From: Timothy Knox Date: 23:47 on 28 Aug 2007 Subject: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? I hate Microsoft Windows with a passion, but that in and of itself is too easy to be worthy of mention here. Fish. Barrel. Dynamite. Boom! However, the Windows box I am forced to use at work (for testing certain kinds of streaming media, players for which do not exist on Linux) recently prompted a much more detailed and specific hate. First, the annoying "Updates are available for your computer. Click here to install them" bubble would appear, repeatedly, every so often. Finally, being sufficiently annoyed with the bubble, I clicked there, and installed them. It finished by saying something to the effect of "Windows must now restart your computer for these changes to take effect." The dialog had two buttons: "Restart now" and "Restart later". Well, I was not ready to "restart now" so I clicked "restart later". Apparently, that is not the right name for the button. It should instead be named, "Come back in no more than two minutes, and ask me again, and again, and AGAIN!" AAAARGGGH! I can't stand it any more! Why doesn't it occur to the folks at Microsoft that I just might be, yanno, busy right now, and not really ready to "restart now". How about interpreting "restart later" to mean, sleep for an hour (or more), then try again. Better still, why not let me specify a time when I won't mind if it restarts, like oh, say, 3AM? But no, Microsoft knows better than me how urgent this is, that I need to restart *now* doggone it, *NOW*! "Oh, cut the bleeding heart crap, will ya? We've all got our switches, lights, and knobs to deal with, Striker. I mean, down here there are literally hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking and beeping and flashing - they're *flashing* and they're *beeping*. I can't stand it anymore! They're *blinking* and *beeping* and *flashing*!"
From: Steve Peters Date: 01:14 on 29 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? The more hateful part of the dialog is the idea that not clicking is interpreted as "I'm too lazy to click so I guess you can restart now." One fine afternoon, I went upstairs for a cup of coffee and came back to a freshly restarted PC. I guess I didn't need those code changes. On 8/28/07, Timothy Knox <tdk@xxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > I hate Microsoft Windows with a passion, but that in and of itself is too easy > to be worthy of mention here. Fish. Barrel. Dynamite. Boom! > > However, the Windows box I am forced to use at work (for testing certain kinds > of streaming media, players for which do not exist on Linux) recently prompted a > much more detailed and specific hate. > > First, the annoying "Updates are available for your computer. Click here to > install them" bubble would appear, repeatedly, every so often. Finally, being > sufficiently annoyed with the bubble, I clicked there, and installed them. > > It finished by saying something to the effect of "Windows must now restart your > computer for these changes to take effect." The dialog had two buttons: "Restart > now" and "Restart later". Well, I was not ready to "restart now" so I clicked > "restart later". Apparently, that is not the right name for the button. > > It should instead be named, "Come back in no more than two minutes, and ask me > again, and again, and AGAIN!" AAAARGGGH! I can't stand it any more! Why doesn't > it occur to the folks at Microsoft that I just might be, yanno, busy right now, > and not really ready to "restart now". How about interpreting "restart later" to > mean, sleep for an hour (or more), then try again. Better still, why not let me > specify a time when I won't mind if it restarts, like oh, say, 3AM? But no, > Microsoft knows better than me how urgent this is, that I need to restart *now* > doggone it, *NOW*! > > "Oh, cut the bleeding heart crap, will ya? We've all got our switches, lights, > and knobs to deal with, Striker. I mean, down here there are literally hundreds > and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking and beeping > and flashing - they're *flashing* and they're *beeping*. I can't stand it > anymore! They're *blinking* and *beeping* and *flashing*!" > > -- > Timothy Knox <mailto:tdk@xxxxxxxx.xxx>; > 90% of everything is crud. And for software the other 10% is worse. > -- Nicholas Clark > >
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 02:34 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? Steve Peters wrote: > The more hateful part of the dialog is the idea that not clicking is > interpreted as "I'm too lazy to click so I guess you can restart now." > One fine afternoon, I went upstairs for a cup of coffee and came back > to a freshly restarted PC. I guess I didn't need those code changes. OS X Software Update doesn't even give you the option. You restart or... you restart. And the damn thing will keep bouncing in the dock until you do. Fortunately you can just Force Quit the application and that's that.
