April 2018 Update for Windows 10 Possible Issues

[dallash]

Hi All,

I just wanted to post my experience with Microsoft's newest update to Windows 10 (aka April 2018 Update). There is a new feature called Focus Assist that keeps up with stuff while you are playing a game. I first noticed this right after I installed the update. When I got out of AH3, it would say "here's what you missed" (like I am not smart enough to go look at my email).

I cannot say for certain that is what is causing my issues, but that is the only change I have recently made, save for adding a Lifecam to try to get Windows Hello to recognize my face.

My issues are pretty serious, and as follows:

When I try to launch AH3 first thing in the morning (I tried both DX9 and DX11), about half the time as soon as I click the last button to join the MA, the game becomes unresponsive and lets me move my mouse outside the game, which I promptly use to open task manager and kill the unresponsive process.

When I do manage to get logged in, about the first 4 or 5 times I select a base and click the hangar, I briefly see the aircraft or whatever was selected last along with a black background before the AH3 application/process dies. And it is not a normal CTD where it tells you the program stopped responding or whatever, it just vanishes.

So, after crashing trying to get into a hangar 4 or 5 times, it somehow manages to let me launch. After that point, the game seemed pretty normal with one exception yesterday morning.
I was at a vbase in a tank, and just when I shot or the other guy shot his main gun at me, the game closed itself with no warning, error or dialog box. Now this is where it gets weird. I relaunched thinking I would have to find the base and re-launch my tank headed that way, but instead, it put me back at that vbase in my tank, right where i was 30 seconds before. The odd thing was, a GeForce overlay was at the top of my screen with some choices to record my game or some other crap. I have never used and have no idea how to close. It stayed there until I exited the game a few minutes later. About a year ago, with one of the geForce experience updates, I started to get a click ALT + Something geForce screen every time I launch the game, but I have never done anything with it, and just let it go away.

All this is to say, until we find out for sure if it is the new Windows 10 update, I would suggest holding off installing the April 2018 update.

I am going to remove the MS Lifecam I connected since it doesn't magically make my computer compatible with Windows Hello as I had hoped. It did cause a minor issue in that it was auto-selected as my microphone source the first time I launched AH3, but that was easy to fix once I realized why everyone said I sounded like I was in a bowl.

I will post updates as I have them. I am going to be a little more scientific about which DX version I try, and it what order. IIRC, when I am having troubles one of the two (DX11, I think) freezes every time and won't even let me launch.

I would love any input anyone else has, or if you have installed the latest update with no issues, that would be nice to know as well.

Just one additional note. When I first started having issues yesterday morning (which IIRC was the first time I tried to play after the update), after a couple of attempts to join the MA or get into a hangar, I completely rebooted my desktop just to make sure I was starting with a clean slate. It did not seem to have any effect on my trouble.

Dallas

[Skuzzy]

I moved this to the Hardware and Software forum as it really does not fit a Bug Report about the game.

There is a high potential for problems due to some of the things Microsoft decided to update/change.

[Bizman]

Dallas, there's a couple of things you can do to make life easier for you.

First, you have a month to roll back the update. Unfortunately it may start updating right away unless you have the Pro version in which case you can postpone the update by some months. Of course, if you're feeling humble and like to sacrifice yourself to help others I appreciate your efforts with the 1803 version.

Second, did you have the Shift button pushed down while shutting down? Or Fast Startup disabled in the Power Management options? That's to provide a clean start, otherwise Windows will save the current settings and use them at the next start.

[Chalenge]

I have updated without issues, this time (Windows 10 x64 Pro).

The focus issue (game minimizes and then puts you back in game) is Windows 10 deciding that another process is suddenly more important. I get this all of the time in other games, where I use Razor Cortex to minimize the number of background processes I have running. You can do this by hand through MSConfig, or by shutting down the hidden icons programs (things like OneDrive, Steam Client background process, Creative Cloud, etc., but leave Nvidia Settings and Afterburner, and so on), but Razor just makes it faster.


After this latest update I did discover that my controls had once again lost my adjustments (the fine adjustments of deadband and damping), so I had to go through and fix that. Also, the latest Nvidia driver had lost my AH3 profile, so I had to revisit that as well.


While you're at it, you may want to look for BIOS updates, since the Intel issue has recently been pushed by the motherboard manufacturers (EVGA in particular was late to the party).

[100Coogn]

Chalenge:
Focus Assist is available in the new Windows 10 Insiders Preview 17661.  I don't know if it made it to the Spring release.
Anyways, it sounds like this should let Windows 10 know that you are playing a full-screen game and not to be interrupted.

Coogan

[Chalenge]

Yeah, you're better off turning FA off, turning Notifications off, and otherwise as I noted above. I have been playing with this through the Insider Program for months. The problem occurs when FA locks up, which it does do.

