Microsoft turning into Apple?

[jitter]

There has been talk of MS pushing updates to Win7 and Win8 PCs to force users to switch to Win10. If this should turn out to be true, then I wonder if MS is sort of turning into Apple.

But the actual reason for starting this topic is the following:

I have two colleagues who, like I, have a Lumia phone running Windows Phone 10. All different Lumias of which mine is a 640. There's also an 850 and I forget the third but it's one with an OLED display.

All of a sudden, last weekend, my 640 started misbehaving. Running hot, becoming slow, draining the battery fast and crashing and rebooting randomly.
Monday I asked my colleagues and the 850 owner was experiencing more or less the same issues.

At first I thought maybe my uSD card was causing problems, the heat was in that area, though not the uSD card itself. I tried several things like testing the uSD in a PC (no problems) and trying another uSD card, all to no avail. Removing it seemed to help, and so did disabling some third party apps. But Tuesday evening it had become unbearable, crashing often. Even defaulting back to factory settings didn't help. At some point in time it became so bad that the phone locked itself down with the message that this was for security reasons and I had to connect it to a charger for at least two hours and attempt a restart. 

As it was late in the evening I connected the charger and went to bed. The following morning it worked again and I went to work. At work I noticed that it had rebooted again. In the break I perfromed a soft-reset and it hasn't crashed or misbehaved since.

Now I have a sneaking suspicion that some MS update from shortly before the weekend caused problems on some Lumias because at the same time my 640 started working correctly again so did the 850. I'm thinking that MS pushed updates without me being able to deny them or even know about for sure, a bit Apple like?
The third Lumia never had any problems, but maybe that hardware was more different or it was not running some apps that the other two were running...

I'll never know for sure what the real problem was as now I can't recreate the issue anymore. The inevitable happened, the problems lasted just long enough for me to return to an Android phone and straight away I noticed that it lets me do things like I want to do them instead of being forced to do it how MS wants you to do it. Again, a bit like Apple?

Anyway, rant over. One fewer Windows Phone user.

[Neilm]

The trouble with Android phones is some manufacturers don't push out updates. Therefore, many of them have loads of security vulnerabilities (my brother Samsung is reasonably new and still vulnerable to Stagefright).

[gnavigator1007]

Not sure what model it was, but my mother had been having similar problems with her Windows phone.  She was in an airport waiting to board a plane when it really became a problem.  Phone would not turn off and became really hot to the point she thought the non-removable battery was about to go poof.  As we all know things going poof in an airport are cause for a good freak out so she ran into an Apple store for help.  They actually managed to turn the phone off for her!  Either that or it simply fainted from finding itself so deep in enemy territory.  Seriously though I'm glad they managed to help her.  The real problem for me was having to talk her out of buying an iPhone after they helped her out and all of her friends trying to convince her to piss away her money on another phone with no removable battery.  Glad to say she ended up with a LG G5

[suicidaleggroll]

Now I have a sneaking suspicion that some MS update from shortly before the weekend caused problems on some Lumias because at the same time my 640 started working correctly again so did the 850. I'm thinking that MS pushed updates without me being able to deny them or even know about for sure, a bit Apple like?

Apple does no such thing.  Updates are never pushed to the device without explicit approval from the user.  If Microsoft is doing that, then it's just a Microsoft thing, and it wouldn't surprise me because it's the same shit they do on their desktop OS.  Nobody else pulls that kind of crap.

[MrSlack]

No - they just gave everyone spontanous U2 albums...

Lumia 640 running Windows 10 210.0.10586.318 here. No problems. If you're running the "fast ring" of Windows 10 on it you're going to get trouble like this. I can only say that this is the most solid and reliable bit of kit I've owned.

I've had more phones than most. A big chunk of my job for 3-4 years was doing API integration with handsets so I used most regularly.

I had a couple of iPhones - 5, 5s. Too fragile and literally the buggiest things I've ever used in my life. One bricked, one broken screen from a 2 foot drop from a sofa onto a carpet. Plus the alloy they use gives me a bad rash. Expensive poorly engineered shiny trash.

