Your shipment of fail has arrived. Windows 10 anniversary update!

Back in December, Windows 10 TH2 Update (Version 1511) screwed up badly with NVIDIA drivers and most of my photographer friends who had the “m” line of graphic cards in their laptops got stuck in endless BSODs when using Photoshop or Lightroom. Caught between the non-existent support from Microsoft, the endless threads in the NVIDIA forums, the forced driver rollbacks and the “impotent” device manufactures like Asus or Acer who had their hands tight, it took me 4 days and a truck of “happy thoughts for MS” to find a workaround.

Since then I’ve actually talked with people form the Windows Core Group and they said this shouldn’t happen again, and there’s no need to have a feature like Disable Windows Update, because you will be able to roll back.

Fast forward to August 2nd this year and the new Windows 10 (forced) Anniversary Update (Version 1607). Full of new cool features, security updates and lots of improvements (the most important is as we will see “the ability to “go back” or return to the previous version of Windows within 10 days of the update” ). And if you believe things could not have gotten any worse than TH2 then you’re in for a surprise.

First, depending on what SDD you might have and how to choose to install your system you might get into a complete freeze. It only took Microsoft 10 days to officially admit they have an issue and no fix other than rolling back to the previous version of windows, you know, the one that actually worked. Since then they update the forum thread again and offered their sincere thanks to the community: “In addition to the workaround mentioned above, the community has also reported a number of their own solutions …” since they are still unable to provide a solution. That’s an awesome way of creating and engaging a community: screw your userbase then let them help each other.

Next they managed to fuck up every web cam that’s plugged into a Windows 10 machine. Initially it was reported by Brad Sam, with Microsoft finally acknowledging the issue on their support forums, but again no proper fix was in sight. The funny part is that even Skype, their own conferencing solution was heavily affected by this change. There’s of course an explanation, and a solution, again found by some Windows 10 user that had to fix it for himself. With such users why even bother testing your updates! They will do it for you, for free! Microsoft has promised to deliver a fix in September.

If you think that wasn’t enough then think again. If you happen to own a Kindle and updated to Windows 10 anniversary update that tough luck. Your machine will just give you that blue sad look if you’ll plug in your Kindle. Of course there’s no official answer form Microsoft yet.

I’ll just stop here and tell you there are a lot of other issues hundreds of users reported like: “Unable to install Microsoft Edge extensions after installing the Anniversary Update”, or “Cortana disappears after installing Windows 10 build 14393.10” or “Windows Store apps crash after installing the Anniversary Update”. The list is so long that I got bored scrolling down the Windows Central article on how to fix the issues. I’m sure they tested the update, I’m sure they rolled it out in stages and I’m sure that this just sucks.

My Mac laptop runs smoothly, but I dread the fact that I’m going to have to power up my Windows desktop next week. Microsoft, please give us the option to disable Windows Updates. Or at least let us know where to send the bill for all the lost time spent cleaning up for the mess you’re making.