No escape: Microsoft injects 'Get Windows 10' nagware into biz PCs

Microsoft's relentless campaign to push Windows 10 onto every PC on the planet knows no bounds: now business desktops will be nagged to upgrade. When Redmond started quietly installing Windows 10 on computers via Windows Update, it was aimed at getting home users off Windows 7 and 8. If you were using Windows Pro or Enterprise …

[Trevor_Pott]

I am not a fucking product.

Dear Microsoft, if you treat me like nothing more than a product to be "monetized" don't expect me to pay for any of your shit, ever again. Nor will I be using your free stuff. My privacy isn't for sale, nor is that of my customers, employees, friends, family cats, fish, lizard or the bloody air molecules we breathe.

Yes, yes, I know...I'm to small for you to give a rat's ass about my paltry few tens of thousands in yearly software purchases. But I do wonder just how many customers you can treat like products before you're right screwed.

Hope you have a ruinous 2016,

--Trevor

[Shadow Systems]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Enjoy a pint on me since I can't upvote you a few trillion times in agreement.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

A follow-on thought from an out-of-thread discussion: I think the Microsoft/customer relationship can be compared to the abusive spouse/victim relationship. Specifically, there are many kinds of abuse that don't result in physical trauma but which are nonetheless very real.

Today, a victim of spousal abuse can walk out of the house, never to return, and there is (in civilized nations) an entire social infrastructure in place to help them. They can find the help required to start over, rebuild their lives, deal with debt or legal issues and so much more.

In a lot of ways I feel there are parallels here. The difference is that the vendor/customer abuse cycle is more where spousal abuse was in the 1950s. The infrastructure doesn't exist to help anyone - from consumers to SMBs to enterprises - walk away from an abusive vendor.

We all know that it isn't as simple as just decided not to use a vendor's software/hardware anymore. With Microsoft's "Get Windows 10" and the "Google Stop Moving My Fucking Buttons" nature of SaaS, we've also entered a period in IT where many can't even choose to delay purchases or changed while they try to figure out an exit strategy.

Just like with abusive spouses, there are those who won't recognize they are in an abusive relationship. There are also those who recognize the abusive relationship, but rationalize staying anyways. What there isn't is several decades of social, political and economic infrastructure to help us cope with having made bad decisions and gotten stuck with abusive partner in the first place.

How the hell did we (collectively) let it get this bad? And what - if anything - can we do about it?

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

@Trevor - i like your analogy to an abusive spouse. I have been advising people informally not to install W10 and to research other options. None have installed W10 and some are considering what to migrate to and its not Winbloat.

One scenario I think will happen is when a company misses payroll because W10 does not play nice with the payroll package. US law mandates all back and liquidated damages are owed to each employee if a company misses a payroll. Now if this can be traced by to Slurp and W10 this could make for an interesting lawsuit with the possibility of punitive damages. Slurp will dodge many, settle some, but could lose a couple key ones which could be very costly. Are there any adults running Slurp?

[Wade Burchette]

@ a_yank_lurker

"US law mandates all back and liquidated damages are owed to each employee if a company misses a payroll. Now if this can be traced by to Slurp and W10 this could make for an interesting lawsuit with the possibility of punitive damages."

One problem. Read the terms-of-service you agree to when you install:

----

10. Binding Arbitration and Class Action Waiver if You Live in (or if a Business Your Principal Place of Business is in) the United States.

We hope we never have a dispute, but if we do, you and we agree to try for 60 days to resolve it informally. If we can’t, you and we agree to binding individual arbitration before the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), and not to sue in court in front of a judge or jury. Instead, a neutral arbitrator will decide and the arbitrator’s decision will be final except for a limited right of appeal under the FAA. Class action lawsuits, class-wide arbitrations, private attorney-general actions, and any other proceeding where someone acts in a representative capacity aren’t allowed. Nor is combining individual proceedings without the consent of all parties. “We,” “our,” and “us” includes Microsoft, the device manufacturer, and software installer.

a. Disputes covered-everything except IP. The term “dispute” is as broad as it can be. It includes any claim or controversy between you and the manufacturer or installer, or you and Microsoft, concerning the software, its price, or this agreement, under any legal theory including contract, warranty, tort, statute, or regulation, except disputes relating to the enforcement or validity of your, your licensors’, our, or our licensors’ intellectual property rights.

b. Mail a Notice of Dispute first. If you have a dispute and our customer service representatives can’t resolve it, send a Notice of Dispute by U.S. Mail to the manufacturer or installer, ATTN: LEGAL DEPARTMENT. If your dispute is with Microsoft, mail it to Microsoft Corporation, ATTN: LCA ARBITRATION, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399. Tell us your name, address, how to contact you, what the problem is, and what you want. A form is available at (aka.ms/disputeform). We’ll do the same if we have a dispute with you. After 60 days, you or we may start an arbitration if the dispute is unresolved.

c. Small claims court option. Instead of mailing a Notice of Dispute, and if you meet the court’s requirements, you may sue us in small claims court in your county of residence (or if a business your principal place of business) or our principal place of business-King County, Washington USA if your dispute is with Microsoft. We hope you’ll mail a Notice of Dispute and give us 60 days to try to work it out, but you don’t have to before going to small claims court.

d. Arbitration procedure. The AAA will conduct any arbitration under its Commercial Arbitration Rules (or if you are an individual and use the software for personal or household use, or if the value of the dispute is $75,000 USD or less whether or not you are an individual or how you use the software, its Consumer Arbitration Rules). For more information, see (aka.ms/adr) or call 1-800-778-7879. To start an arbitration, submit the form available at (aka.ms/arbitration) to the AAA; mail a copy to the manufacturer or installer (or to Microsoft if your dispute is with Microsoft). In a dispute involving $25,000 USD or less, any hearing will be telephonic unless the arbitrator finds good cause to hold an in-person hearing instead. Any in-person hearing will take place in your county of residence (of if a business your principal place of business) or our principal place of business-King County, Washington if your dispute is with Microsoft. You choose. The arbitrator may award the same damages to you individually as a court could. The arbitrator may award declaratory or injunctive relief only to you individually to satisfy your individual claim.

e. Arbitration fees and payments.

