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I just had a radical idea
Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading
updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. Just a thought, but to paraphrase a popular song, "Gee it would be nice if you did." |
I just had a radical idea
On 2/22/19 9:05 PM, lonelydad wrote:
Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. Just a thought, but to paraphrase a popular song, "Gee it would be nice if you did." Add to that, would it not be nice if they had a bugzilla bug reporter. And in-sourced their programmers back to the United States. |
I just had a radical idea
lonelydad wrote:
Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) will only use spare bandwidth. If it is using half of your bandwidth means that you were only using half and the other half would've been unused. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. So, are you reporting that active hours aren't obeyed? Did you define when are your active hours for that computer? https://www.windowscentral.com/how-c...during-updates |
I just had a radical idea
On 2/23/2019 12:05 AM, lonelydad wrote:
Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. Just a thought, but to paraphrase a popular song, "Gee it would be nice if you did." Because I'm curious...how much bandwidth is "half"? My last updates have been using every last bit of my 25MB DSL. It also hogs all of my measly 1.4 upload whenever anything gets sent to One Drive. GrtArtiste |
I just had a radical idea
lonelydad wrote:
Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. It shouldn't eat (much) bandwidth when you're using it yourself https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/bits/background-intelligent-transfer-service-portal |
I just had a radical idea
VanguardLH wrote:
lonelydad wrote: Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) will only use spare bandwidth. If it is using half of your bandwidth means that you were only using half and the other half would've been unused. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. So, are you reporting that active hours aren't obeyed? Did you define when are your active hours for that computer? https://www.windowscentral.com/how-c...during-updates The OS Upgrade no longer uses BITS. You can try the BITSADMIN utility (likely deprecated) and see what is going on. bitsadmin /monitor /allusers ******* My test case finally started running the 1809 upgrade just now. This is where I disable DoSvc by setting it to Bypass, and also throttle the BITS it will end up using for the Upgrade Install. (Use "download original image") https://i.postimg.cc/B6Kby0kS/thrott...GPEDIT-MSC.gif Here, you can see it's only using one connection, even though the BITS table has room for a couple more. And an interesting result, is the download is *no slower* than it is with the crappy default method. Microsoft appears to change the method they use, and uses a "large" download over the single connection used. https://i.postimg.cc/4xwnrw30/upgrade-throttled.gif Whereas, downloading the DVD avoids all of this "puttering around" to achieve a similar result. While BITS was doing its single-connection download, my Surf Machine was still able to surf the Internet without being slowed down. And that's because the router "fair share" was only having to deal with single connections from each machine. Rather than the Upgrade machine machine-gunning the router and "stealing" all the fair-share. As it's based on connection count and nothing else. "He who opens the most connections on a home router, wins." That's my experience. Paul |
I just had a radical idea
GrtArtiste wrote:
On 2/23/2019 12:05 AM, lonelydad wrote: Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. Just a thought, but to paraphrase a popular song, "Gee it would be nice if you did." Because I'm curious...how much bandwidth is "half"? My last updates have been using every last bit of my 25MB DSL. It also hogs all of my measly 1.4 upload whenever anything gets sent to One Drive. GrtArtiste I wonder if there are any definitive articles explaining how it's supposed to work. The problem is, home routers are sensitive to "connection count". When a Win10 machine opens 20 connections, it "hogs" the router. It squeezes out a machine which is just using its web browser. Yet, the Win10 machine is supposed to have some notion of bandwidth. But bandwidth is *not* the problem. You can have two computers downloading a DVD, and if each machine uses one connection for the job, they each get 50% of link. Now, even if you set the "bandwidth" on one machine to some lesser number, it can still use an excess of connections to foul up the usability of the home router for other people in the house. Bandwidth as a knob to twiddle is *not* the answer. There's more to it. And I just got my test case to run, the one I've been waiting months for it to take off. And when I force fed it the Feb 2019 Patch Tuesday, finally it started the Upgrade download after that. And it did it with my modified BITS settings, and it behaved nicely and the download went just as fast without being a pig about it. It downloaded the whole Upgrade, using no more than one connection. And it ran at 83% link while doing it. If I were to Web Surf on the other machine, the transfer rate on the Win10 machine would momentarily drop. In other words, fairly sharing my home router. Paul |
I just had a radical idea
On 2/23/2019 5:08 AM, Paul wrote:
GrtArtiste wrote: On 2/23/2019 12:05 AM, lonelydad wrote: Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. Just a thought, but to paraphrase a popular song, "Gee it would be nice if you did." Because I'm curious...how much bandwidth is "half"? My last updates have been using every last bit of my 25MB DSL. It also hogs all of my measly 1.4 upload whenever anything gets sent to One Drive. GrtArtiste I wonder if there are any definitive articles explaining how it's supposed to work. The problem is, home routers are sensitive to "connection count". When a Win10 machine opens 20 connections, it "hogs" the router. It squeezes out a machine which is just using its web browser. Yet, the Win10 machine is supposed to have some notion of bandwidth. But bandwidth is *not* the problem. You can have two computers downloading a DVD, and if each machine uses one connection for the job, they each get 50% of link. Now, even if you set the "bandwidth" on one machine to some lesser number, it can still use an excess of connections to foul up the usability of the home router for other people in the house. Bandwidth as a knob to twiddle is *not* the answer. There's more to it. And I just got my test case to run, the one I've been waiting months for it to take off. And when I force fed it the Feb 2019 Patch Tuesday, finally it started the Upgrade download after that. And it did it with my modified BITS settings, and it behaved nicely and the download went just as fast without being a pig about it. It downloaded the whole Upgrade, using no more than one connection. And it ran at 83% link while doing it. If I were to Web Surf on the other machine, the transfer rate on the Win10 machine would momentarily drop. In other words, fairly sharing my home router. Â*Â* Paul Thank you for the explanation. What concerns me though is that the vast majority of users won't bother to modify their BITS settings and will just live with it. So...does *more* bandwidth eventually become *enough* bandwidth to mitigate the problem to any noticeable degree? Or will the update/upgrade process always monopolize as much bandwidth as it can? The OP originally said "half my download bandwidth disappeared". If that was not just an guess/estimate, I'd like to know how much "half" really is. GrtArtiste |
I just had a radical idea
GrtArtiste wrote:
On 2/23/2019 5:08 AM, Paul wrote: GrtArtiste wrote: On 2/23/2019 12:05 AM, lonelydad wrote: Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. Just a thought, but to paraphrase a popular song, "Gee it would be nice if you did." Because I'm curious...how much bandwidth is "half"? My last updates have been using every last bit of my 25MB DSL. It also hogs all of my measly 1.4 upload whenever anything gets sent to One Drive. GrtArtiste I wonder if there are any definitive articles explaining how it's supposed to work. The problem is, home routers are sensitive to "connection count". When a Win10 machine opens 20 connections, it "hogs" the router. It squeezes out a machine which is just using its web browser. Yet, the Win10 machine is supposed to have some notion of bandwidth. But bandwidth is *not* the problem. You can have two computers downloading a DVD, and if each machine uses one connection for the job, they each get 50% of link. Now, even if you set the "bandwidth" on one machine to some lesser number, it can still use an excess of connections to foul up the usability of the home router for other people in the house. Bandwidth as a knob to twiddle is *not* the answer. There's more to it. And I just got my test case to run, the one I've been waiting months for it to take off. And when I force fed it the Feb 2019 Patch Tuesday, finally it started the Upgrade download after that. And it did it with my modified BITS settings, and it behaved nicely and the download