Windows "Updates"

Because I rant about it so often, I was sure this topic had been covered in this column before. 

It actually is significant enough to be furious about more than once, so here goes.

Why did Microsoft release an update for Windows 11 that quite literally destroyed the functionality of many computers?

Actually, Update Hell has been unleashed on particularly casual users of computers more than once, and another one, not so much a Microsoft problem, is due to arrive in a little over 10 years.

First, the Microsoft updates.

Periodically, Microsoft will release a security patch or OS update, typically aimed at keeping the operating system secure and preventing widespread virus damage.

Problems have come and gone over time with Windows updates - remember Windows ME? A veritable disaster. Branded Windows "Mistake Edition," the OS caused system crashes, freezes, no driver support, and more.

The driver support has always seemed to me to be the biggest problem with the greatest initial selling point in the whole Windows model. While back in the day, when computer manufacturers and operating system choices were trying to get your custom, Apple chose to remain proprietary and develop or vet all software that would be used on its systems. That meant that, by default, Apple would be approving - and thus effectively supporting - needed drivers to run various systems and applications. Windows chose to open things up, allowing users to select specific printers and other hardware, software, and tools for their particular needs and preferences. And therein lay the problem: Microsoft had to take care to support popular printers and storage devices and demanding forms of software. 

On a separate but related note, I have complained incessantly about perfectly serviceable hardware (notably printers) the drivers for which are "no longer available," or are not included in an update to the OS, rendering them a functional piece of junk. And that of course leads to the "do loop" of: I have an old computer and want to use it with my old printer so that I'll have a working driver for the old printer which I want to keep because it was expensive and works fine but if I try to go on the Internet Windows will automatically try to update my version of Windows and if I go ahead with that (knowingly or unknowingly) the driver won't be installed and, in fact, if I go to look for the driver the printer manufacturer will say the driver is not available for that OS, or in fact, at all... You get the picture.

In the most recent instances, which seems to encompass the updates from late 2025 til very recently, Microsoft has released updates that have created "bricks" out of many computers, particularly older models, or simply caused a number of hang-ups and errors. According to one Reddit user, "As of May 2026, the KB5083769 (April 2026) and KB5077181 (February 2026) updates are causing significant issues for Windows 11 users, including blue/black screens, BitLocker lockouts, boot loops, and network issues. Users are reporting these updates can cause severe system instability."

One step any user can take is to control the operating system updates. A simple (though temporary) way to do this is to click on the Windows icon at the bottom left of your tray, select Settings, scroll down to Windows Updates, and then select from the dropdown menu how long you'd like to go with a paused update. It varies from 1-3 weeks, and will eventually tell you you have "run out of pauses."

You can go a little more rogue by hitting the Windows-R key combination, and then entering services.msc into the interface that will come up. You'll get a display of all the various Windows Services, so you scroll down to "Windows Update," and from there you can Stop and Disable the system updates. You'll have to remember to turn that back on to its auto-update status once you've decided what to do long term.

A Google search made it clear that there are additional steps to help restore your computer to some form of usability, which seems kind of cold comfort when it was running perfectly well before the update from the user's point of view.

First, get updated firmware/drivers from your computer manufacturer. That may solve your problem. 

Or you might try:
Uninstalling the update that seems to have caused the problem, typically the latest version. That is, assuming Windows boots. 
Go to Settings > Windows Update > Update history > Uninstall updates.
Identify the most recent update and select Uninstall.

If Windows won't boot, use the Recovery Environment. Turn your computer off and on three times during the boot sequence, which will force it into recovery.  Select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Uninstall Updates. Find the latest update and remove it.

If the system is truly disabled, you can re-install windows without losing all your data by entering the Recovery environment, selecting Troubleshoot >Reset this PC > Keep my files. 

Oh, and because it was promised: the Year 2038 End of Computers. Update Hell Not From Microsoft.

AKA “Unix Y2K”

Remember Y2K when Cobal programmers thought they had some significance? Get ready for Unix Y2K.

What is ths Epochalypse, also known as the "year 2038 problem?"

Millions of IT systems — some of them industrial and IoT — may start behaving unpredictably on January 19, 2038. The cause of this mass of problems will be an overflow in the integers storing date and time. While the root cause of the error is simple and clear, fixing it will require extensive and systematic efforts on every level — from governments and international bodies and down to organizations and private individuals. So in other words, very similar to the Y2K problem.

From an excellent column at www.kaspersky.com/blog:

"The Unix epoch is the timekeeping system adopted by Unix operating systems, which became popular across the entire IT industry. It counts the seconds from 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970, which is considered the zero point. Any given moment in time is represented as the number of seconds that have passed since that date. For dates before 1970, negative values are used. ... Today, the Unix epoch is used far beyond Unix systems: in databases, programming languages, network protocols, and in smartphones running iOS and Android.

"Initially, when Unix was developed, a decision was made to store time as a 32-bit signed integer. This allowed for representing a date range from roughly 1901 to 2038. The problem is that on January 19, 2038, at 03:14:07 UTC, this number will reach its maximum value (2,147,483,647 seconds) and overflow, becoming negative, and causing computers to “teleport” from January 2038 back to December 13, 1901. 

"This event...could lead to failures in systems that still use 32-bit time representation — from POS terminals, embedded systems, and routers, to automobiles and industrial equipment. Modern systems solve this problem by using 64 bits to store time. This extends the date range to hundreds of billions of years into the future. However, millions of devices with 32-bit dates are still in operation, and will require updating or replacement before “day Y” arrives."

As we now know, Y2K came and went with hardly a murmur. We'll see what 2038 brings!