From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-11
On Fri, 1/23/2026 1:50 PM, CrudeSausage wrote:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Sjkh-MMtU>
************* Audio transcript so you don't have to watch the video at the top of this page ***************
00:00:00 But wait, it turns out that shut down in Windows 10 doesn't actually mean shut down. Is this just another example of computer companies not trusting us to operate our own stuff? December 2025, a Reddit post goes viral. 340,000 upvotes in 18 hours. The title, I just want to turn off my computer. The
user describes clicking shut down at 11 p.m. Windows 11 says, "Installing updates, 0% complete. 3 hours later at 2:00 a.m., still installing, 47% complete. He has to be up for work at 6:00 a.m. He can't force shutdown or the
00:00:43 update corrupts. He can't unplug it safely. He just sits there waiting, watching a progress bar that moves slower than Evolution. At
4:30 a.m., the computer finally shuts down. 5 and 1/2 hours to turn off a computer. The comments explode with similar stories. Took me 4 hours last
week. I missed my flight because Windows wouldn't shut down. Lost client presentation because forced update restarted during render. Microsoft's response: silence. And users are done waiting. They're switching
00:01:13 operating systems. buying Macs, installing Linux, anything to
escape the prison of a computer that won't turn off when you tell it to. The forced updates that hijack computers, Windows 10 let you delay updates,
not indefinitely, but you had some control. Schedule them. Choose when to install. Windows 11 remove that control. Updates install when Microsoft decides, not when you decide. You click shut down. Windows changes it to
update and shut down. You don't get a choice. The button you clicked doesn't exist anymore. Microsoft
00:01:46 decided your computer needs updating right now. Your schedule doesn't matter. The update process is hostile. No accurate time estimates. Says installing updates. This might take several minutes. Translation: Could
be 20 minutes. Could be 4 hours. You won't know until it's done. Can't
do anything except watch. Can't use the computer. Can't safely turn it
off. You're trapped. held hostage by an operating system that thinks it
knows better than you when your computer should be
00:02:13 available. Thomas Bradley runs a small architecture firm in
Chicago. Eight workstations running Windows 11. Friday evening, 6:00
p.m. Employees trying to go home. Click shut down. All eight computers start installing updates simultaneously. Nobody told them updates were coming. Nobody asked if now was a good time. Microsoft decided progress bars crawl. 700
p.m. still updating. 7:30 p.m. One computer finished. 7 still going. 8:00
p.m. Four done. Four stuck at various percentages. One employee has
00:02:48 dinner reservations at 8:30. Can't leave. Can't abandon a computer mid-update. Finally, at 8:45 p.m., some all computers finish. His employees missed their Friday evening plans because Windows decided 6:00 p.m. on
Friday was update time. He told me the next Monday he started researching, switching to Linux. The forced updates cost his company 20 hours of employee time waiting for computers to finish updating. That's $800 in wasted labor watching progress bars. He's not switching because Linux is better. He's
00:03:20 switching because Windows is unusable. The restarts that destroyed work. Forced restarts are worse than forced updates. At least with Shutdown, you chose to turn off the computer. Forced restarts happen while you're working. Windows decides your computer needs to restart for updates. Gives
you a notification. If you don't see it within 15 minutes, Windows restarts anyway. Whatever you're doing gets closed, work gets lost, applications crash, and Windows acts like it did you a favor by keeping your
00:03:50 computer secure. Rebecca Martinez is a PhD student at UC
Berkeley. She's analyzing genomic data, running computational models that take 8 to 12 hours. She starts a model at 900 a.m. Goes to class. Comes back at 5:00 p.m. to check progress. Computers at the login screen. Restarted. The model didn't finish. She lost 8 hours of computation. Has to start over. She checks Windows update history. Update installed at 2:47 p.m. Computer restarted. She was in class, couldn't see the notification. Windows restarted
00:04:28 her computer in the middle of critical research. She's not an
isolated case. The EI/ Windows 11 subreddit has a weekly mega thread just
for forced restart destroyed my work stories. Video editors losing hours of rendering. Programmers losing code compilations. 3D artists losing complex simulations. Data scientists losing analysis runs. All because Windows
decided updates were more important than user work. One user calculated the damage. He's a freelance video editor. Forced restart killed an
00:05:03 overnight render. 14 hours lost. He bills $85 per hour. That restart cost him $1,190 in loss productivity. He can't bill his client for Windows, destroying his work. He absorbs the loss. He switched to Da Vinci Resolve on Linux the next week. Said if his OS is going to cost him thousands in lost work. He's getting an OS he controls. The update loop that traps users. Some users face something worse than long updates. Infinite update loops. Computer installs updates. Restarts. Says configuring updates.
