You know what's even more user-friendly?
Just clicking the little update icon in the bottom right corner, entering your root password, and clicking OK.

I know how your type likes to hate on everything Linux without having any clue what you're talking about, but seriously, upgrading your distro isn't rocket science.

In all fairness, fixing a broken update can, however, be close to rocket science:)
I use linux, and will continue to... But in this day and age, with all desktops going towards composite window managers, sucky nvidia drivers is a pain in the ass.
But it's a matter of luck when buying a laptop...

Or just paying attention and buying a laptop with AMD instead of Nvidia. I know it's unacceptable to make people actually look beyond the color of the laptop when they buy it, but it really needs to be done.

Right? People should learn they're better off having their hardware choices severely limited by their OS... Honestly, comments like this highlight why most users will never switch to Linux: the things you consider basic knowledge are things the average user never wants to even consider learning about. People who are primarily concerned with the color of their laptop do not know or care to know about the difference between AMD and nVidia, they want whichever comes in the white laptop and they just want it to work when they turn it on. You say they need to look at more, the thing is they really don't and there's no good reason they should have to.

I recently bought a Windows 7 for my old computer along with an SSD (which alone makes a massive difference). That should tide me over until Windows 9. Not going to bother with any Windows 8 version. I may not be a huge gamer, but until Linux is the default platform for developers, I do need a Windows somewhere.

I wish that were so... unfortunately Windows still has the Desktop userbase majority by a wide margin, and that doesn't seem to be changing despite Microsoft's many steps towards making computer owners' lives more difficult. "Windows Genuine Advantage" that limits your ability to change hardware in a computer running Windows, licensing confusion concerning running Windows in a Virtual Machine, version confusion ("home", "professional", "enterprise", "ultimate", etc), UI confusion with Metro and the Office

Windows 8.x is stable and in many regards is better than Windows 7. It's just that stupid metro front end which scuppers the experience and consequently people hate on it.

8.1 and the SR1 makes it just about tolerable but the most glaring omission is still the lack of a start menu. They could and should have a mini-metro popup that offers functionality analogous to the old start menu. Rumours suggest that one is being worked on but its not in this release.

Yes basically the article is saying that any major patches for Windows 8.1 in future will have a dependency upon prior patches being installed. In other words how it's always been since the beginning of time.

Tell him that M$ have done the same old, same old, attempted to correct their failures in the cheapest way possible by shoving the cost back on consumers. Can't get the upgrade to work, suck it up, format, re-install, repatch, re-upgrade and repatch and the restore you back up data, don't have backups, M$ answer to you, well, that's your fault for trusting their software.

I wonder what I'd prefer... clean crash along with the info that there will never be a patch to it, or a segfault where I will no later than 3 days later have a patch delivered... Decisions, decisions...

At least it fails gracefully with a clean error code. In Linux world it would show up as a dialog with corrupted text and a mysterious "Invalid argument" error message written in some log.;)

Mostly under Linux the error messages are useful to someone technical. Increasingly other OSes (Windows, OS X, iOS, Android) consider useful error mesages to be not user friendly and just give you a generic "something broke" error that is no use to man nor beast - frequently I'm left digging out tcpdump to diagnose customer's problems because the application itself won't give me any information (yes, even in the system log) - I shouldn't need to tcpdump their IMAP traffic to discover that the server is telling them their password is wrong damnit!

Apple doesn't support more than one version of iOS. If you want to fix a problem with 6.1.2, you get to go to whatever version is current (7.1). You don't get to go to 6.1.3, you don't get to go to 7.0.5 or 7.0.6, you go to 7.1. Your choice is "upgrade or don't."

And now we know why cars that have a metal value of a few bucks cost thousands, while operating systems can still be found in the three digit range. Of course they can be engineered to the same level of stability and security as cars, but first of all, nobody will pay 10,000 for an OS unless he is a government and doesn't give a shit about money, and second you wouldn't get it sold since your competitor came out with his OS that looks and feels about the same and is a shoddy piece of junk that kinda-sorta r

Windows Server 2012 Datacenter, which is the server version of Windows 8.1 costs $6,155 basic so what's the excuse now? Your argument also falls down because Linux costs nothing and there has been no mass migration to that.

