Compulsory updates Grrr!

[Peter Kinross]

The other day, I was set to go out and visit a client. My brand new Win 10 laptop said there was an update - it did say it would take 10 - 15 mins. My laptop is reasonably fast with a SSD, so I thought that I would probably beat the 10 min, but even the 15 min would be OK. Hindsight is a wonderful thing - mine is 100% reliable, and it tells me I am a dill. 40 mins later, the darn update finally finished, and I am seriously late for my appointment. Yes I can only allocate 40% of the blame to MS, the other 60% rests firmly on my shoulders for foolishly believing them. But I was a bit wary of taking laptop, that was saying it needed to be updated, out on the road without doing the update.
Folks take this as a warning, work out ways of allowing for the compulsory updates, they can ruin your day.

[HansV]

Was this the Windows 10 November (aka 1511) update? That's basically a new version of the OS, so it takes a while to download and install.
'Ordinary' updates for Windows 10 have always been installed quickly for me up to now...

[JoeP]

If the update requires a restart you should be able to schedule the restart.

Joe

[Peter Kinross]

Hans; I think it was, but unlike previous versions, Win 10 doesn't appear to let one see what updates have been installed.

Joe; it did require several re-starts, but I didn't want to go on the road with a laptop that required an update. With hindsight, I was definitely stupid. Actually, put 'VERY' in front of stupid. even then, I would have gone out without the update, but 10 - 15 mins, no probs - plenty of time.

[JoeP]

You can see what has been installed by going to Settings | Update & security | Windows Update | Advanced options (link) | View your update history (link).

Joe

[Peter Kinross]

Yep you're on the button Joe - thanks.
Also can get to it intuitively from MS Update | Advanced options. No idea how I missed that.

[JoeP]

You should get used to using the Settings for whatever you can as Microsoft is migrating everything from Control Panel to Settings. It will take a while for that to happen but it will happen.

Joe

[Peter Kinross]

Thanks Joe.
I wish MS would adopt an "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach.

[JoeP]

Settings fits with the Universal App paradigm. Runs on multiple platforms adapting the UI to the device (i.e PC (including tablets) or phone).

Joe

[garbsmj]

Yes I updated it and this morning a)my headphones died so I put on my old ones which b)proceeded to die so I look up the "headphones not working on Windows 10" and download updated toshiba driver. Put regular headphones on - everything's fine for an hour and then sound goes off again. Well the driver is updated and while I'm researching as to what else could be happening, my mouse dies. Okay, that's it. I rolled the toshiba back to 8.1. Until they fix it so it's compatible with toshiba. My acer backup laptop still working peachy with everything. Go figure - $200 machine loves it; $1300 machine has "issues."

[JoeP]

Deb,

It is not Microsoft's responsibility to provide drivers. It is the vendor responsibility. Microsoft provides some very basic drivers that enable many peripherals which adhere to its APIs to work. If the peripheral has features beyond the very basic the vendor must supply the driver.

At various times Windows 10 has had problems with various sound cards. Are you sure you have the most recent drivers for the sound card. That is the more likely culprit.

Did you force the upgrade or was it recommended by GWX?

Joe

[garbsmj]

I'm not Deb but anyway I did download the soundcard driver and still lost the sound. When I went to download it again got the "already installed". I will continue to check but going back to Win 8.1 has been problematic as well and about ready to pitch this "present" out the window (I didn't buy it, I wouldn't buy it and I like my cheapie laptops because they're easy to replace).

[JoeP]

Oops. Sorry for the mis-identification, trying to do too many things at once.

I had sound problems with a couple different test builds of Windows 10. I ended up downloading the sound driver and saving it. Then if there was no sound I just forced the driver to be reinstalled. I don't recall if I deleted the sound card itself and let Windows rediscover it.

Joe

[garbsmj]

it's okay Joe - I get called everything, even Deb sometimes. Okay so now I'm having problems with every browser but IE so might just reinstall Win10 and cross fingers and toes it will work again. Otherwise, this laptop is toast.

[JoeP]

Laptops are often tricky as OEMs get special modifications to components which require special drivers. Generic drivers sometimes will not work. Drivers from the laptop vendor may be required.

It seems as though the best upgrade experience has been when the GWX application (the little white Windows notification area app) has said it is OK to upgrade.

Joe