The way updates should work in my opinion is like this. You get a new machine. You take a clean image of it (preferably two that are both verified). So a year or two later the machine is fairly dirty due to internet usage but not all that noticeable yet (strange things happen but a reboot fixes them and you do not know what the problem is or if it is worth returning the image so you continue on living with the small issues). You get an announcement that an update exists. They tell you it will take 6 hours tops to download and they tell you it is service pack #1 so you know rather than their keeping it a mystery. You leave your machine running overnight to do the download and you have a file which you can run at any time in the future which is called service pack #1. Because your machine is running fine you leave it there for future use. When you machine gets a virus or becomes slow to the point that you want to return the image you return it and your machine is running just like it is new again. This time you install the service pack #1 update (if you choose) then you install all your current software that you installed after the first image. Now you have a 100% clean up to machine and you take another two images to lock it in. This way the update should take no more than the 40 minutes that a full windows install typically takes. If the update has issues (and yes being a programmer I know this does happen) then you can roll back to the first image and leave the update off the 2nd time.

Here is another reason this makes sense. There are some software that openly state they will not run unless windows has a 2nd or 3rd service pack. If Microsoft was to tell you the download was a specific service pack using the method I describe above you could store it until you upgrade some of your software and it needs this service pack.

Another option should be to order the service pack DVD which is likely to be clean (sometimes downloads get corrupt). Maybe you pay $15.00 or something for this. That is fine.

The way they are doing it now with forced updates when you restore the first clean image the update is going to start over again. Of course many users do not know how to take an image or even know such a thing is possible.

Last edited by bowlesj; 06/08/18 04:01 PM.
John Bowles
My playing in my 20s:
https://www.reverbnation.com/johnbowles