Beware Windows Update

rokicki

For the second time this month, I was running an extended test on my demo board and came back to find
the board had reset (and killed the test).

I've figured out what caused it. The PC it was connected to has Windows Update enabled and it
automatically downloads and installs updates, some of which cause a reboot.

The reboot also resets the propeller through the USB cable.

Something to be aware of! Either disconnect that USB cable from the demo board if you're gonna run a
long test, or disable Windows Update.

QuattroRS4

Rokicki,
Yip - had a laptop connected via a USB to serial device to a project with a serial programming circuit (max232) - boot the laptop and it resets the circuit when the devices are found during boot (laptop has a USB to serial connection) also plugging in·and out other USB devices·has caused this too ....


Post Edited (QuattroRS4) : 2/17/2007 8:09:11 PM GMT

Jasper_M

Connecting the USB cable does the same. Disconnecting won't.

QuattroRS4

Just disconnected my phone and it has .. USB hub connected to laptop ... in fact it does it every time - just did 10 repititive tests ! - both connecting and disconnecting !


Post Edited (QuattroRS4) : 2/17/2007 8:24:09 PM GMT

Kevin Wood

You can set Windows Update to only notify you when updates are available, instead of automatically downloading & installing them.

bassmaster

I hate that, I use VB6 at work (YUK), went from asm, to c, to c++, to c# now ???vb6???, and soon C# conversion of the vb6 code.·anyway, besides the fact its flakey, Besides windows update, Those sys admins schedual sms updates that reboot my laptop when I am in the middle of coding, save frequently, save often!!!· The Prop ide is awsome in this regard, as it opens your latest changes! if it or your pc crashes, Great work parallax, wish MS thought of that.

Tom Bampton

The other thing that'll reset it is if you are using a terminal app to talk to the prop through the prop plug/clip/whatever, when you close the port it'll reset the DTR line and thus reset the prop. It was quite useful yesterday on hardware that I was far too lazy to add EEPROM to, but I suspect it could be annoying at some point in the future [noparse]:)[/noparse]

@bassmaster,

MS did think of that. Office has had autosave/recovery for years. So does Visual Studio, but that might be VisualAssist's doing, I don't remember [noparse];)[/noparse]

T.

QuattroRS4

Bassmaster,
Just wondering why VB6 at work - it is supported no longer by MS ?

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'Necessity is the mother of invention'

Dennis Ferron

There are so many things Windows does that make it not conducive to running the computer unattended. Every time I try to do an experiment that requires running a program overnight, I wake up to find my antivirus has interrupted it, or Windows Update has, or a driver crashed, or ...

Have you ever noticed how often people's full-screen power point presentations get kicked out of full screen mode in the middle of someone's presentation because Windows felt it had to interrupt for a stupid pop up message? And how many times have you seen someone trying to present a PDF file to a meeting only to have Adobe Acrobat continually interrupt asking you to download updates that you simply don't need? Am I the only one who feels this looks terribly unprofessional? I mean, would you put up with it if you went to a movie theater and the movie kept getting interrupted by the digital video player's software asking the operator to confirm a dialog box while the movie is playing? Yet Windows thinks it's perfectly fine to interrupt presentations this way.

Edit: P.S. I'm sure gamers are sick of having their games interrupted this way too (sometimes causing the game to crash, even).

CJ

indeed

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Who says you have to have knowledge to use it?

I've killed a fly with my bare mind.