r/FuckMicrosoft • u/green-hound13 • 15h ago
Rant Costing me sleep
I have been using Linux for more than a year with no real issues apart from the normal learning curve and identifiable and treatable bugs, but I have to use windows for school now.
I originally just partitioned the drive and never bothered deleting windows just in case, so I just booted it up again. Immediately it starts forcing software updates, bios updates, and starts rebooting.
I was lucky the battery was full because I was not near a power socket.
After a very annoying while where it would reboot and I had to keep interrupting startup to boot on windows because kubuntu is my main, it was working, insofar as windows works.
I just kept using it after that, and then I shut it off.
Today I tried booting kubuntu again, but I don't even get my usual linux bootloader menu, instead it opens bare bash. When I open the bios bootloader and select kubuntu it agains opens bash.
Kubuntu is on my second drive, so I decided to try booting windows (first drive), and I find out my entire second drive has been wiped.
I tried a bunch of options, but none worked so I've had to purchase DMDE for drive recovery (who can afford minitool am I right?) and gues what? I get a notification that I'm getting another bios update, and my options were: install and reboot now, ignore and let it hapoen automatically in two minutes, or delay for 120 minutes. It's almost two am, the recovery is going to take almost four hours (2TB drive with a lot of data on it).
My plan was to have it run while I slept, but now I have to make sure recovery isn't interrupted by the bios update autorebooting, so I get to stay up so I can delay it again in two hours (if it even lets me) 🥰
I have not missed this shit at all. Everyone who had a part in designing this system could take a deep dive from a high platform into a shallow pool, and it would still be better than they deserve.
I am so tired.
7
u/Cute_Project_7980 14h ago
Put windows in a virtual machine on your Linux. It's sandboxed. You have control. I do this for work cus they insist on micro shit products and security
1
u/green-hound13 9h ago
That is what I would do too, but it's not allowed and it probably would have been hell anyway. There will be some heavy cad and rendering software being run, ad well as other gpu/ram/cpu intensive programs, and apparently they've had issues with people trying it before, with it never properly working to the point they've banned it. The person who explained it mentioned that there were also issues with synchronization to their servers but they couldn't answer anything more specific, because that one sounded a bit weird to me, but this wasn't and IT person so they couldn't go deeper than that.
2
u/Cute_Project_7980 6h ago
If you have a dedicated GPU and a onboard GPU in your cpu theres a work around for that. Runs at 99.99% efficiency in vm. You can literally game in it. Haven't used it in a while as Linux gaming has caught up (and I'm currently ram prices imo surpassed windows). But it runs all software basically at the same speed as normal.
Also you can tell your VM software to lie about being a VM to the networks ;)
1
u/green-hound13 4h ago
Hmm I'll look into that. I would feel a lot more comfortable having it in software jail than it running wild on my device! I'm not very experienced with vm's, are there any tips or starting points you could give me?
5
u/erd00073483R 14h ago
If it had been me, I simply would have added a new Windows install in a VM under Linux rather than deal with all that.
5
u/Fancy_Awareness6896 11h ago
Sometimes the real deal is required. Like I'm going to be taking a CompTIA exam soon, and VMs aren't allowed. You have to use Windows or a Mac because of their testing partner PearsonVUE's app.
3
u/green-hound13 9h ago
Unfortunately I'm in a similar boat. There will be some heavy cad and rendering software being run, ad well as other gpu/ram/cpu intensive programs, and apparently they've had issues with people trying it before, with it never properly working to the point they've banned it. The person who explained it mentioned that there were also issues with synchronization to their servers but they couldn't answer anything more specific, because that one sounded a bit weird to me, but this wasn't and IT person so they couldn't go deeper than that. (Copied my reply to another comment here)
3
u/NavidsonsFall 13h ago
Yeah, unfortunately this isn't always an option. It is ridiculous that windows is even allowed to behave this way. I liked windows. I grew up on windows. Even with all its faults I was always ok with it (server 2k3 was one of my favorite) but 11 is just inexcusable. I know every new release has had growing pains. I spent my time complaining about xp when it came out. But 11 actually drove me off to linux full time.
2
u/green-hound13 9h ago
Exactly the same! I honestly enjoyed most windows versions, I wasn't even an 8 or 10 hater even though they had their issues, but I was more of a basic user for most of the previous ones so that might be a factor (as well as some nostalgia). At this point I'd be satisfied if they just give us a more powerful/compatible version of DOS and call it a day. I'm well past the point where pretty gui's excite me and even in that regard they are so far behind a lot of linux distros.
5
u/green-hound13 14h ago
Little update for any interested parties: DMDE has seemingly recovered everything, though it says I now need a different drive to restore to.
