2011-06-13

Microsoft Windows Update Annoyances Strike Again

Although Linux Mint is my primary OS, I still have Microsoft Windows 7 around because I play a couple games from time to time. However, because I don't do that so frequently, whenever I do boot Microsoft Windows 7, I get bombarded with updates, and unfortunately, Microsoft Windows sometimes goes ahead downloading and installing those updates without letting me choose first.

For example, yesterday, after I finished using it, I shut down Microsoft Windows. As usual, it needed to install more updates, so it decided to do so between clicking "Shut Down" and actually shutting down. I figured it shouldn't take that long, so I closed my laptop lid and went to eat dinner. This wouldn't be news, except that when I came back, I found that it had gone to sleep in the middle (i.e. it hadn't actually finished installing updates). That was one annoying thing. Anyway, I woke it up, and it finished installing updates and then properly shut down with no apparent errors.

Today, when I booted back into Microsoft Windows, I got a message saying that Microsoft Windows didn't shut down properly the last time. WHAT? It's telling me that it's my fault that it took so long to install updates that the laptop went to sleep before it could finish, and that what looked to be a fine shutdown process was actually faulty in some magical way, and I'm supposed to blindly believe all that?

Sure, I could use this opportunity to promote how Linux has a much more sensible way of staying updated, but really, any other OS has a better update mechanism than Microsoft Windows. It's really frustrating. Hopefully the Google Chrome OS netbooks (and to a lesser extent the Ubuntu netbooks made by ASUS) will help promote OSs other than Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X in the public eye, so people realize they don't have to put up with stuff like this or seek needlessly expensive alternatives. (OK, so I did just promote Linux over Apple's Mac OS X, et cetera. So I'm a bad person.)