WIndows 2012 R2 Standard is the server version of Windows 8.1. Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8.

Windows 2012 (and 2012 R2) Datacenter is not a version, it is a licensing option for virtual environments. The Standard version contains all functionality. The price for the Standard version is $882 (list - two physical CPUs).

Windows has for many years now used a multiple-tier support strategy (the Windows Lifecycle policy [microsoft.com]). Microsoft supports an OS for 10 years, and during that period if they issue a service pack then they support the previous sub-version of Windows for 2 years. Windows 8.1 Update is about 30% of a service pack; the update contains a number of feature enhancements and on a code level it becomes a "base" OS that all future updates are built against. So unlike a normal security update, you can't skip Windows 8.1 Update and still get other security updates. This in turn can be interpreted as a violation of the Lifecycle Policy, as it's functionally a service pack and therefore Microsoft should continue providing security updates for Windows 8.1 (sans Update) for 2 years.

iOS on the other hand offers no such policy. You are expected to use the most recent version of the OS and Apple has never said any differently, full stop.

Never mind the huge difference between an OS for a disposable device, and an OS for computers that is expected to last for a decade or more and is interfaced with massive amounts of custom hardware and software. Unsurprisingly, the type of device and the expected use case for it is a big factor in how long an OS is supported and how OS updates are handled.

Yes, apple want you to upgrade to iOS 7, but if you don't want to (or can't because your hardware is too old) they still provide security patches for iOS 6.

The last update was iOS 6.1.6 in Feb:

6.1.6 was only released for devices that cannot run iOS 7. If you have a device that can run iOS 7, you had to upgrade to iOS 7 in order to get the important security fix, even if the device had iOS 6.x at the time. There was never an iOS 6.1.6 released for iPad 2 or 3, for example.

If they had released an iOS 6.1.6 for iPad 2/3, it would've allowed downgrading from iOS 7.x to iOS 6.x then jailbreaking, something Apple hates with a passion.

If I read it right, the problem is that a number of users are having issues with installing Update 1 and have yet to find solutions... While that really is a problem, I feel that the headline here was meant more to get people bashing some more.

They make things so confusing, whoever makes these decisions are the ones that should be fired from Microsoft! Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update 1. Just name the damn thing 8.2 or Service Pack 1 that everyone is familiar with. Then to top it off Windows 8.1 isn't getting any more updates!!!

Then you have a pro version, this version and that version!

Sorry but life is much more simpler in the Mac world! 10.9.0.....10.9.1....10.9.2.......etc. Then you have Delta Updates that are the point releases and Combo updates that will update you from the 10.9.0 to the latest version say 10.9.9 in one download and one install. Then you don't have 200 updates to download and install.

I think the Microsoft way is superior as you can install/uninstall individual updates incase of problems, but its too complicated!

Life is also simpler in the Mac world because there isn't a triple.NET update every couple of weeks. And the.NET updaters seem to take a lot more time than regular patches. How badly do you have to fuck up a language runtime library to make it need monthly updates? And I'm not talking about just adding new features to the latest one, like with Java. This is.NET 1.x 2.x and 4.x all getting constantly patched.

if you have wsus without ssl, it works fine after importing the update from the catalog.

i don't see the need of ssl on an internal small server, anyway even with ssl you can enable tls 1.2 manually and it will work.

this article is also misleading, since the update itself is a regular update and not labeled "update 1" or even a service pack, but on every windows version out there there are updates that depend on other updates, especially service packs, so nothing new here.

The 1980s called and would like their "my firewall stops ALLLL the hackerz!" approach to security back.

On the server providing updates to all your Windows systems? Thank goodness you have no authority over my network. All the guys on my team get regular reminders about the importance of defense in depth.