(i) Disputes involving $75,000 USD or less. The manufacturer or installer (or Microsoft if your dispute is with Microsoft) will promptly reimburse your filing fees and pay the AAA’s and arbitrator’s fees and expenses. If you reject our last written settlement offer made before the arbitrator was appointed, your dispute goes all the way to an arbitrator’s decision (called an “award”), and the arbitrator awards you more than this last written offer, the manufacturer or installer (or Microsoft if your dispute is with Microsoft) will: (1) pay the greater of the award or $1,000 USD; (2) pay your reasonable attorney’s fees, if any; and (3) reimburse any expenses (including expert witness fees and costs) that your attorney reasonably accrues for investigating, preparing, and pursuing your claim in arbitration. The arbitrator will determine the amounts unless you and we agree on them.

(ii) Disputes involving more than $75,000 USD. The AAA rules will govern payment of filing fees and the AAA’s and arbitrator’s fees and expenses.

(iii) Disputes involving any amount. If you start an arbitration we won’t seek our AAA or arbitrator’s fees and expenses, or your filing fees we reimbursed, unless the arbitrator finds the arbitration frivolous or brought for an improper purpose. If we start an arbitration we will pay all filing, AAA, and arbitrator’s fees and expenses. We won’t seek our attorney’s fees or expenses from you in any arbitration. Fees and expenses are not counted in determining how much a dispute involves.

f. Must file within one year. You and we must file in small claims court or arbitration any claim or dispute (except intellectual property disputes - see Section 10.a.) within one year from when it first could be filed. Otherwise, it’s permanently barred.

g. Severability. If the class action waiver is found to be illegal or unenforceable as to all or some parts of a dispute, those parts won’t be arbitrated but will proceed in court, with the rest proceeding in arbitration. If any other provision of Section 10 is found to be illegal or unenforceable, that provision will be severed but the rest of Section 10 still applies.

h. Conflict with AAA rules. This agreement governs if it conflicts with the AAA’s Commercial Arbitration Rules or Consumer Arbitration Rules.

i. Microsoft as party or third-party beneficiary. If Microsoft is the device manufacturer or if you acquired the software from a retailer, Microsoft is a party to this agreement. Otherwise, Microsoft is not a party but is a third-party beneficiary of your agreement with the manufacturer or installer to resolve disputes through informal negotiation and arbitration.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Re: @ a_yank_lurker

Courts regularly throw out unreasonable clauses, and many of those are arbitrary and unreasonable.

MS may think it has its ass covered, but Legal World may not be agree. Ultimately any suit would probably be dragged up to the Supreme Court anyway.

Meanwhile MS is racking up bad publicity and losing customers. So if goes in that direction - and I hope it does - MS loses either way.

It's a shitty, stupid company. It hasn't matured in thirty years, so we can only hope it crashes and burns soon - although preferably after the R&D people are split off, because that's the only interesting part.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: @ a_yank_lurker

@TtheOtherHobbes - Agree that the courts have more latitude if a case is filed. The issue will likely be that Slurp deliberately bypassed a company's procedures and forced the update out on a mission critical system while a regular staff member was using it. That coupled with there is no easy way to permanently opt out (registry hacks do not count) and Slurp may be facing a nasty, losing hand. What will be worse is that any success against Slurp will embolden others to sue for their pound of flesh.

Ballmer, in many ways, was a buffoon but he seemed to have enough sense to know there is a line you do not cross without endangering the company. The current buffoon does not seem to grasp this.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: @ a_yank_lurker

"Read the terms-of-service you agree to when you install:"

What makes you think that even under US law that those T&Cs have any weight in law? Have similar terms ever been enforced by a court? Does US contract law allow you sign away your right to sue for breach of contract when the terms are unfair?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @ a_yank_lurker|Does US contract law...

Yes it does. US contract law doesn't leave any wiggle room for consumers here, even if they're multi-billion dollar corporations. When it comes to business, contract is king, and the letter of agreements inviolate.

The EULA is very clear. Microsoft, like all other software publishers, does not warrant its products to be fit for *any* purpose.

Some people used to argue that the original "shrinkwrap" provision (i.e. the one that said if you broke the seal on the software package you were deemed to have agreed to its terms -- which you couldn't have read until you opened the package) constituted a contract of adhesion because it didn't give you the option of rejecting those terms and returning the product. That kind of talk led MS (and pretty much every other software company) to redesign their initial splash screen to force first time users to scroll all the way down through the agreement before they could push the "Accept" button.

MS has this covered, as you'd expect a company founded by a lawyer's son would. There's no basis in law or equity for a claim against them for any damage their products might inflict. The only protections anyone has are what government regulators might impose, but in the US since the 1980's. as you know, the government hasn't been very keen on doing much about that -- unless you consider that briefly lived and farcical requirement that they provide a choice of web browsers on the opening desktop "action".

Not the world I wanted to live in, but that's a discussion for another day.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: @ a_yank_lurker

@Wade - If someone has a major titsup fiasco because of W10 they will be talking to lawyers. The EULA can be broken, it is difficult, if a judge thinks Slurp is abusive or trying to avoid legal responsibility. Also, depending on the locale, the local laws may void a good part of the EULA. The specific details will matter.

If Slurp is counting on this as an absolute legal protection they will probably be in for a rude shock. What has not been stated is whether there may criminal violations not just civil in some jurisdictions. Again the details are critical as well as the local law.

Quoting the EULA only points out the suing Slurp will be difficult but not impossible - a point that anyone will concede.

[Tom 7]

Re: Abusive spouse.

Its an extended family of abused people. The support people are abused too and have to pay a fortune for a certificate which they can take to you to help you self abuse further. And then you get people who tell you to keep your mouth shut because who else can you go to for help abusing yourself and so you even feel guilty of trying to break the abuse cycle.

[BobChip]

Re: I am not a () product... And what - if anything - can we do about it?

Answer is easily said. Take your business elsewhere!

Agreed, actually doing it may not be quite so simple. Going Apple is fairly straightforward, but will probably put your costs up somewhat. Going Linux is still seen by some as difficult, though in fact it really is not.

