Windows 10 Crashes PC

Microsoft, who are used to PR disasters, one only has to go back to when they launched the Xbox One and they said the console needed to be constantly connected to the Internet. 

Now Microsoft’s new operating system that has a compatibility with NVIDIA cards resulting in some PCs falling over completely.

Forbes contributor Gordon Kelly said that the problem revolves around a conflict between automatic updates and Nvidia graphics card updates using Nvidia’s ‘Nvidia GeForce Experience’-a handy tool for all Nvidia GPU owners.

 Basically Microsoft has taken control away from users, and made all updates mandatory-including driver updates. This is a decision meant to increase security and stability across the PC user base, but it comes at a cost.

Users are reporting problems with multi-monitor setups, dual-card configurations (SLI) and PCs not booting properly, setting off Windows 10 emergency recovery mode. More issues are likely to arise.


Click to enlarge
NVIDIA Users facing Windows 10 upgrade problems.


In other words, for a lot of PC users-and for Nvidia-GPU toting gamers in particular-Windows 10 could be problematic, especially at launch. 

Gamers are especially at risk given the much higher likelihood of that demographic running Nvidia graphics cards, as well as dual-GPU and dual-monitor setups.

As of the 29th of July millions of Australians will have no choice but to accept Microsoft Terms and Conditions relating to the Windows 10 upgrade.  

Forbes Magazine said “The pertinent line from the EULA states that Windows 10 users will receive “automatic updates without any additional notice.” It’s that same kind of authoritarian tech language that we’ve seen cause trouble for countless tech companies in the past.

 The key is a certain inhuman quality – the message that people receive is that they simply can’t be trusted with such advanced technology, and the less control they have over their own electronics, the better. We saw the exact same thing when Microsoft said that the Xbox One would need to be constantly connected to the internet in order to function. Gamers saw it as the equivalent of a leash, and Microsoft is still paying the price with Sony now snaring over 70% of the European console market with their PS4.


Just like with the Xbox One, the actual situation is much more complicated than either how it’s been presented or the initial backlash.

 David Thier writing for Fortune said “There are clearly a lot of benefits to using automatic updates: you ensure every user has an equivalent operating system, you simplify tech support a hundred times over, you improve security. The potential problems are obvious, however: as the NVIDIA problem proves, unexpected difficulties happen all the time with complex computer systems, and nobody likes being forced to download a system-breaking bug. 

Microsoft needs to acknowledge these issues and give people more control over their own PCs, especially as Satya Nadella tries to reshape the company’s sometimes rigid image.


The Xbox One disaster has at least given Microsoft a blueprint of how to deal with the problem.  


Compared to Xbox users there are tens of millions more Windows users in the world which means more customers, more problems, and the stakes are higher at every turn especially for people who use Windows in a B2b environment.
David Kelly a Windows expert and a contributor to Fortune said “Given Windows 10 updates cannot be stopped the most obvious solution is to uninstall third party driver management and hand it all over to Windows Update to avoid clashes”.
 

“This potentially simplifies matters by providing an all-in-one update service, but it does mean taking away control from specialist companies over their own products”.


“A second approach is something many readers mentioned in comments on my previous post when Microsoft confirmed Windows 10 updates were unstoppable: hack it.


“Initially this might work, but in April senior Microsoft product marketing manager Helen Harmetz said during a Windows 10 webinar that users who forcibly stopped any Windows 10 updates would eventually have their security updates cut off. Microsoft has yet to confirm this brutal enforcement policy in official documentation, but if this is the path it chooses that would ultimately make any form of update hack pointless”.” Kelly wrote.