Microsoft veteran says some 'broken by update' PCs were already doomed
- Reference: 1775136728
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/02/chen_windows_updates/
- Source link:
[1]According to veteran Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen, updates from the company aren't always to blame for borked customer devices. Sometimes those devices were already broken, but customers hadn't noticed until a Patch Tuesday restart attempt left them with an unbootable system.
Chen wrote: "My colleagues over in enterprise product support often get corporate customers who report that 'Your latest update broke our system'." It seems a reasonable complaint – the computer was working fine until an update.
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However, a thorough investigation of log files, dumps, and traces can reveal that the culprit was not the update. In fact, rolling back the update doesn't fix things. Restarting a system that hasn't had the update applied yet results in another unbootable device.
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According to Chen, what is really happening is that a few weeks prior, somebody did something to the device. Perhaps it was a new driver. Maybe a new group policy that did something a little suspect with the registry. Something that left the device unbootable but it wasn't noticed until the Patch Tuesday restart.
[5]Windows 95 let installers trash its files then fixed the mess behind their backs
[6]Once upon a time, saving your bits meant punching holes in floppies
[7]How Microsoft's legal eagles wrangled Happy Days for Windows 95
[8]Microsoft veteran explains the one weird trick that made Windows 95 restart faster
"And then," writes Chen, "Patch Tuesday comes around, the update installs, and the system reboots, and now the new software or the new driver or the sketchy configuration settings kick in to make their lives miserable."
"It wasn't the update that broke their system. It was the fact that the system rebooted."
It's a cute story, until one considers that Chen comes from an earlier era of Windows when Microsoft thoroughly tested code before shipping it. More recently, the company has churned out a succession of updates that left customer computers in varying states of distress.
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At the end of March, Microsoft released an out-of-band update to deal with a preview patch that didn't even manage to install, let alone render a customer's device unbootable.
Uncontrolled tinkering with devices might be a factor in unbootable computers, but a larger factor these days is that many Microsoft updates have proved just as flaky as administrators suspect, if not more so. ®
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[1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260331-00/?p=112177
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ac6Sot_OmV5ncicJrsUTeAAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ac6Sot_OmV5ncicJrsUTeAAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/25/windows_95_installers_chen/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/04/chen_floppy_disks/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/11/chen_weezer_happy_days_windows/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/20/chen_shift_reboot_windows/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ac6Sot_OmV5ncicJrsUTeAAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
How does that happen? At the very large company I work at, our notification that an update is coming is a message saying the PC requires reboot by X date, at which time it will boot itself. Sometimes I come in from my weekend to find it rebooted while I was out.
Not just Windows.
Back in the day my Unix customers were frequently very proud of the uptime on individual systems i.e. "we can't reboot this system yet, we're nearly at 1000 days uptime". I always pointed out that the time to find out whether your system reboots is not when there's been a power outage and half your server farm is rebooting.
Systems that make it easy to apply patches without rebooting (Unix/Linux) make this more serious, there could have been years of patches & updates applied that are working currently but don't work correctly on restart.
Ah yes, that old chestnut: "It was broke before I touched it, I was just trying to fix it, honest officer!".
What they used to call "a likely story".
Does anyone else find it strange that Windows versions work much more reliably when the updates stop?
TBF, it's not just Windows that has this problem. How many network engineers have rebooted a switch or router after a firmware update only to find it not responsive because someone didn't save the last config update?
Good old fashioned "blame the victim" slander. :(
Well, I don't know
As I have mentioned before, none of my 9 computers have ever borked after an update. Windows 11, 25H2, all of them, Enterprise version. No borks after updates and, in fact, no borks after non-Microsoft software updates (except once during an update of an antivirus package). All I ever hear is how "lucky" I am, but that isn't much of an explanation. I do try to keep the computers running properly, and if there is any sign of a problem I address it as quickly as possible, yet even that is an extremely rare occurrence, especially since I moved all the computers to SSD storage.
I'm just stating facts here. If I had problems with the Microsoft updates I would say so.
Re: Well, I don't know
Try having a fleet of several thousand. Then come back.
Re: Well, I don't know
You really shouldn't have said that. You're on borrowed time now.
Obligatory xkcd
[1]xkcd
[1] https://xkcd.com/1780
To some degree
It can be true. Although in my experience its more often underlying hardware issues, not "Perhaps a new driver" as Chen suggested. A failing hard drive, a bad piece of RAM, or even a finicky power supply that chose this moment to deliver bad voltage. But the user just sees Windows Updates installing right before it all goes south so they blame the update.
It's also true that updates used to be (slightly?) more reliable compared to what is churned out today. In a well controlled enterprise environment it should be easier to conclude who's to blame. But alas, not all enterprise environments are up to snuff, and the majority of home users might not be able to figure out exactly where the fault originated.
Idiots never reboot
So where I work, the idiots NEVER reboot, then wonder why Windows is constantly taking a nap. They complain they get weird errors, their machine is slow, they can't get to the internet, the browser doesn't respond, stuff crashes, etc. They get update after update saying "you need to reboot after this update" and they do not. You look at their taskbar, and they've got so much crap running, and so many browser windows open, you can't even see any icons, just a mass of ellipses.
I reboot at the end of the day when I leave, and I've never had a problem.
Now at home, I run Linux and I only reboot on the 1st & 15th when I do cold backups and package updates, but we know Windows memory and resource management is a mess, and it needs to be restarted often.
So yeah, I'd agree with Mr. Chen.
Re: Idiots never reboot
Bull - windows reboots itself after every update, and you aren't given a choice in the matter. The most you can do is delay the update from taking place for a day or so.
There's nothing like the thrill I experience every time after my Windows workstation installed a patch: will it boot again? Will I be able to log in? Will I find my usual desktop? Or will it... fail?
Ah yes, the driver fault...
..that'll be the CORRECT driver for the part, that you then rewrote with a downgraded PoS, that you then have to fix by reinstalling the correct driver again. Graphics cards were the most notorious for this
So excuse me while you say "the logs showed you installed a driver, so it broke it" and call it bullshit. After all who installs a driver and doesn't reboot?
Providing it will boot off an optical drive or USB it won't be unsalvageable.
Great story but not a new problem. If a corporation is letting their fleet auto update then I guess they are getting what they asked for. Standard practice for the fleet where I work is to do a reboot prior to patching to avoid just this problem. Should it be necessary? Probably not. Is it a fact of life with Windows? Absolutely.