I had a PILE of Android phones - HTC thing I can't remember, 3 samsungs, numerous Moto G 1st gen, 2nd gen, 3rd gen. Nothing but problems. My wife is sitting here right now grumbling "f*****g piece of s**t - argh!" at her 3rd gen Moto G (2Gb/16Gb/quad core handset running stock android so not crap) because it keeps hanging and locking up. Plus I lost count the number of times I've been left up s**t creek by Android devices failing or hosing themselves.

I have had a Lumia 710, 520, 640, 820. Zero problems with any of them. These are the only phones I've had that have WORN OUT and used out of choice.

[jitter]

Same version here (and on the other two Lumias).

Wow, that's an impressive amount of smartphones you've gone through...
How much time are you talking about?

[MrSlack]

Same version here (and on the other two Lumias).

Wow, that's an impressive amount of smartphones you've gone through...
How much time are you talking about?

About 6 years from the first, a Lumia 710. Joys of being the company Guinea pig and API monkey for a bit. Had up to three handsets at any time. One personal and two work.

[dannyf]

"Glad to say she ended up with a LG G5"

Been a LG user since g2 (a fabulous phone). Still have two g4, one volt. Have to say that the g5 is a huge mistake for them. Innovation for the sake of innovation.

I think apples recent announcement of major refreshing eveery three years is on the right track, for the wrong reason though.

[AntiProtonBoy]

There has been talk of MS pushing updates to Win7 and Win8 PCs to force users to switch to Win10. If this should turn out to be true, then I wonder if MS is sort of turning into Apple.

Except Apple doesn't employ shithouse tactics like Microsoft does for Windows 10 updates. You actually have a choice not to install the OS on Apple. I know what some of you thinking, "but you can postpone win 10 update"... yeah until you forget about it, or never see the dialogue box, because you were sleeping, then see windows 10 your machine the next morning. (Also, package managing and individual software update model on OS X is far superior. It's simple and doesn't require third party installers.)

[suicidaleggroll]

(Also, package managing and individual software update model on OS X is far superior. It's simple and doesn't require third party installers.)

Package management on ANY OS is far superior to Windows.  Seriously, Windows is a shit-show in many areas, but package management has got to be the worst of them all.

[AntiProtonBoy]

Seriously, they should just move onto the bundle model, much how Xcode generates them. It's so simple, self contained, and straightforward to use for the end user. And from the OS perspective, it shouldn't be hard to implement either.

Every time I'm forced to make an MSI installer for Windows, I want to stab myself in the face with a fork.

[jitter]

Okay, so everything looked fine yesterday but today things are different.

I had the 640 on the charger tonight, so this morning started with a full battery.
Since there's no longer a SIM in there, I switched it to flight mode but enabled wifi and left for work.

When I came back I'm looking at the glimp screen and notice the battery is almost flat (9%)! 
Battery usage says:
System: 42.1%
Screen: 40.7%
Wi-Fi: 17.3%

This is from lying on the table doing nothing... so, not all is well after all...
Now I'm going to disable the glimp screen, charge it and try again.

[Halcyon]

Except Apple doesn't employ shithouse tactics like Microsoft does for Windows 10 updates. You actually have a choice not to install the OS on Apple. I know what some of you thinking, "but you can postpone win 10 update"... yeah until you forget about it, or never see the dialogue box, because you were sleeping, then see windows 10 your machine the next morning. (Also, package managing and individual software update model on OS X is far superior. It's simple and doesn't require third party installers.)

There is the option of dimissing the update completely. You can also modify the registry so the Win 10 updater never runs again.

[AntiProtonBoy]

You can also modify the registry

Which is not a reasonable solution for the average user. Nobody should have to dive into the registry for something fundamental like this. Btw, you can also go into the Group Policy Editor to change permissions for Win10 updates. Again, this is something an IT gimp is expected to do in a corporate environment, and not Mrs Maple in her retirement village.

[jitter]

Maybe it's hardware related after all and I have some sort of intermittent fault. After the weekend, I must ask my colleague if he's seen a recurrence of a fast draining battery on his 850. If not, then I'm probably going to get an RMA as it's still under warranty.

