[vijucat]

It's become a universal truth that you should probably not upgrade to the latest and non-greatest version of ANYTHING these days. Not Android, not Windows, not iOS, not macOS. It's just embarrassing how companies with market caps sometimes above $1T produce workslop.

I use Windows Update Blocker on Windows 10 to keep it "protected" from upgrades (!). I can see that critical security updates are occurring despite this, so it's a good compromise. For now. When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable.

[PunchyHamster]

It's such a stark contrast, my home servers just run unattended-upgrade (on Debian) with no problems, I just do the major version upgrade every year.

Meanwhile everything consumer and most enterprise is as you said, "don't upgrade if it is not broken, else you WILL feel pain".

Companies basically trained bad security habits into their user base

[Saris]

Yeah Debian is really stable because its so far behind the current releases, lots of testing has been done by the time it updates a package. Great for servers and stuff you just want to set and forget with auto updates.

[phoronixrly]

Do you do the major version upgrade the minute it's announced? Be honest.

[jerriep]

> When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable.

I think it will still be objectively bad. But maybe compared to Windows 12, it will seem good.

[FridayoLeary]

They say every second version of windows is bad. 8 was so bad they skipped straight to 10. But given the current priorities of Windows i'm not holding my breath. They seem to have abandoned the idea that "things should work" as a key principle. 10 was around for an extraordinarily long time but 11 has very few good ideas.

[basilikum]

If you're forced to use Windows, just use Windows 10 LTSC 2021 IoT. Gets security updates until 2031 but none of the new "features".

[dijit]

its not easy to use this legally though.

[oefrha]

My Windows 11 Pro installation is helpfully stuck on 23H2 since every time it attempts to install a newer version it simply gets stuck on a black screen and requires a forced power cycle and subsequent auto-restore, wasting forty minutes in the process.

[butlike]

Counter-point: I upgrade day 1 (or in a reasonable timeframe) because I know there's no way the company will ever "go back" on what they're doing. If the new UI nukes the pleasant atmosphere of the OS by making all the icons look glass-like, then I'd better get used to it now. I don't want to forego upgrading, then have to learn a bunch of new features ON TOP of the UI differences.

For example, iOS 26 introduced the liquid glass, which, coupled with how some UI elements work, was essentially the only change. If I wait until the inevitable iOS 36, I'll have to learn the UI paradigm on top of 10 versions worth of functional upgrades. The delta would be too large for me.

[jayd16]

For fun, try a version of Windows Server 2025 with the desktop GUI. Its actually kind of awesome to see what they can do when they care to.

[I_dream_of_Geni]

Interesting take. I've used MacOS for 30+ years, and for the last 20 years have had zero problems with updating immediately... For that matter, iOS has been flawless also.

[jrajav]

You've either been very lucky or haven't been using much older software. macOS updates routinely cause issues early in the release cycle, particularly with backwards compatibility. Working in creative fields with lots of niche applications and plugins in use makes this a lot more apparent. Catalina in particular was a total nightmare.

[cschep]

flawless is a wild take.

[evanjrowley]

Are you running Sequoia or Tahoe now?

[sharts]

cool story, bro.

[anal_reactor]

Android has reached the state of complete maturity. For years already major version releases were mostly shifting icons around. There's zero reason to update.

[DANmode]

Security.

[Saris]

Same goes for some of the desktop focused Linux distros, I had Fedora KDE break the login screen from a bad update that got pushed out. It's best to just wait to update anything important.

[askl]

> When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable.

I'm not using windows anymore, but at least since Windows XP I felt like only every other release of Windows was usable. So my upgrade path was XP, Vista, 10, completely skipping over the bad releases Vista and 8. So just skip over 11, Windows 12 might be an okay release again.

[bluescrn]

Not holding out much hope for a good Win12 given the priorities seem to be to wreck the UI/UX, remove customisation options, turn things into advertising billboards, and force AI into everything (even bloody Notepad).

[havblue]

We used to say this about Star Trek movies as well before determining that they're mostly bad. I've moved on from Trek and I'm fine with moving on from Windows.

[deafpolygon]

> When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable.

Knowing Microsoft, feels like they’ll just make it a mandatory security update.

[zoeysmithe]

Its not, instead you should install security updates in a timely fashion. People blocking windows update and being left super vulnerable isn't the solution. This bug was from an august update that affected some people. I think people are overplaying this to justify a dangerous 'dont fix if not broken.' No, your system is broken if its vulnerable.

[QuadrupleA]

Unfortunately companies use the "security boogeyman" to push ever-increasing ads, telemetry, performance degradation, features you probably don't want that disrupt your workflow and muscle memory, breaking API changes to libraries, etc.

If you could sign a contract with e.g. Microsoft (or hell, NPM) to only receive updates that explicitly fix bugs and security holes, that'd be amazing - but I've rarely if ever seen it.

[Telaneo]

If the choice is between being broken behind the scenes and broken in your face, it's no wonder people pick the former.

If Microsoft and the like really cared about security, they'd push security completely separately from feature updates, allowing people to get the benefit of updates, without the negatives of those update breaking their environment.

