Expensive Win10 update



  • Original post at https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_in_the_central_african_bush_we_pay_for/

    So they have computer running Win7 on satellite internet, and it downloads Win10 upgrade through that expensive internet connection. In the end they found that it's not the only computer that downloaded the upgrade in the background and have to pay data usage of 17GB.

    Here's a chart of what the ISP charges to give you rough idea on the price tag involved.

    IMO, they really should ask Microsoft to pay them the loss Microsoft caused.



  • @cheong Since this story is like 3 fucking weeks old (and yet constantly re-hashed by the kind of people who spell Microsoft with a dollar sign), maybe they already did.



  • @blakeyrat I think they don't as they're from Africa. Instead, some people there were trying to help them pay the bill by donating money through the NGO's donation page.



  • @cheong They're from Africa, therefore Microsoft is assholes.

    I love your awesome logic. May I subscribe to your magazine, entitled no doubt "super logic awesome super +++"?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said in Expensive Win10 update:

    They're from Africa, therefore Microsoft is assholes.

    Most of the ISPs in Africa have… umm… prices that remind me a lot of the bad old days. Who exactly the asshole is, I don't know, but a 17GB download with those charges isn't exactly going to be a popular item.


  • area_can

    @cheong typical closed-source commercial bullshit.



  • @cheong Here's the thing, though: That expensive update could have happened with any other update as well since, as far as I remember, Win7 will only not download any updates if you disable the service completely.

    Some of those updates also tend to be on the largish side (granted, not as large as the Win10 upgrade but still).

    Win7 was intended solely as a desktop environment, not so much as a mobile environment, so it lacks Win8's (8.1 and 10 have that as well) setting to not download updates over a "pay by the MB" connection.

    Seriously, they must've run into that issue before.



  • The irony is that Windows 10 supports "metered connections" meaning it would not have happened if they had been using it.



  • @Rhywden This is just the same problem I see over and over and over again: don't use a desktop OS for embedded devices.

    Actually I do think it's Microsoft's fault, but only for not promoting Windows Embedded enough (even worse, now it's called "Windows IoT" :vomit:).


  • FoxDev

    @blakeyrat said in Expensive Win10 update:

    people who spell Microsoft with a dollar sign

    Mi¢rosoft?



  • @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong Here's the thing, though: That expensive update could have happened with any other update as well since, as far as I remember, Win7 will only not download any updates if you disable the service completely.

    Some of those updates also tend to be on the largish side (granted, not as large as the Win10 upgrade but still).

    Win7 was intended solely as a desktop environment, not so much as a mobile environment, so it lacks Win8's (8.1 and 10 have that as well) setting to not download updates over a "pay by the MB" connection.

    Seriously, they must've run into that issue before.

    In most case, setting the update option to "notify only" (like most of our servers) would be enough. Windows is expected to honor the setting if they provided it.

    Now Win7 has this setting and Win10 upgrade (which exists and appears as Windows Update) does not honor it, it's a software bug by definition.

    Btw, in the discussion at the other forum, it seems there's some other's computer that's located on ship has this problem as well.

    I guess we can translate this to "No Windows machines on maritime usage".

    And no, Win8.X/10 's detect metered connection feature won't help as people in that post point out that Win8.X/Win10 cannot detect the satellite internet connection as metered one. (No such option available on "Data Usage" page) I guess to Windows, satellite internet is no different to "land internet".



  • @blakeyrat said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong They're from Africa, therefore Microsoft is assholes.

    I love your awesome logic. May I subscribe to your magazine, entitled no doubt "super logic awesome super +++"?

    No. I just mean they have no way to ask Microsoft to pay it.

    Can lawyers in Africa sue over the continents to U.S. company? IMO it's very unlikely for Microsoft to grant this type of "request for payment of damage" without passing through the lawyers.



  • @anonymous234 said in Expensive Win10 update:

    The irony is that Windows 10 supports "metered connections" meaning it would not have happened if they had been using it.

    The problem is "the feature was tested not working in this case" so it doesn't help either.

