[HN Gopher] Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse
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Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse
Author : 01-_-
Score : 86 points
Date : 2026-01-26 15:07 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.windowscentral.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.windowscentral.com)
| xswhiskey wrote:
| How can a company this big fail so hard in what one would
| consider their main* product still baffles me.
|
| *Yes, they probably make more revenue in Azure or Office365
| licenses but at least when I think "Microsoft" I immediately
| think Windows.
| Rohansi wrote:
| I always see articles like this and have never had it happen to
| me. It's definitely something that affects specific hardware
| and/or software combinations instead of just poor QA.
| eviks wrote:
| Why does it matter (from the company's ability to fail
| perspective) what you immediately think of? (yeah, Windows
| isn't their main product, quick search says it's 10% revenue vs
| 40% for servers, 22% office, and 9% gaming, so wouldn't that
| decline be relevant in explaining why it's neglected and fail?)
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| If you aren't running Windows, you probably aren't using
| Office. Half the reason for Office is Exchange, and half the
| reason is the integration of Exchange with Active Directory.
|
| Without any of that, does Office make sense anymore compared
| to something like GSuite?
| eviks wrote:
| Ok, so it's an important dependency, but the fact that it's
| a small product line can still explain the neglect. For
| example, is it baffling that companies don't invest
| time/money in open source libraries they use even though
| those might be important for their main products?
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Correct. IT departments want Active Directory.
|
| Create a user, apportion a 365 licence and boom, they have
| email, Teams, OneDrive etc. Add them to some groups and
| they have all the files they need.
|
| Excel is better than Sheets in ways which are important for
| 0.01% of users, but that is all.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| I think Excel is better in Sheets in ways that are
| important for a lot more users, but it isn't the same
| ways for each user.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Also, which I should have said, is for that small group,
| the missing Sheets features are a show-stopper, not just
| an annoyance
| stackskipton wrote:
| Yea. Even if you are all MacOS shop, Office has Desktop
| Applications that run on MacOS.
|
| I find so many companies that use GSuite still buy Office
| licenses for select employees. There is plenty of places
| that will just go all in 365 for that reason alone.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Windows for personal computers and Office are the only
| products that make Microsoft relevant. No one on god's green
| earth is choosing Windows Server on its own merits: They're
| picking it for software compatibility reasons stemming from
| software being written on, and exclusively targeting, Windows
| Desktop. Hell, most of the office suite is chosen because
| it's easier to buy more stuff from somebody you're already
| buying stuff from than to find someone new. No one has ever
| chosen Teams as the best product in its space.
|
| Very few products Microsoft sells would be worth buying by
| themselves. They exclusively make mediocre products that are
| merely the default choice once you've been hoodwinked into
| buying into Windows or XBOX. If the break Windows, all the
| money disappears.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Windows server compared to any linux server os is
| extraordinarily inferior in every regard except for the AD
| Domain services interface, which is a leftover from
| probably Windows NT that they haven't screwed with in the
| interim so it still functions.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Because they no longer see windows as anything more than a
| delivery platform for their subscription services, IMO
| mossTechnician wrote:
| You're entirely right, but they _need_ to maintain Windows in
| order to promote those services. The OS and their various
| applications have a symbiotic relationship where they
| prioritize each other.
|
| If Microsoft discontinued Windows and switched to just
| providing web apps, the competition would be a lot stiffer.
| Akronymus wrote:
| "maintain" meaning keeping it somewhat workable or actually
| improving it?
|
| ATM windows still has enough of a moat that they can
| comfortably do the former.
| mossTechnician wrote:
| I believe Microsoft can skate for a long time with just
| bug fixes and security updates. It makes the drop in
| Windows' quality all the more baffling.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| True but it is still their moat. Without windows they will
| lose a lot of appeal to their cloud products like Intune,
| Azure AD, M365 etc
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Realistically it's because a good chunk of their work is
| outsourced abroad who then in turn outsource their thinking to
| ChatGPT.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I was thinking about this very thing today. Personally, I see
| the Windows OS as a core competency of Microsoft. If the OS is
| bad, then the company is being run badly. In the same as when
| you go to a fine restaurant and the kitchen have the polished
| pots and pans you can see, generally things are going to be
| great. Its the attention to detail, If those small details are
| right, then the whole meal will be good. And currently the
| whole meal is crap with windows.
| pjc50 wrote:
| There's no realistic competition because the amount of work to
| switch your OS ecosystem, especially for businesses, is huge.
| So the product doesn't have to be good, you can just slam ads
| in the Start menu or whatever.
