Windows updates, aaaaiiiieeeee!!!!!

[davidgillon]

Windows: "We have scheduled an update"

Me: "Don't wanna!"

Windows: "It's almost time for your update"

Me: "Really don't want to do this, but you're going to do it without me if I don't, aren't you?"

Windows: {Tries to look innocent}

So I left it to have its wicked way with my computer overnight, and came back to it today. Press the on switch and the login wallpaper appears. Well, that's a good start.  Bring up password box, ditto. Type in password box, uh-oh...

Keyboard comprehensively dead. Try second keyboard. Also comprehensively dead. Finally think to try the accessibility options and bring up the onscreen keyboard, which gets me in.

Windows: "Oh, hey, there's a keyboard."

Windows: "No, my mistake."

Windows: "Oh, hey, there's a keyboard."

Windows: "No, my mistake."

Windows: "I am installing a keyboard driver. I am so clever."

Windows: "No, my mistake, no keyboard there."

Dell Support Assistant: "Hey, you need an urgent BIOS upgrade."

No shit, Sherlock!!! (Though normally flashing BIOS is the one thing I hate more than Windows updates. Such a good way to potentially brick your computer).

Every digit and limb crossed that it seems to have fixed it.

Comments

[green_knight]

That sounds scary. Glad it's ok.

(I'm staring at my phone which runs iOS 10. I really should update to 12.)

...

[yhlee]

Sympathies. I used to be resistant to updates precisely because I was afraid of things not working anymore (fortunately I haven't yet had something get bricked, knock on wood) but then I read about security issues and started patching regularly. :] Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

[davidgillon]

Exactly, security is why I just let Windows run updates to suit itself, but when it doesn't work cleanly.

Since the original post I've had an hour of the mouse working intermittently, though a further reboot and a bit of fiddling with cables seems to have cured that. But I've got no sound whatsoever. I'm about to go and try hooking in via Steamlink on the TV downstairs to see if the problem is global, or just the speakers.

And I wanted a nice relaxing evening doing nothing much....

[davidgillon]

Did have sound downstairs, though starting in on figuring it out by rewiring my AV stuff, which I'd been putting off since Sunday, probably wasn't the greatest idea.

The problem upstairs turned out to be that Dell's Support Assistant had also run an Nvidia graphics driver update while it was at it, and that had kindly redirected sound output to the Nvidia graphics card, rather than the Realtek soundcard the speakers are actually plugged into!

Fingers crossed everything is now fixed with the PC. Still got some AV stuff to figure out.

[vass]

Sharks. *sigh* Crossing fingers for you.

[cosmolinguist]

The non-consensual nature of Windows updates is something I still haven't gotten used to again after 15 years of not using it.

[davidgillon]

I can sort of see why they do it, and it's marginally less non-consensual than it used to be - at least they let you set a time for the some of the updates nowadays, but they could still make it a hell of a lot more friendly to the realities their customers live with.

[hilarita]

Cross everything. I hope that it works OK.

[davidgillon]

Everything fixed now, I think...?