    I think for them, installing Never10 would really be the best option.



  • @anonymous234 said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden This is just the same problem I see over and over and over again: don't use a desktop OS for embedded devices.

    There is a problem, in Embedded / Compact version of Windows, the User/GDI/Kernel32 has been merged into CoreDll.dll. Unless their program is written in .NET, and does not call any of the P/Invoke method (very unlikely as DeviceIoControl() API is in Kernel32, and most non-standard hardware usage need this API to work), their program has to be written and compiled for embedded environment. And the price of writing these programs are much higher than the equivalent for Desktop/Server Windows systems.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    Can lawyers in Africa sue over the continents to U.S. company? IMO it's very unlikely for Microsoft to grant this type of "request for payment of damage" without passing through the lawyers.

    Not so much these days but you used to hear stories about people who'd accidentally rack up huge phone bills, and later, huge data bills. A lot of time if the story got publicity the phone company would forgive or at least drastically reduce the amount.



  • @cheong doesn't sound like it really is cheaper, actually. Did you not read their bill?


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    I guess to Windows, satellite internet is no different to "land internet".

    Correct, because the satellite connection is served through a non-wifi non-mobile network adapter, and LAN connections can't be set as metered.

    I haven't tried it yet, but I believe dialup connections also can't be set as metered (though you would think that it would theoretically be metered by default, right? RIGHT?!?!)


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Tsaukpaetra said in Expensive Win10 update:

    I believe dialup connections also can't be set as metered

    I find that unlikely. That would mean that someone's updated the code for managing dialup connections, and I don't think that's true…


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @dkf said in Expensive Win10 update:

    That would mean that someone's updated the code for managing dialup connections, and I don't think that's true…

    0_1465715979684_upload-171a6517-7ba7-4551-ad2d-457fe0dccac2

    BELIEVE!!!!

    But... No options to set as a Metered Connection! So... we'll never know...
    Unless someone wants to switch to dialup for a week and see if Updates get automatically downloaded....



  • @Magus said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong doesn't sound like it really is cheaper, actually. Did you not read their bill?

    Which bill?

    I'm talking about embedded software development. From what I see in freelance sites, finding people write software in Windows Embedded / Compact environment is usually much more expensive then corresponding normal Windows program.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Tsaukpaetra said in Expensive Win10 update:

    BELIEVE!!!!

    That's in Win10, post-transition. What about Win7? (I've only ever ended up near the dialup connection controls by accident in a very long time, so I don't really know what they're like…)



  • @dkf I don't think Win7 has the concept of "metered connection". That's something added in Win8.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    I don't think Win7 has the concept of "metered connection".

    I thought they had something back in pre-XP days, as that was when lots of people were still on dialup. Might've been time-based though, or an add-on by my ISP. (I remember having to use non-Microsoft networking stacks with DOS. Not a pleasant memory either.)



  • @dkf said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    I don't think Win7 has the concept of "metered connection".

    I thought they had something back in pre-XP days, as that was when lots of people were still on dialup. Might've been time-based though, or an add-on by my ISP. (I remember having to use non-Microsoft networking stacks with DOS. Not a pleasant memory either.)

    That's likely. I've used dialup service provided by university during my higher diploma course to connect on WinXP and never seen settings regarding this.


  • BINNED

    @dkf said in Expensive Win10 update:

    I thought they had something back in pre-XP days, as that was when lots of people were still on dialup

    For dial up you just have/had two parameters: make connection automatically (start of cost) and automatically break the connection after a certain time of inactivity (stop of cost).



  • @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong Here's the thing, though: That expensive update could have happened with any other update as well since, as far as I remember, Win7 will only not download any updates if you disable the service completely.

    Some of those updates also tend to be on the largish side (granted, not as large as the Win10 upgrade but still).

    Win7 was intended solely as a desktop environment, not so much as a mobile environment, so it lacks Win8's (8.1 and 10 have that as well) setting to not download updates over a "pay by the MB" connection.

    Seriously, they must've run into that issue before.

