Updated VS2019 - why exaclty do I need to reboot?
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So I have an a$$ton of work going on. Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada. Converted a project from ancient VS to VS2019. I was prompted to update VS2019. Now I have this Installer prompt that says: "Success! One more step to go. Please restart your computer..." Why? Seriously, why do I need to reboot? It's just a holdover from the "reboot Windows" it might fix it history. Or is VS really doing things to the OS that requires me to reboot? I'm not being sarcastic here. Help me understand.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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So I have an a$$ton of work going on. Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada. Converted a project from ancient VS to VS2019. I was prompted to update VS2019. Now I have this Installer prompt that says: "Success! One more step to go. Please restart your computer..." Why? Seriously, why do I need to reboot? It's just a holdover from the "reboot Windows" it might fix it history. Or is VS really doing things to the OS that requires me to reboot? I'm not being sarcastic here. Help me understand.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
I don't know for sure but I suspect that it is genuinely very likely indeed that it has updated an OS component that (ideally) needs a restart. The problem, to my mind, is that so many OS updates still need a restart. I seem to remember that this was supposed to have been solved back in the Vista or was it 7 timeframe. And yet, no, OS restarts after updates seem to me to be as common as ever. Windows now has epic amounts of virtualisation built in, so can't this technology be used to help avoid the need for restarts due to OS component upgrades? Apparently not, so far. Instead of new icons (sarcasm aside), architectural updates to avoid the need for restarts at seemingly every Windows Update session would be a major step on the right direction.
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I don't know for sure but I suspect that it is genuinely very likely indeed that it has updated an OS component that (ideally) needs a restart. The problem, to my mind, is that so many OS updates still need a restart. I seem to remember that this was supposed to have been solved back in the Vista or was it 7 timeframe. And yet, no, OS restarts after updates seem to me to be as common as ever. Windows now has epic amounts of virtualisation built in, so can't this technology be used to help avoid the need for restarts due to OS component upgrades? Apparently not, so far. Instead of new icons (sarcasm aside), architectural updates to avoid the need for restarts at seemingly every Windows Update session would be a major step on the right direction.
When I start an OS update, I think it's reasonable that I might have to reboot. It's the OS. Visual Studio is an application. It has no business needing to reboot. Or maybe MS developers suck (sarcasm). Still wondering why.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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When I start an OS update, I think it's reasonable that I might have to reboot. It's the OS. Visual Studio is an application. It has no business needing to reboot. Or maybe MS developers suck (sarcasm). Still wondering why.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
charlieg wrote:
Visual Studio is an application. It has no business needing to reboot.
It does if you're using C++ or other shared components or runtimes that are in use by other applications. Those files cannot be replaced until they are released by the other applications using them. At the time of installation, the files are locked, so during the run of the installer, they are queued up to be replaced on the next O/S start since that's the only time the O/S can guarantee they will not be in use by other applications.
Asking questions is a skill CodeProject Forum Guidelines Google: C# How to debug code Seriously, go read these articles.
Dave Kreskowiak -
When I start an OS update, I think it's reasonable that I might have to reboot. It's the OS. Visual Studio is an application. It has no business needing to reboot. Or maybe MS developers suck (sarcasm). Still wondering why.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
charlieg wrote:
Visual Studio is an application. It has no business needing to reboot.
I agree. But it's a matter of "should" versus "does". Things need to change.
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charlieg wrote:
Visual Studio is an application. It has no business needing to reboot.
I agree. But it's a matter of "should" versus "does". Things need to change.
Yeah, yeah. I get it. Wondering why Windows needs to reboot if I fart in it's general direction is an exercise in futility. I get the technical comments. I just think back to that time when Bill was demonstrating USB device discovery and his machine blue screened... It shows that if you put enough lipstick on a pig, you still have bacon eventually.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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So I have an a$$ton of work going on. Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada. Converted a project from ancient VS to VS2019. I was prompted to update VS2019. Now I have this Installer prompt that says: "Success! One more step to go. Please restart your computer..." Why? Seriously, why do I need to reboot? It's just a holdover from the "reboot Windows" it might fix it history. Or is VS really doing things to the OS that requires me to reboot? I'm not being sarcastic here. Help me understand.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Yeah, yeah. I get it. Wondering why Windows needs to reboot if I fart in it's general direction is an exercise in futility. I get the technical comments. I just think back to that time when Bill was demonstrating USB device discovery and his machine blue screened... It shows that if you put enough lipstick on a pig, you still have bacon eventually.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
FTFY:
charlieg wrote:
if you put enough lipstick on a pig, you still have [^] bacon eventually.