[Chalenge]

Something else you should be aware of.

The Microphone update in Windows 10 is designed to allow approved applications to access your microphone (think Facebook, Amazon, Cortana, etc.). So, you should be very careful about leaving the microphone hot when you are not actually using it. In other words, don't trust Windows to leave it off.

I believe there is a program to examine your system that is called InSpectre to test for your vulnerability to the Spectre issue. All of my systems have been updated with firmware and BIOS updates to protect my systems, but this latest Windows update actually makes you more vulnerable to their approved applications. That's how I see it.

[gspeye]

Win10 build 1803 caused crash problems in AH due to audio conflicts,( when I hit transmit button I crashed instantly to desktop), it also makes my mouse scrolling wheel move from screen to screen on both of my computers.  I rolled it back to build 1709 and all problems cleared up. Also 1803 removes Home groups however it still lets you network between computers. After I rolled it back it kept trying to re-install 1803 as an update so I had to use the pause for 3 months option. 1803 is still to buggy!

Good Luck,

gspeye AKA: GS

[Bizman]

In case this little tool hasn't been mentioned before, Microsoft has released a separate little app to hide unwanted updates. The title talks about drivers but the MS support person I phoned today recommended it also for delaying 1803.

The download link is in the bottom of the site: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3073930/how-to-temporarily-prevent-a-driver-update-from-reinstalling-in-window

[Drano]

Honestly the more you guys post stuff like this about Win10 the less I understand why anybody would touch that crap with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole! With all that crap going on - - wait a minute - - I mean RANDOMLY going on in the background! What couple POSSIBLY be gained by installing it?

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

[Bizman]

IMO the biggest issue with 10 is the pace they launch a half-tested version right when the previous version has got stable. The OS itself is as good or bad as any previous Windows before it. Lots of hype for the new version to hide the immaturity but once the main issues were solved even Vista or ME did the job reasonably well for a(less tha)n average user. Win10 has lots of potential which the folks in Redmond seem to want to flush once or twice a year.

[Pudgie]

Just allowed Team Red to run new MS Windows 10 April Update 1803 to see if I get any issues occurring (Windows 10 Home x64).

All ran w\o a hitch. Box updated restarted and set itself back up w\o any hiccups so in this aspect all is good.

Went thru OS to check if any settings anywhere that I had made prior the 1803 update were changed.....found the following:


1st the usual settings to the OS itself.................

1. Windows 1803 update turned the telemetry settings it needed\wanted back on to run the update (didn't reset the majority of the telemetry settings that I had disabled....only reset the 4 that it needed to run. Disabled them and rebooted box.........all came back up as disabled & w\o issue. All back to prior settings.

2. Power & Sleep (using powercfg.exe modded vers of default Windows Balanced Power Plan).....Windows reset itself back to Fast Startup. Disabled this and rebooted box....all came back up w\o issue. Checked all Advanced settings and powercfg.exe settings for tampering....found all settings as set prior & operational. Back to prior settings.

All other checks found all other OS settings remained as set prior to update and are fully operational.

Now for all software..........

1. Radeon Settings.....As had occurred before in all prior Win 10 OS updates, all settings reverted back to default but all operational. Reset all settings back to prior settings, all settings took and retained after reboot and all were operational afterwards. Back to normal.

2. MSI Afterburner.....As had occurred before in all prior Win 10 OS updates, Windows 10 would not allow AB to rehook into Radeon driver on initial reboot. Once 2nd reboot occurs all goes back to normal and fully operational as before. Back to normal.

All other checks found all other software performing normally and as setup prior Win 10 1803 update.

Started up AHIII using the Windows CMD-created shortcuts (for OS to apply CPU priority\affinity for game as I have instructed)....all started up just fine and ran w\o issue on current installed Radeon drivers 18.3.4. All good here.


Outside of what I have noted here all is operating fine under Win 10 April Update vers 1803 on Team Red.


 

[AAIK]

You would hope for HTC to be on top of things; no need to be soo paranoid about Windows updates.

[Skuzzy]

Not much we can do when Microsoft breaks something or makes changes without letting anyone know about it.

You really think Microsoft would call us and tell us they are about to release an update and it is going to break something we depend on?  We find out about broken things just like anyone else does.

[Bizman]

The reason I called Microsoft the other day was because a customer had issues with his Bluetooth headphones. It appeared that the culprit was a missing driver for the Broadcom Bluetooth circuit, something that should be native in Windows 10. MS Download Center had it for download, dating from September, 2016. Would you have guessed, they didn't work after the version update! A rollback fixed the issue so the hardware was intact. While searching for a solution for the problem I noticed that I wasn't the only one suffering from it.