    In most case, setting the update option to "notify only" (like most of our servers) would be enough. Windows is expected to honor the setting if they provided it.

    Now Win7 has this setting and Win10 upgrade (which exists and appears as Windows Update) does not honor it, it's a software bug by definition.

    Btw, in the discussion at the other forum, it seems there's some other's computer that's located on ship has this problem as well.

    I guess we can translate this to "No Windows machines on maritime usage".

    And no, Win8.X/10 's detect metered connection feature won't help as people in that post point out that Win8.X/Win10 cannot detect the satellite internet connection as metered one. (No such option available on "Data Usage" page) I guess to Windows, satellite internet is no different to "land internet".

    Maybe that is so. But they still connected machines to a very expensive internet connection and obviously did not install any kind of watchguard.

    That's the first thing I'd do: Install a program which keeps track of the traffic over the connection. That's a pretty basic feature every other computer intended for metered connection actually has.



  • @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong Here's the thing, though: That expensive update could have happened with any other update as well since, as far as I remember, Win7 will only not download any updates if you disable the service completely.

    Some of those updates also tend to be on the largish side (granted, not as large as the Win10 upgrade but still).

    Win7 was intended solely as a desktop environment, not so much as a mobile environment, so it lacks Win8's (8.1 and 10 have that as well) setting to not download updates over a "pay by the MB" connection.

    Seriously, they must've run into that issue before.

    In most case, setting the update option to "notify only" (like most of our servers) would be enough. Windows is expected to honor the setting if they provided it.

    Now Win7 has this setting and Win10 upgrade (which exists and appears as Windows Update) does not honor it, it's a software bug by definition.

    Btw, in the discussion at the other forum, it seems there's some other's computer that's located on ship has this problem as well.

    I guess we can translate this to "No Windows machines on maritime usage".

    And no, Win8.X/10 's detect metered connection feature won't help as people in that post point out that Win8.X/Win10 cannot detect the satellite internet connection as metered one. (No such option available on "Data Usage" page) I guess to Windows, satellite internet is no different to "land internet".

    Maybe that is so. But they still connected machines to a very expensive internet connection and obviously did not install any kind of watchguard.

    That's the first thing I'd do: Install a program which keeps track of the traffic over the connection. That's a pretty basic feature every other computer intended for metered connection actually has.

    NGO aren't IT professionals. You expect them to aware of this kind of thing. Are you serious?

    For ordinary people, keeping that computer from unauthorized use is "good enough".



  • @Rhywden That "basic feature" should clearly be handled by the satellite ISP itself. I.e. don't have overcharge, just pay $x per month and cut your connection if it goes over the MBs you have.

    But good luck convincing a company to add a feature that will only reduce their income. This is why regulations come in handy (or you could launch your own satellite to compete with them).



  • @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong Here's the thing, though: That expensive update could have happened with any other update as well since, as far as I remember, Win7 will only not download any updates if you disable the service completely.

    Some of those updates also tend to be on the largish side (granted, not as large as the Win10 upgrade but still).

    Win7 was intended solely as a desktop environment, not so much as a mobile environment, so it lacks Win8's (8.1 and 10 have that as well) setting to not download updates over a "pay by the MB" connection.

    Seriously, they must've run into that issue before.

    In most case, setting the update option to "notify only" (like most of our servers) would be enough. Windows is expected to honor the setting if they provided it.

    Now Win7 has this setting and Win10 upgrade (which exists and appears as Windows Update) does not honor it, it's a software bug by definition.

    Btw, in the discussion at the other forum, it seems there's some other's computer that's located on ship has this problem as well.

    I guess we can translate this to "No Windows machines on maritime usage".

    And no, Win8.X/10 's detect metered connection feature won't help as people in that post point out that Win8.X/Win10 cannot detect the satellite internet connection as metered one. (No such option available on "Data Usage" page) I guess to Windows, satellite internet is no different to "land internet".

    Maybe that is so. But they still connected machines to a very expensive internet connection and obviously did not install any kind of watchguard.