| spogbiper wrote:
| The business version of Windows doesn't have ads in the start
| menu. That's the consumer/home version. The "Pro" flavors of
| Windows are quite a bit more pleasant and I don't think there
| is any downside even on a home computer.
| yuters wrote:
| At one point the product is getting so bad that the cost of
| switching becomes a real consideration. It seems that every
| other year I hear about businesses and governments making the
| move.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Ask anyone who was a power user of dBase or Lotus 1-2-3 back in
| the '80's.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Because they know everyone who's still using Windows has no
| choices to switch to. They won't use Linux or Mac.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| No, they have choices, but many people just want to turn on
| their computer, watch a few videos, read some emails, pay
| some bills and then go do something else.
|
| Those people won't fuss with installing linux and getting rid
| of Microsoft even though Windows is doing nothing for them
| that Linux cannot do just as easily.
|
| If there are people in your life that do not use computers to
| make money or play video games or edit photos and videos but
| they do use computers, swap them to linux and let them get on
| with their lives.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Those people don't even have Windows-compatible computers.
| They have phones and tablets.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| > It's unclear why January's security update for Windows 11 has
| been so disastrous. Whatever the reason, Microsoft needs to step
| back and reevaluate how it developers Windows, as the current
| quality bar might be at the lowest it's ever been.
|
| I think I might know...
| game_the0ry wrote:
| > I think I might know...
|
| I will say it for you -- they're moving too fast with AI.
| Topfi wrote:
| I wish this were a recent development, connected to major
| improperly reviewed code changes provided by LLMs, but let us
| be honest, MSFT has had an appalling, frankly embarrassing
| track record in this regard dating back literally a decade
| plus now.
|
| I've experienced it more than once on my Surface back in the
| day [0], the entire globe was affected by Crowdstrike which
| also was caused by a lack of testing on MSFTs part and there
| are numerous other examples of crashes, boot loops and BSODs
| caused by changes they made throughout the years [1].
|
| Frankly, simply, no matter whether the code changes are
| provided by the worst LLM or the most skilled human experts,
| it appears their review process has been faulty for a long
| time. Bad code making it into updates is not the fault of any
| new tools, nor (in the past) of unqualified developers since,
| frankly and simply, the review process should have caught all
| of these.
|
| Mac OS can be buggy and occasionally is a bit annoying in my
| case (Tahoe though is actually rather stable besides a few
| visual glitches for me, surprising considering a lot of my
| peers are having more issues with it over 25) but I have yet
| to see it fail to boot solely due to an update.
|
| Linux distros like Silverblue have never been broken due to
| an update in my experience (though there are famous examples
| like what happened a while back with PopOS). With immutable
| distros like Silverblue, even if you intentionally brick the
| install (or an update does break it), you just select the
| OSTree prior to the change and resolve any issue instantly.
|
| For an OS one is supposed to pay for both with money and by
| looking at ads, Windows has been in an inexcusable state long
| before LLMs were a thing. Considering such major, obvious
| issues as "system doesn't start anymore" have been falling
| through code review for over a decade now, imagine what else
| has fallen through the cracks...
|
| [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/1649940/microsoft-
| reca...
|
| [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/you-receive-an-
| eve... and https://www.eweek.com/security/microsoft-yanks-
| windows-updat... and
| https://www.404techsupport.com/2015/03/12/kb3033929-may-
| caus... and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/troubleshoot/windows-clien...
| scrlk wrote:
| > MSFT has had an appalling, frankly embarrassing track
| record in this regard dating back literally a decade plus
| now.
|
| IMO, it's all traceable to their decision to lay off their
| dedicated QA teams in 2014
| coldpie wrote:
| Having done contract development work for a number of
| different-sized software companies, a common rule I've
| noticed is the quality of the product is directly
| proportional to how many QA staff are employed. Clients
| that had me in direct contact with their QA teams
| provided high-quality bug reports, consistent
| reproduction steps, and verification of fixes that I
| could trust. Clients that did not have a QA team, where I
| was working directly with developers, usually had
| extremely fraught bug/fix/test cycles, low quality
| reproduction steps, fix validation that turned out to be
| not actually validated.
|
| It's difficult for companies, especially big ones,
| because QA seems like purely a cost. The benefits are not
| obvious, so they're easy to cut when lean times come. But
| having people dedicated to the role of Assuring Quality
| actually really does accomplish that. If you are not
| delivering quality software, you are going to destroy
| user trust and lose to competitors. If the company is
| cutting QA staff disproportionately, that's a sign the
| leaders don't know what they're doing, and you should be
| looking for the exit (both as an employee & as a user).
