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How about a Blue screen and a yellow highlighter??
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Not the same as the old green monitor 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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I hate poorly-implemented hot keys. The Windows Accessibility subsystem and the Language Bar are two examples.
The Accessibility hot keys actuate if you hold certain keys down for too long. This changes mouse and keyboard behavior, and there's no obvious way to turn them off.
The Language Bar, used to switch between keyboard layouts, has checkboxes for turning features and the bar itself off. Unfortunately, the morons who programmed it don't pay any attention to the settings. The outsourced asshats who do assembly on our machines have a habit of installing [redacted] keyboard and language support. We then get support calls from customers complaining about their machine switching to [redacted] and they can't operate it any longer.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I just saw an update notification the other day (yes, I am well aware I can hide/ignore notifications, but I always like to have the latest) for "Visual Studio 2017 v15.5.6 (<--- notice the "Revision" level update now!) is available."
So, now we are updating Visual Studio and making everyone download and reinstall because a new source code comment was added, or one line was changed? I mean, this is getting ridiculous. It's always great to push the latest out the community I suppose, but can't M$ space the updates out a little bit? It seems like there is an update available practically every time I open VS. So annoying.
Again keeping in mind, I am annoying myself on purpose because I keep insisting to click the "Flag" when it lights up...but hey, I've been to the "DefCon" series of conferences -- I am pathological about keeping the code on my computer patched.
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Quite agree - I've had a moan about VS2017 updates myself here. They are a bit OTT...
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Sounds to me like they are making use of CI(continuous integration) where changes from devs are being pushed to live very quickly.
If that's the case it's very useful for companies like Amazon who are providing SAAS however as you mention for something like Visual Studio it sounds like it would make more sense if the updates were pushed out less frequently and grouped.
It's interesting how something like CI which is seen as the way everyone should be heading has its problems.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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As someone who used to complain that VS was broken and needed more frequent patches and service packs than they were actually getting, I'd rather see more frequent updates that fix actual problems than wait a year or two for the "patch" to take the form of a major version update. In which case a problem might've been fixed, but because it's a new major version, it's got its own set of newer problems.
And I'm saying this as someone who's got a slow internet connection and updates somewhat obsessively.
At least if something's not broken for you, the choice of installing an update or skipping a few of them for a few weeks/months is yours.
But it does get frustrating if you've been putting off updating for a while, finally decide to bring your system up to speed, and then find out the next patch after that was scheduled to come out a day or two later.
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dandy72 wrote: As someone who used to complain that VS was broken and needed more frequent patches and service packs than they were actually getting, I'd rather see more frequent updates
Exactly. You cannot please everybody. The majority of complaints over the years have been directed at the lack of updates and infrequent service packs.
Best Wishes,
-David Delaune
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They can update it each week for all I care. As long as they make it better, faster, more stable.
And I do wish you didn't have to update the updater each time you updated. That seems silly.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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That's it. The updater also has to be updated somehow, and that is very silly. What kind of bug that an updater has that it has to be patched every week? I can understand if it was the visual studio only. Less one loading screen for us.
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Yeah. But the Version of the updater has to match the one from Visual Studio, no? 
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They could update updater silently when updating VS. I don't care about version of updater but have been annoyed by the stupid slow splash.
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My problem with the updater is the totally unnecessary hash rechecking of every file when updating the distribution which takes forever...
The incremental growing of the distribution I fixed with VS 2017 Offline Installation Folder Cleanup[^]
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so we have windows updating so often, vs updating so often, chrome updating so often (it checks hourly which for mine just makes the devs look bad) but at least once a week ...
What happened to the beta test and only releasing stable versions/updates? Look at the number of problems that have happened
and of course some big head's gonna reply "I've never had problems" - but so many other people have so please shut up.
Best solution: is stay back 1 major version (unless really problematic and no workarounds), gives you a chance to get work done.
It's simple maths: bleeding edge = lower productivity.
It's why kiddie software developers get a bad rap: too busy polishing their tools rather than using them.
