Author: Greg

As most of you know I am a Google fan.  I use Google’s Chrome, Calendar, Gmail, Keep, Drive plus many other Google products.

After taking Mozilla’s latest release of Firefox (aka Quantum) for a test drive I may be taking Chrome off that list.  Quantum is noticeably faster than Chrome in my unscientific testing.

If you are looking for something to do on these long dark nights give it a try and see what you think.  The user interface is not that much different than Chrome’s so there isn’t much of a learning curve.

Following is my account of getting the Fall Creators Update installed.

I was logged in as a regular user.  Clicked through Settings > Update and security > Windows update and saw two updates  listed – “Features Update to Windows 10 version 1709” and one related to Adobe Flash Player.  My suspicion that the “features” update was the Fall Creators Update was later verified.  I initiated the update process only to have it end reporting that “some updates couldn’t be installed”.  Care to guess what update didn’t install?  Yep, it was the Fall Creators Update.

To make a long story short I ended up having to download Microsoft’s Upgrade Assistant tool to be able to do the update.  At that point the update went well.  Took 2 hours from start to finish and included 3 restarts.  Drilling  through Settings > System > About you will see 1709 as the version and 16299.15 as OS build if the update was successful.

Curious thing is that my update history is now blank.  Even more interesting is that the previously mentioned SMBv1 component is still very much present and I can still see and talk to my networked XP box.  Hmmm.

It is the most basic and hard fast rule that for security you should not be using an admin account as your day-to-day log in.  But by not being logged in as an admin this update didn’t work for me.  I would be very interested in hearing how your update went.

Coming soon, whether you want it or not,  to a Windows 10 PC near you is what Microsoft is calling the Fall Creators Update (aka Redstone 3).  As you should know Microsoft does not give you the ability to not accept updates.  From my initial read through there is going to be some new eye candy (Fluent Design), enhancements to One Drive, tweaks to Edge (my suggestion you still should be using Chrome), beefing up security and a myriad of other tweaks.  You might want to take time and read the article in the above link for a complete rundown on what this update brings.

One potential issue for folks with old hardware on your local network (like me) is the removing of the SMB v1 protocol.  This protocol harks back to XP days and is a major component of local networking.  It is also a major security risk.  With SMB v1 gone old devices requiring it will not be seen by your Windows 10 machine.  Looks like I will be going back to using “sneaker net” to transfer files between the XP machine and my Win 10 box.  Luckily, my older printer that is networked via a USB connection to my router will be functional.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this forced update doesn’t break anything for us.  If it does I would be interested in hearing about it.

If you are a PPCS client you are aware that CCleaner is a tool that is highly recommended for DIY maintenance.  We can now add it to the list of software that has been compromised.  Unless you are running the software on an older 32-bit PC there is no reason to panic.  Read this How-To Geek article for the details.

If you still have questions or concerns please contact me.