The real challenge lies in building up the courage to take the decision in the first place. Once done, you will find that the switch process is much less frightening than you had feared, and you will wonder why on earth you did not leave MS behind years ago. And with Linux, so will your Accountant.

[Pookietoo]

Re: building up the courage to take the decision

As others have said - find a live boot distro that works OK with your hardware, install it on your HDD, then get Windows running in a VM. Now you can migrate at your leisure. For the more cautious among you, use a clean HDD to do this, so you can just put the Windows one back if it doesn't work out or it takes more than one weekend to get everything sorted.

[KeithR]

Re: I am not a () product... And what - if anything - can we do about it?

"Going Apple is fairly straightforward, but will probably put your costs up somewhat"

Somewhat?

[jjcoolaus]

Whilst I agree with you, who will you use instead?

Thanks to UEFI it's very difficult to boot linux these days, and those thousands of "just curious" users providing a tonne of information about their hardware with every install must be having an impact on the compatibility of modern hardware.

If your organisation has upgraded to surface pro etc then I guess your a bit screwed anyway.

Then again linux does work well with older hardware so if your all running the same x-brand laptop from 3 years ago then could be worthwhile, save for any unique business applications.

The way the big corporates see the world now is that there is 2 operating systems for PCs (microsoft or mac) and the hardware you buy determines which one you use. Then there are 3 mobile operating systems with no great difference between the privacy aspects of any of them (that is: you have none)

[Kye Macdonald]

How is UEFI making linux difficult to boot? The go to distribution for new people (Ubuntu) and by proxy Mint both have UEFI certificates and boot without having to do anything at all. And if you are not in the deb camp and want rpms then fedora is UEFI compatible as well.

Finally if you want to roll your own you can turn off secureboot in your bios. And if you are considering rolling your own or running one of the other distros then changing a setting in bios should be child's play.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are support systems available...Macs if you have cash and Linux if you don't. Although Apple's walled garden has been sort of abusive from the start: You definitely aren't the "top" in the relatiionship; but some people like that sort of thing and -to use a kinder analogy- Apple's curated service is worth the money for many.

In a way, Microsoft are doing us a favour...they are clearly demonstrating unfitness for purpose for the responsibility of running an operating system. With the ever increasing use of cloudiness and dependence on other people's computers the clear "it's time to bail out before you get irrevocably entrenched" signal couldn't have come at a better time.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

> Apple's curated service is worth the money for many

.. and can be turned off easily. Which I do...

[PleebSmasher]

when Secure Boot can't be turned off

@Kye Macdonald

"Finally if you want to roll your own you can turn off secureboot in your bios."

That ability is optional:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/windows-10-to-make-the-secure-boot-alt-os-lock-out-a-reality/

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: when Secure Boot can't be turned off

This should surprise no one. Does anyone know of any motherboard manufactures who still build a BIOS only motherboard?

[Paul 129]

Re: when Secure Boot can't be turned off

Already ran into this drama.... Win10 certified hardware is Secureboot only, you cant turn it off.

It finally force me to update my PXE boot environment to UEFI, a confusing nightmare, as I was used to how everything operated before.

GPT tools vs standard disk partitioning is not too hard to grok, just beware of the partitions uuid in disk cloning are not the uuids that ms uses in the partition names (Useful if your having boot issues)

Start of with Memtest86 not memtest86+, they offer a UEFI bootable version. That GPT disk structre is everwhere, so you should be able to split out of each version the GPT disk image, etc and figure out how it works.

ipxe romomatic, only allowed the efi option, and point it to the core binary in the GPT image, I forget all the details, but once youve cracked that nut your on your way. The key is that the bootloader is UEFI signed and you don't use some component in the boot process that use older bios calls(or so it seems)

What you'll find is that UEFI support at the moment is patchy Memtest86 supports it but Memtest86+ dosn't, ipxe not gpxe etc.... The new vesrions of the major distros support it. Having a computer that actually flashes up momentary error messages is rare, but a boon if you find one. It's getting easier as more things support it.

Ramifications: what if MS start charging an arm and a leg to use their code to get things signed? Your initial loader may have that problem, but you probably can build something like ipxe's rom-o-matic. Yes you have the one static loader or similar that you have to get going with but after that anything can be autoamaticly generated from that initial version, so sharing a single signature across an entire community.

Security: A small step. (is it actually worth it?)

Benefit for MS: Killing off its competition. The enemy here isn't linux (small pc market share) but older versions of windows! Replacement hardware requires a newer OS. Motherboards that support 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7 are going to be thin on the ground shortly.

Weirdness: One of the systems that I've come across, was locked to secure boot only had an option for windows 10, or an older windows version in the motherboards uefi menu screen (It still required secure boot so older means windows8)

[Updraft102]

Re: when Secure Boot can't be turned off

If you're talking motherboards, I think you're wrong. Makers of motherboards to be sold on their own and have a system built around them are much more responsive to what their users want-- they know that people who buy their stuff are very aware of things like configurability and the ability to install older OSs on newer hardware. Several motherboard makers right now, for example, have included workarounds in software or firmware to get around the issue of Skylake's lack of EHCI support and the Windows 7 installer's insistence on EHCI support for USB devices pre-boot.

This gives people like me the ability to work around all of Microsoft's silliness. Secure boot is not going to be locked on in these boards as it could be with a brand new prebuilt machine. My board uses UEFI, but it has the option of using legacy BIOS mode for the boot process for maximum flexibility. I can't imagine (as an individual) buying a branded desktop PC as a whole unit-- I've never done it in the 26 years I have been using and working on PCs.

Laptops, though, are another story (and desktop PCs for enterprise would be much the same). Building one from components is not an option. In that case, it will require extra diligence and research to make sure the one you select has the options in UEFI to accommodate future upgrades, downgrades, or whatever else you want. If people want it, PC OEMs will make sure we have the option to buy it.

[Adam 52]

UEFI

Your post explains how UEFI is making Linux hard, you need to pick a distro with a certificate and can't just roll up with your own OS, so a potentially unlimited choice has been restricted to two and their derivatives. Linux becomes a project only possible because of corporations with deep pockets (more so than it already is).

[James Loughner]

Re: UEFI

Just turn off secure boot it it just security theatre. If a bad actor can access your boot stack you are totally owned any way. Secure boot only protects the boot stack it will not prevent you from becoming owned. EFI works fine without secure boot.

