Windows 10: I installed a required system update and it made my computer unusable

I have an Acer Nitro V laptop that came with Windows 11 installed on it. When I bought the laptop a few months ago, I installed Windows 11 using a clean install of Windows from a USB thumb drive. I then installed all of the Acer drivers from their website. The computer has been working fine ever since I got it. Last night, I went to shut down my computer, and I saw that some updates were required, so I chose "Update and Restart". The computer then restarted, and, this was unusual, it went to the Acer Nitro startup screen, and it said "Installing System Updates" with a progress bar. I think the

:)

 

Bloatware updates make system unusable

A couple of things just occurred to me.

The way a software update works is in two steps. The first step is to
download the files, and the second step is to install the files. The
problem I've been describing is that installing the files for Windows
apps (bloatware) takes over the whole machine, and makes it almost
unusable.

The Windows OS updates are installed by requiring a restart, and then
the installation takes place during the restart ("23% completed --
don't turn off your computer"), and that take a few minutes or a
couple of hours, depending on the size of the update,

The bloatware updates are similar, except that they don't require a
restart. Instead they simply make your system almost unusable for a
couple of hours. In other words, the OS updates and the App updates
really both take control of the computer, but the OS updates do it in
the context of a restart.

That shouldn't happen. The app installation should just run in the
background, and allow everything else to run normally. The fact that
it's making the system almost unusable means that the installation is
running at a high priority. If it ran at a normal priority, then
maybe there wouldn't be any problem.

Well, it occurs to me that the Process Explorer program (from
sysinternals) has a "Priority" column. I have Process Explorer up all
the time anyway, so it's handy when there's a problem. So now I've
added the "Priority" column, and I've set the display to show
processes in decreasing order of priority. And wow, there's a bunch
of them running at priority 13 (high), and most of them running at 8
(normal). Interestingly, Firefox and Chrome run at priority 4 (low).

So anyway, next time I get an attack, I'll take a look at the Process
Explorer window, and maybe that will tell me who's causing the
problem. And maybe, just maybe, I can just set that process to normal
or low priority, and solve the problem. (Sorry, I may have crossed
the line into fantasy thinking, but I can't help myself.)

 

Bloatware updates make system unusable

You are quite right when you talk about distinguishing Windows Update and updating other "Bloatware". Even Windows "Modern" APPs are separate programs and shouldn't interfere with system operation and much less require reboot. Same goes for any other program you install but programmers got spoiled with all of ample and fast HW, lots of CPU cores, RAM and fast disks. If such a program requires a reboot upon an update/upgrade, that mostly means that is messing around with protected system files. System protection doesn't let them do anything while they are active and running, could be done only while system is rebooting. Some also install new or alter states of services also necessitating a restart.
Drivers behave in similar way, most often having to restart that particular piece of hardware.
Chances are that any of those are going to misbehave, but lets keep that in it's own context, not all of that is OS's fault. If you just blame OS for those things, you are just making it more difficult to troubleshoot as it may sidetrack you.

 

Windows Updated(16299.309).KB4088776 Restart is required to complete.

Hi dalchina. Good news, I followed your suggestion and reinstalled the update and now it appears as "installed correctly" *Biggrin Maybe it was not necessary to run the Windows Update Troubleshooter or maybe if necessary. But using it I do not think it could have worsened something. The installation was very fast, unlike the first time it showed step 1 and step 2 completed.

Thanks for the suggestions and for the time to respond Best regards.


And thanks for the tip of that program, I'll have it on my list.