went just as fast without being a pig about it. It downloaded the whole Upgrade, using no more than one connection. And it ran at 83% link while doing it. If I were to Web Surf on the other machine, the transfer rate on the Win10 machine would momentarily drop. In other words, fairly sharing my home router. Paul Thank you for the explanation. What concerns me though is that the vast majority of users won't bother to modify their BITS settings and will just live with it. So...does *more* bandwidth eventually become *enough* bandwidth to mitigate the problem to any noticeable degree? Or will the update/upgrade process always monopolize as much bandwidth as it can? The OP originally said "half my download bandwidth disappeared". If that was not just an guess/estimate, I'd like to know how much "half" really is. GrtArtiste Well, I know the effect he's referring to, because I first saw that about three releases ago. And it makes your Surf Machine "slogging slow". I think at one point, I even had a connection time out, because there wasn't an opportunity to squeeze in a packet in time. Microsoft did turn it down a bit, and I don't think they open quite as many connections today as they did the first time they used that method. And if the Win10 machine is aggressive enough, it can actually crash my router. My router isn't exactly a champ (it would never be selected for usage with Tor), but I was duly impressed that Windows 10 and its bad connection habits, could actually tip the router section over. It doesn't do that now. This generation of release is a little better behaved and doesn't kill the router, but it still makes the Surf Machine slow. And as my test result shows, it's unnecessary to make the process punishing like this. By turning off DoSvc and going back to BITS, the download process used 83% of the link (comparable to other cases), the download finished in a decent time (it might have finished faster than normal actually), and it only used the one connection. I could surf on the Surf Machine as if Windows Update wasn't even running. Which tells you the process doesn't have to be crappy, to work. Paul |
I just had a radical idea
On 2/23/2019 12:05 AM, lonelydad wrote:
Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. Just a thought, but to paraphrase a popular song, "Gee it would be nice if you did." It definitely would be nice to know when updates are going to be downloaded. Now the only way to know is when the machine starts acting strange or slow. If there was a pre download flag, you could plan for the download. The download could then be completed faster if you were not using the computer. PS: Our computers are only on when we are using them, so the times for download do not apply, as the computer may be off when MS wants to download. -- 2018: The year we learn to play the great game of Euchre |
I just had a radical idea
In article , Paul
wrote: The problem is, home routers are sensitive to "connection count". When a Win10 machine opens 20 connections, it "hogs" the router. It squeezes out a machine which is just using its web browser. nonsense. home routers can handle many hundreds, if not many thousands of simultaneous connections. if 20 connections caused a problem, then all sorts of things wouldn't work properly, or at all. a single web page often has more than that, plus all the other stuff that's in use. |
I just had a radical idea
In article , Paul
wrote: And if the Win10 machine is aggressive enough, it can actually crash my router. then you have an incredibly ****ty router. |
I just had a radical idea
GrtArtiste wrote in
: On 2/23/2019 12:05 AM, lonelydad wrote: Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. Just a thought, but to paraphrase a popular song, "Gee it would be nice if you did." Because I'm curious...how much bandwidth is "half"? My last updates have been using every last bit of my 25MB DSL. It also hogs all of my measly 1.4 upload whenever anything gets sent to One Drive. GrtArtiste I have a 5mb/500kb DSL line. I started this post last night when I noticed a big download going on, and said half because it appeared to be half on the network monitoring screen I always have up. Now that you mention it, the screen is set to display 7mbs max, so roughly half of that would be somewhere around 3.5mbs to 4mbs, which is a larger percentage than half. My point is that I have had times where I was already using a good portion of my bandwidth for some other purpose, like streaming a video. Then Microsoft kicks in, and all of a sudden my video isn't streaming like it should. It wouldn't take that much to implement. When my turn comes up in the lottery, just ping my system and get my current active hours. If the time is outside of those hours, just go ahead and download. If I am still in my active zone, mark my download as pending with a start after marker. Then whenever the system finishes a download they can check the pending queue, and start sending to the first system on the list that qualifies. After all, they are already checking my system for anything that would disqualify me from getting the download, like the video problems with 1809. It shouldn't have a major impact on their download process, since they have enough systems to download to to keep their effort going. |
I just had a radical idea
Paul wrote in :
VanguardLH wrote: lonelydad wrote: Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) will only use spare bandwidth. If it is using half of your bandwidth means that you were only using half and the other half would've been unused. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of my bandwidth, because I will be in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. So, are you reporting that active hours aren't obeyed? Did you define when are your active hours for that computer? Active hours is a setting that tells Microsoft that they are not to remotely force a start of the upgrade process withint that time range. The assumption is that either the machine is not in use at all, or can be interrupted without problem outside of those hours. They have nothing to do with when Microsoft downloads any updates to one's system. |
I just had a radical idea
Paul wrote in :
GrtArtiste wrote: On 2/23/2019 12:05 AM, lonelydad wrote: Why can't Microsoft post a notification when they are downloading updates/upgrades? It would be nice to know why all of a sudden half my download bandwith disappeared. Even more radical - why don't they wait till it is outside of my set active hours. Then it really wouldn't matter if they take up a majority of Because I'm curious...how much bandwidth is "half"? And I just got my test case to run, the one I've been waiting months for it to take off. And when I force fed it the Feb 2019 Patch Tuesday, finally it started the Upgrade download after that. And it did it with my modified BITS settings, and it behaved nicely and the download went just as fast without being a pig about it. It downloaded the whole Upgrade, using no more than one connection. And it ran at 83% link while doing it. If I were to Web Surf on the other machine, the transfer rate on the Win10 machine would momentarily drop. In other words, fairly sharing my home router. Paul I know you explained what your were doing a while back on a similar thread, but could you repeat it for those of us who didn't save your answer that time? |
I just had a radical idea
lonelydad wrote:
I know you explained what your were doing a while back on a similar thread, but could you repeat it for those of us who didn't save your answer that time? http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi...nt-email.me%3E You use GPEDIT.msc and the Administration section of the top part. There are three settings. A setting to bypass DoSvc. Two settings for BITS max connections. The picture in that article, shows Delivery Optimization has been disabled by GPEDIT. At the top here, I sort by "State" in GPEDIT, so the settings I've modified, float to the top. https://i.postimg.cc/B6Kby0kS/thrott...GPEDIT-MSC.gif I'm not saying this is an "optimal" way to run Windows 10. It was merely an experiment to see if the abysmal round robin abuse of a router could be stopped or not. So you could actually use your Internet connection from a second machine, while Windows 10 is doing an Upgrade Install. Windows 10 considers it OK to do the "pre-load" portion of an Upgrade, during active hours. The active hours setting is only there when it comes time for a reboot to do the actual install, and they can then pester you outside of active hours to reboot. It means it's possible the downloading will happen during prime time. And the weird part is, the Win10 machine is a trifle less usable when the downloads are happening. Even though only one connection is open. Paul |
I just had a radical idea
Paul wrote:
VanguardLH wrote: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) will only use spare bandwidth. If it is using half of your bandwidth means that you were only using half and the other half would've been unused. The OS Upgrade no longer uses BITS. You can try the BITSADMIN utility (likely deprecated) and see what is going on. So, if I *disable* the BITS service, the OS upgrade still proceeds? |
I just had a radical idea