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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So I have an a$$ton of work going on. Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada. Converted a project from ancient VS to VS2019. I was prompted to update VS2019. Now I have this Installer prompt that says: "Success! One more step to go. Please restart your computer..." Why? Seriously, why do I need to reboot? It's just a holdover from the "reboot Windows" it might fix it history. Or is VS really doing things to the OS that requires me to reboot? I'm not being sarcastic here. Help me understand.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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So I have an a$$ton of work going on. Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada. Converted a project from ancient VS to VS2019. I was prompted to update VS2019. Now I have this Installer prompt that says: "Success! One more step to go. Please restart your computer..." Why? Seriously, why do I need to reboot? It's just a holdover from the "reboot Windows" it might fix it history. Or is VS really doing things to the OS that requires me to reboot? I'm not being sarcastic here. Help me understand.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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So I have an a$$ton of work going on. Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada. Converted a project from ancient VS to VS2019. I was prompted to update VS2019. Now I have this Installer prompt that says: "Success! One more step to go. Please restart your computer..." Why? Seriously, why do I need to reboot? It's just a holdover from the "reboot Windows" it might fix it history. Or is VS really doing things to the OS that requires me to reboot? I'm not being sarcastic here. Help me understand.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
charlieg wrote:
Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada.
[...]
charlieg wrote:
Please restart your computer
The solution is to go all-in with VMs. If you run VS itself within its own VM, and it insists on rebooting, then you won't have to reboot the host OS, and drag along and interrupt whatever work the other VMs are doing. For years, I've had *nothing* on my host OS but the motherboard drivers, and the virtualization software (Hyper-V in my case). All my work is done inside separate VMs - one dedicated to SQL, another for VS2019, older ones with older versions of VS, another for "everything else" (Office, email, browsers, etc). That way reboots cause the minimal amount of disruptions. My host, at most, reboots once a month, on Patch Tuesday. I've had instances where I let the host wait for a reboot for a few months on end--right now it's still waiting to complete the setup for the February patches. Since I do nothing on the host, including no browsing, it's really at minimal risk and I don't worry as much about hurrying to patch that one as I might with any of the guest VMs. Could be Linux if I was so inclined. Bonus: Backing up is just a matter of copying .VHD files. Since there's nothing on the host, I don't even bother backing *that* one up--reinstalling the OS is pretty quick nowadays. My entire backup set is just a bunch of VHD files that can be managed like any other file with Explorer. Some of these have even been migrated to different physical machines over time. Extra bonus: Since the heavy work is all done in VMs, the host is warming up another room and I don't even have to hear its loud fans. On my desk in *this* room is a tiny, completely quiet Intel NUC, with 3 monitors, and it RDPs to the individual VMs.
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charlieg wrote:
Visual Studio is an application. It has no business needing to reboot.
It does if you're using C++ or other shared components or runtimes that are in use by other applications. Those files cannot be replaced until they are released by the other applications using them. At the time of installation, the files are locked, so during the run of the installer, they are queued up to be replaced on the next O/S start since that's the only time the O/S can guarantee they will not be in use by other applications.
Asking questions is a skill CodeProject Forum Guidelines Google: C# How to debug code Seriously, go read these articles.
Dave KreskowiakYou saved me the time of typing that exact same response, so thank you. :laugh:
Real programmers use butterflies
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Yeah, yeah. I get it. Wondering why Windows needs to reboot if I fart in it's general direction is an exercise in futility. I get the technical comments. I just think back to that time when Bill was demonstrating USB device discovery and his machine blue screened... It shows that if you put enough lipstick on a pig, you still have bacon eventually.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Windows locks executables (including DLLs) while they are in use. Because of this, in order to update shared components, the locks must be freed. While it's possible, there's no "clean" way to even determine who holds a lock that I know of (unless it was added to a more recent windows in which case I am wrong) so the safest thing to do is reboot. VS uses a lot of shared components. A lot of windows applications do, and generally, the larger/more complicated the application, the bigger your odds of having to reboot on update, because they typically use a lot of shared components increasing the odds that one of them is locked and the app needs to update it. This also applies to the various OS features and shell widgets and doodads, not just applications. I hope that clears it up.
Real programmers use butterflies
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So I have an a$$ton of work going on. Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada. Converted a project from ancient VS to VS2019. I was prompted to update VS2019. Now I have this Installer prompt that says: "Success! One more step to go. Please restart your computer..." Why? Seriously, why do I need to reboot? It's just a holdover from the "reboot Windows" it might fix it history. Or is VS really doing things to the OS that requires me to reboot? I'm not being sarcastic here. Help me understand.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Interesting question. I found the following. It suggests that windows locks the dlls because it is using the dll itself as a memory mapped file. So of course having that replaced while running would be bad thing. Sounds like a reasonable cause although I could not find other sources that back that up. c# - Why does the .NET framework lock dlls? - Stack Overflow[^]
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So I have an a$$ton of work going on. Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada. Converted a project from ancient VS to VS2019. I was prompted to update VS2019. Now I have this Installer prompt that says: "Success! One more step to go. Please restart your computer..." Why? Seriously, why do I need to reboot? It's just a holdover from the "reboot Windows" it might fix it history. Or is VS really doing things to the OS that requires me to reboot? I'm not being sarcastic here. Help me understand.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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So I have an a$$ton of work going on. Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada. Converted a project from ancient VS to VS2019. I was prompted to update VS2019. Now I have this Installer prompt that says: "Success! One more step to go. Please restart your computer..." Why? Seriously, why do I need to reboot? It's just a holdover from the "reboot Windows" it might fix it history. Or is VS really doing things to the OS that requires me to reboot? I'm not being sarcastic here. Help me understand.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
All excellent points. I had not considered that VS2019 might have updated core OS components. I was tired :) That said, if VS2019 is updating core OS stuff, it should be in the standard patch rollout. Segmentation please. As someone else mentioned, it's probably a default in the install s/w. 1 point to MS: although they did not give me a "reboot later" button, I could X off the prompt and keep going. I guess my perspective was flavored on my most recent video card driver update from NVidea. Their install process messes with my screens (expected) but I did not have to reboot. I consider *any* driver pretty core to the OS. Thank you all
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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charlieg wrote:
Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada.
