When a Windows Update forces an Amazon Vacation

Just for fun!
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Like most businesses, we like to get the most out of the equipment that we invest into. Two of our engravers are 19 years old and the other two are 11 years old. Both styles are no longer supported by the manufacturer (end of life). The drivers for them are 32 bit. We slowly migrated up the chain of Windows until we got to Windows 10 (32 bit). Windows 11 will never be as it is 64 bit. Haven’t had a problem with Windows 10 32 bit running the machines …

until last Wednesday morning …

We went to bed Tuesday night with 3 items needing engraving … no big deal. We woke up Wednesday morning to a computer that had restarted from an overnight Windows 10 update. No big deal … has happend many times over the years. However, Wednesday morning was different. Nothing from the computer was now being sent to the engravers other that positioning to the start point.

Day One … Wednesday
Played with drivers, driver settings, engraver settings and reviewed all Windows 10 settings. 10 hours … nothing. Immediately put Amazon on vacation mode to protect from having orders we couldn’t produce (engrave).

Day Two … Thursday
Decided to do a clean install and reload all programs needed along with supporting items like about 1000 fonts. Around 9pm, we had success and was able to engrave two of the items complete with the third item having one side down and only the top side to complete. This is at 12:30am Friday morning so we figured to just go to bed and finish in the morning.

Day Three … Friday
Wake up and go to finish the top side and find that again Windows 10 had updated over night and AGAIN corrupted the connection to the engravers. So we started another clean install etc. etc. … By the end of the night with everything reloaded, we tried but had zero success.

Day Four … Saturday
We started another clean install (hey … it worked Thursday so you got to give it a try). During this install we noticed that Windows 10 was going online to get updates and some updated drivers. After everything was done and said … we tried the engravers … no go …

Day Five … Sunday
Still in vacation mode … getting a little nervous. Went on what I call a fact finding mission. We made sure we had a new good copy of the engraver drivers. We made sure we had a new good copy of the engraving program. We search and taught ourselves how to extract a copy of all the drivers on the computer and saved them to the NAS. During the same search, we made note of how to install these drivers from the saved file (already new the process but helped to just read it again). And finally, we went on a mission to find out how to disable Window 10 updates so that it would never happen again. Windows 10 is getting to the end of life soon. We have to have a functioning version without these final updates that are in conflict with the engraver’s drivers. We don’t need updates as this computer is only for running the engravers.

Day Six … Monday
After we got back from the doctors around 3pm, we started another clean install. We set it up without using the Microsoft account. We told it to skip updates. As soon as it landed on the desktop, we installed the missing drivers that we had saved on the NAS. We went into the system and turn off Windows Automatic Update. We loaded the fonts. We loaded the engraving program. Then came the moment of do or die. We loaded the engraver drivers … we then plugged in the USB from the engravers and turned the engravers on. We opened the Printer management page … and … BINGO … the engravers automatically showed up as they should! We did a test run and jumped with joy when they started engraving. But we are not counting our chickens just yet as we are going to wait until tomorrow and do more testing before we come out of vacation mode …

Day Seven … Tuesday
Wondering if we can sleep tonight … just thinking … could it happen again over night? … will the engravers work in the morning? … tic toc … tic toc …

As the moon rises over head ...

This is one of those nights when a cold beer would be nice … (but for medical issues this can not be).

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Something must have been up last Tues night. Same thing happened to my laptop. Was trying to not go to 11 because I don’t like it (have it on a newer laptop I also use) - and Wed morning - same thing - automatic update.

Glad to see you were able to get back up and running. What a nightmare.

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Interesting, I had to reinstall my label printer last Wednesday, it had completely disappeared from the printers folder. In the add a printer process it did locate the already installed driver.

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That was quite an ordeal!

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Yep - Microsoft MVPs, and others in the Patching/MSP* Community, know it as “Patch Tuesday” - a monthly event which for many years now-passed has generally occurred on the second Tuesday of each and every month.