[Doctor Syntax]

"if you are not in the deb camp and want rpms then fedora is UEFI compatible as well."

It's a very long time since I used Fedora but AFAICR I found it to be release often, break often. Maybe a derivative of RH, say Centos or Scientific Linux, would be better; I'm sure they're UEFI compatible.

But as a stepping stone it might also be worth looking at one of the Ubuntu derivatives such as Zorin that set out to provide a user interface as close to W7 as possible.

[DaddyHoggy]

Windows 10 gives the motherboard manufacturer the option to remove the option to turn off Secure Boot manually in the BIOS.

So you may get/have a Windows 10 machine and find you cannot install a non-UEFI certified Linux distro.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2901262/microsoft-tightens-windows-10s-secure-boot-screws-where-does-that-leave-linux.html

[Pookietoo]

Re: remove the option to turn off Secure Boot manually in the BIOS

If this becomes a significant problem I expect some clever people will just hack the BIOS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again linux does work well with older hardware so if your all running the same x-brand laptop from 3 years ago then could be worthwhile, save for any unique business applications.

Around here, the march of the penguin seems unstoppable.

24 months ago we had an engineering department of 8 people. Two of those used Linux, one dual booting (mostly a Linux user), the other, yours truly, running almost exclusively Linux.

18 months ago, much the same numbers, but now one had decided to ditch Windows on his machine and move to Linux. Others were running Linux in VMs.

In the last 12 months:

- our engineering manager has gone from running pure Windows 8.1, to dual-booting with Ubuntu, to booting out Windows altogether.

- we've brought on two more people, who are pretty much full-time Linux users

- one of our engineers had a laptop (running Windows 7) fail whilst on-site. Long story short, in a hurry he bought a HP Envy, which came pre-loaded with Windows 10. Once back from site, he gave the machine an exorcism and now runs pure Ubuntu.

So the count was 6 Windows users, two Linux users, it's now more like 3 Windows users, 10 Linux users. I've threatened to move to BSD just to differentiate myself (although I run Gentoo instead of Ubuntu, so maybe different enough).

Outside of engineering, the idea of running Windows in a VM (using a copy-on-write image) with Linux as the host has been discussed and genuinely considered as a tempting option.

[Shufflemoomin]

I tried to switch to Linux mint. Booting the live CD left me with no mouse or keyboard (which was eventually solved by using a different USB port), they had no drivers for my Nvidia 970 leaving me with software rendering and after installing with the intention of Dual Booting, I got no boot menu on restart offering me to go into Linux. I spent a couple of hours of Google trying to solve these problems before giving up. There was plenty of advice about editing config files, terminal commands and many other things I didn't want the hassle of. Microsoft can suck it, but Linux is far from the easy experience some people make it out to be.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Shufflemoomin - The "poke and hope" approach can and does go wrong sometimes. Sometimes it's the network driver that fails which means that -if you don't have another device to look things up on the internet with- you can have problems. These days when pretty well everyone has a phone it's not usually insurmountable; but those of us who have checkmated themselves in the past have a bit more of a cautious approach to these things.

Suggestions:

1) Backup so you can get back to the starting line in case things go wrong

2) Give your target OS a spin in a VM first. Not definitive because the VM piggybacks on the host OS's drivers; but can show up problems and is good practice (and practise) anyway. You want to know how your basic security works (antivirus, firewall etc.) works and be able to install it quickly before showing your new final install to the internet in any event. You can also use the VM to test the various applications you intend to use; test which OS flavour suits you and generally get over the 'blowing shit up' stage with no harm done.

3) If it's windows you're moving from, fire up something like SIW (https://www.gtopala.com/) and check the physical devices your machine has; the availability of drivers; and have them all downloaded locally and ready to go. Video, sound, network (and pointing devices if you're using anything non-standard) as a minimum. Touchpad too, if it's a laptop.

[Teiwaz]

"Give your target OS a spin in a VM "

I consider it better to check out a Live install ISO first (or as well), especially if you depend on wifi, as some wifi cards don't operate out of the box, and some need firmware that the distro ISO doesn't contain.

It also should give your the opportunity to test for any other nasty surprises due to uncooperative hardware (sound, card readers etc).

VM's are trendy an all, but if you intend to install, better to test on bare metal.

[Anonymous Coward]

@shufflemoomin

That's an interesting data point.

So far I & my colleagues have have a very easy time with Linux (Mint/Ubuntu) installs including the guy who has a fancy gaming laptop.

But it just goes to show that there is still hardware with poor driver support in Linux.

There is another side to this coin, which is that YMMV also applies (to a lesser extent) to Windows drivers, especially the lack of support for older hardware in newer versions of Windows - availability of signed drivers in 64-bit Windows from W8 onwards is a particular issue (yes there is an arcane way to make Windows accept unsigned drivers, but it fulfils the criterion of "loads of time wasted Googling for solutions").

[DropBear]

Re: @shufflemoomin

"There is another side to this coin, which is that YMMV also applies (to a lesser extent) to Windows drivers"

Guess what happens if using Windows 7 you realize it might be a good idea to switch your SATA controller from ye olde IDE legacy mode you used for convenience at install time to AHCI mode for the sake of your new SSD that kinda needs that sort of thing (for TRIM), but you "forget" to enable the msahci service with regedit in advance. If you want real fun though, do the same under the XP you're dual booting with (yes it's possible), where you have no native support for AHCI and no way to install any drivers because the relevant PCI device is not showing up until you actually activate AHCI in the BIOS, by which time you can't actually boot anymore...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @shufflemoomin

If you want real fun though, do the same under the XP you're dual booting with (yes it's possible), where you have no native support for AHCI and no way to install any drivers because the relevant PCI device is not showing up until you actually activate AHCI in the BIOS, by which time you can't actually boot anymore...

