Those little CloudBooks... 32GB eMMC is NOT enough, vendors~!

[VirtualLarry]

Just trying to upgrade a Lenovo IdeaPad 110S that had been factory reset, and sold to someone.

Well, nom nom nom, within a day or two of setting up, and getting online, Windows 10 wants to do a "Feature Upgrade" to 1803. Great...

Anyways, it downloads, and runs something, which has a splash screen, and says, not enough room, install a USB drive with 10GB of space, and clear off 1.9x GB of space off of the C: drive.

So I uninstall the 3rd-party browsers, and un-install MS Office trial edition, because it was the biggest thing in add/remove programs.

So then, I clicked refresh, it said it had to close the window, and it would re-open in two minutes (what???). So .... now I'm waiting.... to find out if I've cleared out enough space.

What a PITA.

Vendors of these little things, should have probably put in 64GB of primary storage. I mean, you can always get a microSDHC for files, and stuff, but the OS updates, just plain need more room. WIMBoot (google it) doesn't help things, because I assume, when the OS updates, you end up with the original WIM still on the drive, and then the newest version of Windows 10. What a mess!

I REALLY THINK that some of these vendors (HP and Lenovo, I'm looking at YOU), deserve a class-action, for laptops that were sold with Windows 10, but LACK THE CAPABILITY TO UPDATE, thus leaving the user "Without important security updates" (Microsoft's words, warning the user on the lock screen, when they have an outdated version of Windows 10.)

 

[sandorski]

Lol, ya. Had an Asus Notebook with the same issue. I did find some instructions on how to spoof a USB stick as a legit Drive, but before I tried it the PC stopped working.

I f they are going to make systems like this, they need to include a Utility that runs automatically for OS Updates.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If they handled things a bit more intellegently... since SSDs and eMMC in these smaller laptops is now very popular, why not use the unix-style user-space/kernel-space distinction.

Have the user filesystem start at sector 0 (or 1-2KB mark), and have the OS storage partition extend downwards from the top.

And have an "OS re-install, via network" feature in the BIOS, just like some (ASRock comes to mind), have an "Internet flash" for the BIOS.

Basically, if you ever needed to re-install, or upgrade, Windows, with a machine like that, you would connect to the Net, hit your magic key combo or go into BIOS and select the option,
it would reach out and contact the server, it would find out how much space was needed for the replacement or upgraded OS partition, if the user partition was too large, it would tell you
to shrink / delete your user files (should offer BIOS option to back them up to a USB HDD or network share, just in case OS is hosed), and then it would erase the OS partition, re-size the user partition,
and then download and install the OS into its partition.

Basically, the BIOS would contain the OS-download, and file-backup (think possibly a licensed module from Macrium Reflect) features, and would work over the Net, or over a LAN.

Could be great for corporate OS downloads to many machines, if they could pull their customized OS image off of some LAN server somewhere, instead of MS.

There's really a LOT that could be done, in this area. And BIOS-containing flash chips are getting bigger and cheaper, it shouldn't be too hard to include this extra functionality.

At this point, I could see this sort of functionality, being rolled into Intel's vPro, or Dell's BIOSes, or maybe HP.

SOMEBODY really needs to take the ball on this one, and consider it.

 

[XavierMace]

Ahhhh. To be a simple hobbyist again. LOL

If they handled things a bit more intellegently... since SSDs and eMMC in these smaller laptops is now very popular, why not use the unix-style user-space/kernel-space distinction.

Have the user filesystem start at sector 0 (or 1-2KB mark), and have the OS storage partition extend downwards from the top.

I'm not sure what you think that would accomplish.

And have an "OS re-install, via network" feature in the BIOS, just like some (ASRock comes to mind), have an "Internet flash" for the BIOS.

Basically, if you ever needed to re-install, or upgrade, Windows, with a machine like that, you would connect to the Net, hit your magic key combo or go into BIOS and select the option,
it would reach out and contact the server, it would find out how much space was needed for the replacement or upgraded OS partition, if the user partition was too large, it would tell you
to shrink / delete your user files (should offer BIOS option to back them up to a USB HDD or network share, just in case OS is hosed), and then it would erase the OS partition, re-size the user partition,
and then download and install the OS into its partition.

