Yo dudes and dudettes.

Can I ask you something that you may not know the answer to?

I can't ask the windows community because that requires you to have an account and this is my mom's computer.

Her computer automatically updated to windows 8.1 as you can't turn off those updates for some stupid reason, and now she can't turn off automatic updates, but each time her computer tries to update it goes through an impossible process of trying to update, getting to 70% then failing and undoing the updates.

This started when it updated to 8.1 from 8, which was also automatic, and the stupid process leaves her computer unusable for 1-3 days. Being someone who uses her computer for everything and taking online classes, you can see where this would be a problem.

Any recommendations or help on the matter? Advice would be nice.

I had a very similar problem. I had to disable automatic updates completely. I just manually download and install the updates I need now.

>>2 did that. It still tried to update. When I checked the setting again it was back to automatic

>>3 Did you refresh the computer after applying it?

restart* (Because the updates might already be scheduled to apply before you changed the setting, and the setting is reset during the attempted installation.) If it wants you to install them on restart, see if it's an update you can download manually instead. And make sure the option you choose is to let Windows check for updates but NOT download or install them.

The problem for me was that Windows was downloading updates indiscriminately, which caused partial downloads because my laptop was in and out of internet range / etc, thus making the installation fail partway through and loop the process.

>>6 The problem happened before applying it, obviously, but it was applied after the first and worst attempt to update, restart, then fail. Because that caused problems for nearly a week. No restart since then until the next update came alogn and forced it's way in despite the obvious changes. This computers stays in a n internet zone as it stays at home where internet is constant.

I think I'll try to update the necessary ones manually and see where that goes. A few at a time and no overlapping updates. (For instance if you have something like "windows update 4.1" and "Windows update 4.2" I won't update those at the same time. Since that's been a problem in my computer when I had to go back to a previous restore point.

If that doesn't happen, I'll have her back-up important files then refresh the computer which should reset it to Windows 8. It shouldn't hurt the files, but I won't take chances, then I just won't go to windows 8.1 since that's what started this mess. The computer came with 8, so 8.1 might not be as compatible as the manufacturer believes. Besides, when windows 10, comes out, that'll be far superior.

>>7 Even if it's all in internet range, you may have let it hibernate or even shut it off during a download. There's no way to tell since Windows doesn't warn you if it's downloading something in the background.

Yeah, manual updating is annoying but may be best. Good luck :0

Make sure you are accessing Windows Update through the Modern Control Panel app and not the Metro app (eg, new Win8 start menu type app). The Metro one is worthless, it lets you change no settings at all.

I've heard of countless problems like this but I've never got a good solution. Sometimes I can fix them on my own by constantly restarting, the other couple times I just gave up and installed Debian.

That's odd that Windows update works less greatly from the metro app. :\

Btw, are you satisfied with Debian ? I'd like to install it or one of its fork but I'd like to have some feedbacks.

>>11 I haven't used it extensively enough to give a good review, unfortunately. I have it on my desktop but I dual-boot with 7 and I use that more. It's definitely a little more involved to install than something more "beginner-friendly" like Ubuntu (and create bootable USB drives for, etc), but I'm satisfied with it. It's the first and only Linux distro I've used so far.

Instead of starting a new thread, I thought I'd just ask my question here. How can I reverse the X axis of my mouse on windows 8.1 laptop (using a touchpad)? I just got a Google Cardboard and have paired it to my laptop using Intugame VR, but the headtracking isn't that great - when I move the device to the right, the mouse moves to the left. How can I reverse my mouse X axis orientation (Horizontal)?