What's the verdict on Windows 10 April 2018 Update?

Just a nomenclature nit. "Bricking" is when a software update screws up the device so badly that it cannot be salvaged, at all. Examples are installing the wrong firmware on a phone, and now the device cannot boot up enough to install the correct firmware. It is completely and totally useless as a phone. It's just a brick.

If you can install Linux, then your laptop is not bricked. Your Windows installation was hosed. But, you still have the ability to make the computer usable.

OK, you can also get the PC "bricked", upon hassling with the BIOS upgrade or otherwise having the m/b dying, which should be replaced, but may become too costly especially with the laptops et al., with desktop maybe still an alternative.

I'm still waiting for a solution for "un-bricking" my 2 Windows 10 laptops so that I can reinstall Win.10. But, neither Microsoft or the PC manufacturer or online forums, or anything else has produced a fix for this yet. I

'm about to give up on Windows though, and just try installing Linux Mint onto those 2 machines. Not having a working laptop has given me a lot of time to watch YouTube videos about Linux, and to read about Linux online, and the more I learn, the more I think that I'm going to like Linux more than Windows anyway.

Dis you hit F12 during the early boot stages and try to use any of the recovery solutions? Did you make a set of recovery thumb drives? If you can install LINUX you should be able to wipe the HDD partition and boot from media. You may need to take it somewhere and have it checked out.
If you really want to go with Linux, that's fine. But you may still need LINUX drivers if you are working on a laptop.. BTW, if the laptop is old, you may not have some of the F12 recovery items. Will depend on your BIOS. Speaking of BIOS, did you try to hit F2 during the early boot up and go into setup and make sure UEFI is turned off (if recent laptop)?
Anyway, those are things to try.

THANK YOU--i'll try those suggestions.

Those are just suggestions based on things I've seen. I've never seen YOUR computer so I don't know and I wouldn't know what to try first. But, Good Luck with it.

The choice to use Linux turns on WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO USE YOUR COMPUTER FOR. If you merely wish to surf the Web and read e-mail, you'll almost NEVER miss Windoze. I have a dual-boot machine and use Linux Mint routinely with no issues and it is VERY STABLE.

On the other hand, if you must exchange M$ Office files with others, use uncommon devices (read: Linux may not have drivers), etc., you will certainly miss Windoze. If you're an intermediate-level technically, you can work around the issues, but beginners won't wish to bother.

Downloading a "Live CD," and taking Linux for a spin is a painless way to test Linux without risk, nor any permanent changes to your computer, ALL FOR FREE.

Just my $0.02 in the hopes of helping someone else.....

i noticed that several people here couldn't understand how the Windows 10 update messed up TWO of my machines since, according to them, I should have disabled all Windows updates for at least thirty days and then install them only after finding out that everyone else had finally updated successfully, with no problems. (Pioneers take the arrows.) But, Windows users just assume that Microsoft is not going to screw-up their PCs with their updates, and the default setting for Windows is to allow all system updates.

Never again will I trust Microsoft or Windows. Using either Linux OS or Mac OS from now on should eliminate that problem from happening in the future.

P.S.--Russian Roulette is a very accurate description of the Windows/Microsoft update process. It's like a ticking time-bomb waiting to go off without warning.

For all these people who have commented and reported big problems, nobody can put a finger on why it's happening? I'll guess and say Microsoft will say it's a tiny percentage. If it was common, they'd have put a halt on downloads. So nobody knows why it's happening. That's as sad a story as the accounts of bricked computers.

At over 100 at the office and extended family, not one failure. I love getting these failures but this one is both rare and not always the same cause.

That rankles some. If you must know why you have either call Microsoft (pose as a reporter or blogger?) or get in there and fix one.

As I posted on the next week's topic, there are a bazillion computers, almost all of them with unique configurations. Of the problems posted here, likely most have a different cause/set of circumstances from each other.

And the geek in me is still bothered by the use of the word "brick" to describe a hosed Windows installation. Those are two different things. It's like when people say they "downloaded the program off CD" when they mean they installed the program.

Sure, it makes sense that there is more than one reason, but can anybody put a finger on ANY ONE reason? Again, I'm still trying to say "for people who's Windows 10 has -------, don't let it update; disable Windows Update for now".

Someone posted a link to an article with multiple reported problems with proposed solutions to many of them. Is that what you're looking for?

Or, are you looking for contraindications, to warn people not to update? Some of that might be in that link. And, I think there's a list of processors that it doesn't support, somewhere. There might be a list of other hardware that it doesn't support.

