I understand that the patches triggered the outage but what if MS released a product that didn't need to be patched every other week.

Just my thought

Blur:

I feel your pain, but *nix is no better. My Laptop is running linux, and I have it set up to automaitically retrieve updates for the kernel and all installed software. Because there are so many bits and pieces to a *nix desktop, and the developpers are perpetually releasing tweaks, it pulls in several hundred updates per month, about a quarter of these updates require a reboot.

Essentially, left running on its own, if I set it to retrieve, install, and reboot, every package update as they became available, it would be rebooting once or twice a day. (As it is, I just get it to retrieve, then get it to install packages at my convenience).

Skype is entirely to blame for this problem. Patch Tuesday is a highly predictable event. For an outfit of Skype's size and scope to fail to take into account the effects of the monthly mass reboot is unforgiveable.

is unforgiveable

yes, for generations! hang them - before it is too late :)

sorry, couldn't resist...

But seriously: coding involves errors and we are not a tiny bit closer to a stable (I would bet my life on it) computer environment then we were in 95.

Software got more complex, hardware got more complex and when I went on holiday and left my C64 on with HERO in pause mode by accident - it was still running, when I returned 2 weeks later and I was able to continue :)

try that today!

P!

What role was Microsoft Update supposed to have played? As far as I'm aware it wasn't an exceptionally busy day for updates.

What role was Microsoft Update supposed to have played?

There was nothing exceptional about the update as far as I know. What Skype is saying is that it just so happened that a lot of people rebooted all at once, and due to a bug, the Skype network was unable to recover from the loss of all of those machines in a timely manner.

I see from re-reading the previous thread that my last post was just rehashing old information. But probably not any more than Skype's latest press release ;)

I understand that coding, especially an OS, is going to be prone to bugs and unforseen circumstances. Especially for an OS installed on millions machines in thousands of different types of environments.

I think it's just the attitude that comes from MS of them thinking that there OS's are the greatest thing since sliced bread is where I get that post from.

As previously said, this was a skype issue and not an MS issue.

Although, with that said, I trust the security of a properly ran *nix machine than a properly run Windows machine.

Much luck to skype on this, I hope that they don't lose too much, if any over this.

grelmar

it pulls in several hundred updates per month, about a quarter of these updates require a reboot.

Just wondering what distro You are using, the only required reboot on an update is a kernel upgrade.. at least with a Debian based distro Ubuntu, Knoppix, etc....

I say that if the MS folks made something that worked better without having to constantly make patches, this kind of thing (with Skype) would not happen, so in a way they are very responsible indeed!

IMO a product as expensive as this should work more or less first time around no?
What if you bought a car and had to bring it in every other day to get it "udated"
:-D

The core of the problem is the need of for the supernodes that can handle the traffic, if they loose them, they lost they P2P network. And running a supernode isn't for those behind a firewall, with limited upstream bandwidth not for those who need to pay for bandwidth.

Basically and IMHO the model of P2P is broken by design, but the fanboys will disagree.

Just wondering what distro You are using, the only required reboot on an update is a kernel upgrade.. at least with a Debian based distro Ubuntu, Knoppix, etc....

I'm using Ubuntu - Kernel updates are the onyl ones that require a reboot, yes, but...

Many of the other updates require a reboot to take hold because the interact with the kernel, or they interact with elements of the UI that run in the background so long as the machine is running.