*

“MSP” in this sense is an acronym which stands for “Managed Service Provider”

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If you do not need web access on these pc’s PLEASE:

Change the network settings from Automatic IP to manual

  • Give it an IP on your network (192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x)
  • Give it false DNS Servers (169.169.169.169)

Now it should never be able to check for updates again, but can get on the NAS

And yes, Update Tuesday is a real thing. And Yes, Microsoft has been pushing out strange Windows 10 updates even though Windows 10 shouldn’t get updates at this point.

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We have had the IP set via the router for years.
Didn’t think about changing the DNS that way … awesome … thank you!

We did this …

Screenshot 2024-06-18 at 08-01-09 How do you turn off windows 10 updates which are really powerful - Microsoft Q&A
Screenshot 2024-06-18 at 08-01-09 How do you turn off windows 10 updates which are really powerful - Microsoft Q&A908×322 12.6 KB

We some times pop online to check a spelling of a word using Google Chrome but could use a different computer for that.

But in the end, what we have done should stop the automatic updates from happening but we could have an accidential manual update occur if the windows update page was to be open. Your way would stop the connection and would be much safer …

Again … thank you!

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Ah yes, the asinine 64 bit with no support for 32 bit because “progress”.
Nevermind that millions of CNC machines and other computers of industry will become “bricks”.

This is actually worse than Y2K.

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Better yet do it the real tin foil hat way. No network connectivity and put your engraver files on a usb stick.

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No can do … files have to be sent from one computer to the engraving computer for the info to be input into the engraving computer (load on the NSA … open on the engraving computer) …

USB stick not as reliable for storage … NAS is on a RAID so if one drive fails it doesn’t take us down.

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What you did SHOULD stop updates, but it never hurts to have double protection!

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You can have a laptop next to the disconnected computer with internet connectivity, transfer files from NAS to stick, stick to engraver machine. The files obviously aren’t removed from the NAS, they stay there for safekeeping as usb sticks definitely aren’t that reliable.

It is an extra step but more or less guarantees nothing can happen to the engraver machine.

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That would be a disruptive work flow and add too much time into processing. What we have already done along with @Pepper_Thine_Angus 's suggestion on the DNS should be fine. We are also going to clone the engraving computer’s drive to have on hand a a back up. Quicker and easier to swap drives or load the clone drive to get back up than to reprogram as we just went through.

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I was shocked that my ancient gigantic Cannon laser printer still worked after reading all this.

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Probably has 64 bit drivers which were not part of the issue …

It’s the relics that are on 32 bits drivers that are / have been the issue.

@joebcrafts nailed it on the head …

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As you - a consummately-competent SysAdmin :wink: - probably know, Win10’s EOL (“End of Life” in ‘computerese’) isn’t scheduled until 14Oct2025 - so we can continue to expect WUPs (“Windows Updates” in ‘Dogtamerese’) coming down the pike @ least until that time.

Especially so since 1Soft* and the Patching Community alike continue to find various CVEs (“Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures” in ‘computerese’) applicable to the latest & ‘greatest’ “package” of that OS, v. 22H2 - and also, in conjunction with that same paradigm, riding along with feature improvements to various software suites that might be installed (not necessarily 1Soft’s own implementations).

*

“1Soft” is another ‘Dogtamerese’ term, standing for Microsoft, which we use internally because using my preferred term “µSoft” tends to break various things…

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You are right, sorry, should have said “feature updates” are eol. Security patches will continue for now

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And a week later, we get an email from the manufacturer confirming what we already had figured out …

Roland
Hello,

As a valued Roland DGA customer, we want to inform you about an issue caused by a recent Windows security update (version KB5039211). This update has disrupted communication between some Roland DGA drivers and their connected devices, primarily affecting cutters and engravers.

As a temporary solution, we advise uninstalling this specific Windows update.

Please click here to view or download the instructions to uninstall the Windows update.

If you continue to experience issues after uninstalling the update, or need further assistance, please contact our support team.

We understand the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience as our team works to find a permanent solution as quickly as possible. We will keep you informed with any new developments.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

-Roland DGA Corporation

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