Of course SSL isn't anywhere close to bulletproof. Just like a firewall isn't bulletproof. Anti-malware/anti-rootkit applications aren't bulletproof. NIDS/IPS and HIDS aren't bulletproof. All those things together, however, raises the bar for an attacker to successfully locate and exploit a vulnerability and remain undetected. The less of those kinds of things you have in place (and appropriately configured/monitored/alarming/etc), the lower that bar.

Can't tell you how many times I've received the "well if they got this far, it's game over anyway" response, and it's been bullshit every single time. SSL isn't a magic cure-all; it's one of many, many different layers, each of which raise the bar of complexity and difficulty of successful, undetected penetration. Is SSL a super powerful security layer? No, but why take away something that's trivial for you to set up and maintain and which creates additional work for an attacker?

Microsoft only support the current service pack level and all those less than 24 months old for Windows Client and Server.That's the agreement they've given to their customers.They will drop support for 8.1 in 24 months time.

Since there's nothing inherently wrong with Windows 8.1 besides the awful UI, I can't figure why you'd downgrade to Windows 7. Or are you telling me that you can't install another UI and go on your way? I now await people to say that's it's worse than vista, when it's not. Especially when it's main negative feature is the UI.

Speak for yourself. I run both Windows 8 and Windows 7 machines, and my Windows 7 machines are demonstrably more stable and less buggy than my Windows 8 one. (Note: I say one because I've had such a piss-poor experience with Windows 8, which rapidly degrades in performance to the point of near-unusability. And even straight out of the box with a fresh install, it likes to do things such as take multiple *minutes* before task manager appears on a core i5 machine with 8GB of RAM and 50% CPU utilization or les

Speak for yourself. I run both Windows 8 and Windows 7 machines, and my Windows 7 machines are demonstrably more stable and less buggy than my Windows 8 one.

So do I. I actually haven't run across an OS quite as stable as this since Win2k, probably my favorite version of windows. My follow up would be XPx64. If it's taking *that* long on a fresh install, you've got something else going on wrong on your system, either ram timings, spread spectrum, or something esoterically weird going on. I've seen exactly that type of issue before in Win7 and XP, and each case it was something different anything between windows itself trying to remotely grab a driver and get

It sounds like a bad driver or hardware enumeration. But, yes, if windows takes more than a few seconds to get to a login on a SSD based machine (so, what 30-40 seconds on a spinner?) then it's a hardware problem. W8, once I restored the start menu, is no less stable or responsive than my W7 machine. Most of my complaints are over install of OEM versions of the OS that aren't auto-authorized by the bios (most of my machines are Dell, and the Dell OEM OS just installs; no games, no keys, no mess).

But there is. They broke the integrity of the core packaging system by marrying it so deeply to.NET that there are multiple people out there who have to reinstall the OS from scratch because the update broke the package registry irreversibly.

Funny, I didn't hear people bitching and moaning over that when they did the same thing with.net 3.5 in windows 7....which did exactly the same thing.

How is this any different than MS stating in the past that updates required a certain Service Pack in order to be installed. It's worded very poorly, since everyone is going to assume the worst when you say 'Windows 8.1'. Mainly because they're not calling them service packs anymore or incrementing the updates. Windows 8.1 Update 1 would make more sense to people if they simply called it Windows 8.2.

Why not go back to the old SP system and stop this mess of a new update system where some stuff is in the windows store and others is in the windows update system.

As for this not working for all does it have any thing to do with 8.0 to 8.1 being more like a full os upgrade then an SP? and why did make the 8.1 iso not take Windows 8 product keys?

MS needs to go back to how it used to be with XP, vista, 7. Where it's not lot's of separate updates it is rolled up on to big install that has it all or least offer that as a choice not only for people who say have 2-4+ pc's and don't want to have re download the same updates on each pc but in some cases that combo updates work better.

Windows 8.0 was installed on this machine, and it sucked immensely. Then a couple of months ago I got an upgrade to Windows 8.1 courtesy of Windows update, and it hardly sucked at all. Then, a couple of days ago I got my old Windows 8.1 upgraded to new Windows 8.1, and I know it is different because now apps have the big red "X" back in the right hand corner of the window and you can terminate them while they are running. Awesome! At this rate Windows 8.1 will turn into Windows XP around Labor Day. Maybe the boys will rediscover POP3 email at some point.

