I spent 45 minutes or so writing up a post in Windows Live Writer this evening. All the while I repeatedly dismissed a Windows Update countdown dialog that was asking for a restart. “Not now, dammit. I’m writing something.”
Then the phone rang. Someone wanted to talk to my wife. She was in the process of reading a good-night story to my older daughter. The caller couldn’t wait. So I volunteered to read another chapter of the story.
When I got back, Windows was at the logon screen. Dammit, the Windows Update had gone through with the restart, with me not there to dismiss the countdown dialog.
And Windows Live Writer hadn’t saved a draft.
Both programs violated two cardinal rules for software: Don’t ever do something the user didn’t ask for, and don’t ever, ever, ever lose the user’s data. It’s worse than what Jeff Atwood talked about recently, since there were no crashes involved.
I’m so mad I’m not even sure I’ll want to re-write that other post. It has the potential to help out a fellow developer. Maybe I’ll do it. But right now I hate Windows Update. Or Windows Live Writer. Take your pick.
Categories: Microsoft, Software, Software development
5 Comments »
5 Responses to “I hate Windows Update right now. Or Windows Live writer. Take your pick.”
With some compassion, I agree and realize that this happens to me once a year with different software as well. Vista has in addition some really annoying ‘features’ which seems to tell us that we are so unaware of security issues that the computer should decide. Maybe developers and IT-people are smarter than the average user, I donno. I takes in any case quite a while to have faith in one’s OS again, isn’t it?
I hate the updater, because of what it does where I attend school. We are comissioned laptops, without the administrator accounts, so when the update restart box comes up, we cannot postpone it.
I’m just sitting in an internet café downloading an important 300 MB file. Nearly finished, Windows restarts. Another waiting of 1 hour…
Seriously, How stupid do you have to be to put a countdown on the update restarter
Beat this .. everytime the annoying update takes place .. some piece of hardware stops working in my laptop. Last time there was an update my mouse pad and keyboard stopped working. I did a system restore .. the laptop does not restart and all that when i have a assignment due next day .
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