On 2/23/19 6:51 AM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
2018: The year we learn to play the great game of Euchre I CAN'T learn it in 2018. My time machine's broken. |
I just had a radical idea
Paul wrote in :
lonelydad wrote: I know you explained what your were doing a while back on a similar thread, but could you repeat it for those of us who didn't save your answer that time? http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi...=%3Cq4r59a%24p fn%241%40dont-email.me%3E You use GPEDIT.msc and the Administration section of the top part. There are three settings. A setting to bypass DoSvc. Two settings for BITS max connections. The picture in that article, shows Delivery Optimization has been disabled by GPEDIT. At the top here, I sort by "State" in GPEDIT, so the settings I've modified, float to the top. https://i.postimg.cc/B6Kby0kS/thrott...ith-GPEDIT-MSC. gif Paul Thank you. It took me a little while to find the settings, but I have them set as per your example. Now we wait until the next Microsoft download. |
I just had a radical idea
hah wrote:
On 2/23/19 6:51 AM, Keith Nuttle wrote: 2018: The year we learn to play the great game of Euchre I CAN'T learn it in 2018. My time machine's broken. Well, we all know how to play Euchre now. Because our year is up. 1) Unpack a brand new pack of cards. Remove jokers. 1a) Put the jokers back. The game apparently uses jokers. 2) Shuffle thoroughly. 3) Deal out cards. 4) ... 5) Profit! The subroutine for (4) is similar to Bridge. I tried to write a program to play Bridge once. That's when I learned that "programs need structure" and "60 lines of code aren't enough" :-) Any program I write today, can have no more than 60 lines in it, in memory of my "discovery". Paul |
I just had a radical idea
VanguardLH wrote:
Paul wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) will only use spare bandwidth. If it is using half of your bandwidth means that you were only using half and the other half would've been unused. The OS Upgrade no longer uses BITS. You can try the BITSADMIN utility (likely deprecated) and see what is going on. So, if I *disable* the BITS service, the OS upgrade still proceeds? It would depend as well, on the DoSvc Setting page settings. If you're not careful, you could turn it off there, as well as be able to turn it off in GPEDIT. The idea of doing it via GPEDIT, is so they can't "sneak some through that way". I was surprised that DoSvc had taken over from BITS. I can't remember what I was doing, but I had the BITSADMIN monitor running, the OS was "doing something", and none of the download activities involved BITS. I have to assume it was DoSvc running the show. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ization-portal "Delivery Optimization allows devices to download updates from alternate sources (such as other peers on the network), in addition to Microsoft servers. Delivery Optimization combines partial bits from local devices, with partial bits from Microsoft servers to update devices in the network environment. === In the form of a thousand signed packages The expected result is reduced bandwidth usage, === YES, by inspection and a faster update process. === NO, not even close " So the staff at Microsoft are temporally challenged. That's got to explain it. This scheme is "all about the gigabytes" and making customer machines do the transfers instead. The update process isn't faster. I think I used to be able to get some of the DVDs in around 25 minutes or so. When I tested the DoSvc Peer-to-Peer-LAN feature, it didn't work! Paul |
I just had a radical idea
I see this troll is using OS X. The same troll that was/is in the
Apple group. Wasn't getting enough attention trolling there as an Apple fanboy, so it's trolling Windows users here... -- nospam nospam nospam.invalid wrote: Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: nospam nospam nospam.invalid Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-10 Subject: I just had a radical idea Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2019 08:04:29 -0500 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 8 Message-ID: 230220190804293638%nospam nospam.invalid References: XnsA9FEEAEA532C3lonelydad58gmailcom 69.16.179.29 q4qnq9$m7p$1 dont-email.me q4r630$tt0$1 dont-email.me q4ratr$ofk$1 dont-email.me q4rbu5$tph$1 dont-email.me Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="3da57bf4e7c8935aebc8070ae48abdbc"; logging-data="19903"; mail-complaints-to="abuse eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+PNJq59piaELaKh17kPhyl" User-Agent: Thoth/1.9.0 (Mac OS X) Cancel-Lock: sha1:3XmeduEFL6pM+rKxpsfFLx/vocg= Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org alt.comp.os.windows-10:89677 In article q4rbu5$tph$1 dont-email.me, Paul nospam needed.invalid wrote: And if the Win10 machine is aggressive enough, it can actually crash my router. then you have an incredibly ****ty router. |
I just had a radical idea
This regular troll can't hold a candle to Paul...
-- nospam nospam nospam.invalid wrote: Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: nospam nospam nospam.invalid Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-10 Subject: I just had a radical idea Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2019 08:04:28 -0500 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 13 Message-ID: 230220190804283561%nospam nospam.invalid References: XnsA9FEEAEA532C3lonelydad58gmailcom 69.16.179.29 q4qnq9$m7p$1 dont-email.me q4r630$tt0$1 dont-email.me Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="3da57bf4e7c8935aebc8070ae48abdbc"; logging-data="19903"; mail-complaints-to="abuse eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18eOcQFwdaauA2Du8vXHhZq" User-Agent: Thoth/1.9.0 (Mac OS X) Cancel-Lock: sha1:pHcXKSV+hu1ZaebnD8Lsruq4NJ8= Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org alt.comp.os.windows-10:89676 In article q4r630$tt0$1 dont-email.me, Paul nospam needed.invalid wrote: The problem is, home routers are sensitive to "connection count". When a Win10 machine opens 20 connections, it "hogs" the router. It squeezes out a machine which is just using its web browser. nonsense. home routers can handle many hundreds, if not many thousands of simultaneous connections. if 20 connections caused a problem, then all sorts of things wouldn't work properly, or at all. a single web page often has more than that, plus all the other stuff that's in use. |
I just had a radical idea
Paul wrote:
VanguardLH wrote: Paul wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) will only use spare bandwidth. If it is using half of your bandwidth means that you were only using half and the other half would've been unused. The OS Upgrade no longer uses BITS. You can try the BITSADMIN utility (likely deprecated) and see what is going on. So, if I *disable* the BITS service, the OS upgrade still proceeds? It would depend as well, on the DoSvc Setting page settings. If you're not careful, you could turn it off there, as well as be able to turn it off in GPEDIT. The idea of doing it via GPEDIT, is so they can't "sneak some through that way". I was surprised that DoSvc had taken over from BITS. I can't remember what I was doing, but I had the BITSADMIN monitor running, the OS was "doing something", and none of the download activities involved BITS. I have to assume it was DoSvc running the show. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ization-portal "Delivery Optimization allows devices to download updates from alternate sources (such as other peers on the network), in addition to Microsoft servers. Delivery Optimization combines partial bits from local devices, with partial bits from Microsoft servers to update devices in the network environment. === In the form of a thousand signed packages The expected result is reduced bandwidth usage, === YES, by inspection and a faster update process. === NO, not even close " So the staff at Microsoft are temporally challenged. That's got to explain it. This scheme is "all about the gigabytes" and making customer machines do the transfers instead. The update process isn't faster. I think I used to be able to get some of the DVDs in around 25 minutes or so. When I tested the DoSvc Peer-to-Peer-LAN feature, it didn't work! Paul Ah, the "steal partial downloads from non-Microsoft others". To reduce load on their own WSUS servers, they employ peer-to-peer incremental updates. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...y-optimization My property is not Microsoft's. I don't let Microsoft use my computer nor my bandwidth to incrementally deliver THEIR updates. My host is not theirs to [ab]use. Like MANY other configuration settings and services in Windows 10, Delivery Optimization was amongst those that I configure to keep Microsoft using my host as theirs. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-...y-optimization For the same reason that I chose not to become covertly volunteered to assist Microsoft to deliver Microsoft's updates, I also will not abuse the hosts of other users to acquire those Microsoft updates. |
I just had a radical idea
On Sat, 23 Feb 2019 19:10:01 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