    That's the first thing I'd do: Install a program which keeps track of the traffic over the connection. That's a pretty basic feature every other computer intended for metered connection actually has.

    NGO aren't IT professionals. You expect them to aware of this kind of thing. Are you serious?

    For ordinary people, keeping that computer from unauthorized use is "good enough".

    Y'know what the first thing was which popped up after I recently installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in a VM?

    A "We just downloaded ~240 MB of updates among them a Kernel upgrade, you should reboot" window.

    Also: What exactly do you people want? An OS which takes care of every special snowflake scenario out there? Seriously?



  • @anonymous234 said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden That "basic feature" should clearly be handled by the satellite ISP itself. I.e. don't have overcharge, just pay $x per month and cut your connection if it goes over the MBs you have.

    But good luck convincing a company to add a feature that will only reduce their income. This is why regulations come in handy (or you could launch your own satellite to compete with them).

    Such a feature wasn't even standard with our cellular companies over here until the law forced them to, and even then there are loopholes.



  • @accalia said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @blakeyrat said in Expensive Win10 update:

    people who spell Microsoft with a dollar sign

    Mi¢rosoft?

    Are you saying they're not lacking sense?



  • @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    Also: What exactly do you people want? An OS which takes care of every special snowflake scenario out there? Seriously

    Obviously. The OS should "just know" what I want without me needing to tell it! (oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck - DON'T LISTEN TO THAT THOUGHT!!!)


  • area_can

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    Maybe that is so. But they still connected machines to a very expensive internet connection and obviously did not install any kind of watchguard.

    That's fair, but should we really have to install safeguards to fight against our OS?


  • FoxDev

    @dcon said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @accalia said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @blakeyrat said in Expensive Win10 update:

    people who spell Microsoft with a dollar sign

    Mi¢rosoft?

    Are you saying they're not lacking sense?

    they are not lacking cents.

    Apple has the dollars.



  • @bb36e said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    Maybe that is so. But they still connected machines to a very expensive internet connection and obviously did not install any kind of watchguard.

    That's fair, but should we really have to install safeguards to fight against our OS?

    Well, actually, my first thought with expensive, metered connections is:

    "How do I prevent my users from gobbling up bandwidth like there is no tomorrow?"

    Because, apart from those Windows10 problems (which admittedly are shitty), that's the more likely scenario. After all, there are countless stories of how someone got a huge honkin' bill due to data roaming or similar.



  • @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong Here's the thing, though: That expensive update could have happened with any other update as well since, as far as I remember, Win7 will only not download any updates if you disable the service completely.

    Some of those updates also tend to be on the largish side (granted, not as large as the Win10 upgrade but still).

    Win7 was intended solely as a desktop environment, not so much as a mobile environment, so it lacks Win8's (8.1 and 10 have that as well) setting to not download updates over a "pay by the MB" connection.

    Seriously, they must've run into that issue before.

    In most case, setting the update option to "notify only" (like most of our servers) would be enough. Windows is expected to honor the setting if they provided it.

    Now Win7 has this setting and Win10 upgrade (which exists and appears as Windows Update) does not honor it, it's a software bug by definition.

    Btw, in the discussion at the other forum, it seems there's some other's computer that's located on ship has this problem as well.

    I guess we can translate this to "No Windows machines on maritime usage".

    And no, Win8.X/10 's detect metered connection feature won't help as people in that post point out that Win8.X/Win10 cannot detect the satellite internet connection as metered one. (No such option available on "Data Usage" page) I guess to Windows, satellite internet is no different to "land internet".

    Maybe that is so. But they still connected machines to a very expensive internet connection and obviously did not install any kind of watchguard.

    That's the first thing I'd do: Install a program which keeps track of the traffic over the connection. That's a pretty basic feature every other computer intended for metered connection actually has.

    NGO aren't IT professionals. You expect them to aware of this kind of thing. Are you serious?

    For ordinary people, keeping that computer from unauthorized use is "good enough".

