Microsoft says that the newest update is pretty much, but not completely, free of issues; they will be listed when you choose to update it. Click the supplied link about the new update.
I would like to entail my (cough) trouble free update, if one can call it that.
First I checked for updates and my defender wouldn't update definitions. I had to keep refreshing the "check for updates option" by leaving and returning to this option. Finally, the update began; but it had listed one other update, which for some reason, disappeared... for now.
I checked for updates a few times with nothing appearing, and decided it was a glitch; and chose to download and install the new 2004 version.
Six or more hours later... I got all the way to 91% installed; and it stopped. After leaving the computer to itself for a couple hours; I decided I had to stop the update; and, sure enough, there were two more updates for me to install. Another defender definition; and the errant update for .net that disappeared on me earlier.
So, I gave it the go ahead for these two updates; the defender went quickly, so quickly that it went from downloading to disappeared; but a quick check of Defender showed it had installed. All well and good, the next one took about 20 minutes, and after a couple "check for updates" I gave it a go again expecting that it should start at 91% but, no... it wanted to download again. I sat around, watched it climb to 80% in about 10 minutes, then dropped to 45% and kept going slowly upward. So I stopped for dinner, and some family time.
At 11:00pm, about 5 hours later, I stopped in to check on it; and it seemed to be stalled, so I requested the family to shut down their phones, and to stay off the internet. After watching some television with my wife; I checked on it before going to bed; and discovered it was "getting things ready" so, all seemed good; and while my spouse went to bed; I watched the news and checked again to find that it was installing, and at about 18% so I thought I might as well go to bed.
I'm generally a light sleeper; and at 4:50am, my daughter got up to make a personal visit; since I was awake, I decided to go and check on the machine.
I came into to room with the machine displaying a message saying that it was updating at 0% and would restart several times. Not believing in coincidence; I've been here before, and seen installations stall at 0% and it was never good; so, my paranoia set in; and I hunkered down to babysit. Much to my surprise about a half hour or so as I was watching TV, it got to about 18% and restarted for what I presumed was the first time. I munched on my fingernails for a few minutes as I watched it try to restart, the screen blinking off and on, the logo appearing and disappearing, waiting for the installation message to appear; which to my relief, it did.
This continued off and on, installing and restarting repeatedly, while the counter steadily rose to 98...99... 100%; and it shut down. I crossed my fingers, and said a prayer... but, figured, if I got that far I would be home free! I was tense, and lost track of time; it took a while to come up; but when it did... I saw the familiar "Welcome" and while it finished the initial set up; I contemplated the word welcome. My first thought was "Well come" and it thought, yes, it was well that I'd come this far. Minutes and multiple times, I sat quietly listening to the hard drive buzzing away. The activity light a steady yellow glow, only intermittently and sporadically giving the lonesome blink to the steady drum and thrum of the drive. Well come indeed I thought; and entered my password and was surprised that only a short time later when my desktop appeared; and I was up... or so I thought.
After an update, I run a machine through its paces. Earlier, while waiting, I pulled up some sites on my phone that complained about all the problems with this version; along with a Microsoft detailed list of issues since May 2020. As I scanned the list; I noticed that most were resolved. The couple that were not; dealt with apps; and printers; and server problems... and, the list was by no means small. Multiple sites and multiple users with multiple complaints.... I was nervous; but hopeful. None appeared to be potentially my problem; well, there was one.
I noticed a complaint about Fax and Scan; so the first thing after I got to the desktop was to pull up the Microsoft Fax and Scan App... naturally. I made sure my multifunction printer was on; and clicked Scan... and it stalled. Dead in the water.
I quickly checked the protected folder access to see if perhaps it was stalling on accessing a protected folder. Months earlier I had to give this app, or a part of it access to folders, so it would save to my document folder, instead of just to the C: drive. Nope, no issues there. I checked for anything, and found only old messages; apparently some Microsoft apps needed special privileges; but that too was taken care of months ago; but it did make me worry. I checked and double checked months earlier when some Microsoft subsystems had folder access issues; and discovering they had the right certs showing ownership had allowed them access; but, that was months earlier. Deciding to play it safe. I turned off 'temporarily' protected folder access... and yep; the Fax and Scan was still stalling.
Fortunately, every time it did, and I had to force a shut down; I made a feedback (problem) report to Microsoft. Right after an update; when they ask, I always give Microsoft full verbose mode on all activities; I can shut them down later when things are working. Everyone is a bit nosey nowadays; sometimes I think a bit too much for my tastes; but, initially, yes; I'll help. Giving up on that, I post to the feedback hub about the app not scanning; an issue discussed a month earlier; but found no other feedback; and moved on.
I grabbed a needed a screenshot for the bug report; and that worked, until I went to look at the image to make a few notes in it. I discovered that right clicking on the menu; and using "Open with..." caused the menu to freeze ... here we go I thought; it's buggy.
To make an already too long of a story short; I found numerous bugs; all of which I reported. "Icons were missing, I couldn't add or remove programs, This went on for a few hours; longer than the amount of sleep I got last night until I ran across another article while researching the "Open with.." bug, and read someone saying... "Restart the machine." I thought; well, no... it can't be that easy could it. My memory toggled on an earlier piece I read which mentioned that in the early months; Windows would restart too many times; but that the issue was resolved. Could it really only need (1) more restart? So, I crossed my fingers... Shut it down; and restarted.
Twenty minutes later I was commenting on all my feedback saying... Restarting fixed the issue, resolved. So, in the end, other than needing, 1 extra restart; if I'd had a little faith that they had resolved the issues in 3 months; I'd have done a lot less nail biting. But, problems, indeed yes there were. But, in truth, these were all false starts; and restarts by Microsoft; the system recognizing, that something had gone wrong; and taking a few steps back, and starting over. It was a different experience to be sure; one I hope only gets better with the next update; but, far from being simple or easy. In the end, it required way less of my intervention than what I give it. Who knew. In many ways, it was reminiscent of the old Windows, which was fraught with tiny little issues; always resolved; but, time consuming.
Over the years, installations have gotten way harder, way more complex; and security much tighter than in the old days; still; I have to admit that in spite of the problems; most of them were ultimately in my head. Sure, we did the drunkard's shuffle a few times... one step forward and two steps back; but, in the end we made it home safely. Only time, and the upcoming weeks will tell. As for me; I think I need a nap. In total, the installation itself took hours; most of it without my intervention. But, with my paranoia; I wasted at least half of those tracking down solutions to problems that ultimately did not exist.
So, keeping this in mind; let the machine do it's thing. Keep checking for updates when it stalls or fails; give it at least an hour before deciding it's stopped moving forward. Restart, and try again; and don't mess with it if it's still progressing, no matter how many times it goes backward and starts again. And, ask the family to give you all the bandwidth you can grab. You're going to need it.
One machine down, and two to go. Good luck! P.S. Yes, I remembered to turn on the Ransomware protection: protected folder access! All my settings were intact and everything is still running great... so far!
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