Please provide a way to delay updates

[jr-lillard]

Description of the new feature/enhancement

I keep Windows Terminal open all the time. I also check for Microsoft Store updates daily. When an update to Windows Terminal is installed, it kills dozens of tabs I have open.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

It would be better for me to know that an update has been downloaded and is pending to be installed. I could then close all instances of Windows Terminal myself and when opening it the next time it would update before running. This is how Google Chrome works.

[WSLUser]

It would be better for me to know that an update has been downloaded and is pending to be installed.

Terminal has no control over that. That is entirely dependent on how your settings are configured for the Store.

[jr-lillard]

Fair enough. I had not looked into Store settings before. I always clicked on Get Updates and it would download and install updates. I've turned off the auto-updates setting and will see how it behaves. If it checks for updates but does not install until I say so then this will work. Thanks.

[DHowett]

So, I asked the application packaging and deployment team about this. Their answer was fairly direct: when you click get updates, you’re considered a “seeker”. People who actively seek updates get a different behavior than people who let the passive auto-updater update apps for them. Seekers’ applications are forcibly terminated, because they told the OS “no, give me updates, right now.”

[jr-lillard]

Bummer. I don't suppose there's a way for Microsoft Store to simply show me if updates are available then? I'm also thinking along the lines of Windows Updates. I can check for updates and install them but the restart doesn't happen without my permission.

[electronic-dk]

Probably something along the lines of how Edge, for example, handles the updates would be cool i.e. show that there's a new version available but not force restart the app right away. I understand that that's probably not the easiest issue to solve and there's probably no single solution that would satisfy everyone but maybe that's something the MS store could move to in the future.
That would probably be somewhat solved with the winget once it learns how to show the apps/packages that are ready to be updated.

[factormystic]

So, I asked the application packaging and deployment team about this. Their answer was fairly direct: when you click get updates, you’re considered a “seeker”. People who actively seek updates get a different behavior than people who let the passive auto-updater update apps for them. Seekers’ applications are forcibly terminated, because they told the OS “no, give me updates, right now.”

Thanks for checking into this @DHowett and so if there's nothing that the Terminal team can do about this I guess that's that.

HOWEVER:

This response from them is ultra lame. Yeah, I'm clicking around to see what's up, or maybe because I want to see what's updated, or maybe because I know some other app got updated.

But what I'm saying with those clicks isn't "please kill my terminal instances, which close/secretly detach my various terminal panes, and the web server(s), logs tails, etc running inside of them, thus essentially resetting my active development environment from some other app, on some other virtual desktop".

To hear me say this and think "yeah, that's certainly what the user intended when they were clicking around the store app" is foolishness. Whoever is holding on to this foolishness on the store team needs to have their thinking updated.

What can we do to get this scenario into the store team mindset? Is there someone from that team we can get onto this thread? Is there someone we should complain to? Can you take this feedback and send it back to them?

---

Another lens here is, what will it take to make this into a pleasant experience instead of a disappointing experience? Certainly getting the store team to up their game would be nice, but if that's not going to happen then I wonder what else can be done.

For example, hypothetically, could each terminal instance record it's current pane layout, detach from running processes that it started, allow the store to kill it & bring it back (somehow), detect that this is what happened, restore its pane layout, then reattach each child process?

The thinking here is that the store can kill the app, but the damage is now avoided because everything is restored.

[WSLUser]

Feedback Hub is the official way to communicate concerns about the Store to the Store team. I would say it's likely to be ignored but with the Store now being the only way to purchase products directly from MS, theres a higher than normal chance this feedback will get attention but not necessarily resolution.