It's actually quite easy to get XP running AHCI. But it's a bit convoluted, if that isn't a contradiction. With the correct Intel or AMD AHCI driver you install to the correct IDE controller, reboot, switch (back) to AHCI in the BIOS, and it works.

otoh, back when I used to use RAID - about a decade ago - I added the 3 RAID driver components and edited the 2 or 3 setup text files and burned a new XP disc, which then installed the RAID drivers at the beginning of setup. I've no doubt you can do this with AHCI too (though maybe you'd still have to begin in IDE mode. However, on my AMD system, these days it appears to be the same driver as for RAID, e.g. X:\AMD\RAID\Driver\WinXP\x64\ahcix64.*). I haven't made an AHCI XP disc because it's more trouble than it's worth if you almost never actually boot XP.

[DropBear]

Re: @shufflemoomin

"With the correct Intel or AMD AHCI driver you install to the correct IDE controller"

You can't really do that, since as I said, in IDE mode (the AMD hardware at least) has a different PCI device ID than in AHCI mode and therefore trying to install the appropriate drives only gets you "no new drivers could be found" - the .inf file is simply not targeted at the IDE-mode device IDs. The only way to get it to work is to copy the .sys manually into system32/drivers and manually create the relevant registry entries so the .sys is picked up on boot once you switch to AHCI. THEN you can install the "new hardware" promptly detected by XP since the right hardware PCI ID is now visible.

Anyway, I forgot to mention the kicker in this whole kaboodle - while both Win7 and WinXP had to be babied around carefully to make the transition, the boot manager I use to dual boot them (the Linux BURG) needed no change whatsoever and booted the newly-AHCI disk without ever batting an eye...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @shufflemoomin

the boot manager I use to dual boot them (the Linux BURG) needed no change whatsoever and booted the newly-AHCI disk without ever batting an eye...

Bootloaders typically use the boot firmware (UEFI/BIOS) to access the disk. Its the OS kernel that does its own thing.

Windows is no different here either, just that it acts like a retard when things change. Linux and BSD just take it in their stride.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @shufflemoomin

"With the correct Intel or AMD AHCI driver you install to the correct IDE controller"

You can't really do that

I've done it like that a dozen times.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @shufflemoomin

If you want real fun though, do the same under the XP you're dual booting with (yes it's possible), where you have no native support for AHCI and no way to install any drivers because the relevant PCI device is not showing up until you actually activate AHCI in the BIOS, by which time you can't actually boot anymore...

You do not know pain until you install Windows 2000 Pro and Linux on an IDE disk, get them happy, then decide that IDE drives aren't trustworthy, so you install a SCSI card and disk, get those working in both OSes, then do the big migration to the new (to you) SCSI disks.

Linux usually is just fine after a tweak of the bootloader configuration and a re-load of the boot sector, Windows on the other hand…

Similar pain is experienced in physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V) migrations.

"What about Linux" - its free but nothing supports it not even its own community half the time.

"Nothing"? Either your definitions are unreasonably tight or you're in denial.

[Chemist]

@ Shufflemoomin

"they had no drivers for my Nvidia 970 leaving me with software rendering "

Sorry don't have too much time to go into this at the moment this but there are Linux Nvidia drivers available for the 970 - http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/77844/en-us

What is likely to be the problem is that (I'm not a Mint user) the driver needs to be added after install via probably an additional repository ( certainly that's what I've done with OpenSUSE but I've not needed to install on a system with a Nvidia card for quite a time). I note you've also had problems with NVidia on W10

In general, I'd also suggest trying a few live-CDs just to see which you prefer.

[Jeffrey Nonken]

Re: @ Shufflemoomin

It's been a while, but I believe you are correct, chemist: mint will require post-installation nvidia driver addition.

But that's also true of Windows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @ Shufflemoomin

mint will require post-installation nvidia driver addition.

That's the 2nd or 3rd post-installation install I do in Mint KDE. 1st one is WiFi - via Github, which is initially accessible with the connection repeatedly dropping. For the nvidia driver I fire up Software Manager. It's easy but a problem for newbs.

[Fihart]

@ Shufflemoomin

My previous experiences with Linux were similar to yours. Until.

Until a friend strong-armed me into trying Peppermint Linux and it installed without any serious issues -- even the wireless adapter. Put it on another computer too and no real problems there either.

Linux still isn't for everyone and some of the apps I've used just don't compare with Windows'.

But if Microsoft's bullying isn't mitigated by it's products' ease of use (and Win10 seems to combine lack of intuitiveness with bullying) Linux may be a viable alternative to Mac. Of course the latter are just as awful as MS -- e.g. crippling USB and Bluetooth on iPhones and forcing one to use the vile iTunes.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft can suck it, but Linux is far from the easy experience some people make it out to be."

All I can say is two years ago I built a PC for my (retired and computer-illiterate) parents a PC based on Intel's Z87 platform. Under Linux Mint 16, It really was a case of insert install media, poke next until complete, reboot, and everything just worked without any poking needed [drivers for the IGP, Realtek LAN & audio were all just found and worked] ... Parents haven't had any issues whilst running it, either ... *shrugs*

[Chris Parsons]

Same here, on two wildly differing PCs. It Just Works!!!

[Updraft102]

Linux can have problems, sure. Not having a driver for your video card at first is forgivable; Windows usually was the same way on a new installation. I don't know what the deal is with the USB ports... there are several possibilities, but I've had these kinds of things in Windows too.

As for dual-booting a dissimilar OS-- Linux didn't give you that ability, even though it should have, which means it is a little more like Windows there too. Windows is ignorant of other operating systems, and unceremoniously obliterates them upon installation.

When I installed Mint (KDE) on my test (Win 10) PC, things could not have gone more smoothly. Everything worked the first time it was booted after the installation. It had drivers for everything-- something that is far from typical on fresh installations of Windows.

The Linux fans tend to exaggerate how awesome Linux is. It is pretty awesome, but it's not perfect. Issues like yours do happen. When something goes wrong, it breaks down into arcane console commands and obscure references a lot quicker than when something goes wrong with Windows. It's just as easy to use for regular people as Windows, but something as seemingly simple as needing to install a video card driver that is not in the preinstalled repository gets into the weeds pretty quick.

As with Microsoft, the FOSS community that develops Linux is constantly working to fix bugs like those you've seen. While they're doing that, they give away the products of their hard work rather than charging you or trying to find out how to monetize you, they don't spy on you, they don't deliver adware as updates for previous versions, they don't embed ads in the system itself, and they don't force you into an ugly, highly unconfigurable interface that is half retina-searing white and half the ugly flatness of Metro, or whatever they are calling their idiotic mobile apps on the desktop these days.