(It's one of the reasons why corporations set policy regarding versions and upgrades - because history has proven bleeding edge is one of the worst places that delays / issues are introduced.)
Unless there's some real compelling reason to upgrade: be smart, be serious about work and stay off bleeding edge.
Signature ready for installation. Please Reboot now.
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I'm afraid I can't give a cogent response to that: I have to go and polish my tool before I use it! 
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Still using VS2012 on the personal machine. Must be missing a few GB worth of JavaScript libraries 
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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I find the updates extremely welcome. I've been impressed with VS 2017 (Okay, except for the standard library team punting filesystem.)
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No, they don't update to add comments. They do to add bugs, for all those that have to update Visual Studio after the last version broke. Just to annoy me, they do it.
Once they removed something in the STL (C++), which hit a colleague.
Once they changed something in the Xaml Compiler breaking my workaround around some other Xaml bug (that one is still existant - since VS 2013).
Once they broke MsBuild so bad, breaking our whole deployment chain.
And I only told you VS 15.4 and newer, meaning last three months.
I would never have gotten past 15.3 myself if VS hadn't broken itself while I was on christmas holidays. Came back, couldn't even open a solution anymore.
Damn thing...
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There is literally no need to reinstall, you simply run the updater and off you go.
The flag is there to cover their asses, they are telling you they have fixed a bug and if you ignore the notification they cannot be held accountable for loss of revenue or loss of man hours.
Banshee for windows YAY !!!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/banshee32
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I don't mind the updates.
What annoys the elephant out of me is that the process consumes wifi bandwidth and thrashes to c-drive to the point where the system becomes virtually dead in the water for anything else I want to do. 
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
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Depends which way you look at it: you can either see it that they're continually releasing fixes for continually buggy releases... or you can see it that they fix bugs which are bound to happen in anything that complex very quickly. For me, it's the latter: I'd rather they fix a bug immediately than let me run buggy software until the fixes are all released at once. I only wish Windows updates worked like that.
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I tend to view pretty much everything in life as double-sided. Very few things are bad with no good, or good with no bad. I just checked. Seems updates to extensions have "always ignore" as an option. The VS update itself doesn't.
Not sure if "always ignore" means never ever again tell me about an update for that extension. What I've found works best for other software products is a combination of "ignore THIS update" (but tell me when another one comes out), and "ignore THIS update for xxx days". The later option is pretty rare. The VS update notifications flag probably makes the later unnecessary.
Those developers who are looking for something to be fixed want an update as soon as possible. Those who are not encountering any problems (because they're probably working in a different coding area) "most likely" just want to know when the next actual feature set is released -- and whether any of the new features apply to what they do. That's pretty much my M.O. unless I'm looking for an excuse to do something other than code, so I run updates.
I think the VS update process "suffers" from VS being so big and all-encompassing. Most developers are unlikely to use maybe even 10% of the total VS product -- and I'm referring to Community edition. With the grander editions, it's probably even less.
Might be nice if Microsoft were able to better figure out whether a given update even matters to a developer, as in, whether the developer even really uses the portion of VS that's impacted. (Hey Cortana, wanna take a shot at that? )
Trying to only update the pieces a given developer uses is probably too high-risk. I see that as a test nightmare for Microsoft and ultimately bug-prone. Is VS still stable if only Widget-3 and Widget-7 get updated after previously only having updated Widget-5 and Widget-10 but not Widget-1 and Widget-6? However, simply deciding whether a given developer even uses the code being updated but then requiring a full product update if desired doesn't create those problems.
The "friendliest" would be to sort "here's updates we don't think you need" to the bottom of the list in their own group and not add them to the flag count.
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They're taking after Android SDK, which seems to update daily.
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I agree, while I favor a frequent cycle of smaller updates, too much is too much. Once every other month is more than enough and I think will help improve code quality as you then will have more time to test decently before shipping.
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Why do you feel the need to actually install every update? Until and unless there is an actual benefit that outweighs the delay in and risk to your development cycle, it is in fact a bad thing to do. Just because there are a couple of fixes in areas that you didn't use anyway is not a benefit.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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