I think a lot of what I'm reading here concerns drivers and "impatience". Yes, I get the black screen after that final boot which should be replaced with something else, but it always clears up after an hour or so. These cumulative updates take a LOT of time. Much more time than XP or W7. I was thinking about putting together a class in basic computer concepts and computer maintenance for my local senior center but trying to explain that to the 90 year old volunteer receptionist might be difficult. At least it would get me out of the house....

No, the problem is much more than that. The new update was fully installed. I allowed it plenty of time to "settle down". I restarted the machines many times. I tried many different recommended potential solutions (over the course of many days) and none of them fixed the problems. It's a Windows thing. It's a Microsoft thing. Thank God for Linux and Mac OS so that we have some badly needed alternatives!

There are some new articles out that the primary issue with many black screens point to issues with those two. Just came out today. But that's OK. You are free to use whatever is best for you.

OK, yes, I admit you have got into the worst possible situtation with this Win10 1803 Upgrade, having two quite new machines with processors just now got incompatible with Win10, unexpectedly with no warning or preparing or pre-checking done, but sure there is also many more others facing this same!

This is due to some fatal incompatibilities between these processor and OS architectures, which Intel and Microsoft may not even have been noting in advance, or not willing to react on due to costs, or maybe not even at all being able to solve, who knows ...

This type of situations come up nowadays all the time on all manufacturers of different components, because everything in big scale shall/will got renewed all the time, but, in most and good cases they are informed well in advance publicly to be noted and prepared for before the upgrades are released ...

So, anyway, all the machines/components will got "out-of-date" due to ageing during some time, but of course hopefully not in so short time like yours, noting, that some may be in life, maybe with some increasing restrictions, even 20yrs.

Still, further, note that in Windows, as well as in Linux, MacOS, Android, iOS etc., mainframes etc., machines/software/components etc., there have during times been several fatal bug/update/upgrade/technical problematic situations, even catastrophs, sure in all of them!

And one more point, maybe also to be taken in consideration, what may the "sometimes hopefully very rarely" needed deep technical support then would cost on different environments …

First, I'd suggest getting your own drivers and not using Microsoft drivers if you can avoid it. Sometimes, MS doesn't realize that their sending out drivers does NOT always help especially if they don't keep them current and don't understand slight differences in makes and models of cards and devices could cause an issue. The device drivers ARE a big deal! As I've explained before, where I worked, we determined that laptops and tablets have a much more delicate time with drivers than full desktops. Many portable systems do not share chip sets and other things with their desktop counterparts. So, my first suggestion is to go to the support sites for every piece of hardware that you have (especially if you added it after you bought the main system. I'm more familiar with Dell and they have service codes and numbers on the label on the outside to help you get the right drivers from their website. Make sure they all run properly on your system and keep them on a jump drive or DVD for use later in case a device doesn't work. Some here have reported drivers fixing some of their problems. (Yes, I know there are people who bought computers who have no idea what a driver is, but they can look that up).
Next, make sure you have a GREAT backup/restore system. While system restore can handle small changes like you added a bad driver or program and now you get a blue screen, a MAJOR Windows revision is probably not going to make a system restore useful. Some backup solutions will give you boot-able media. While at it, there is a way to use Windows to be able to create boot-able recovery media. On my system, I used two jump drives.

Third, you should be familiar with what is in your NVRAM under setup. Usually, this will be an F2 key-in during the early part of the boot. Just look. Don't change anything unless you are absolutely sure of what a setting does. If necessary, do the research. Or ask. You should also familiarize yourself with the F12 boot menu (F12 during the early part of the boot). Is your system new? It might have recovery options just to NOTE and, ask about, just in case.My PC (Dell) is just over a year old and it has all sorts of recovery options and boot options. Some require UEFI to be on in SETUP (F2).

From what I've been told, all updates for Win 10 are "cumulative". That means, every update contains all of the previous updates. That should also mean, especially a couple years down the line, that updates could start taking longer and longer. Someone mentioned that, after the update, they booted the machine and got this "BLACK" screen. Yes, I got that too. It would be nice if MS could display something there besides a black screen and maybe even include a progress bar if possible. But no, you just see a black screen. After the last update I did, the black screen went away after 1/2 an hour and everything was fine. I can imagine someone being impatient and not realizing that the update process can take HOURS now and this black screen (although looks like the Black Screen of Death) will eventually clear in a few hours. I also understand that MS is considering getting rid of cumulative updates. That way, if an update requires a previous update to be installed, it should make that determination early and let the user know in English or whatever configured language rather than a cryptic 8-digit number.
So, to answer the question, it is NOT completely Russian Roulette, but making sure you have the drivers under control (especially for a laptop), and doing backups and viewing recovery techniques should ease that. I think PATIENCE goes a long way as these updates (even simple ones) seem to take way long than they did under earlier versions of Windows.