[Hans 1]

UEFI boot in Linux is hard?

You need kernel 3.3 - does not even need grub, anymore! Why not just go FreeBSD or PCBSD (FreeBSD for the Desktop) 10.2?

>The way the big corporates see the world now is that there is 2 operating systems for PCs (microsoft or mac) and the hardware you buy determines which one you use.

Traditional, non-IT, big corps, yes, IT businesses know there is Linux, heck, they don't touch Windows with a barge-pole.

>Then there are 3 mobile operating systems with no great difference between the privacy aspects of any of them (that is: you have none)

Soooooo true.

[KeithR]

Re: UEFI boot in Linux is hard?

"You need kernel 3.3 - does not even need grub, anymore! Why not just go FreeBSD or PCBSD (FreeBSD for the Desktop) 10.2?"

Because ABSOLUTELY NONE of the software I want to use will run on them?

Y'know, for some of us an operating system isn't a hobby in itself - some of us actually want and need a stable, reliable, reasonable cost platform on which to run software that has no functional equivalent in the "OS dicking-about-with for fun" realm.

Warts and all, that's Windows...

[Chika]

Lord, here comes the FUD!

We'll say goodbye to poor ol' Tux

If again the drives are silent

in any still alive

(typed from a machine with functional UEFI and functional Linux installed and booted with no trouble whatsoever).

[Chemist]

"Thanks to UEFI it's very difficult to boot linux these days,"

Er, no it isn't

[Scoular]

I am not convinced it is hard to boot Linux.

I bought a new ASUS Z170 motherboard and latest CPU and memory.

Installed Linux without a hitch, using it here right now. Not a problem in a few months of use.

[Kiwi]

Thanks to UEFI it's very difficult to boot linux these days,

I must say that I have not truly experienced this. We use Linux tools to repair or recover data from borked windows machines (at least until full disk encryption makes that impossible), so we're net booting usually some variant of Mint/Ubuntu - and I still haven't sorted out a UEFI system for that.

But having said that, I do find it to be "an interesting coincidence" that not long before all this mess began, we had the whole UEFI mess as well with the concerns related to that (yes yes I know current standards say alternatives must be able to boot with very few exceptions - problem with standards and exceptions is they creep, since (especially in MS's case) such things are often made by creeps).

Anyway, just strikes me as maybe a little too coincidental that there was a way to potentially lock you into MS's choice of OS on the hardware, and then all this with W10....

[Bubba Von Braun]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Agree 1000% I stopped being a Microsoft promoter some years ago.. Having made a great career implementing their products this cash grab has lost me.. So I will run Windows 7, and Exchange 2010 locally, I don't need the "new" features.. Nothing compelling in Windows 8, 8.1, 10 and go back to my roots tinkering with Unix..

May 2016 be their annus horribilis

[Someone Else]

@ Bubba Von Braun - Re: I am not a fucking product.

May 2016 be their annus horribilis

They are already horrible anuses! (That is the correct translation, innit?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @ Bubba Von Braun - I am not a fucking product.

'Ugly Duckling' surely? No wait, that's Anas horribilis...

[agatum]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

> Hope you have a ruinous 2016,

Don't worry, they will, once some big enough corporation burns it's paws and sues. Or maybe a hilarious class-action. Perhaps 2016 will finally be the year of you know what on the desktop.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Perhaps 2016 will finally be the year of you know what on the desktop.

DOS/360?

[RW]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

I suspect that if yuuuge corp X sues M$ as described, M$ will simply pay and pay X to keep quiet.

Remember, m$ is itself a "big enough corp" and they're all in bed with one another.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Well said Trev,

Microsoft wants to be Google yet still charge you Apple prices. We're not that stupid Microsoft, fuckety-bye and welcome 'nix.

[iMap]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Ouch!! the impact of this on small business sector...

Send an invoice with screen dump/ log file to MS for every crash/ BSOD!

Fucking Leaches!

Upvote applied

.

[Dan 55]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Well they pick their targets. What are the chances of any small business winning this one against MS' legal juggernaut?

What are the licensing implications for this by the way?

[Roland6]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Ouch!! the impact of this on small business sector...

Actually, this change may also impact big business...

I've seen company's with large laptop populations and mobile users ie. people who are rarely in the office, but are more frequently in the offices of clients, hotels or working from home, having the laptops configured to directly use WUP, which given all the talk about public/private/hybrid cloud over the years makes sense.

[David 138]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Your right lets not buy Windows we shall use.................Nope nothing comes to mind.

"What about Linux" - its free but nothing supports it not even its own community half the time. Its just abandon ware on a grand scale. Its great if you want to be messing around with the OS all the time, but id much rather be blowing stuff up on Just Cause 3.

What about Mac OSX - I'm sure fisher price do a cheaper product with more use.

[hplasm]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

"but id much rather be blowing stuff up on Just Cause 3."

Cause Windows is a toy OS.

Where's the whiny manchild icon?

[agatum]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

> "What about Linux" - its free but nothing supports it not even its own community half the time. Its just abandon ware on a grand scale

What the fuck have you been smoking?

[MyffyW]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

@Trevor_Pott well said that man!

I was your sixty-ninth upvote - now I feel like I'm in a carry-on film

[TonyJ]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Trevor...first off, I kind of agree with the sentiment.

But isn't this just sympomatic of how people over the last few yeas have sleep-walked into the 'acceptable' idea that they have no right to privacy?

WIth Google, Facebook et al all turning people into a commodity, it was unfortunately only a matter of time before MS decided to do the same.

Sad times.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

but that's because you're not even a blimp on their radar, and so might be all the readers of the Register and those countless (but ultimately, blimpey MS-haters, including myself. And the rest, those milions, are yes, a product and as a business they'd be fools not to exploit this "opportunity" - any opportunity in fact. That's what business is about, I hear. You won't push a liner off its course with a cayak, sorry. And even if you self-destroy, (sirens wailing) I doubt very much you carry enough in your hold to make even a scratch in the MS hull. Let them be on their course (steaming cheerfully towards an iceberg, perhaps?), and spend your life on something more productive.