What I noticed this morning was that my phone was on... and I thought I had switched it off last night... now I'm wondering if I really did... 

[engineer_in_shorts]

Sounds like a hardware issue. I have a 950 and it's great.
Although I would avoid getting the insider updates as they can have issues. What would you expect from testing unreleased sw.

Win 10 mobile updates are optional.

[Karel]

Don't worry, soon windows phone will be history (which is a good thing):

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2016/01/30/microsoft-windows-phone-lumia-sales-crash/

What we need is more choice & competition (just not from microsoft).

[TheAmmoniacal]

I have the Lumia 950 running 10586.318 (TH2), I can assure you that there hasn't been any updates on this since the 10th of May. Could be different if you're a Windows Insider, a new update was sent to the Slow Ring just recently (follow Dona Sarkar on Twitter for all updates, she replaces Gabe Aul now). If you happen to be an Insider you deserve all the issues you get

And yes, Microsoft is definitely turning into Apple - and trying to emulate them on the retail hardware market. Which is only a good thing if they manage to pull it off and don't take too big of a dump on powerusers in the process.

[jitter]

AFAIK, I got the Windows 10 update for my 640 ahead of schedule by installing the Upgrade Advisor app and then let it upgrade my phone to WP10. I didn't opt for entering Windows Insider.

I cannot find an insider app or any mention of it on my phone. The "updates and security" section only tell me when my phone has last looked for updates and that it is up to date and in the advanced options I can only set if it lets me decide when to restart or do it automatically.

Edit:
Just in case I installed the Lumia recovery tool on my PC and I'm in the process of restoring my phone's OS right now. According to the tool I had the current version, but I decided to go ahead anyway.
So, I'm pretty sure I was not in the insider programme. If it does still keep going wrong, then I guess it's hardware related and it's time for an RMA.

[Howardlong]

Except Apple doesn't employ shithouse tactics like Microsoft does for Windows 10 updates. You actually have a choice not to install the OS on Apple.

While the Microsoft tactics are indefensible (two of my half dozen or so Win 10 upgrades didn't work, and both took many hours to fix), I get irritating daily reminders to update iOS on my iPhone and iPad.

Similarly on the odd occasions I boot into OS X instead of Windows, it's a similar push-push-push to upgrade, and, just like Microsoft, things break as a result.

Whatever platform you choose, we're rapidly reaching a state of chaos. Pretty much on a daily basis some device or other I have has to "go in for repair", I spend more an more time updating and fixing something that wasn't broken, and less and less time on real, productive work.

[Alex Eisenhut]

http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

[rsjsouza]

People hate Windows, and so do I. But keep in mind that some features are not available on OSX. Let's say for a simple one, I want my laptop to operate with its lid closed. OSX does not allow you to do so unless you dive into XML configuration files. Windows offers an easier way to select it. On the other hand, OSX will not sleep when lid is closed if an external monitor is detected, but what if I want it to sleep?
Same thing happens to many aspects. Windows has its 3 tier config tool, from control panel, group policy to registry. Linux (Gnome) offers the same 3 tiers as well: control panel, dconf and config files.
OSX simply does not offer anything other than its crude control panel. Its config files are not well documented, and it does not have native (not third party) dconf/regedit tools at all.

blueskull, I reached the same conclusion as you regarding the OSX customizations: to get what I wanted I had to either go to the terminal or fiddle with XML configs. I don mind going to the terminal, but when people say that OSX is so much easier and intuitive than Windows, I can't help but bring these examples forward...

Full disclosure: I am mostly a Windows/Linux user.

[jitter]

Despite the remark of the recovery tool that I had the same version as available on MS's website, my phone is now back to WP8.1 
If I now perform a check on updates, there are none. Does that mean that MS still hasn't rolled WP10 out officially for the 640?

[TheAmmoniacal]

Only if it has been approved by your service provider, MS can't give it any updates unless you're registered for it.

[jitter]

Only if it has been approved by your service provider, MS can't give it any updates unless you're registered for it.

I had been running WP10 already, and for quite some time now, by the way.
At the time of the update, the provider was compatible. The problems didn't start until last weekend.