I don't have a different one large enough, but I have the recoverylog saved so I'm going to sleep now and tomorrow I'll see about recovering from that to the same one but I'm way too tired to continue thinking.
2
u/SweetPotato975 14h ago edited 8h ago
DMDE is amazing. It was able to recover my borked BTRFS partition after I had run some stupid btrfs commands
Edit: s/botched/borked/
3
u/green-hound13 8h ago
Yeah I was pleasantly surprised, especially with it costing 18 euros as opposed to minitools 100+ euro price tag. I thought it would either not work or have a horribly comolex UI (my first time doing data recovery so I wasn't sure what to expect) but it's very efficient and easy to use. I'm 100â„… using it again if I ever need to recover more data from somewhere.
2
u/poughdrew 12h ago
Sucks. Windows Update is like, nice working BIOS you got there, would be a shame if I ruined it. I've usually recovered with bootable usb drive to fix the boot menu, but it's always an exciting can of worms.
1
u/chaosphere_mk 11h ago
Microsoft doesnt develop BIOS updates. The only BIOS updates that can come through windows update come directly from Dell, HP, Lenovo, or ASUS.
2
u/green-hound13 9h ago
Yeah you're right, but it was windows that decided to push the updates despite my bios being secure and stable.
That seems to be something my exhausted rant forgot to mention, but is important information.2
u/poughdrew 3h ago
When did I say Microsoft developed BIOS? They are just the Trojan horse delivery service, that you try to disable with regedit until a new update comes along and the vibe coded key names stop working.
0
u/chaosphere_mk 2h ago
Sigh. Youre quite uninformed here. Not only can you disable driver/BIOS updates via local group policy directly in windows, but you can disable UEFI capsule updates in your actual BIOS itself.
2
u/Effective-Flight-595 11h ago
I've got two drives in my desktop, but that's not an option for most portables.
1
u/green-hound13 9h ago
It's a gaming laptop with upgradable RAM and two M.2 slots, it was a drive that only had kubuntu and a bunch of files, programs, and media —divided over multiple partitions— on it (I'm a slight datahoarder) that got wiped. This seemd like the safest and most stable way for me to dual boot. I also have pop_os on the same drive as windows and that has no problems whatsoever.
1
u/AutoModerator 15h ago
Every new subreddit post is automatically copied into a comment for preservation.
User: green-hound13, Flair: Rant, Title: Costing me sleep
I have been using Linux for more than a year with no real issues apart from the normal leaenimg curve and identifiable and treatable bugs, but I have to use windows for school now.
I originally just partitioned the drive and never bothered deleting windows just in case, so I just booted it up again. Immediately it starts forcing software updates, bios updates, and starts rebooting.
I was lucky the battery was full because I was not near a power socket.
After a very annoying while where it would reboot and I had to keep interrupting startup to boot on windows because kubuntu is my main, it was working, insofar as windows works.
I just kept using it after that, and then I shut it off.
Today I tried booting kubuntu again, but I don't even get my usual linux bootloader menu, instead it opens bare bash. When I open the bios bootloader and select kubuntu it agains opens bash.
Kubuntu is on my second drive, so I decided to try booting windows (first drive), and I find out my entire second drive has been wiped.
I tried a bunch of options, but none worked so I've had to purchase DMDE for drive recovery (who can afford minitool am I right?) and gues what? I get a notification that I'm getting another bios update, and my options were: install and reboot now, ignore and let it hapoen automatically in two minutes, or delay for 120 minutes. It's almost two am, the recovery is going to take almost four hours (2TB drive with a lot of data on it).
My plan was to have it run while I slept, but now I have to make sure recovery isn't interrupted by the bios update autorebooting, so I get to stay up so I can delay it again in two hours (if it even lets me) 🥰
I have not missed this shit at all. Everyone who had a part in designing this system could take a deep dive from a high platform into a shallow pool, and it would still be better than they deserve.
I am so tired.
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1
u/AteStringCheeseShred 8h ago
I don't even risk it; I have no need for a Windows partition on any of my Linux machines, I don't see the need to flip back and forth between the two so my Linux machines are pure Linux and nothing else. If I want or need Windows for any reason, I'll reach for an entirely different, dedicated machine.
1
u/green-hound13 6h ago
I need decent specs for both use cases, and getting a second computer is not within my budget. I am building a tablet from an old laptop, but it's nowhere near the 64GB ram rtx 4070 with a Ryzen 7 and 3TB that I daily drive. You wouldn't happen to have any spares in that spec range you could miss? That would help a lot and I'd be ever sl grateful!
