the one you want. I believe its defaulted to targeted which is the more bleeding edge.

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Welp, @Zibob, wouldnt you fucking know it. I come in to work this morning and someone came to me with internet issues. Sure enough, updates waiting to be installed.

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Interesting. Was it working a otherwise, like the WiFi on and other connections showing up but it would not show or connect to the one it was supposed to.

This was wired. Never heard a peep out of this user about their computer until this morning.

Just checked his build and hes on 1709 so it seems to be independent of build.

1 Like