Let the Glitches Begin: Windows 10 Users Experience Unwanted Reboot

Microsoft made its newest operating system, Windows 10, available to the public, on July 29, to much pomp and circumstance. And while the latest incarnation of Windows has been well-received by the majority of its users, some still remember the familiar rhetoric from the not-so-distant past when Microsoft touted another Windows upgrade and the disasters that followed well enough to postpone upgrading to version 10. And while the developers from Windows have every reason to self-aggrandize Windows 10, many will ignore the hype and wait for the simple reason that Windows 7 is stable and proven.

Office documents do not open after upgrading to Windows 10 http://t.co/KUFU3HuGio

— TheWindowsClub (@TheWindowsClub) August 10, 2015

Some users of Windows 10 are discovering that one of the primary functions of their computer – word processing – is not functional. The issue with being unable to open documents created in Office 2013 is causing major headaches, and no one is sure how many systems are affected, or when an official fix will be released.

While the bug reports from Windows 10 users continue to stream across Twitter, another potentially more serious issue has cropped up regarding an update to Windows 10 itself. According to CNET, Windows update KB3081424 is causing an unexpected reboot when the patch is installed. When this update fails, Windows 10 automatically reverts back to the pre-update state, then after rebooting the update is download again repeating the process. This means many of the computers running Windows 10 are stuck in a perpetual download-reboot cycle rendering the system virtually useless.

While updates to Windows are nothing new, many are critical of Windows 10’s new policy of forcing users to update, which is a departure from previous update policies of Windows, which allowed users to opt-out of updates at-will. This means that when an update itself is causing system instability, users have no choice but to put their computer on their shelf and wait for the developers to fix the issue.

Although this problem has been plaguing many Windows 10 users, a workaround has been found by ZDNET, but it involves hacking into the system’s registry, which is not recommended for everyone because if a registry entry is tweaked the wrong way, Windows 10 may not function at all.

While bugs and glitches are part of any operating system upgrade, and given the multitude of devices and systems Windows 10 is expected to operate on, it is generally accepted that there will be some growing pains along the way. However, when users are unable to control what updates their systems download, and if those updates are causing a computer to be useless, Windows 10 users can only wait for a fix or go back to what is known to be stable.

[Image via Microsoft/Twitter]