Paul wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Paul wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) will only use spare bandwidth. If it is using half of your bandwidth means that you were only using half and the other half would've been unused. The OS Upgrade no longer uses BITS. You can try the BITSADMIN utility (likely deprecated) and see what is going on. So, if I *disable* the BITS service, the OS upgrade still proceeds? It would depend as well, on the DoSvc Setting page settings. If you're not careful, you could turn it off there, as well as be able to turn it off in GPEDIT. The idea of doing it via GPEDIT, is so they can't "sneak some through that way". I was surprised that DoSvc had taken over from BITS. I can't remember what I was doing, but I had the BITSADMIN monitor running, the OS was "doing something", and none of the download activities involved BITS. I have to assume it was DoSvc running the show. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ization-portal "Delivery Optimization allows devices to download updates from alternate sources (such as other peers on the network), in addition to Microsoft servers. Delivery Optimization combines partial bits from local devices, with partial bits from Microsoft servers to update devices in the network environment. === In the form of a thousand signed packages The expected result is reduced bandwidth usage, === YES, by inspection and a faster update process. === NO, not even close " So the staff at Microsoft are temporally challenged. That's got to explain it. This scheme is "all about the gigabytes" and making customer machines do the transfers instead. The update process isn't faster. I think I used to be able to get some of the DVDs in around 25 minutes or so. When I tested the DoSvc Peer-to-Peer-LAN feature, it didn't work! Paul Ah, the "steal partial downloads from non-Microsoft others". To reduce load on their own WSUS servers, they employ peer-to-peer incremental updates. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...y-optimization My property is not Microsoft's. I don't let Microsoft use my computer nor my bandwidth to incrementally deliver THEIR updates. My host is not theirs to [ab]use. Like MANY other configuration settings and services in Windows 10, Delivery Optimization was amongst those that I configure to keep Microsoft using my host as theirs. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-...y-optimization For the same reason that I chose not to become covertly volunteered to assist Microsoft to deliver Microsoft's updates, I also will not abuse the hosts of other users to acquire those Microsoft updates. Do you feel the same way considering that one of the options is to send to or receive from only "PCs on my local network"? I totally agree about the "and PCs on the Internet" aspect of the feature, but within my LAN it seems somewhat reasonable. I currently have the feature enabled, but the sub-feature "PCs on my local network" is selected, rather than the second option that includes "and PCs on the Internet". Thoughts? |
I just had a radical idea
Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 23 Feb 2019 19:10:01 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: For the same reason that I chose not to become covertly volunteered to assist Microsoft to deliver Microsoft's updates, I also will not abuse the hosts of other users to acquire those Microsoft updates. Do you feel the same way considering that one of the options is to send to or receive from only "PCs on my local network"? I totally agree about the "and PCs on the Internet" aspect of the feature, but within my LAN it seems somewhat reasonable. I currently have the feature enabled, but the sub-feature "PCs on my local network" is selected, rather than the second option that includes "and PCs on the Internet". Thoughts? When I attempted to test this, it didn't work, and one PC would not "take" updates from the second PC. I love features that have a mind of their own. "Dosvc: I'm not working because: Bad Mood" Paul |
I just had a radical idea
On 3/16/2019 2:08 PM, Paul wrote:
Char Jackson wrote: On Sat, 23 Feb 2019 19:10:01 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: For the same reason that I chose not to become covertly volunteered to assist Microsoft to deliver Microsoft's updates, I also will not abuse the hosts of other users to acquire those Microsoft updates. Do you feel the same way considering that one of the options is to send to or receive from only "PCs on my local network"? I totally agree about the "and PCs on the Internet" aspect of the feature, but within my LAN it seems somewhat reasonable. I currently have the feature enabled, but the sub-feature "PCs on my local network" is selected, rather than the second option that includes "and PCs on the Internet". Thoughts? When I attempted to test this, it didn't work, and one PC would not "take" updates from the second PC. I love features that have a mind of their own. Â*Â*Â* "Dosvc: I'm not working because: Bad Mood" Â*Â* Paul I had the same problem. I read a blog a while back that stated it was microsoft's decision. You could prevent them using your machines, but their decision TO use your network for your machines was not encouraged when you allowed it. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the use of update managers and the unknown state of other machines and our penchant to delete update sources to save space rendered that ineffective. |
I just had a radical idea
Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 23 Feb 2019 19:10:01 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Paul wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Paul wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) will only use spare bandwidth. If it is using half of your bandwidth means that you were only using half and the other half would've been unused. The OS Upgrade no longer uses BITS. You can try the BITSADMIN utility (likely deprecated) and see what is going on. So, if I *disable* the BITS service, the OS upgrade still proceeds? It would depend as well, on the DoSvc Setting page settings. If you're not careful, you could turn it off there, as well as be able to turn it off in GPEDIT. The idea of doing it via GPEDIT, is so they can't "sneak some through that way". I was surprised that DoSvc had taken over from BITS. I can't remember what I was doing, but I had the BITSADMIN monitor running, the OS was "doing something", and none of the download activities involved BITS. I have to assume it was DoSvc running the show. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ization-portal "Delivery Optimization allows devices to download updates from alternate sources (such as other peers on the network), in addition to Microsoft servers. Delivery Optimization combines partial bits from local devices, with partial bits from Microsoft servers to update devices in the network environment. === In the form of a thousand signed packages The expected result is reduced bandwidth usage, === YES, by inspection and a faster update process. === NO, not even close " So the staff at Microsoft are temporally challenged. That's got to explain it. This scheme is "all about the gigabytes" and making customer machines do the transfers instead. The update process isn't faster. I think I used to be able to get some of the DVDs in around 25 minutes or so. When I tested the DoSvc Peer-to-Peer-LAN feature, it didn't work! Paul Ah, the "steal partial downloads from non-Microsoft others". To reduce load on their own WSUS servers, they employ peer-to-peer incremental updates. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...y-optimization My property is not Microsoft's. I don't let Microsoft use my computer nor my bandwidth to incrementally deliver THEIR updates. My host is not theirs to [ab]use. Like MANY other configuration settings and services in Windows 10, Delivery Optimization was amongst those that I configure to keep Microsoft using my host as theirs. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-...y-optimization For the same reason that I chose not to become covertly volunteered to assist Microsoft to deliver Microsoft's updates, I also will not abuse the hosts of other users to acquire those Microsoft updates. Do you feel the same way considering that one of the options is to send to or receive from only "PCs on my local network"? I totally agree about the "and PCs on the Internet" aspect of the feature, but within my LAN it seems somewhat reasonable. I currently have the feature enabled, but the sub-feature "PCs on my local network" is selected, rather than the second option that includes "and PCs on the Internet". Thoughts? For a multi-host intranet setup, I would use a server version of Windows on one of them and use WSUS. However, in your setup, you are distributing the effect of WSUS over multiple hosts to eliminate having to pay more to get a server edition of Windows. Hopefully whomever is using one of your intranet hosts decides to not include the updates in their local cleanup. See: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/can-i...y-disk-cleanup I have to wonder what happens for a download of an update that is corrupted or otherwise refuses to install. Instead of some hosts gets updated, they get it from the host that has a bad copy of the update, so all hosts fail to update. I've never had to troubleshoot why an update fails when using delivery optimization since, after all, how would you know on which intranet host was where is the bad update? If it were local, you delete the Software Distribution folder and redo the WU client to rebuild the local catalog to re-retrieve the failed update. Delivery optimization is a self-organizing distributed cache of updates. I haven't investigated to know if a cached update must exist in its entirety one one host or if it may get split. Seems a means for malware to manage to infect one host with a corrupted or substitute update and then have Microsoft's delivery optimization to distribute the malware to all the other hosts. You might be the only user of all your intranet hosts but that's not the typical scenario under which delivery optimization gets used. https://tools.cisco.com/security/cen...?alertId=55567 https://www.rapid7.com/db/vulnerabil...cve-2017-11829 That one was found and hopefully fixed. Finding one doesn't mean finding all vulnerabilities. This is another broadcasting protocal that can affect multiple hosts. Windows 10 had been released in mid-2015 and it was more than 2 years later that the above vulnerability was exposed. For home users, yeah, WUDO (Windows Update Delivery Optimization) might have some advantages -- but how slow is the Internet connection on these home PCs to connect to Microsoft's own WSUS server? Yes, BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) is slow to get updates because it was designed to be that way: not use much bandwidth or CPU cycles so as not to impact responsiveness of the host to the user. However, users can use the online catalog to download the updates (and then share with their other hosts) or use WSUSoffline to build a local cache (that could also be shared amongst your other hosts). Dial-up users are going to suffer whether they use WUDO or not. I would think Microsoft doing full-bandwidth transfers of update files, especially the big ones, would impact the available bandwidth of the intranet hosts to communicate with other or for Internet traffic. I suspect BITS is still employed by WUDO to distribute the updates from the local caches on each host to the other hosts, so the transfer remains throttled. Well, that's what I would expect from Microsoft. However, users have been complaining that WUDO was choking their network making web surfing very slow or impossible. They had the default of WUDO getting updates from other Intranet hosts. That means WUDO is not using BITS to keep the update traffic in the background. So what happens when you connect a new host that has to get all the updates from wherever they are cached on the local/intranet hosts? Seems it will flood the network with all those update transfers and at full speed, much like an FTP transfer. Getting information on how WUDO exactly works has been rather fruitless. However, to be fair, I disabled it, so I haven't been motivated to dig into how it works. It has choked users networks when getting updates from web hosts, so how would that not also happen for getting the updates from local hosts? It has been vulnerable, but is anyone actually digging into it to find more, if any, vulnerabilities? How much faster is "faster" when using a distributed cache in an intranet? There are tons of performance tweaks that may boost performance but often the change is so miniscule that users will never notice a change. While you have multiple hosts in your intranet, I doubt that constitutes the vast majority of home PC setups, and one home PC can't take advantage of a local cache of updates since that cache would be on the only host in the home network which already has a cache of updates in the Software Distribution folder. Personally I don't trust the other hosts in my intranet because my family aren't as safe as I and they often commit actions that result in their hosts getting infected. So, in my case, I configure the router to isolate the other intranet hosts: all get Internet access but they cannot access each other. I'll fix their hosts but I'm not letting them touch mine. It's the same idea that a drowning man takes down the rescuer, so lifeguards tote a buoy on a rope to toss to the drowning person. If you don't save yourself first, you cannot save someone else. I've read reports from users that claim the WU client shows zero updates available and a poll at the catalog store also shows zero updates available for the visiting client yet WUDO is consuming a large portion of the network bandwidth. That hints that WUDO is retrieving updates that are NOT for your host but for any host. Other hosts that need the update could get it from the local distributed cache but your host doesn't need the update. Your host is updating the local distributed cache with updates your host doesn't need just to have them available for other hosts that may need them. In effect, WUDO is acting like a local WSUS server to accumulate a range of updates whether they apply to your hosts, your other hosts, or none of your hosts. Fully updated hosts still experienced traffic due to WUDO. Disabling WUDO eliminated the sometimes excessive traffic which was unnecessary for an already fully updated host. The option to share updates only on local hosts might eliminate the above network choking. If just one of the local hosts had the update already then share it with the other hosts. The users reporting the choking (high bandwidth usage) did not mention if they were sharing the updates only locally or with web hosts. BITS was designed to minimize impact on the updating host. WUDO does not. WUDO isn't just for updates but also for Store apps. Since I have WUDO disabled, I don't have a local distributed cache to look at. Are the apps simply stored in a cache folder or are they protected against tampering? Distributing apps to other hosts where the apps could be modified by one of the hosts involved in the distributed cache could mean other users don't get the app they expect to get. I'd have to dig more into WUDO to determine how the updates and apps are protected against tampering and just how the receiving hosts qualify that the update or app is what Microsoft's WSUS server would've delivered. To be honest, I don't think Microsoft came up with WUDO to help users get their updates more quickly and safely but instead to relieve some of the load on their own WSUS servers. Co-opting users isn't a new concept. There was/is a peer-to-peer VPN (I think it was Hola) where the free users where actually sharing a portion of their bandwidth with the paid users. That is, freeloaders got the service for free albeit a bit slower while sacrificing a portion of their bandwidth as a shared node used by paid users. Not wanting to share a portion of your bandwidth with other peers meant having to pay for that "privilege". Bet you're sorry you asked. |
I just had a radical idea
On Sat, 16 Mar 2019 17:08:06 -0400, Paul wrote:
Char Jackson wrote: On Sat, 23 Feb 2019 19:10:01 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: For the same reason that I chose not to become covertly volunteered to assist Microsoft to deliver Microsoft's updates, I also will not abuse the hosts of other users to acquire those Microsoft updates. Do you feel the same way considering that one of the options is to send to or receive from only "PCs on my local network"? I totally agree about the "and PCs on the Internet" aspect of the feature, but within my LAN it seems somewhat reasonable. I currently have the feature enabled, but the sub-feature "PCs on my local network" is selected, rather than the second option that includes "and PCs on the Internet". Thoughts? When I attempted to test this, it didn't work, and one PC would not "take" updates from the second PC. I love features that have a mind of their own. "Dosvc: I'm not working because: Bad Mood" Well, the concept seemed OK but I guess the implementation was never given legs. Thanks. |
I just had a radical idea
On Sat, 16 Mar 2019 17:13:17 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