From: Joe Mahoney Date: 03:32 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? > OS X Software Update doesn't even give you the option. You restart or... you > restart. And the damn thing will keep bouncing in the dock until you do. > > Fortunately you can just Force Quit the application and that's that. Why run the software update if you don't want to update? Joe
From: Timothy Knox Date: 03:42 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? Somewhere on Shadow Earth, at Thu, Aug 30, 2007 at 02:32:37PM +1200, Joe Mahoney wrote: > > OS X Software Update doesn't even give you the option. You restart or... you > > restart. And the damn thing will keep bouncing in the dock until you do. > > > > Fortunately you can just Force Quit the application and that's that. > > Why run the software update if you don't want to update? Good question. ;-) BTW, apparently even the Microsofties are bugged by this: http://neopoleon.com/home/blogs/neo/archive/2007/08/24/26758.aspx
From: Joe Mahoney Date: 04:16 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? Here's an idea: let's put context back to software updates rather than an analogy. It's my experience the longer I leave a reboot after a reboot-requiring update the more stability problems I have after the reboot. It makes no logical sense but if you're on this list YOU KNOW IT TO BE TRUE. So the sensible thing to do is not use a computer at all, but failing that, the next best option is to do the update/reboot at the same time or don't do the update at all. Joe
From: Alan Amaya Date: 04:41 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? The Windows updater has an install and shutdown / reboot option to separate the downloading from the installing. Somehow for me this is the default and yet it still prompts for reboot as soon as it has finished downloading. On 8/29/07, Joe Mahoney <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > Here's an idea: let's put context back to software updates rather than > an analogy. > > It's my experience the longer I leave a reboot after a > reboot-requiring update the more stability problems I have after the > reboot. It makes no logical sense but if you're on this list YOU KNOW > IT TO BE TRUE. > > So the sensible thing to do is not use a computer at all, but failing > that, the next best option is to do the update/reboot at the same time > or don't do the update at all. > > Joe >
From: H.Merijn Brand Date: 06:47 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:32:37 +1200, "Joe Mahoney" <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > OS X Software Update doesn't even give you the option. You restart or... you > > restart. And the damn thing will keep bouncing in the dock until you do. > > > > Fortunately you can just Force Quit the application and that's that. > > Why run the software update if you don't want to update? Because some updates are important and are easily applied without reboot. The main problem is the hateful way M$ refuses to separate the reboot patches and the non-reboot patches for you to choose from, and also doesn't tell you in advance that applying this patch needs a reboot. Instead of that, they took the hateful easy way out and start with a message that applying the patch might or might not need a reboot. Very helpful indeed :/
From: Joe Mahoney Date: 07:15 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? Well I was replying to the email about os x specific software update. In that case you have a simple, easy choice or updating or not. No need to force quit, no need to be annoyed at having to force quit. Why people even discuss windows updates on this list is beyond me. To paraphrase a CSI character: a man could post about windows updates from sun up to sunset, and still has hate would never be done. Joe
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 07:37 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? Joe Mahoney wrote: > Well I was replying to the email about os x specific software update. > In that case you have a simple, easy choice or updating or not. No > need to force quit, no need to be annoyed at having to force quit. > > Why people even discuss windows updates on this list is beyond me. To > paraphrase a CSI character: a man could post about windows updates > from sun up to sunset, and still has hate would never be done. Being clever and original and whitty and hating something nobody else has hated before is not the point. It's also not the point to solve people's problem or tell them they shouldn't be hateful. That's some other list. The point of the list is to hate software, the software we have to deal with every day. For a lot of us that means Windows. And it's better to snap off a quick post about your hate then to snap off someone's head.
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 07:12 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? Joe Mahoney wrote: >> OS X Software Update doesn't even give you the option. You restart or... you >> restart. And the damn thing will keep bouncing in the dock until you do. >> >> Fortunately you can just Force Quit the application and that's that. > > Why run the software update if you don't want to update? Because it can take a long time. And rather than stare at the moving progress bar or, god forbid, do something not involving the computer for a while, I start doing something else while update does its thing. Then when the update finishes I want to finish up what I'm doing before restarting. Point is, as always, LET ME MAKE THE GOD DAMNED DECISION YOU MISERABLE PILE OF MICROCHIPS! Let me, the user, choose between the possibility of a bit of instability vs convenience. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. What's the worst that happens? The computer crashes and I restart it which is what it was trying to force me to do in the first place! Besides, it's Unix. It can take a pretty bad beating before it loses its shit. It shouldn't even need a restart! Debian has spoiled me about a lot of things, and this is one of them. If Debian can update libc without needing a restart I think Apple can figure out how to update Quicktime without needing one.