    Y'know what the first thing was which popped up after I recently installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in a VM?

    A "We just downloaded ~240 MB of updates among them a Kernel upgrade, you should reboot" window.

    Also: What exactly do you people want? An OS which takes care of every special snowflake scenario out there? Seriously?

    When the OS provides option that I can set whether it should do something or not, the OS should follow it (i.e.: When I set the Windows Update to "Notify Only", it should just tell me Win10 upgrade is available without downloading it). It's that simple.

    If all you want to say is "Ubuntu sucks" then that is another issue.



  • @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @bb36e said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    Maybe that is so. But they still connected machines to a very expensive internet connection and obviously did not install any kind of watchguard.

    That's fair, but should we really have to install safeguards to fight against our OS?

    Well, actually, my first thought with expensive, metered connections is:

    "How do I prevent my users from gobbling up bandwidth like there is no tomorrow?"

    Because, apart from those Windows10 problems (which admittedly are shitty), that's the more likely scenario. After all, there are countless stories of how someone got a huge honkin' bill due to data roaming or similar.

    If they do not share the PC to the staffs, I think that's enough for most organizations.

    If you cannot control the physical access to the expensive resources, you have a bigger problem.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @cheong said in Expensive Win10 update:

    NGO aren't IT professionals. You expect them to aware of this kind of thing. Are you serious?

    Many people around here have been brainwashed to accept hostility towards users when it comes from Mi¢ro$oft, especially when it has anything to do with Windows Updates.



  • @Tsaukpaetra said in Expensive Win10 update:

    Correct, because the satellite connection is served through a non-wifi non-mobile network adapter, and LAN connections can't be set as metered.

    There's a registry setting to make all LAN connections metered.


  • Java Dev

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    "How do I prevent my users from gobbling up bandwidth like there is no tomorrow?"

    "Oh, I wouldn't dream of doing anything bandwidth-intensive. I just check my facebook a couple of times per day."



  • @PleegWat said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    "How do I prevent my users from gobbling up bandwidth like there is no tomorrow?"

    "Oh, I wouldn't dream of doing anything bandwidth-intensive. I just check my facebook a couple of times per day."

    I'm not playing those videos, FB is. So it doesn't count, right???


  • Java Dev

    @dcon I wouldn't know. I neither have nor want a facebook account. Or a metered connection. And I was blamed for being out-of-date recently for not having whatsapp.



  • @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    That's the first thing I'd do: Install a program which keeps track of the traffic over the connection.

    But would that also have been the first thing you’d do if you didn’t have first-hand experience with the problems you might have otherwise, and also hadn’t read about someone else’s?



  • @PleegWat said in Expensive Win10 update:

    I wouldn't know.

    That was said in oblivious-user mode (I should have used quotes like you did). Obviously if you see the video, it's using bandwidth.



  • @Gurth said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden said in Expensive Win10 update:

    That's the first thing I'd do: Install a program which keeps track of the traffic over the connection.

    But would that also have been the first thing you’d do if you didn’t have first-hand experience with the problems you might have otherwise, and also hadn’t read about someone else’s?

    In that case, you maybe should reconsider buying an expensive, metered connection if you're unable to understand the implications behind the combination of "expensive" and "metered".



  • @blakeyrat said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @cheong Since this story is like 3 fucking weeks old (and yet constantly re-hashed by the kind of people who spell Microsoft with a dollar sign), maybe they already did.

    Some of us are a bit more worldly and subtle. We go all caps, and sneak in the symbol for the South African Rand and the Somalian Shilling in there.



  • @Rhywden I doubt they didn’t understand the implications — more likely is that they didn’t realise that they might hit the limit without doing anything themselves.



  • @Gurth said in Expensive Win10 update:

    @Rhywden I doubt they didn’t understand the implications — more likely is that they didn’t realise that they might hit the limit without doing anything themselves.

    Then they were placing an awful lot of trust in the ISP to count the meter correctly.


  • area_can

    @Rhywden well...do you manually track your electricity and compare it to the hydro company's?


Log in to reply