[Uffish]

Re: blimp

That's a blip on the radar, a blimp might possibly be carrying the radar.

As for the rest of your guff - I, for one, don't give much thought to Microsoft's current or future behaviour and products except to take them or leave them as I choose. Articles in el Reg etc help in making an informed choice. The market is what business is about, I hear, and it is up to Microsoft to choose what it does.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

"You won't push a liner off its course with a cayak,"

Anyone got an iceberg handy?

[the-it-slayer]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Microsoft is basically trying to punch you in the bollocks (or jiggly things if you're a lady) and saying you must conform. Wait. Isn't that tone of all their advertising. Windows 10 must be on your device. Your child will be using Windows. So you must use Windows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

I wonder how many doctors offices will quietly upgrade to Windows 10 and have patient information uploaded to Microsoft before HPAA puts these doctors out of business financially.

[Planty]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

This is the Microsoft of old, its still there at its heart. The bad old Microsoft that forces its customers to use its products rather than making great products their customers want to use.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nadella isn't just Steve and Bills puppet , each controlling an arm.

Dear Microsoft, go fuck yourself. After that, go innovate and make products we want, not products we are forced to use.

[PNGuinn]

Re: I am not a fucking product. @ Trevor

Couldn't have put it better myself.

'Bout time a certain rat corporation got IT'S arse bitten over this. Pass the popcorn.

[Kiwi]

Re: I am not a fucking product.

Hope you have a ruinous 2016

Beautifully said sir! 'ave one on me.

[Aniya]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

...because many small businesses – the sort of organizations that run Windows Pro, use a domain, but leave automatic updates on – want an easy way to install the new operating system.

Fuck you Microsoft.

Which fucking small businesses are you talking about?

Not the ones outside your fucking Reality Distortion Field™, that's for sure.

I manage many small businesses and I do not recall receiving a fucking survey from your shitty organization asking me for my opinion on this matter. And judging by the lack of information online on such a survey I doubt there was one. Go to hell.

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

"...automatic updates on – want an easy way to install the new operating system."

Can you imagine? After a long weekend, come to work to find Win 10 has installed itself on most of a company's PCs, and 'only a few' applications have been disabled in the process. Like all the key ones, such as their ERP system.

Hmmm... that would be very funny.

[Nigel 11]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

Can you imagine? After a long weekend, come to work to find Win 10 has installed itself on most of a company's PCs, and 'only a few' applications have been disabled in the process. Like all the key ones, such as their ERP system.

Or the embedded control systems for their £100K+ production machines, which are the sole reason for the company's existence, and without which they will be out of business in a week? For which a Windows-10 compatible version of the software doesn't exist, because the manufacturer of the machinery went out of business a few years ago?

I was also going to offer MegaBank's cash dispenser network, but the folks who bought you the banking crisis and who manage to have mainframe FUBARs several times each year cannot be that incompetent. Can they?

[Grikath]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

"Or the embedded control systems for their £100K+ production machines, which are the sole reason for the company's existence, and without which they will be out of business in a week? For which a Windows-10 compatible version of the software doesn't exist, because the manufacturer of the machinery went out of business a few years ago?"

That would be a major IT fail by the company or department managing them..

Production machines like that should be on a network that's deliberately several, preferably physical, steps removed from any automated update cycle. If they're connected to a thing like the Internet at all....

Fail that, and on your own head be it. It's not as if Win10 is the first update ever able to Bork things. Quite the contrary really, so if this happens No Mercy is in order, and possibly derisive laughter.

[Langalf]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

Production machines like that should be on a network that's deliberately several, preferably physical, steps removed from any automated update cycle.

Unfortunately, some of us administer systems covered by governmental regulations requiring we stay up-to-date on patches on the production machines. We are behind multiple firewalls, but still need to have the updates. WSUS is your friend here.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

> That would be a major IT fail by the company or department managing them.

In an ideal world - yes. However, a small company with zero cash to spend on luxuries (or even essentials) may well get broken by it. And there are a lot more of those around than you think - I've worked for a couple..

Including one that won't be affected - their control machines had to be Compaq 386 machines running DOS and Windows 3.1. They had an ISA interface card running the machines that didn't have drivers for anything else and the original manufacturer of the card no longer existed so they couldn't even get an updated board. And if you put it into a faster machine it would lock the PC up solid if the bus speed exceeded a particular value..

When I left we had 3 spare chassis on the shelf. I hate to think what would happen when those finally expire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Embedded control machines connected to the internet

They shouldn't be, but we all know some are. And don't blame this on an "incompetent IT department" - we're talking about SMALL BUSINESSES here. If you're a small business owner of a tool and die shop with a couple of CNC machines and a half dozen employees, you don't have an IT department. Either you, or your most PC literate employee, is going to be your "IT person". Anything they can't solve you call the vendor of your CNC machines.

It might not be good practice to allow the PCs connected to those CNC machines to access the internet, but many probably are for convenience, in case the operator needs to look up specs on something, email suppliers, etc. Your "IT department" is not going to understand the risks of doing this. If those PCs get updated to Windows 10 but the control function for the CNC machine breaks, you are out of business until the problem can be rectified. Which would require calling up the vendor of those CNC machines and paying a tech $250/hr for a site visit which might require a full day or more to reinstall/reconfigure everything as before and falling a day behind on all your work as a result.

If a lot of that CNC vendor's customers have been hit by undesired Windows 10 upgrades, by the time you call you might get told "we're booked solid for the next six weeks". So you either layoff your operators in the meantime or pay them for doing nothing, and hope you can survive six weeks without any revenue. Even if you can make it six weeks, your angry customers who have to go to someone else to get the work done you promised you could do before their deadline may not be back, so even if you survive in the short run you probably don't survive in the long run.

It would only take a few stories like that which end up in the small business owner going bankrupt and the employees losing their jobs with the blame being put on Microsoft before they'd start to really feel the heat. Doesn't matter if they can be successfully sued, they have great lawyers so they'd win anyway. But all the people sharing this on Facebook would cost Microsoft's brand and image a lot more than any successful lawsuit every could.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

"Production machines like that should be on a network that's deliberately several, preferably physical, steps removed from any automated update cycle. If they're connected to a thing like the Internet at all...."

