The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as the saying goes. The Windows Update was designed with good intentions: keeping every Windows user secure, on the latest version of the Windows software. The results, however, turned into one of the many causes of data loss.

Forced Reboots

The issue of Windows forcing a reboot to apply an update while the user is busily working on user-things has plagued Windows ever since Windows XP came along.

In theory, if the user shuts down their PC often enough, they would never be put in a situation where Windows has to force a reboot to apply an update. Unfortunately, with the increasingly mobile world of today, most devices are never turned off, rather, they are put to sleep.

So why is it not possible to just turn off updates and stop worrying about it? Because it leads to chaos; such an option would work for the power users, but most people using Windows are not tech savvy.

Microsoft must design its systems for the lowest common denominator, and in the case of Windows, that bar is set quite low.

The Middle Ground

Thankfully, there is a middle ground. Starting with the upcoming Creators Update, Windows 10 will allow users to snooze an imminent update for up to three days. Also – this part is not confirmed yet, so do take it with slight caution – users will be able to repeat the snooze indefinitely.

Interestingly, the prompt that you see above clearly states that Windows is a service. Microsoft has never been straightforward with that fact, making this quite a refreshing change.

In addition to the prompt above, Windows will continue to respect the existing Active Hours setting by not offering any updates or prompting for a restart during these set hours.

These changes will help Microsoft gain back some of the lost goodwill from its users. Just as Windows 7 fixed the hyperactive UAC prompts of Windows Vista, the Creators Update will fix the hyperactive Windows Update of Windows 10.

The value of treating Windows as a service is finally showing itself.

Source: Windows Blog