|
| I don't know what the right number of QA staff is, but
| it's probably higher than you think. At a small company I
| worked at previously, it was about 1 QA staff per 4
| developers. That felt all right, but I certainly would
| have been happy to have more QA staff available to
| validate my work more quickly.
| rootnod3 wrote:
| Vibe coding to the max. Forcing employees to use it and that's
| the large scale result. Cause it's garbage. Hands down on large
| scale it just doesn't work. Especially on something the scale
| of an operating system.
|
| There will be the usual downvotes and I'll take em. If the pro-
| AI folks can't convince me that LLMs are able to write and
| maintain systems at that scale, that will be par for the
| course.
|
| Wait, "you just didn't write enough spec and unit tests for the
| LLM to do it correctly and you are promoting it wrong".
| AlexandrB wrote:
| There's a reason many call them Microslop.
| ta9000 wrote:
| Only 12 year old boys 25 years ago. Use Linux or MacOS, just
| move on.
| steve1977 wrote:
| I don't think Microslop was a common term 25 years ago.
| 9rx wrote:
| Okay, Micro$lop.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Not slop but sophistication.
| findthewords wrote:
| Cutting QA on your core product is a very Boeing choice.
| heliumtera wrote:
| I have never once in my entire life equated quality of
| software with headcount of QA department, I tell you that.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| I'm wondering why the guy at Microsoft in charge of Windows is
| still employed.
|
| Over the prior weekend my installation of Playnite (a
| catalog/launcher for my games) was broken by the update, until I
| moved its data off of OneDrive[1]. And the other day I figured
| out that a couple of icons on my desktop had become completely
| inert and unresponsive due to the same bug - again due to an
| interaction between the Windows Shell and OneDrive. And this one
| I can't fix, I can't shift my desktop out of OneDrive.
|
| MS's strategy at this point is that Windows is a loss leader to
| get people onto the subscriptions for Office and OneDrive. So
| when the Windows team releases bugs that break usage of those
| services, forcing people off them onto alternative solutions, the
| guy in charge of those updates really needs to be answering some
| tough questions.
|
| [1] I've now got SyncThing handling this.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| They don't have David Cutler to mow the lawns. I have worked in
| larger shops (smaller than MSFT but still large enough, almost
| 10K employees), and people in general are very forgiving about
| making mistakes. You would think it was a good thing, but what
| it shows was that no one cared and none took responsibility.
| saghm wrote:
| If youn put me in the starting lineup for an MLB team, I'd
| strike out every single at bat for the entire season, and
| it's wouldn't be a "mistake" on my part; I'm just
| fundamentally incapable of doing the job.
|
| A mistake is something that happens when someone capable of
| doing the job well happens to not do it well in a specific
| instance (without ill intent, of course). If it happens often
| enough, the question should be whether it's a mistake or if
| they're not able (or not willing) to do the job as expected.
| I don't know that this is what's happening here, but the
| issues seem to be large and frequent enough to at least
| warrant a discussion.
| oxygenbreather wrote:
| There are fewer and fewer 'David Cutler' types and more and
| more 'Pavan Davuluri' types at Microsoft. Wonder if the blame
| is really down to AI or indeed a lack of attention to detail
| from a new kind of workforce.
| rdiddly wrote:
| +1 for SyncThing. No cloud, thanks. And unlike OneDrive, it
| actually works. OneDrive screwed me when I tried it, so I
| completely uninstalled it. Still on Windows 10 too. Not
| regretting it so far.
| r721 wrote:
| Previous discussion:
|
| >Microsoft suspects some PCs might not boot after Windows 11
| January 2026 Update
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46761061
| timpera wrote:
| W11 is the best OS I've ever used, but everyone seems to hate it
| because Microsoft is so adamant in destroying its reputation by
| pushing Copilot and bugs instead of focusing on reliability. It's
| a shame.
| bayesnet wrote:
| Genuinely curious--what parts of Windows 11 do you like? I
| can't find a single redeeming quality compared to W10, but
| admittedly I daily drive arch + macOS and only occasionally use
| my windows machine.
| Den_VR wrote:
| If not for being forced off, most people would never have
| left windows xp... many medical practices and industrial
| facilities still are in it.
| ronnier wrote:
| Windows Key + P to change monitor configuration quickly.
| DrammBA wrote:
| Wasn't that introduced in Windows 7?
| baal80spam wrote:
| It certainly exists in my Windows 10.
| spikej wrote:
| I hope there's more to it than something solvable with
| AutoHotkey... So far I just experience a buggier version of
| Windows 10 with features I don't want.
| Genbox wrote:
| That is also a Windows 10 feature
| timemct wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that's been a shortcut well before W11, W7
| iirc.
