This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
So you mean they want windows to have something that Linux has had for 20 years? Android has also had this since ~2017 too.
My android phone and Linux computers all still want reboots after updates...
Linux only needs a reboot if you want to update the kernel, normally.
but in that case you can often kexec to restart linux faster, skipping the actual BIOS/UEFI boot.
also, some distros offer live patching of kernel code for $$$
You don't need to pay money for live patching.
They really just make you pay for having them do it for you.
I love linux and been using it for decades, personally and professionally, but no, linux doesn't have "hot patching" the same way as that article describes it. At most it can live patch the kernel (and only few distros actually use that), but definitely not for the last 20 years, and definitely not running processes. However, it does usually restart background processes after an update without requiring a reboot, but in my experience, often times the system becomes unstable after several such updates and rebooting is effectively necessary (though not forced, and that's why I like it).
Yeah, the security in knowing that if you're way top busy right now, you don't have to install or even download any updates. And you don't have to worry your system will suddenly become crashy, glitchy, and unstable because it decided on its own to install some things and let you know you can reboot whenever.
It's so freaking annoying I have to use Windows at work. It takes liberty to do what it wants and then my workflow gets hosed.
I get that there is security, but if you force updates, I should have some kind of notice or "hey, we need to install mandatory updates. You can schedule in the next 24 hours when or you can get them over with"
Linux has this
Cool, so its possible then! I hope Microsoft makes it functional for Windows, too.
It comes in 3 forms.
How many people are actually using kexec to update Linux without rebooting?
Even if Windows does this, trust me, if you have any Razer products, Razer will fill in the gaps for them.
That shit restarts my Windows machine nearly every fucking day.
I love that the Razer installer pops up during windows intital setup. Seriously, chill out Razer, I don't want to sign in to you while I'm bypassing the Microsoft forced sign in.
It looks like you changed the position of your mouse cursor. Would you like to reboot to apply these changes?
Had a movie stop playing the other week (I use my PC as a Jellyfin server and watch on a Nvidia Shield in another room). I thought something had crashed, but when I went upstairs to check, it had realised nobody was watching it and fucking rebooted.
you should probably use a different operating system if you use it as a server
If it was only used as a server, then I would. But it isn't, so I don't.
I remember some years ago there was a "malware" going around that would flash OpenWRT onto people's routers, and set them to have more secure default settings.
There should be another thing like that, but one that upgrades Windows into a Linux distro.
That is absolutely hilarious. Good guy malware swooping in and fixing people's shit? Any chance you have a link?
Microsoft have done this previously and shelved it because their method had enormous security issues.
I don't see this going well for them.
I used to want this, but the latest updates of windows have all been so buggy. I'd prefer to not have this shit happen in mid usage. They once fucked up the search by accident and it was disrupting enough to my workflow until I found ways to disable the search being a default web search.
It looks like it's just security updates, not feature updates. So I would take this as a win. If a 0-day is discovered, being able to update systems to fix it without a restart is fantastic. I know plenty of people who avoid restarting their computer if they see the update icon in their system tray. If we are talking security, these people could be leaving themselves vulnerable for days/weeks. Being able to push security patches without restarts is a big win.
So in other words the
HI WE ARE GETTING THINGS READY FOR YOU
Screen can just pop whever it wants for 20 minutes at a time without warning? Yay...
I know people don't want to hear it anymore because it's beating a dead horse, but.... Linux.
I don't think those words describe what the intended behavior is, no. I think it's supposed to be seamless and not really too noticeable. That's the impression I got from the article anyway.
This was the pipe dream for many many years now. Not the first time MS is talking about it either.
It's a thing in the Linux world and it's just too costly to support and therefore most user facing distros outright don't support it.
So according to the official page on Hotpatching (without any trackers like in the article), this reminds me of kpatch. I guess Microsoft really wants to spend the effort of making that work. Isn't kpatch not really supported (without $$$) by many larger distros since it's prone to break easily?
Didn't they say the same when they were developing windows 10? I don't believe it's gonna happen.
So they are going back to the way Linux does it since forever?
Why not just go image based? Instant reboots and even faster updates.