Char Jackson wrote: On Sat, 23 Feb 2019 19:10:01 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Paul wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Paul wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) will only use spare bandwidth. If it is using half of your bandwidth means that you were only using half and the other half would've been unused. The OS Upgrade no longer uses BITS. You can try the BITSADMIN utility (likely deprecated) and see what is going on. So, if I *disable* the BITS service, the OS upgrade still proceeds? It would depend as well, on the DoSvc Setting page settings. If you're not careful, you could turn it off there, as well as be able to turn it off in GPEDIT. The idea of doing it via GPEDIT, is so they can't "sneak some through that way". I was surprised that DoSvc had taken over from BITS. I can't remember what I was doing, but I had the BITSADMIN monitor running, the OS was "doing something", and none of the download activities involved BITS. I have to assume it was DoSvc running the show. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ization-portal "Delivery Optimization allows devices to download updates from alternate sources (such as other peers on the network), in addition to Microsoft servers. Delivery Optimization combines partial bits from local devices, with partial bits from Microsoft servers to update devices in the network environment. === In the form of a thousand signed packages The expected result is reduced bandwidth usage, === YES, by inspection and a faster update process. === NO, not even close " So the staff at Microsoft are temporally challenged. That's got to explain it. This scheme is "all about the gigabytes" and making customer machines do the transfers instead. The update process isn't faster. I think I used to be able to get some of the DVDs in around 25 minutes or so. When I tested the DoSvc Peer-to-Peer-LAN feature, it didn't work! Paul Ah, the "steal partial downloads from non-Microsoft others". To reduce load on their own WSUS servers, they employ peer-to-peer incremental updates. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...y-optimization My property is not Microsoft's. I don't let Microsoft use my computer nor my bandwidth to incrementally deliver THEIR updates. My host is not theirs to [ab]use. Like MANY other configuration settings and services in Windows 10, Delivery Optimization was amongst those that I configure to keep Microsoft using my host as theirs. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-...y-optimization For the same reason that I chose not to become covertly volunteered to assist Microsoft to deliver Microsoft's updates, I also will not abuse the hosts of other users to acquire those Microsoft updates. Do you feel the same way considering that one of the options is to send to or receive from only "PCs on my local network"? I totally agree about the "and PCs on the Internet" aspect of the feature, but within my LAN it seems somewhat reasonable. I currently have the feature enabled, but the sub-feature "PCs on my local network" is selected, rather than the second option that includes "and PCs on the Internet". Thoughts? For a multi-host intranet setup, I would use a server version of Windows on one of them and use WSUS. However, in your setup, you are distributing the effect of WSUS over multiple hosts to eliminate having to pay more to get a server edition of Windows. Hopefully whomever is using one of your intranet hosts decides to not include the updates in their local cleanup. See: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/can-i...y-disk-cleanup I have to wonder what happens for a download of an update that is corrupted or otherwise refuses to install. Instead of some hosts gets updated, they get it from the host that has a bad copy of the update, so all hosts fail to update. I've never had to troubleshoot why an update fails when using delivery optimization since, after all, how would you know on which intranet host was where is the bad update? If it were local, you delete the Software Distribution folder and redo the WU client to rebuild the local catalog to re-retrieve the failed update. Delivery optimization is a self-organizing distributed cache of updates. I haven't investigated to know if a cached update must exist in its entirety one one host or if it may get split. Seems a means for malware to manage to infect one host with a corrupted or substitute update and then have Microsoft's delivery optimization to distribute the malware to all the other hosts. You might be the only user of all your intranet hosts but that's not the typical scenario under which delivery optimization gets used. https://tools.cisco.com/security/cen...?alertId=55567 https://www.rapid7.com/db/vulnerabil...cve-2017-11829 That one was found and hopefully fixed. Finding one doesn't mean finding all vulnerabilities. This is another broadcasting protocal that can affect multiple hosts. Windows 10 had been released in mid-2015 and it was more than 2 years later that the above vulnerability was exposed. For home users, yeah, WUDO (Windows Update Delivery Optimization) might have some advantages -- but how slow is the Internet connection on these home PCs to connect to Microsoft's own WSUS server? Yes, BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) is slow to get updates because it was designed to be that way: not use much bandwidth or CPU cycles so as not to impact responsiveness of the host to the user. However, users can use the online catalog to download the updates (and then share with their other hosts) or use WSUSoffline to build a local cache (that could also be shared amongst your other hosts). Dial-up users are going to suffer whether they use WUDO or not. I would think Microsoft doing full-bandwidth transfers of update files, especially the big ones, would impact the available bandwidth of the intranet hosts to communicate with other or for Internet traffic. I suspect BITS is still employed by WUDO to distribute the updates from the local caches on each host to the other hosts, so the transfer remains throttled. Well, that's what I would expect from Microsoft. However, users have been complaining that WUDO was choking their network making web surfing very slow or impossible. They had the default of WUDO getting updates from other Intranet hosts. That means WUDO is not using BITS to keep the update traffic in the background. So what happens when you connect a new host that has to get all the updates from wherever they are cached on the local/intranet hosts? Seems it will flood the network with all those update transfers and at full speed, much like an FTP transfer. Getting information on how WUDO exactly works has been rather fruitless. However, to be fair, I disabled it, so I haven't been motivated to dig into how it works. It has choked users networks when getting updates from web hosts, so how would that not also happen for getting the updates from local hosts? It has been vulnerable, but is anyone actually digging into it to find more, if any, vulnerabilities? How much faster is "faster" when using a distributed cache in an intranet? There are tons of performance tweaks that may boost performance but often the change is so miniscule that users will never notice a change. While you have multiple hosts in your intranet, I doubt that constitutes the vast majority of home PC setups, and one home PC can't take advantage of a local cache of updates since that cache would be on the only host in the home network which already has a cache of updates in the Software Distribution folder. Personally I don't trust the other hosts in my intranet because my family aren't as safe as I and they often commit actions that result in their hosts getting infected. So, in my case, I configure the router to isolate the other intranet hosts: all get Internet access but they cannot access each other. I'll fix their hosts but I'm not letting them touch mine. It's the same idea that a drowning man takes down the rescuer, so lifeguards tote a buoy on a rope to toss to the drowning person. If you don't save yourself first, you cannot save someone else. I've read reports from users that claim the WU client shows zero updates available and a poll at the catalog store also shows zero updates available for the visiting client yet WUDO is consuming a large portion of the network bandwidth. That hints that WUDO is retrieving updates that are NOT for your host but for any host. Other hosts that need the update could get it from the local distributed cache but your host doesn't need the update. Your host is updating the local distributed cache with updates your host doesn't need just to have them available for other hosts that may need them. In effect, WUDO is acting like a local WSUS server to accumulate a range of updates whether they apply to your hosts, your other hosts, or none of your hosts. Fully updated hosts still experienced traffic due to WUDO. Disabling WUDO eliminated the sometimes excessive traffic which was unnecessary for an already fully updated host. The option to share updates only on local hosts might eliminate the above network choking. If just one of the local hosts had the update already then share it with the other hosts. The users reporting the choking (high bandwidth usage) did not mention if they were sharing the updates only locally or with web hosts. BITS was designed to minimize impact on the updating host. WUDO does not. WUDO isn't just for updates but also for Store apps. Since I have WUDO disabled, I don't have a local distributed cache to look at. Are the apps simply stored in a cache folder or are they protected against tampering? Distributing apps to other hosts where the apps could be modified by one of the hosts involved in the distributed cache could mean other users don't get the app they expect to get. I'd have to dig more into WUDO to determine how the updates and apps are protected against tampering and just how the receiving hosts qualify that the update or app is what Microsoft's WSUS server would've delivered. To be honest, I don't think Microsoft came up with WUDO to help users get their updates more quickly and safely but instead to relieve some of the load on their own WSUS servers. Co-opting users isn't a new concept. There was/is a peer-to-peer VPN (I think it was Hola) where the free users where actually sharing a portion of their bandwidth with the paid users. That is, freeloaders got the service for free albeit a bit slower while sacrificing a portion of their bandwidth as a shared node used by paid users. Not wanting to share a portion of your bandwidth with other peers meant having to pay for that "privilege". Bet you're sorry you asked. Thanks for the detailed reply. As for the possibility of corrupt updates being shared within the LAN, I assume each update package is signed so that a host knows if it can be trusted. However, if MS isn't taking advantage of the other hosts on the LAN in this way, then I might as well just disable the whole thing. |
