Sometimes I hate Windows

[Confused]

This morning I fired up my PC for some routine tasks.  It went into a blue screen Windows update mode, with a big "percentage clock", stating that the PC may need to restart multiple times.  I left it running, it took over an hour to complete what it was doing. 

Following the update the PC was running very very slowly, it had also changed my screensaver settings, and curiously, if I check Devialet AIR in the Windows sound card GUI (playback devices) it is now re-named "Hi-Fi cable input (Devialet AIR).

AIR has been faultless for me for a while, so nervous that something had gone horribly wrong I tried a few tunes, music ran ok for about two minutes, then was stop / starting very badly.  Not stuttering, but stopping for a while, then starting for a second or two, then stopping again.

I left the PC on whilst I went out for a couple of hours, trying AIR etc. now, all seams to be fine.  But why such an apparently huge update months after migrating to W10, why has AIR now got it's Hi-Fi cable tag?

Does anyone know what is going on?

For info, I have been running Windows 10 since about last June, it is a reasonably speedy quad core machine, and I have cable super duper fast broadband, which routinely runs at 140 to 160kbs.

I'm glad my car doesn't do things like this, I'm sure I'd wake up one morning and find I'd got the MS Square Wheels update or some such nonsense after it had been driving fine for months.

[hk6230]

Oh dear. I hope my NUC/Win10 will not do this to me. I have it power off as my Le200 is sent for repair.

[hk6230]

Do you find or hear any difference on sound after this latest update?

[Womaz]

This morning I fired up my PC for some routine tasks.  It went into a blue screen Windows update mode, with a big "percentage clock", stating that the PC may need to restart multiple times.  I left it running, it took over an hour to complete what it was doing. 

Following the update the PC was running very very slowly, it had also changed my screensaver settings, and curiously, if I check Devialet AIR in the Windows sound card GUI (playback devices) it is now re-named "Hi-Fi cable input (Devialet AIR).

AIR has been faultless for me for a while, so nervous that something had gone horribly wrong I tried a few tunes, music ran ok for about two minutes, then was stop / starting very badly.  Not stuttering, but stopping for a while, then starting for a second or two, then stopping again.

I left the PC on whilst I went out for a couple of hours, trying AIR etc. now, all seams to be fine.  But why such an apparently huge update months after migrating to W10, why has AIR now got it's Hi-Fi cable tag?

Does anyone know what is going on?

For info, I have been running Windows 10 since about last June, it is a reasonably speedy quad core machine, and I have cable super duper fast broadband, which routinely runs at 140 to 160kbs.

I'm glad my car doesn't do things like this, I'm sure I'd wake up one morning and find I'd got the MS Square Wheels update or some such nonsense after it had been driving fine for months.

Get that PC out of the music chain!

[Confused]

Get that PC out of the music chain!      

Indeed.  Bill Gates and his little band of pixies must be an absolute godsend to the streaming industry.

That said, I'd still like to know why the hell my PC needed two hours of downtime this morning?  Do any of the IT wizards on here have any idea?

One other point I forget to mention, after the PC had done it's update it was in super slow mode, illustrated by the fact it was loading the desktop icons one by one, very slowly, so I'm guessing it was doing some serious update work in the background.  What was going on?

[Antoine]

You can check what updates it installed in the update history. Looks like perhaps you only now got the big Windows 10 November, threshold 2, update since you got the "big update percentage clock". This is in fact a complete new Windows installation, installing over the previous one and a 3GB update!

And yes, Windows 10 is horrible in the updates section. At least with the Pro version you have control over how and when it installs it's updates.

I'd never advise people to use their regular day to day PC's as music servers...use a dedicated one and strip it to the bone which includes disabling automatic updates. Of course people never listen, their loss!

[hk6230]

I've tried stripping my Win10 but wasn't good at it. I have to revert back to original condition when the system failed to play music. Maybe you can share your experience on to strip a Win10 system to bare essentials and with Devialet AIR functionable.

[Antoine]

Well if you knew how much work it is to do it (and to do it right), let alone write it all down in some sort of instruction you wouldn't ask me! I've stopped doing it even for myself since I discovered the great Audiophile Optimizer software. The advantage of that piece of software besides the automated applying of the changes is that it can also quickly roll back most of it which allows you to revert to a more default operating system state (which is highly compatible to e.g. install software and drivers). When you're done it's just as easy to switch back again to an optimized state.

It's for Windows Server 2012 R2 only now but the new 2.0 version which also supports W10 is in beta now. 

http://www.highend-audiopc.com/audiophile-optimizer 
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f28-hi...sponsored/

[hk6230]

Yeah I'm watching out for AO2.0

[Pim]

I didn't read anything of the above. Just wanted to say I hate Windows too.