[...]
charlieg wrote:
Please restart your computer
The solution is to go all-in with VMs. If you run VS itself within its own VM, and it insists on rebooting, then you won't have to reboot the host OS, and drag along and interrupt whatever work the other VMs are doing. For years, I've had *nothing* on my host OS but the motherboard drivers, and the virtualization software (Hyper-V in my case). All my work is done inside separate VMs - one dedicated to SQL, another for VS2019, older ones with older versions of VS, another for "everything else" (Office, email, browsers, etc). That way reboots cause the minimal amount of disruptions. My host, at most, reboots once a month, on Patch Tuesday. I've had instances where I let the host wait for a reboot for a few months on end--right now it's still waiting to complete the setup for the February patches. Since I do nothing on the host, including no browsing, it's really at minimal risk and I don't worry as much about hurrying to patch that one as I might with any of the guest VMs. Could be Linux if I was so inclined. Bonus: Backing up is just a matter of copying .VHD files. Since there's nothing on the host, I don't even bother backing *that* one up--reinstalling the OS is pretty quick nowadays. My entire backup set is just a bunch of VHD files that can be managed like any other file with Explorer. Some of these have even been migrated to different physical machines over time. Extra bonus: Since the heavy work is all done in VMs, the host is warming up another room and I don't even have to hear its loud fans. On my desk in *this* room is a tiny, completely quiet Intel NUC, with 3 monitors, and it RDPs to the individual VMs.
It's been on my list to do for 2 years. I guess I should stop $itching and start doing.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Simplified garbage collecting.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it. ― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
:laugh: truth
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Windows locks executables (including DLLs) while they are in use. Because of this, in order to update shared components, the locks must be freed. While it's possible, there's no "clean" way to even determine who holds a lock that I know of (unless it was added to a more recent windows in which case I am wrong) so the safest thing to do is reboot. VS uses a lot of shared components. A lot of windows applications do, and generally, the larger/more complicated the application, the bigger your odds of having to reboot on update, because they typically use a lot of shared components increasing the odds that one of them is locked and the app needs to update it. This also applies to the various OS features and shell widgets and doodads, not just applications. I hope that clears it up.
Real programmers use butterflies
Didn't you just thank dave for saving you to type the same answer? :rolleyes: ;P :laugh:
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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charlieg wrote:
Multiple VMs zooming along, editors all over, yada yada.
[...]
charlieg wrote:
Please restart your computer
The solution is to go all-in with VMs. If you run VS itself within its own VM, and it insists on rebooting, then you won't have to reboot the host OS, and drag along and interrupt whatever work the other VMs are doing. For years, I've had *nothing* on my host OS but the motherboard drivers, and the virtualization software (Hyper-V in my case). All my work is done inside separate VMs - one dedicated to SQL, another for VS2019, older ones with older versions of VS, another for "everything else" (Office, email, browsers, etc). That way reboots cause the minimal amount of disruptions. My host, at most, reboots once a month, on Patch Tuesday. I've had instances where I let the host wait for a reboot for a few months on end--right now it's still waiting to complete the setup for the February patches. Since I do nothing on the host, including no browsing, it's really at minimal risk and I don't worry as much about hurrying to patch that one as I might with any of the guest VMs. Could be Linux if I was so inclined. Bonus: Backing up is just a matter of copying .VHD files. Since there's nothing on the host, I don't even bother backing *that* one up--reinstalling the OS is pretty quick nowadays. My entire backup set is just a bunch of VHD files that can be managed like any other file with Explorer. Some of these have even been migrated to different physical machines over time. Extra bonus: Since the heavy work is all done in VMs, the host is warming up another room and I don't even have to hear its loud fans. On my desk in *this* room is a tiny, completely quiet Intel NUC, with 3 monitors, and it RDPs to the individual VMs.
I do more or less the same, but not in a dedicated maschine... One VM for serious staff Another one for surfing / searching non whitelisted places Another one for... VS Community (for private pet projects) is in the main OS though. But as I don't use it so much last time... Additionally, I am someone that switches the PC off almost every day, so I don't really care about the reboots.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
