Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Windows Update Gripe



Windows Update is a great thing. However, in normal software fashion they have seemed to forget about the users and have focused on the problem of updating computer software. Why do I say this? For one great reason, un-prompted reboots.

I don't know how other people use their computers but I keep all my programs up and running on my computer when I leave for the day. This way I can quickly get back into working when I look at it next. To me it is like having a mental bookmark of what I was doing the previous session. But when Windows Update runs it more often than not requires a reboot, this is fine and I understand that there are a lot of shared resources in Windows causing the reboot. However, if a program is going to do that do one of two things.

1) Wait for a user to come back and prompt them (of course give them an option so they can do automatic reboots if they want) so the user can keep a mental checklist of stuff they were working on for when the computer comes back up.
2) Save the state of the desktop at that point in time of a reboot. This way the next time the user logs in their desktop is exactly like what they had. Doing something like this is already done in browsers why not on desktops? OSX does something close to it but not super close.

Granted the best solution would be not to require reboots at all. This has been done fairly well for servers why not desktops? I understand this could be pretty expensive but why not do it for the pleasure of the users? Or maybe I am just the random crack pot who thinks like this :).

1 Comments:

Blogger Jesse said...

Preach on brother Caffeinated Dude! Auto-reboots are like a swift kick in the groin to your work-flow!

1:30 PM  

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