20 GB Wasted

Updating a Windows 10 computer is insanity.

I run a single Windows 10 system virtualized using raw disk access. The host system is on a VLAN, isolated from the house LAN. I trust the Microsoft folks as far as I can spit into a head wind.

Recently I attempted to update this sole Windows 10 system. The latest round of updates include the features update version 1703. I have deferred the update but now, like the proverbial neighborhood barking dog, the system insists on installing the update. All part of the grand plan to force updates on users.

I tried several times through the day to update this system, all to no avail. The download would stall or the installation failed. Each time the download would start from scratch. After several attempts through the day and about 20 GB later, the software still had not updated. There is no feedback whatsoever about the actual files being downloaded to help debugging. Just a useless single progress bar. Many wasted hours.

20 GB. As far as I can tell, the 1703 download is about 6.6 GB.

I have plenty of available disk space. This is an MBR system and not UEFI.

I waited until the oncoming weekend to attempt the update again late at night with less network traffic. The files downloaded and installed. The next morning I responded to a dialog to reboot the system. I rebooted and all seemed to go well. Upon logging in I was greeted with a popup notification that the installation had failed — “We couldn’t finish installing updates.”

I repeated the exercise the next night. Same result when logging in.

Selecting the popup to “learn more” results in no useful information or clues whatsoever.

I have no idea why the MS folks can't download the files once and be done. Use some kind of rsync method to pull the files.

Why is updating Windows so convoluted?

Classic WTF.

Posted: Category: Usability Tagged: Windows

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