Irwin Electronics Weekly Digest
Windows Update
Microsoft’s Updates Breaking Windows Again
by David Irwin on January 26
Here we go again. Another Patch Tuesday, and more broken Windows. What a pane in the glass! The past six or seven consecutive updates have broken Windows for thousands of users. Microsoft is aware of the problems and gives a couple possible solutions. What we see happening is you get to your login screen and enter your password. A circle appears on the screen showing the system is busy processing your request. It will circle and circle then drop you back to the login password prompt. You know your password is correct. You do not receive any error indicating incorrect password. This cycle just repeats, and you can never log in. The Microsoft fix is to power off the computer by holding the power button until it powers down. Repeat the boot and power off cycle 2 or 3 more times, and it will launch the automatic startup repair. If that does not work, the next Microsoft answer is to Reset this PC. Warning: This will reinstall Windows! You will have the option to save your data, but all of your software will need to be reinstalled. Before Resetting we recommend clicking the power icon in the lower Right side of the screen. It’s the circle with the little line in the top. Then hold the Shift key while you click Restart. When the light blue screen comes up click Troubleshoot. On the next screen click Advanced, and on the next screen click System Restore. Follow the prompts and it should select the restore point of the Windows Update. If you receive a message telling you there are no restore points you may have no other option but to Reset. I would recommend you contact a professional at this point. Irwin Electronics will make a backup of your data, just to be safe. We may have other options to restore, or there may be other problems like a failing hard drive. We will run a full diagnostic, and try other restore options. If it does come down to reinstalling Windows, we will perform a clean install, and help install your software. We have a checklist of software we install that includes free anti-virus, anti-malware, a free Office suite, Chrome and Firefox web browsers, and much more. We will also tune Windows to the hardware, boosting performance by up to 300%! Give us a call at (480) 382-4761. We will be happy to help.
I know what you’re going to ask. How can you prevent this from happening again? The short answer is, You can’t. Unless you have Windows 10 Professional, there is no option to prevent Windows Updates. While that may not be entirely true, the fact is most updates are security patches. Therefore, you do not want to block the updates entirely.
Of course, at this point, our recommendation might be to go to an operating system that is more stable, faster, much more secure, FREE, and in many ways easier to use. If you guessed Linux Mint Cinnamon, I’d say you’ve been reading my blog. Yes, Linux Mint is all those things and so much more. We still can’t guarantee an update will never again break your system. We can, however, say Linux Mint is much more stable than Windows. We can also say we’ve converted dozens of users to Linux and they LOVE it! Look it up yourself. Mint is the number one distribution on distrowatch.com, and for good reason. Although while writing this, and providing the link above, I see Mint in the last 12, 6, and 3-month spots. However, Manjaro has taken the number one position for the last month. I see the have a Cinnamon desktop version. I, and other Windows users will feel right at home there. I also see they addressed one thing I don’t like about Mint, and it’s exactly what we’re talking about... Updates! The Linux Mint team has written their own updater which prevents automatic updates. Manjaro has taken a direction similar to Windows 10, where the updates include the core operating system. The nice part is, you always have the latest version of the OS. The downside is, what if it breaks something? The difference with Manjaro though is it’s still Linux. There’s a reason over 90% of the world’s Internet servers run Linux. Well, yes, free does have something to do with it. But what good is a free OS that doesn’t work? Linux works! If Microsoft made all their software free and Open Source, they would regain some market share. The global community would begin porting the code to their own versions, tightening security and improving performance. Before long, we would have several distributions of Windows from which to choose, and they would all be so far ahead of where Windows is today. Unfortunately, that’s not likely to happen. If Microsoft continues pushing users away by forcing buggy updates on them, it won't be long before we see them filing chapter 11. While Microsoft is my bread and butter, computers are my passion. I would love to see Linux move into the number one position as the world’s preferred operating system. The Linux community has said for many years they were going to take over the world. Now they are well poised to do so. I am excited to see how this all shakes out over the next few years. Can Microsoft recover, or will they go bust? Will the board fire Satya Nadella, or can he turn the company around? We saw Steve Ballmer continue to get the company into more and more legal trouble. That trend seems to have slowed, but all new problems have arisen that directly impact their user base.
So that’s my answer... Can we stop updates from breaking the PC? No, but we can lessen it. Can we stop Microsoft’s Windows Updates? Yes, turn around and run from Microsoft! Stop giving them your hard earned money. Call Irwin Electronics at (480) 382-4761 and tell us you’ve had it with Microsoft. We’ll hook you up and make your computer run BETTER than new!
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