US7070

Putting on my security hat just for a minute here (I work for a large Security Software company).

You really should allow Windows to do its updates, especially at the moment.  They have what they term Patch Tuesday, a once a month event during which they push out multiple updates addressing security issues.  But they will also push out critical updates in between if deemed urgent.

Earlier this year there was a chip level flaw identified by Intel and other chip manufacturers that could allow a hacker to compromise almost any system.  Microsoft came out with a fix that they thought addressed the issue but it didnt work, so they have been adding incremental updates regularly since.  This might explain the frequency you are seeing.

https://www.symantec.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/meltdown-spectre-cpu-bugs

I know its a pain but it doesn't take very long for an operating system to get critically out of date and increasingly vulnerable to hackers and malware.  Even if your Expedition PC doesn't spend much time connected to the internet, it can still be attacked within minutes of any connection.

Hope that helps.

Fergal - the problem is that I have almost no control over it...sometimes it asks when you want to install an update,  and reboot, but sometimes it doesn't.

so, frequently i wake up in the morning, and am surprised to find that it rebooted my computer in the middle of the night - expedition in particular does not behave well when this happens.

additionally, if it downloads an update, say, in the morning before you leave for a multi-day race (and there is no guarantee you will know that it has done so) , you will not be able to stop it installing the update during the race. it will get more and more insistent.., and then just do it. depending on the update, some of the reboots can take quite a long time. What if it reboots at an important point in the race? You also have the risk that the update will render some aspect of your network connections, or some other important function, unuseable. 

It is just way too intrusive.., and I am thinking I don't want to put up with it anymore on my nav computer.

Duncan - i think forcing the update and reboot right before you leave is risky..., i don't want to change anything at that point. but maybe that's still the best option.



 

Last edited by us7070 (2/28/2018 2:30 pm)

US, what I do is all about risk minimisation; I don't see any other way to manage this situation as best one can.  The good news is that our long races are 2-3 days; how do the VORs manage this, because the MUST strike the problem at sea on satellite connection?

Nick, I think originally, setting connections to metered did make a difference, but I think that now, it barely makes any difference at all. All my connections are set to metered and I still have constant updates. Reading the windows forums confirms that my experience is widespread. Many people are complaining about this.

i have read about the registry changes in the article you linked, but haven't tried that route yet. It's kind of complicated and one issue that's been raised in the windows forums is that when you do eventually get an update.., it will reset all those changes, and you have to do them again.

As I mentioned, I have disabled updates in the windows services.., but it has made no difference. That also gets reset with any update.

The basic observation is that since win 10 was released, microsoft has steadily whittled away at any and all of the possible means of controlling the updates, to the point that now, there is essentially no control over it. 

i am pretty sure that with my win 10 pro laptop I can downgrade to win 7 pro, and I think that is the route I will go