I installed the update at work - it worked. I installed the update on my old PC - it worked. Tried to install it on my current PC - failed, after taking something like 20 minutes. It then took another half-hour to revert the changes. (On those machines where it worked, it took only 5 minutes or so to install).

Digging around online showed that fiddling around on the command line with dism might help. The online image is corrupted but it's repairable... that is, until you try and use/restorehealth, at which point it moans that there are no sources. Of course there aren't, it was upgraded to 8.1 from 8.0 via the online store.

So, after faffing around and grabbing an install.wim from an old 8.1 iso I had saved at work (not the 8.1 update 1 iso currently on the MS website) I find that dism won't use the image, even after mounting it.

I couldn't then even attempt to reinstall the update, as it failed immediately. Dism was called upon again to remove the update package, then at least it would let me try again... only to fail. Another 45 minutes wasted.

It looks as though the only way to "fix" it is to nuke Windows entirely, then go through the painful 8.0 > 8.1 > 8.1 with Media Center route. Except, of course, to get Media Center reinstalled you have to buy it again - there's no option I can see to re-enter your Meda Center key again because, guess what, when you upgrade to Media Center your Windows product key is changed. And a Windows 8.1 with Media Center key isn't accepted by the 8.1 iso (or at least wasn't when I tried earlier)...

You can upgrade by installing Windows Me, then Vista Ultimate, then enable start menu, disable start menu, 8.0 SP1, Windows ME again but holding ALT-F5 until BSOD appears, then quickly insert the 3.5 floppy with 8.1 patch on it (if you didn't keep a floppy drive.. oh you're so screwed!).

8.1 has received a substantial service release that fixes bugs and enhances the UI (slightly). Why should they support the older version any more? That doesn't excuse them from ensuring the upgrade process is smooth and trouble free but I understand why they are doing this.

This whole thread is absurd, as are all the people jumping on the "bash MS" bandwagon.

* Microsoft will continue to support 8.1, and everyone here KNOWS that.
* Everyone knows that because Microsoft has a bigger problem with having to support old platforms than any other vendor out there. Many posters here generally know this, too, but are being obtuse so that they can harp about Microsoft ending support for a new platform (which isnt even remotely believable).
* The author of the blog even knows that! The Microsoft technet entry says almost the opposite of what the blogger does-- that 8.1 WILL recieve updates. All he got right is that you do need to install a prereq to get them, like we've seen with countless other OSes. The venerable XP does this, too.
* Half the people gloating over the "bugginess of Windows" are fans of an OS that is experiencing one of the biggest internet vulnerabilties in about a decade in its SSL stack, but thats OK in their eyes somehow because its not packaged with the OS and therefore theyre allowed to be buggy.
* Some people are taking the time to smirk about the confusing version numbering of Win8-- which is doubly hillarious given how ridiculous Linux's versioning was until about a year ago.
* And if I had to guess, the aforementioned problems could possibly be related to the aforementioned heartbleed bug, as we dont know what all was leaked and Microsoft is almost certainly not going to want to go into it.

The SSL flaw has been fixed and rolled out very quickly, it was not the first and will not be the last. How many known Security flaws for windows, IE and many other Microsoft products are out there, unfixed?

Could you explain why "Microsoft has a bigger problem with having to support old platforms" than anyone else? They seem to have vast resources and should actually be able to react quicker than others.

Arguing that Microsoft is "bad" because theyre not FOSS (which is really what you are driving at) is irrelevant. Everyone knows they ship proprietary software, but that has no relevance either to this story or to the quality of their code. As we've seen, OpenSSL has a bug that has been hemorrhaging private keys and passwords for days while the closed-source Schannel has not seen such a bug.

Ideological spiels about how Windows sucks simply because its proprietary are really getting kind of old. If you don