Microsoft fixes known issues in Windows 10 October 2018 Update

[dangel]

But I can't do that if MS decide try to force, deferred or not, updates onto my systems, when they feel like it

So you don't use Win 10 then? Cool.

It's a huge guff for sure but I almost feel sorry for them - for all the resources they have software giants still can't catch everything (even when it's reported as pointed out). This sort of thing ends up with people fearing all software changes and really that doesn't work out well in the end. At least in this day and age they've got the ability to halt the updates based on feedback (and not just human feedback).

I did force the update for four systems (not one had the problem) but then of course they're all backed up regularly anyway. I'd generally recommend people don't force updates (this reduces risk) and for anything vaguely mission critical (for example my microserver which is still on the todo list) set WU on the Semi Annual Channel which gives a pretty huge buffer before installation. If you want to go beyond that then either disable WU entirely (yikes) or use a more official solution like the LTSB version. The clock is ticking on Win 7 regardless and whilst MS are listening (in changing their approach) they're clearly not moving away from Windows as a service (which has it's benefits). YMMV but you have choices (and clearly some of us are quite vocal about them)

If there's one thing I've learnt in decades of SW development is that I'm definitely not going to please everybody and, secondly, I don't have to

[Moonister]

I swear my Windows 98SE was doing better than this bloated, private data snatching system