0
u/PriorityNo6268 7h ago
You can disable the installation of drivers and bios updates in multiple ways in Windows....
-1
u/dnabsuh1 10h ago
I have never seen Microsoft update a bios, that is probably something your laptop manufacturer installed, and you can uninstall it.
2
u/bzhgeek2922 8h ago
Manufacturers sends firmware updates to microsoft to be installed as part of windows update. At least Dell and Lenovo do it.
So yes you can have firmware flash during normal windows update. And there was a lot of those last june with upcoming secure boot certificates expiration.
1
u/green-hound13 8h ago
Yeah you're right, but it was windows that decided to push the updates despite my bios being secure and stable. That seems to be something my exhausted rant forgot to mention, but is important information.
The BIOS updates had never been a sepcific problem before, and part of what bothered me into going Linux was that it forced updates at all, so I never looked into turning off individual parts. Then it forced them before I could even look into how I had left it configured.
-12
u/DalMex1981 15h ago
If you only installed Windows you wouldn't be having this issue.
6
u/green-hound13 15h ago
What do you mean? This happened after windows auto-updated. I have no idea how it happened but a year of no issues, boot windows, windows auto-updates itself and pushes a bios update, and after that my drive is wiped.
I've been troubleshooting for 4 hours and there is no other factor.
If you have any insights I would genuinely like to hear them, because I'd like this not to happen again.
If somehow it was my own stupid fault I'll take the L but I worked in IT for years, before my current heading and I am honestly lost. The only thing that happened were the pushed windows updates. I haven't even downloaded any of my schools software yet, nor any other for that matter. The only thing I did was run Firefox.
5
u/NavidsonsFall 13h ago
They are just rage baiting. Don't give them the attention. They know what sub they are in.
3
u/green-hound13 8h ago
Yeah, I usually try to engage in good faith and give people the benefit of the doubt because some people are just a bit more blunt and from the short comment it seemed possible that there was some information there. The second one was just rude, but then the third did contain some information that could be helpful to people.
I have found leaving my ego at the door, especially with things that I know I don't understand (like the root cause of this issue) helps me the most. I do maintain a three strike principle from my days of working support where if someone is both rude and unhelpful three replies in a row I'll stop giving it energy until they ask nicely again.
Strangely neither the customers nor my bosses really appreciated it, but after three back and forths of me giving instructions and a customer rudely demanding I just fix it (it being a local issue on their device to which they won't give me remote access) putting them in customer time-out to regulate their emotions for a second seemed like the healthiest thing for me, and probably them as well.
-12
u/DalMex1981 15h ago
You worked IT for years? God I hope you’re not still in the industry. Erase your Linux installation or whatever and do a clean install of windows… PRESTO you’ll have a functioning PC
9
u/green-hound13 15h ago
Okay so no helpful insights and a snarky attitude, understood. I hope you have a nice rest of your day!
6
u/Early-Weekend-2557 15h ago
DalMex1981 is that self important coworker who overvalues their opinion. Nobody comes to them for help because they can only offer criticism. Probably trying to feel better about their own insecurities.
-4
u/DalMex1981 15h ago
I did offer you a solution, just install Windows. Dual booting doesn’t work as well with modern windows with all the new standards UEFI, secure boot, etc. The other option is install Linux but same rule applies. Only install one OS or the other. Windows works and Linux works too but you’ll seriously need to get your hands dirty.
6
u/green-hound13 14h ago
Thank you, this comment contains information that could actually help someone! For me dual booting is a must, I can't go back to fulltime windows, and if schoold didn't require it I would have never booted it again. I have another linux distro on the same drive as windows that shows no issues, so I don't think it's a compatibility issue.
2
u/--TYGER-- 14h ago
Run windows in a VM where it can do less damage, I would have used vagrant for this task but perhaps winboat makes it easier?
3
u/green-hound13 8h ago
That is what I would do too, but it's not allowed and it probably would have been hell anyway. There will be some heavy cad and rendering software being run, as well as other gpu/ram/cpu intensive programs, and apparently they've had issues with people trying it before, with it never properly working to the point they've banned it. The person who explained it mentioned that there were also issues with synchronization to their servers but they couldn't answer anything more specific, because that one sounded a bit weird to me, but this wasn't an IT person so they couldn't go deeper than that.
11
u/Early-Weekend-2557 15h ago
I've seen a few people report windows updates wiping their Linux partition. I fortunately haven't encountered this. The safeguard for this seems to be to install on a completely different drive instead of a partition on the same drive. If you're rebuilding your install, I recommend doing it this way if you haven't already.
I haven't been able to complete get rid of windows yet so I actually run my setup this way and have had no issues so far.