I just had a radical idea
Char Jackson wrote:
Thanks for the detailed reply. As for the possibility of corrupt updates being shared within the LAN, I assume each update package is signed so that a host knows if it can be trusted. However, if MS isn't taking advantage of the other hosts on the LAN in this way, then I might as well just disable the whole thing. The scary part, even omitting the possibility of malicious tampering, is that updates are not delivered whole from host to host using WUDO. Instead pieces of the update file are delivered and the pieces can come from different hosts through different routes. It was bad enough when you'd get an update (in whole) from Microsoft's WSUS server and had problems getting it installed. With WUDO, rebuilding the update file from pieces adds another potential instability, and you haven't a clue from where the bad update piece originated. The piecemeal approach is to permit resume of the update retrieval (from multiple sending hosts). https://www.deviousweb.com/2015/08/0...-optimization/ "WUDO works a lot like bittorrent. Your computer is used as part of a global peer-to-peer network to allow the distributed delivery of software updates with each person distributing a little bit of the files across multiple computers and helping everyone download updates more quickly." https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/wi...10-update.html "our computer running Windows 10 is used as part of a peer-to-peer network to deliver software updates faster to others, each person distributing a little bit of the files across multiple computers and helping everyone download updates quickly." So, to speed up the download, the P2P client (WUDO) grabs pieces of the file across multiple hosts while retrieving them in parallel streams over the network to rebuild them locally. I'd rather get one complete file and from a known source (Microsoft's WSUS server). There also seem to be a plethora of conditions that will prevent the use of WUDO, so your host ends up using WSUS instead. https://cmma.org/cmma-blog/the-pros-...-optimization/ "No control over content" That point concerns me. While WUDO builds a local cache for P2P distribution of the update (in pieces), it seems it will add more to the local cache for a host than the updates only needed by that particular host. BITS was a known network traffic manager, plus any process can utilize BITS to manage their downloads, like updates to a program and not just for Windows (I've yet, however, to see anyone other than Microsoft using it, but then I'm not knowledgeable about the inner workings of all software regarding their updates). WUDO doesn't use BITS, and why users have been reporting their network getting choked by WUDO. With the problems with WUDO choking your network, its efficiency and parallelism is lost with slow delivery. All because Microsoft, as with everything Windows 10, thinks your computer is their property, so they're going to steal a portion of your PC to use as their distributed server farm. I don't run any variant of Bittorrent or its ilk on my hosts. I certainly don't want a variant from Microsoft. I'd rather schedule a run of WSUSoffline which connects to *Microsoft's* WSUS server. It definitely impacts the usability of the host where it runs and generates lots of traffic (and why I schedule it), and I can tote or FTP its update store to my other hosts over my local network WHEN *I* choose. Just as with Windows 10 updates not being under your control of when and preparing for the update(s) (by closing all your work and saving a backup image since System Restore has proven unreliable), I don't want some other backgrounded update distribution scheme employed to distribute updates to other hosts when I'm not going to apply them there anyway at the time of piecemeal delivery (I disable the BITS and WU services to enforce when *I* want to do the updates). More FM (****ing magic) to go wrong, harder to troubleshoot, doesn't save on network bandwidth (since even in paralleled piecemeal fashion the entire file still has to get sent) and isn't as well backgrounded as BITS, and all under the guise of getting you the updates quicker (which I've yet to see any benchmarking to prove so) but is really to offline some of the update network off Microsoft's servers. |
I just had a radical idea
On 03/17/2019 5:39 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Char Jackson wrote: Thanks for the detailed reply. As for the possibility of corrupt updates being shared within the LAN, I assume each update package is signed so that a host knows if it can be trusted. However, if MS isn't taking advantage of the other hosts on the LAN in this way, then I might as well just disable the whole thing. The scary part, even omitting the possibility of malicious tampering, is that updates are not delivered whole from host to host using WUDO. Instead pieces of the update file are delivered and the pieces can come from different hosts through different routes. It was bad enough when you'd get an update (in whole) from Microsoft's WSUS server and had problems getting it installed. With WUDO, rebuilding the update file from pieces adds another potential instability, and you haven't a clue from where the bad update piece originated. The piecemeal approach is to permit resume of the update retrieval (from multiple sending hosts). https://www.deviousweb.com/2015/08/0...-optimization/ "WUDO works a lot like bittorrent. Your computer is used as part of a global peer-to-peer network to allow the distributed delivery of software updates with each person distributing a little bit of the files across multiple computers and helping everyone download updates more quickly." https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/wi...10-update.html "our computer running Windows 10 is used as part of a peer-to-peer network to deliver software updates faster to others, each person distributing a little bit of the files across multiple computers and helping everyone download updates quickly." So, to speed up the download, the P2P client (WUDO) grabs pieces of the file across multiple hosts while retrieving them in parallel streams over the network to rebuild them locally. I'd rather get one complete file and from a known source (Microsoft's WSUS server). There also seem to be a plethora of conditions that will prevent the use of WUDO, so your host ends up using WSUS instead. https://cmma.org/cmma-blog/the-pros-...-optimization/ "No control over content" That point concerns me. While WUDO builds a local cache for P2P distribution of the update (in pieces), it seems it will add more to the local cache for a host than the updates only needed by that particular host. BITS was a known network traffic manager, plus any process can utilize BITS to manage their downloads, like updates to a program and not just for Windows (I've yet, however, to see anyone other than Microsoft using it, but then I'm not knowledgeable about the inner workings of all software regarding their updates). WUDO doesn't use BITS, and why users have been reporting their network getting choked by WUDO. With the problems with WUDO choking your network, its efficiency and parallelism is lost with slow delivery. All because Microsoft, as with everything Windows 10, thinks your computer is their property, so they're going to steal a portion of your PC to use as their distributed server farm. I don't run any variant of Bittorrent or its ilk on my hosts. I certainly don't want a variant from Microsoft. I'd rather schedule a run of WSUSoffline which connects to *Microsoft's* WSUS server. It definitely impacts the usability of the host where it runs and generates lots of traffic (and why I schedule it), and I can tote or FTP its update store to my other hosts over my local network WHEN *I* choose. Just as with Windows 10 updates not being under your control of when and preparing for the update(s) (by closing all your work and saving a backup image since System Restore has proven unreliable), I don't want some other backgrounded update distribution scheme employed to distribute updates to other hosts when I'm not going to apply them there anyway at the time of piecemeal delivery (I disable the BITS and WU services to enforce when *I* want to do the updates). More FM (****ing magic) to go wrong, harder to troubleshoot, doesn't save on network bandwidth (since even in paralleled piecemeal fashion the entire file still has to get sent) and isn't as well backgrounded as BITS, and all under the guise of getting you the updates quicker (which I've yet to see any benchmarking to prove so) but is really to offline some of the update network off Microsoft's servers. Yeah, It stinks like bittorrent, so they can shove both of them where the Sun don't shine. Rene |