Or better yet, not push updates that break that break their environment in the first place. Security is a nice excuse for Microsoft to get you to update, but it's been used so many times to push hostile experiences to users that I can't blame the users for not wanting to be burned. The fault lies entirely with Microsoft and other companies for pushing hostile changes and chipping away at their goodwill.

It hurts, Microsoft. Why are you doing this to us? (It's money. It's always money.)

[estimator7292]

I'm a major version behind on LineageOS. So far behind that it just gave up on offering me updates.

And honestly I'm going to keep it this way until something breaks. I'm absolutely fucking sick of my phone nagging me to update every couple of weeks. Besides, at this point I have to manually flash the new version and I just can't be bothered.

The only way to back up your phone is with some weirdass encryption. It generates a long password for you that you MUST write on physical paper in the real world with your actual hands. They disabled any and all method to digitally record this password.

It's all so disrespectful. This is my goddamn phone, I paid for it on cold hard cash, and it is mine to do with as I please. Fuck absolutely anyone who tries to force some particular interaction.

I have a few windows 10 VMs around and they all are firewalled from Microsoft. They don't like it, which pleases me.

[Madmallard]

which windows update blocker do you use?

[defrost]

All around, for everything, I cannot recommend the Chris Titus (and friends) WinUtil enough:

https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil

It's a suite of powershell scripts and tweaks that are open source for inspection frontended by a nifty powershell multi tabbed TUI (Text User Interface) widget.

There's a tab for upgrades and installs of common dev / tech / power user tools; a tab for tweaks; a tab for windows update options; a tab for building install disks / VM's (eg: minimal for gaming or for hosting windows applications in Qubes, etc).

Update Tab can select all updates / only critical / none ever / advise and let you choose.

To use, you do need to 'trust' (or inspect the work of and download source and self apply) a pool of windows tech nerds - you literally open a powershell admin window and pipe raw boot script over the internet and give it control to bring up the TUI.

This could be malware (but isn't, last I checked) - same risk with all such tools d/loaded from internet of course.

See Usage on github page - various writeups and youtube tutorials.

It'll rip the AI addons, Copilot, and Snapshot and Spy stuff right out of Windows 10 / 11.

Easy to use and follow.

[vachina]

Go to system32 and take ownership of wuaeng.dll and qmgr.dll and restrict access to only your user. Works on 10 and 11.

Windows will chug along as if Windows Update never existed (forever).

[vijucat]

I have this one https://www.sordum.org/9470/windows-update-blocker-v1-8/

I will check out the Chris Titus link someone else posted below, too, but that seems more risky.

[majkinetor]

This one not only blocks OTB update but lets you cherry-pick whatever is available afterward. From the creator of Sandboxie, another must have tool.

https://github.com/DavidXanatos/wumgr

[bheadmaster]

I think it's Windows Update Blocker:

https://www.sordum.org/downloads/?st-windows-update-blocker

[GoblinSlayer]

Isn't it microsoft who blocks updates after it discontinued windows 10?

[giancarlostoro]

Arch Linux user here...

[Zardoz84]

Except Linux

[codedokode]

To be fair, Linux has always been like this, breaking things with updates. Linux was ahead of commercial companies, but they caught up with it.

[lionkor]

Im always happy to update my arch install, because I usually get new features to play with, and my system has not broken due to updates in 4 years.

[pjmlp]

Better stick to LTS distros and even then....

[MisterTea]

> It's become a universal truth that you should probably not upgrade to the latest and non-greatest version of ANYTHING these days. Not Android,

If you even have control... I have a Google Pixel 8 which was nagging me to update to the latest and greatest Android when my phone was already working just fine. I kept putting it off and rescheduling it until two weeks ago. I was driving home from work, phone in the cup holder, listening to music when the music suddenly stopped. I picked up my phone to see if it was a call or the shitty Honda Bluetooth crapped out again but to my surprise, my phone was powered off. Huh? Never had a phone just turn off like that. I let it sit for a bit to see if it was rebooting but no, it was off. So I powered it back on and suddenly I'm looking at new animations and realize that somehow the OS update forcefully installed itself. WTF. I am not sure if I accidentally scheduled the install, highly doubt it, but there it is, I had the update forced on to me.

IThe best p[art is this latest and greatest Android that I did not need or want has a regression where swiping down the notification menu has a 5+ seconds delay to populate the menu with the notifications. So yeah, totally worth it... /s

[noja]

Not true! The AI revolution has led to an explosion in software quality. The amount of fixed bugs and testing that AI-leaders such as MS have achieved is unprecedented. We will look back on this era as the golden age of software quality.

[pmontra]

I think that you missed a /s at the end of the post. I can continue it with "Yes, we had an explosion in software quality and it's in shards all over the place."

[hulitu]

> The AI revolution has led to an explosion in software quality

Right, the software quality literally exploded. But, unfortunately, this was before AI. It came roughly at the same time Agile was becoming mainstream

[vijucat]

I disagree with "the golden age of software quality". For example, right now, on the front page of HN, is this article, "After Windows Update, Password icon invisible, click where it used to be", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46116567. I could be wrong, but it feels as if this egregious error is AI workslop?!

[pseufaux]

Reference? My anecdotal experience so far leads me to believe the opposite.

[steve1977]

This is irony. Right? This is irony?