00:05:40 Please don't turn off your computer. Gets to 100%. Restarts
again. Says installing updates. 0% complete. Same update again. Gets to
100%. Restarts. Preparing to configure Windows. Restarts. Configuring
updates. The loop continues for hours, sometimes days. Michael Torres
in Houston experienced this Thursday morning. Started his computer
for work. Update loop began. 9:00 a.m. Thursday to 2:00 p.m. Friday. 29
hours. Computer cycling through updates repeatedly. Same screens over and
over. He finally forced shutdown by
00:06:18 holding the power button. Booted into recovery mode, rolled
back the update. Computer worked again, but the update automatically tried installing again that night. Loop started again. He disconnected his Ethernet cable, disabled Wi-Fi, blocked Microsoft update servers in his router. The
only way to stop the loop was preventing Windows from accessing updates entirely. He's not alone. Microsoft support forums have hundreds of threads about update loops. Users stuck for days. Microsoft's official solution,
run troubleshooters,
00:06:49 try recovery mode, reinstall Windows. No acknowledgement that their update system is broken. No fix, just workarounds that require technical knowledge most users don't have. So, computers stay trapped in loops,
unusable for days, and Microsoft acts like this is normal. But even when Windows shuts down successfully, it's not really off. Windows 11 uses fast startup by default. Sounds good. Makes boots faster. What it actually does
is hibernate instead of shutting down. Saves system state to
00:07:20 disk. Next boot loads that state instead of starting
fresh. Technically, your computer never fully shuts down unless you disable fast startup in hidden power settings. Why does this matter? Because hibernation state can get corrupted, causes crashes, causes performance
issues, causes problems that full shutdowns would prevent, and users don't
know it's happening. They click shut down thinking the computer turns off. It doesn't. It hibernates and pretends it shut down. Full restart is different
00:07:49 from shutdown. Restart actually turns the computer off and
back on. Shutdown with fast startup just hibernates. This confuses troubleshooting. Tech support says try restarting your computer. Users
shut down and turn back on. Doesn't fix the problem because shutdown isn't actually restarting. They need to choose restart specifically or disable fast startup which requires knowing it exists and finding it in advanced power settings. Most users never open. Aaron Mitchell is a tech support worker for a
00:08:20 small business. He gets 5 to 10 calls weekly from users saying,
"I restarted my computer like you said. It didn't fix the problem." He has
to explain they need to choose restart, not shut down, or hold shift while clicking shutdown to bypass fast startup. Users get frustrated. Why is shutting down different from restarting? Why doesn't shut down actually shut down? He doesn't have good answers. Because there aren't good answers. Windows made shutdown complicated for speed benefits that
00:08:49 aren't worth the confusion. Windows 11's aggressive update behavior exists because it's designed for enterprise IT departments. Corporate environments want mandatory updates. Ensure all computers stay
patched. Security takes priority over user convenience. That makes sense
in managed corporate environments. It makes no sense for home users who own their computers and should control them. But Microsoft applies the same update philosophy to everyone. Home users get treated like corporate employees whose
00:09:20 IT department doesn't trust them. You're not the administrator
of your own computer. Microsoft is. They decide when updates install, when restarts happen, what settings are allowed. You're a user with restricted permissions on hardware you bought. Sarah Johnson bought a computer for
her home office. Works from home as an accountant. Her computer, her desk,
her electricity bill, but she can't control when it updates. can't control
when it restarts. Can't prevent updates from breaking her workflow.
00:09:47 Microsoft treats her like an employee they manage, not a customer
they serve. She resents it. She's not working for Microsoft. She's a
customer. But Windows 11 doesn't respect that relationship. This fundamental disrespect is why users are leaving. It's not really about updates taking
too long. It's about control. Whose computer is it? You paid for it. You
own the hardware. But Microsoft acts like they own it. They control what software runs on it, when it updates, when it shuts down, what
00:10:16 data it collects. You're allowed to use it only under Microsoft's terms. And users are realizing that's not acceptable. Where this ends,
January 2026, Microsoft finally addresses complaints in a blog post. They're exploring options to give users more control over updates. Translation:
Nothing changes. They've been exploring options since Windows 10. The update system gets more aggressive with every version. Words mean nothing without action. And Microsoft's actions show they have no intention of returning
00:10:49 control to users. So users are taking control themselves. Switching
to operating systems where shutdown actually shuts down, where updates happen when you choose, where forced restarts don't exist. Linux distributions give users complete control. Updates install only when you approve them. Nothing installs automatically. Nothing restarts without permission. It's your computer. You control it. What a concept. Mac users don't face forced
restarts. MacOSS prompts for updates. Doesn't install
00:11:20 without permission. Doesn't restart without confirmation. Apple respects that users control their computers. Windows doesn't. That difference is driving platform switches at accelerating rates. The irony is Microsoft created this problem trying to solve another problem. Too many users never updated Windows 10, left computers vulnerable. Microsoft's solution was removing choice entirely, force updates on everyone. But the cure is worse than the disease. Yes, forced updates ensure security patches and stall. But they
00:11:53 also make computers unusable during updates, destroy work with forced restarts, break drivers and settings. The security benefit isn't worth the productivity cost. Better solution? Make updates less disruptive. Install in background without requiring restarts. Apply updates during idle time. Never restart without explicit user permission. Never take longer than 5 minutes
to shut down. Respect that users need computers to work, not spend hours updating. But that would require Microsoft prioritizing user experience
00:12:26 over corporate IT convenience. They won't do that. Enterprise pays
the bills. Home users are just data sources. If this frustrated you because
you face the same problems, share it. Because Microsoft won't acknowledge
that users are angry about update behavior. They'll keep claiming they're improving user experience while forcing updates at inconvenient times. But users know better. They're the ones who lost work to forced restarts, who missed appointments because computers wouldn't
00:12:53 shut down, who wasted hours watching update progress bars. They
know Windows update system is hostile to users and they're choosing
operating systems that respect their time and work. That's what's really happening. Windows is losing users because it won't let them shut down their own computers. It sounds absurd, but it's true. And Microsoft refuses to
fix it. So users are fixing it themselves by switching platforms permanently.
************* End: Audio transcript so you don't have to watch it ***************
I tried running one of the peoples names and details in the video
in Google, and got no hits.
Next.
Paul
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