I just had a radical idea
On Sun, 17 Mar 2019 17:39:10 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
Char Jackson wrote: Thanks for the detailed reply. As for the possibility of corrupt updates being shared within the LAN, I assume each update package is signed so that a host knows if it can be trusted. However, if MS isn't taking advantage of the other hosts on the LAN in this way, then I might as well just disable the whole thing. The scary part, even omitting the possibility of malicious tampering, is that updates are not delivered whole from host to host using WUDO. Instead pieces of the update file are delivered and the pieces can come from different hosts through different routes. It was bad enough when you'd get an update (in whole) from Microsoft's WSUS server and had problems getting it installed. With WUDO, rebuilding the update file from pieces adds another potential instability, and you haven't a clue from where the bad update piece originated. The piecemeal approach is to permit resume of the update retrieval (from multiple sending hosts). I'm perfectly comfortable with what you call the scary part because it works just like bittorrent, which you mention in the next paragraph below. https://www.deviousweb.com/2015/08/0...-optimization/ "WUDO works a lot like bittorrent. Your computer is used as part of a global peer-to-peer network to allow the distributed delivery of software updates with each person distributing a little bit of the files across multiple computers and helping everyone download updates more quickly." https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/wi...10-update.html "our computer running Windows 10 is used as part of a peer-to-peer network to deliver software updates faster to others, each person distributing a little bit of the files across multiple computers and helping everyone download updates quickly." So, to speed up the download, the P2P client (WUDO) grabs pieces of the file across multiple hosts while retrieving them in parallel streams over the network to rebuild them locally. I'd rather get one complete file and from a known source (Microsoft's WSUS server). There also seem to be a plethora of conditions that will prevent the use of WUDO, so your host ends up using WSUS instead. https://cmma.org/cmma-blog/the-pros-...-optimization/ "No control over content" That point concerns me. While WUDO builds a local cache for P2P distribution of the update (in pieces), it seems it will add more to the local cache for a host than the updates only needed by that particular host. BITS was a known network traffic manager, plus any process can utilize BITS to manage their downloads, like updates to a program and not just for Windows (I've yet, however, to see anyone other than Microsoft using it, but then I'm not knowledgeable about the inner workings of all software regarding their updates). WUDO doesn't use BITS, and why users have been reporting their network getting choked by WUDO. With the problems with WUDO choking your network, its efficiency and parallelism is lost with slow delivery. All because Microsoft, as with everything Windows 10, thinks your computer is their property, so they're going to steal a portion of your PC to use as their distributed server farm. I don't run any variant of Bittorrent or its ilk on my hosts. I certainly don't want a variant from Microsoft. I'd rather schedule a run of WSUSoffline which connects to *Microsoft's* WSUS server. It definitely impacts the usability of the host where it runs and generates lots of traffic (and why I schedule it), and I can tote or FTP its update store to my other hosts over my local network WHEN *I* choose. Just as with Windows 10 updates not being under your control of when and preparing for the update(s) (by closing all your work and saving a backup image since System Restore has proven unreliable), I don't want some other backgrounded update distribution scheme employed to distribute updates to other hosts when I'm not going to apply them there anyway at the time of piecemeal delivery (I disable the BITS and WU services to enforce when *I* want to do the updates). More FM (****ing magic) to go wrong, harder to troubleshoot, doesn't save on network bandwidth (since even in paralleled piecemeal fashion the entire file still has to get sent) and isn't as well backgrounded as BITS, and all under the guise of getting you the updates quicker (which I've yet to see any benchmarking to prove so) but is really to offline some of the update network off Microsoft's servers. Good points, thanks. |
I just had a radical idea
Char Jackson wrote:
Thanks for the detailed reply. As for the possibility of corrupt updates being shared within the LAN, I assume each update package is signed so that a host knows if it can be trusted. However, if MS isn't taking advantage of the other hosts on the LAN in this way, then I might as well just disable the whole thing. They're signed. Doesn't matter how they're sliced and diced, a package cannot be installed without the signature working. Change 1 bit of content, the signature will fail. Even when materials come straight from a Windows Update server, we have to assume the delivery method could be compromised in flight. The signing step, is the ultimate protection for that path. That covers MITM attacks. Paul |
I just had a radical idea
On Mon, 18 Mar 2019 01:12:19 -0400, Paul wrote:
Char Jackson wrote: Thanks for the detailed reply. As for the possibility of corrupt updates being shared within the LAN, I assume each update package is signed so that a host knows if it can be trusted. However, if MS isn't taking advantage of the other hosts on the LAN in this way, then I might as well just disable the whole thing. They're signed. Doesn't matter how they're sliced and diced, a package cannot be installed without the signature working. Change 1 bit of content, the signature will fail. Even when materials come straight from a Windows Update server, we have to assume the delivery method could be compromised in flight. The signing step, is the ultimate protection for that path. That covers MITM attacks. Then, as I suspected, it doesn't matter where update chunks come from. Could be MS, another PC on the LAN, or another PC on the Internet. It's all the same. However, if as you said earlier, the feature doesn't really work, then it's pointless. I might as well disable the feature and get updates from MS. The reason I asked in the first place is that I have about two dozen Win10 VMs, and counting, and it seemed a shame to get updates for each of them separately. I guess that's how it needs to be, though. |
I just had a radical idea
Char Jackson wrote:
The reason I asked in the first place is that I have about two dozen Win10 VMs, and counting, and it seemed a shame to get updates for each of them separately. I guess that's how it needs to be, though. That's what I use WSUSoffline for. I run it to create a repository that I could network to or tote around on a USB flash drive (to, say, mount in your VMs). I have WSUS offline retrieve updates for several products. Looks like the W100_x64 is for Windows 10 x64 and it's about 9 GB in size. |
I just had a radical idea
Char Jackson wrote:
Then, as I suspected, it doesn't matter where update chunks come from. Could be MS, another PC on the LAN, or another PC on the Internet. It's all the same. However, if as you said earlier, the feature doesn't really work, then it's pointless. I might as well disable the feature and get updates from MS. The reason I asked in the first place is that I have about two dozen Win10 VMs, and counting, and it seemed a shame to get updates for each of them separately. I guess that's how it needs to be, though. If I knew what the magic recipe was to get DoSvc to work, I'd tell ya :-) I was just annoyed it lay there like a dead fish and didn't do anything. I probably made a mistake somewhere setting it up. Not enough disk space or the like. I prefer software that tells you instantly you fouled up. I don't like experiments with long baselines, where it takes three months to get a budge out of them. I'm just not that patient. In theory, setting up one VM, switching on local DoSvc, then issuing commands to do Windows Update, should be populating its DoSvc cache. Then, installing a second VM, should "listen" to its buddy on the LAN. You then need a recorder on the first VM, to log the amount of traffic that results (to prove that's where the update came from). Due to the "noise level" on Windows 10, it's pretty hard to isolate behaviors and prove they're the exact source of traffic. Win10 could start randomly pulling in cat pictures, while I'm monitoring for DoSvc. It does that for background images for the lock screen. It does that for "Apps" and "App Updates" which are done randomly, and outside the normal Windows Update path. And that sort of **** happens the moment I try to do an HDTune run. We really need service designs, where DoSvc says: "Won't serve content because: Bad mood" "Serving KB123456 to 192.168.1.2" "Saving recently obtained KB123457 to cache" "Discarding KB123456 because: superseded" Paul |
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