Windows 10 Updaye Assistant

[roamer_1]

This all started with losing my main test bench box, CRAWFORD...

Since it died, I had another project box in reserve that I was fixin to replace my outward facing server... Well, it had been sitting there quite a while, Windows 10 installed, but woefully outdated by now.

Other than renaming the box to CRAWFORD, setting a fixed IP where it belongs, and scraping off some network toys, the box was reconfigured and good to go in around a half an hour... Except for updating.

Now, as luck would have it, I received two particular boxes over the counter from clients that were resurrection jobs too. So between those three boxen, I spent ALL DAY yesterday playing nursemaid to standard update practices.

So it ain't the end of the world, I know. It ain't like you gotta hover over em the whole time. But there I was with one foot nailed to the floor checking back for restarts and failures. I started updating CRAWFORD at around 4:30 in the morning, and it got done after 6PM. It was admittedly the worst, but I had to figure out something different.
This sucks.

So I went looking. Man,would I love a Service Pack about now...

So my kid who is an IT dude on Big Iron hears me bitchin about it, which is no surprise, because I called him specifically for that purpose...  And he lets me know...

Just go where you go to get Microsoft's ISO maker gizmo - You know, where you can download the latest version of their ISO (that's here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10), and right across the top of the page there is an update banner... Poke the 'Update Now' button, download that tool, and run it.

Well as luck would have it, I have another project box - A big dog replacement for CICERO, my main server...
So I drug that one around and put it on the bench this morning, and fired her up. It has not run either since sometime last summer... but it started fine, and first thing, I went and got that little tool and let er rip.

That was about an hour ago, and she's up. Nearly all the way up. That's worth knowing about. I will be done with that box before lunch. Well done updating anyway. There's still a couple miles of hard drive replacements so I will be burning down my toasters all day... But you see what I mean.

 

[DB]

Windows 10 updates are sometimes service packs and sometimes complete OS replacements... Its a mess...

Something to watch out for is anything you have setup in things like the task scheduler - to do little things like system backups on a regular schedule - can simply disappear after an "update"... I went awhile before noticing that I hadn't seen any messages for backups being done before I realized it had all simply disappeared... Very annoying...

Other important settings disappear too... Not the way to run an OS for business or the masses...

[roamer_1]

Windows 10 updates are sometimes service packs and sometimes complete OS replacements... Its a mess...

Something to watch out for is anything you have setup in things like the task scheduler - to do little things like system backups on a regular schedule - can simply disappear after an "update"... I went awhile before noticing that I hadn't seen any messages for backups being done before I realized it had all simply disappeared... Very annoying...

Other important settings disappear too... Not the way to run an OS for business or the masses...

Yeah, updates scramble the crap out of things sometimes.... If it's bad, believe me, just nuke and pave.

But this 'update' was altogether painless. It's done, right now

[DB]

That's one of those things that needs to be a short list of notes somewhere that can be found easily... When you need it you need it...

[bigheadfred]

I've always considered updates to be dangerous wild animals.

[roamer_1]

That's one of those things that needs to be a short list of notes somewhere that can be found easily... When you need it you need it...

That's the thing... It's right there on the page you'd go to to get the ISO... I don't have to remember that... That's in my ken already, as I burn a new ISO with every major rendition anyway. So any time there is a new major update, go get the new ISOmaker, and pick up the new update doohickey at the same dang time... This little gizmo truly takes the place of the service pack, and it was something that went wanting.

Those two machines were pretty comparable. They both landed on the shelf when my business sh*t the bed w/ the woohan... Money dried way up, so all my futures and projects went on hold... So they were on a similar order...

One took 14 hours, the other took an hour and change. Ain't a perfect comparison, but the difference is enough that I ain't got to care about any disparity - This is just flat worth doing. 

[roamer_1]

I've always considered updates to be dangerous wild animals.

I am the other way around. I try pretty hard to stay on the leading edge of the update curve. I probably could have saved the old CRAWFORD (RIP), but I would have had to hack in the drivers, and settled the machine BEFORE the drivers got took out... which means stopping updates to that machine... Making it a weird duck, and I dunno about you, but I have enough weird ducks already - I cant keep track of them all as it is.

So the minute it became a special case was the minute I decided to take er out back and put her out of my misery. 

[Elderberry]

I had gone so long without a Win10 update that several  of my apps updates were failing. So I kicked off a windows update and it refused to update as I had Oracle VirtualBox installed. So I go to uninstall it and the uninstaller failed. I then purged all I could find, except for going thru the registry. Win10 update still refused to run. I then connected to a Windows tech in India. He spent a couple of hours trying and just finally hacked it to just stop looking for Oracle anymore and then the update finally did its thing. Afterward I reinstalled Oracle VirtualBox.

[roamer_1]

I had gone so long without a Win10 update that several  of my apps updates were failing. So I kicked off a windows update and it refused to update as I had Oracle VirtualBox installed. So I go to uninstall it and the uninstaller failed. I then purged all I could find, except for going thru the registry. Win10 update still refused to run. I then connected to a Windows tech in India. He spent a couple of hours trying and just finally hacked it to just stop looking for Oracle anymore and then the update finally did its thing. Afterward I reinstalled Oracle VirtualBox.

That's kinda why I quit shutting updates off... You get behinder enough and it's really an easier matter to just nuke and pave - But then, you are doing that JUST to get to the updates that you eschewed. So ynot just update in the first place?

I get it though, I do. I HAVE to fix it. I spent DAYS trying to fix CRAWFORD (RIP), to include a full rub. I know where it ate it's drivers. I came to that knowledge the very hard way. All in the mad attempt to save an AMD Athlon II machine... How dumb, right? But hey, It's a test box. It mainly grinds hdds through repairs and it had plenty of poop for that, even running through the add-on card that gave me USB3.

But at some point... It's an Athlon II that is literally so old that I could not sell parts off it. At some point, She's dead, Jim. And I am happy for it. Painful as it was (especially because I LOST, and could not fix it), CRAWFORD now has super power, big RAM, And most important of all, it will sleep again.

So yeah, If you are way-behinder, you may need to nuke it and start over. And sometimes that won't even work out.

But if you are somewhere in the mid-behinder, That update tool is cream. Upping CICERO was a very painless hour or two. Compared to upping the new CRAWFORD, That's a cake-walk.

[roamer_1]

And btw, upping apps is another thing. They don't always up with Win Updates like they should.
Go to store, and in the triple-dot on the upper right, select 'Downloads and Updates', let it populate, and 'Get Updates'

I do that to every client box that comes in, and end every update checking there.