| timpera wrote:
| The multitasking is awesome (especially window and monitor
| management, it's a huge improvement over W10), everything is
| snappy, the ARM64 battery life (especially in standby) is
| Macbook-like, I never have issues with USB-C docks and
| monitors (unlike Fedora where I always have to tinker with
| the terminal at some point), and the Windows version of
| Microsoft Excel is still unmatched.
|
| There have also been great updates to PowerToys recently that
| I wish were easily available on other systems, but that's not
| a W11 specific thing.
|
| Finally, I really like the UI (but that's obviously
| subjective! and if you really care about customization, Linux
| clearly is the best pick for you).
| nmeofthestate wrote:
| Interesting - my annoyance with W11 is nothing to do with AI or
| CoPilot (or "Privacy", "Phoning home", the usual crap MS haters
| talk about), it's due to stuff like Windows Explorer getting
| seriously worse.
| zipy124 wrote:
| But it's reliability is bad? It doesn't crash as often as
| previous versions of windows sure, but instead ends up in
| various inoperable states that aren't fixed without restarting,
| which isn't really any better.
| friendzis wrote:
| Forkbombing into resource exhaustion aside, W11 is the only
| system that left me unable to as much as log in
| pharrington wrote:
| What other operating systems have you used?
| timpera wrote:
| Dual boot with Fedora on my laptop, and my desktop at home is
| a Mac mini M4. I really like Fedora, it's my Linux distro of
| choice, but the experience is not as nice as on W11 in my
| opinion.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| If it were the best, I'd be able to drag a file onto a taskbar
| icon to do something with it, like I could with every other
| version of Windows ever (and Mac, and Linux).
| blibble wrote:
| I see Microslop's "AI" coding mandate is continuing to go well
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46761061
| rossdavidh wrote:
| So, a couple years ago Microsoft was the first large, public-
| facing software organization to make LLM-assisted coding a big
| part of their production. If LLM's really delivered 10x
| productivity improvements, as claimed by some, then we should by
| now be seeing an explosion of productivity out of Microsoft. It's
| been a couple years, so if it really helps then we should see it
| by now.
|
| So, either LLM-assisted coding is not delivering the benefits
| some thought it would, or Microsoft, despite being an early
| investor in OpenAI, is not using it much internally on things
| that really matter to them (like Windows). Either way, I'm not
| impressed.
| pawelduda wrote:
| If they used copilot and it was years ago, I'm actually
| impressed there are no reports of Windows PC's exploding
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| > If LLM's really delivered 10x productivity improvements, as
| claimed by some, then we should by now be seeing an explosion
| of productivity out of Microsoft. It's been a couple years, so
| if it really helps then we should see it by now.
|
| That productivity may not be visible. I think MS's move-
| everything-to-rust initiate would be one hell of an endorsement
| if they manage to make visible progress on that in the next
| couple of years.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Microsoft has no "move-everything-to-Rust initiative" and
| never did. That was a bunch of clickbait created based on the
| personal comments by a single Microsoft developer.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| > That productivity may not be visible.
|
| I'm not sure what your take is, but this reads like goalpost
| shifting.
|
| If one of the biggest orgs that practically mandates some
| amount of LLM use cannot surface productivity gains from them
| after using them for several years, then that speaks volumes.
|
| Reality has a way of showing itself eventually.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I know blaming everything on LLMs is in vogue right now; but
| this is much _more_ to do with Microsoft very publically firing
| the QA department[0][1] as a cost savings measure and claiming
| developers will do their own QA (long before LLMs were on the
| scene). It started in 2014 and the trickle never stopped.
|
| Microsoft has a cultural problem; it went from an "engineers"
| company to an MBA directed one, trying to maximize short-term
| shareholder value at the cost of long-term company
| reputation/growth. It is very common and typical of US
| Corporate culture today, and catastrophic in the long-run.
|
| [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2014/08/how-m...
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/business/microsoft-
| expected-...