Basically, the BIOS would contain the OS-download, and file-backup (think possibly a licensed module from Macrium Reflect) features, and would work over the Net, or over a LAN.

The whole reason this discussion exists is because there's not enough total storage space on the device to download, decompress, then install the updates. How is this solving this problem? Segregating the storage like nix does doesn't magically make the drive bigger.

Could be great for corporate OS downloads to many machines, if they could pull their customized OS image off of some LAN server somewhere, instead of MS.

Windows Deployment Services has been a thing for 15 years.

There's really a LOT that could be done, in this area. And BIOS-containing flash chips are getting bigger and cheaper, it shouldn't be too hard to include this extra functionality.

At this point, I could see this sort of functionality, being rolled into Intel's vPro, or Dell's BIOSes, or maybe HP.

PXE booting has been a thing forever. The problem is your solution isn't nearly as simple as you believe it to be.

 

[mxnerd]

Yep. I got a mini PC with 32GB eMMC, not enough space for 1803 feature update.

I tried everything. Uninstall almost all software, put in a 32GB MicroSD card, a 64GB USB drive, doesn't help.

I tried to move SoftwareDistribution directory to MicroSD or the USB drive, reduce swap files, etc, nothing works.

9GB left and still not enough space. All I can do is download 1803 ISO file and burn it to USB drive and install from there.

 

[ElFenix]

install from an ISO. pain in the butt but it works.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

install from an ISO. pain in the butt but it works.

It's never a bad time for a clean install, really. Maybe an inconvenient time, maybe. But it's usually worth doing anyway.

 

[whm1974]

Doesn't eMMC currently go up to 128GB? Why don't these vendors use that size instead?

 

[killster1]

are these even suppose to run windows? well yes it appears they are! . Didn't think you would use 32gb drive with windows, cant wait to try out LTSB windows for this kind of thing (hate updates anyway)

 

[whm1974]

are these even suppose to run windows? well yes it appears they are! . Didn't think you would use 32gb drive with windows, cant wait to try out LTSB windows for this kind of thing (hate updates anyway)

I wouldn't buy a a notebook with only 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage now in 2018, why would I?

 

[killster1]

I wouldn't buy a a notebook with only 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage now in 2018, why would I?

OK so i wouldnt either ? seems like terrible waste of money, im wondering if modern cellphones are faster than this

 

[VirtualLarry]

Doesn't eMMC currently go up to 128GB? Why don't these vendors use that size instead?

Probably, by building those little laptops / notebooks / CloudBooks, to tablet specs, meant that they could legally use the tablet version of Windows 10 on them, and not have to pay for the OS.

 

[whm1974]

OK so i wouldnt either ? seems like terrible waste of money, im wondering if modern cellphones are faster than this

The high end ones for sure, but they cost why more then these crippled computers.

Probably, by building those little laptops / notebooks / CloudBooks, to tablet specs, meant that they could legally use the tablet version of Windows 10 on them, and not have to pay for the OS.

I would pay extra to have something that is fast enough to be actually useful.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm not saying that these CloudBooks are a good value at list price, but if you can get one for less than $150, and have patience, especially with the updates, then they could be bearable. They are practically disposable, which makes them good to take on trips (hotel wifi), and such, and not have to worry all that much about being stolen.

 

[whm1974]

I'm not saying that these CloudBooks are a good value at list price, but if you can get one for less than $150, and have patience, especially with the updates, then they could be bearable. They are practically disposable, which makes them good to take on trips (hotel wifi), and such, and not have to worry all that much about being stolen.

That is really the only saving grace of these things. Even then I would wipe Windows off of one and replace with Linux.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That is really the only saving grace of these things. Even then I would wipe Windows off of one and replace with Linux.

I've done that, too. Have to boot with NOAPIC, otherwise kernel bugcheck.

 

[cbn]

Doesn't eMMC currently go up to 128GB?

256GB:

https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/estorage/emmc/

 

[XavierMace]

Doesn't eMMC currently go up to 128GB? Why don't these vendors use that size instead?

Regular SSD's go up to 2TB. Why don't vendors use that size instead?