If anyone wants to add or correct me, please do so.

OK, here some points to understand what's happening on the updates and especially upgrades.

On Windows 10 there will become daily (almost), weekly (tuesday) and monthly updates and nowadays the half-yearly upgrades. The daily ones are mostly quite small Windows Defender database updates or maybe some other non-criticals, weekly ones mainly critical security patches, monthly ones cumulative roll-ups getting the present version up-to-date, and the half-yearly upgrades a total refresh and re-install of a whole new version.

The daily ones are processed on background without any remarkable disturbance or manual intervention, the weekly ones are finalized on the next shutdown and boot or may also ask a manual restart all this taking some 10mins, and the monthly ones lasting a longer time maybe some 30mins and requiring a re-start anyway, which may be most easy to do rightaway .

The half-yearly upgrades are a thing really to be concentrated on e.g. to get fit to the work situations, taking totally some 3-4hrs depending on several technical issues. There are several possibilities to prevent the upgrade popping-up at any time, maybe just on a critical work, as adviced on some posts on this thread.

The first phase on the automatic upgrade procedure is downloading the upgrade file taking ab. 20-40mins, and will be done on background, noting that the waiting time in the server queue may take an additional time of some 10-30mins. The second phase is preparing the upgrade in background taking some more 20-40mins. Then as the third, incl. also sub-phases, the real upgrade process will begin, which could be get asking for permission, reserving the whole machine for it taking some 2-3hrs with several reboots. Finally the procedure is fulfilled, but still it takes some time to answer to some feature questions and then the total OS re-install will be finalizing. That's it! ... hopefully all in good condition and working! But, if not, then there may begin a hopefully only minimal troubleshooting chasing for the possible problems ...

Maybe the message is the Windows ride is coming to an end.

Read http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/29/news/companies/microsoft-restructuring-windows/index.html

about losing the "old guard" and hiring younger H1B workers, but I can't find that right now, will post link later. Wow, getting rid of the main guy for "Windows" OS. It was "in the planning" sounds like it wasn't his choice but upper management decision to push him out.

So many things have been annoying me about Windows anyway, even before the Windows update that blank-screened my PCs, so I have decided to make the switch to Linux (Mint) finally. (I had been contemplating that move for a while, but it took a major PC catastrophe to finally make me act on it.) If you can't trust a company, then they aren't worthy of your using their software.

My email to:
Sir, I am after a Puppy Linux for my Dell 64 bit computer, three years old. I note that there are 3 types of 16GB flash drive.
Which one should I chose?
6.3.2, 6.0.5, 7.5.
I am in the UK, Thanks
The reply:
Hi,
Try Xenialpup 7.5.. it's based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, so it'll probably support all of the hardware on your laptop automatically.
https://www.osdisc.com/products/64bit/xenialpup-75-16gb-usb-flash-drive-64bit.html

Once upon a time we would get a computer with Windows on it, put on it the apps we needed and never look back.

The Linux crowd would have a lot more work, picking distributions, searching for drivers, configuring and reconfiguring, before they could run anything - and then they often would install WINE, so they could run the Windows programs they could have run natively on a Windows computer in the first place. Suckers for punishment? Nerds inviting complications, just because they could?

Whereas today, someone just drops something like this Xenialpup in, without a drop of sweat, and has a system with lots more functionality that a freshly installed Windows (10 or otherwise.) Fine, if you got your Windows preinstalled on a new PC you ended up with loads of "functionality" - which most of us would call bloatware and would curse endlessly because it was made to be next to impossible to get rid of.

In the meantime, we join in forums like this one to get assistance with - believe it or not - finding drivers, fixes and updates to make the latest version of Windows work ...

What I mean is this: The tables have turned completely: Linux - at least some flavours of it - has become easier and easier to install and use. In fact, what install? Just boot from the stick, and if you want it, click to copy it to your boot drive.

And Windows? When I read the advice here, how to get it repaired after an upgrade (which we can't ultimately pretend from happening) - it no longer is for the faint of heart, just as we used to say about Linux. Now it takes the spirit of a long-suffering nerd with aspirations to become a guru to get your and your friends' Windows back to running.

It used to be the Windows users that (like me) would say: "I don't have time and energy to waste on getting a Linux to run while my Windows has everything I need."

Isn't it ironic?

(Okay, I left out that some systems seem to take the upgrades well - so far ...)

That's the link I was referring to. Clearly, this thing's generated extensive issues, particularly when one considers the minimal "features" that were supposedly "added."