A Windows update this weekend caused some confusion and angst for consumers as Microsoft rolled out a new feature called Windows Streamline, codenamed “Midnight Guano”. The feature performs nightly cleaning of system files, but it comes with an unusual side effect - each night, around midnight, devices running Microsoft Windows will relocate to the nearest table and leave a human-sized defecation.

The update was pushed out Friday morning but didn’t go into effect until Saturday, and the Streamline feature was only one among many enhancements listed in the update changelog. The following text was visible in the changelog: “Windows Streamline is a new efficiency feature included with all Windows installations that reorganizes and compresses system files to improve performance and save space. Please leave your device near a table for this feature to function properly.”

Discord and Outrage

Initial reactions were mixed, with many consumers feeling blindsided by the stealth update and unprepared to handle the new cleanup duty in their households. On the Microsoft subreddit, many users complained about the sudden nature of the change:

It’s so ridiculous that they would roll out this change without giving more heads up. I had no idea about the update, I was late to work this morning because I had to clean off my kitchen table.

I get why they felt like they needed the feature, but there needs to be a bigger message telling us about the change. My dog found the poop this morning before me and ate it and now he has a tummyache ://

Other users were angry that the feature was included at all:

How is this considered acceptable? I’m so fed up with this company. First the auto-updates that you can’t disable, now this.

How is this ok? This should be opt-in…

However, many users were appreciative and offered counterpoints:

I swear you guys will complain about anything. Microsoft is always improving Windows and they can’t make everyone happy, I’m personally glad for the speed boost and I find the morning cleanup is not hard at all

Lmao at everyone here. The poop on my table this morning was tiny, less than a handful. Don’t cry cause you can’t handle the responsibility of owning a computer

Microsoft wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t necessary… Maybe don’t assume you know more than the engineers whose literal job is to keep your computers working

Everyone’s complaining, but personally I’m just amazed that they got this feature to work. I have a crib cam so I was able to watch my surface book sprout legs, walk to the nearest table, and take a nice steaming dump. Marvel of engineering.

A number of commentators vowed to switch to Linux, but they had some pushback:

Just another reason to switch to Linux. Haven’t had to put up with stuff like this for years

Yeah, right. Linux breaks constantly and I can’t mine DiarrheaCoin on it.

I’m trying to switch to Linux tomorrow. This is unnacceptable. Will update

Update: It seemed too hard, had to use something called a USP tribe and I couldn’t figure it out. And honestly the poop isn’t that hard to clean.

Does Linux have problems like this?

I’ve never personally used it but I think so, yeah. Plus you don’t get tech support!

Jailbreak Solution

Some IT specialists at Rand corporation made a discovery after looking through the Streamline source code – the nightly poop can be cancelled by simply removing tables from the building. They released details on Twitter, in a post that got more than 5,000 retweets on Sunday. “Thank you so much,” said one user, “tonight I will be removing the tables from my restaurant.” Another pointed out that this could violate Microsoft’s terms & services, but others argued it would be difficult to enforce.

Microsoft’s Take

Despite the initial customer response, Microsoft seemed confident. The stock dipped on Monday by a half percentage point, but by the end of the day it had rebounded and gained one point. Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella posted on LinkedIn:

“We’ve heard some complaints about Windows Streamline, and we listened. The Streamline team has an update in the works that will reduce the size and wateriness of Windows Streamline stools using a world-class compression algorithm. We’re confident that the vast majority of Windows customers are grateful for the performance boost provided by Windows Streamline.”

Misinformation Pushback

We interviewed Froggypwns, a moderator on several Microsoft forums. He told us that opportunistic groups have been taking advantage of the slight discontent to spread misinformation. For instance, regarding stool size,

There’s no evidence that Streamline has been producing more than about a handful of stool per device.

When asked about Linux, Froggypwns told us:

Linux has had table shitting for years, but as a side effect of a poorly-optimized kernel layout. So with Linux, you don’t get anything like Streamline, but you still have the stool cleanup. I have not personally used Linux, but this is common knowledge among certified IT architects™ like myself. We had to ban a lot of Linux users for spreading misinformation about the capabilities of Linux on Sunday, but it’s since quieted down.