From: Peter da Silva Date: 16:24 on 30 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? > Besides, it's Unix. It can take a pretty bad beating before it loses > its > shit. It shouldn't even need a restart! Debian has spoiled me about > a lot of > things, and this is one of them. If Debian can update libc without > needing a > restart I think Apple can figure out how to update Quicktime without > needing one. I guess Debian expects users to realize that if you update a component that a GUI app depends on, you need to restart that application before continuing. Apple doesn't expect that level of sophistication from users. Most of the times Software Update asks you to restart all you really need to do is restart one or two apps or at worst log out and in again to get the same results. The big difference here is that while Microsoft and Apple both oversimplify things for normal users, Apple does two things that Microsoft doesn't. First, they DO attempt to avoid restarts... software updates don't always require a restart. Second, they assume if you think you know enough to kill the process you're an adult and should be allowed to go to heck your own way.
From: Jody Belka Date: 01:30 on 29 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 03:47:12PM -0700, Timothy Knox wrote: > It finished by saying something to the effect of "Windows must now restart your > computer for these changes to take effect." The dialog had two buttons: "Restart > now" and "Restart later". Well, I was not ready to "restart now" so I clicked > "restart later". Apparently, that is not the right name for the button. > > It should instead be named, "Come back in no more than two minutes, and ask me > again, and again, and AGAIN!" AAAARGGGH! Not that it reduces the hate in any way of course, but it should be noted that it is relatively easy to stop windows from doing this nagging.
From: Robert G. Werner Date: 01:36 on 29 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? Jody Belka wrote: > On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 03:47:12PM -0700, Timothy Knox wrote: >> It finished by saying something to the effect of "Windows must now restart your >> computer for these changes to take effect." The dialog had two buttons: "Restart >> now" and "Restart later". Well, I was not ready to "restart now" so I clicked >> "restart later". Apparently, that is not the right name for the button. >> >> It should instead be named, "Come back in no more than two minutes, and ask me >> again, and again, and AGAIN!" AAAARGGGH! > > Not that it reduces the hate in any way of course, but it should be noted > that it is relatively easy to stop windows from doing this nagging. > > not if you are not Administrator on the box. But I guess only 'Administrators' aren't sheep?
From: H.Merijn Brand Date: 06:13 on 29 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:47:12 -0700, Timothy Knox <tdk@xxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > I hate Microsoft Windows with a passion, but that in and of itself is too easy > to be worthy of mention here. Fish. Barrel. Dynamite. Boom! > > However, the Windows box I am forced to use at work (for testing certain kinds > of streaming media, players for which do not exist on Linux) recently prompted a > much more detailed and specific hate. > > First, the annoying "Updates are available for your computer. Click here to > install them" bubble would appear, repeatedly, every so often. Finally, being > sufficiently annoyed with the bubble, I clicked there, and installed them. > > It finished by saying something to the effect of "Windows must now restart your > computer for these changes to take effect." The dialog had two buttons: "Restart > now" and "Restart later". Well, I was not ready to "restart now" so I clicked > "restart later". Apparently, that is not the right name for the button. And of course, that dialog is a modal dialog, which, if you happen to be a keyboard junk, and not really a mouse user, is easy to `click' the default (wrong) choice of *now*, with a space or return, two keys that are used quite often. Very very friendly if you are typing a mail or using putty or some other useful text entry application and didn't look at the screen, but at the keyboard when that fucking dialog comes up.
From: Earle Martin Date: 11:36 on 29 Aug 2007 Subject: Re: Restart now, or restart in two minutes? On 28/08/2007, Timothy Knox <tdk@xxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > It finished by saying something to the effect of "Windows must now restart your > computer for these changes to take effect." The dialog had two buttons: "Restart > now" and "Restart later". Well, I was not ready to "restart now" so I clicked > "restart later". Apparently, that is not the right name for the button. This is shaping up to be one of the hates-software classic hates. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Ahates-software.com+%22restart+later%22 Maybe somebody should compile a "top of the hates" chart, by frequency of occurrence.
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