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Microsoft fired their QA because at the end of the day, they
| are beholden to shareholders. And those shareholders want
| higher profits. And if you want higher profits, you cut
| costs.
|
| It's not a culture problem. It's a 'being a business'
| problem, which unfortunately affects all publicly-traded
| companies.
| halapro wrote:
| Are businesses expected to boom and bust? Cost cutting is
| fine if you don't kill the company in the process.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Shareholders are, on average, not this activist. A CEO can
| in fact run a public company with a long-term outlook
| instead of pumping the numbers for just the next quarter.
| mancerayder wrote:
| The arstechnica article was very good as a history of
| waterfall v sprint using MS as a case study. However the
| firing the QA department narrative is not supported:
|
| _Prior to these cuts, Testing /QA staff was in some parts of
| the company outnumbering developers by about two to one.
| Afterward, the ratio was closer to one to one. As a precursor
| to these layoffs and the shifting roles of development and
| testing, the OSG renamed its test team to "Quality."_
|
| Two QA per dev?? That seems ginormous to me. What am I
| missing about the narrative about evil corp sending all of QA
| packing, that seems not supported here?
|
| The second, Reuters article seems like it's saying something
| different than the QA firing narrative - it seems to talk
| about Nokia acquisition specifically and a smattering of
| layoffs.
|
| Not supporting layoffs or eliminating QA, and I'm deeply
| annoyed at Windows 11. I just don't see these as supportive
| of the narrative here that QA is kaput.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _Two QA per dev??_
|
| QA is a lot cheaper than dev. If your goal is to make
| quality software* on a fixed budget, you want to be QA-
| heavy.
|
| * Note: the OS definition of "quality software" drastically
| differs from your average app.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| It has been an MBA company for most of its life. If I had to
| draw the line, IMO seems Windows 2000 was the last engineer-
| driven product, and by then it had already developed
| predatory habits.
| Datagenerator wrote:
| Let's hope for the catastrophic scenario. A world without
| Microsoft.. no telemetry or backdoors. Please continue on
| this track to disaster!
| miohtama wrote:
| At least we get Visual Studio Code for free
| adamrezich wrote:
| Imagine a world where Microsoft was pushing "Copilot"
| integration everywhere, just as they are in this one--but the
| proof was, actually, in the pudding. Windows was categorically
| improving, without regression, with each subsequent update.
| Long-standing frustrations with the operating system experience
| were gradually being ironed out. Parts of the system that were
| slow, frustrating, convoluted, or all three, were being
| thoughtfully redesigned without breaking backwards
| compatibility, and we were watching this all unfold in real
| time, in awe of the power of "AI", eyes wide with hope for the
| future of software, and computing in general.
|
| Think of how dramatically this hypothetical alternate reality
| differs from the one we live in, and then consider just how
| galling it is that these people have the nerve to piss on our
| leg and then tell us it's raining. Things are not getting
| better. This supposedly-magical new technology isn't observably
| improving things where it matters most--rather, it's
| demonstrably hastening the decline of the baseline day-to-day
| software that we depend upon.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Interesting thought experiment. In that alternate reality,
| their shareholders would probably be shouting "why would you
| give competitors access to this awesome tool?!"
| heliumtera wrote:
| But web people can write css faster so I think it is a net
| positive?
| rich_sasha wrote:
| They weren't great before LLMs either.
|
| Also, it seems from the outside like a dysfunctional
| organisation, or at least with incentives heavily misaligned
| with their users. Replace LLMs with a bunch of 10x engineers
| and it will still be bad in an environment like this.
|
| So not sure how much to blame the LLMs - or in fact how much MS
| is really using them. Poor souls have to use MS AI tools, I
| almost feel sorry for them.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| They hit peak with Windows 7 and will never have an operating
| system that good again.
|
| Some flavors of Linux are approaching the Windows 7 peak as
| well as far as ease of use for newbies, software "just
| working", and for familiarity for users of other OS's.
|
| Their days as the default OS for most people are numbered
| unless they pull an incredible heel turn.
| j1elo wrote:
| It's not LLMs. It's returns-driven-development.
| heliumtera wrote:
| But the second was always the case, windows and everything
| else is getting shittier so fast it would require a prompt
| explanation if we didn't have one.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| > "Microsoft has received a limited number of reports [...]
|
| Interesting working: one night interpret this as "a few reports",
| but they're technically saying "a finite amount of reports",
| without really implying if there were a few or many cases.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Modern Windows... It's like having your own DoS adversary baked
| into your PC.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >nightmare gets worse
|
| Gets?
|
| It was actually just as bad when first deployed as it is now, but
| none of the key humans who were supposed to know about things
| like this in advance, knew about any of it in advance.
|
| That's the approach that makes it the gift that keeps on giving.
|
| Or the embarrassment that keeps on embarrassing.
|
| Is there a person or team having high standards that is able to
| accurately say when the changes introduced by this particular
| download alone have been thoroughly reviewed to their
| satisfaction?
|
| Or will there ever be anybody like that ever again?
| timbit42 wrote:
| "Uninstall latest lack-of-quality update"
| teddyalbina wrote:
| Never encountered any of this issues all computers working just
| fine. Also please format your laptops when you buy them, and do a
| clean install of Windows, don't install any vendor drivers if you
| don't need to
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