Not my area, but I'd not be surprised if some extremely expensive bit of control software for running machinery didn't have a requirement to phone home every now and then for "updates" or just to be authorised to keep running, eg licence validation. Or do they still use hardware dongles and haven't caught up to newfangled cloudy things yet?

[Danny 14]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

All small businesses that I used to look after all paid subscription for their CNC machines, milling machines, laser cutters, formers etc. You needed to in order to use the software.

We look after an ancient denford milling machine (with serial port dongle for license key) and THAT works in 8.1 (not tried 10 yet but it has worked since windows 2k), Denford are more than happy to help and we haven't paid them a penny in 15 years.

Small garages tended to have to pay for their diagnostic equipment (some like the merc and ford needed to be online), again these were subscription so pretty much guaranteed to work in windows of all version.

[Pookietoo]

Re: MegaBank's cash dispenser network

That will still be on OS/2 or XP.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

"After a long weekend, come to work to find Win 10 has installed itself on most of a company's PCs"

Well, at least it would tell you which users ignored your instructions to turn them off when they're not in use. You did tell them that,didn't you?

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

Dr Sin-tax Error "...instructions to turn them off when they're not in use."

Many companies have an IT policy that users leave their company PC on after working hours to ensure that the security updates are installed.

It'd be a pretty small company to take your approach, for all the obvious reasons.

[Roland6]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

"...automatic updates on – want an easy way to install the new operating system."

Can you imagine? After a long weekend, come to work to find Win 10 has installed itself on most of a company's PCs, and 'only a few' applications have been disabled in the process. Like all the key ones, such as their ERP system.

Don't need to imagine, been there already with the Win8->8.1 update (or as we now know, the trial of technologies MS are using in GWX etc.), only each machine decided when it would perform the update and in typical "MS update is more important than end user activities" style, the updates happened at bad times for the user, in one case bid submission day... Of the three machines that we didn't catch (before it went into auto update mode), only one is still in daily use, the other two are waiting for a quiet week so that they can be resurrected. (The fact they are still sitting in a cupboard gives an idea of how frequent quiet weeks are...)

[Danny 14]

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

nice analogy but why would you have an embedded control system internet facing with the ability to go to websites and updates at will?

WSUS is the way to go and is very very easy to setup. Short of slurping disk space it doesn't hog too many resources either. A single GPO will set you going and it is convenient for one set of updates downloaded for a network (and schedule those updates to both COPY to your PC and they update later).

However, people should be forced into installing WSUS just because MS want to slurp your data. We were looking into a W7->W10 upgrade, the first thing I noticed is that they greyed out the domain in the VPN I created, that and I searched for documents on the network drive and it went on the internet (WTF?). No ta, we will stick with 7 and I seriously need to look at the feasibility of running Linux as a domain desktop (with GPO type replacement scripts). Sure it will be painful but once learnt we can save 8k per year (and use exchange OWA if need be.....)

What WASNT funny was our golden sample (pre generalised) deciding it needed to add the W10 upgrade nag screen when I added new software to it. Luckily I could do the usual murder GWX on the golden sample (and blacklist the updates etc) so I shouldn't get that issue again....

[RobHib]

@ JeffyPoooh - Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

Until your scenario happens to some large corporate/govt. department etc. we're not going to see any change.

We need some large corporate or govt. to sue Microsoft for damages and succeed. It's only then governments will react with consumer protection laws to prevent such abuse. I'm surprised it's not happened yet.

[a_yank_lurker]

Clueless in Redmond

"200 million people can't be wrong." - Earth to Slurp yes they can.

Forcing updates on home users is unethical at a minimum but very few home users have a true mission critical application that must always be available. Thus, a lot of grousing and aggravation and noise but suits are not very likely. However, most businesses have mission critical applications that can not go down. If the application does not run on W10 this could cost the company some serious coin. Larger ones have the money to sue for damages including asking for punitive damages and some are likely to sue. Migrating from these legacy applications is not a trivial undertaking and an unplanned migration could be a disaster.

[jjcoolaus]

Re: Clueless in Redmond

Surely you could run those mission critical apps in a VM until the issue is fixed, even on the local machine?

For the seriously small business with no IT support and a mission critical app that doesn't run on 10, well I guess there is some opportunities out there for SaaS vendors out of this.

It wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft has a backroom bribe/deal with a large SaaS vendor to do this deliberately, and then design a marketing campaign around how to fix it. (ie let us run that software on a VM of WinServ2k8/Win7 for you"

[c:\boot.ini]

Re: Clueless in Redmond

>. (ie let us run that software on a VM of WinServ2k8/Win7 for you"

And then the GWX nagware updates the VM to Windows 10.

[Pookietoo]

Re: Surely you could run those mission critical apps in a VM

That's just fine if you have a partition image with the pre-"upgrade" environment to feed to a VM ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Surely you could run those mission critical apps in a VM

So you run it in a VM, and you keep a gold image of Windows 7 to keep copying back to that VM at regular intervals as Microsoft screws you over and over again? The comparison with battered wives is an apt one, someone should send the cops around to jjcoolaus's house for a welfare check!

[fruitoftheloon]

jjcoolaus: Re: Clueless in Redmond

JJ,

At first I thought you were winding us up....

Do you have the faintest, vaguest whiiff of the reality that is starting a running a small company...?

Ooi what do you do for a living?

Regards,

Jay

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clueless in Redmond

indeed - what, 200 million people that made an active, informed decision to move to W10, or had it foisted on them.

It's the latter innit

[Donn Bly]

So, when this update comes down and trashes my Hamachi VPN (we've already tested and know that it doesn't work quite right, even though it is supposed to be compatible) who is going to pay for the remediation work to get the business back up and running?

[RIBrsiq]

I love Windows 10, myself. And everyone (all Windows users, that is, obviously) will upgrade eventually. That's just how it is: we all loved Windows 2000 (XP was at SP2 before I started widely installing it), but how many of us are still running it...?

But I wouldn't want any business PCs auto-upgrading to it, really. With any OS upgrade ever, there's always the chance some apps will break. When that happens, you'd want whoever passes for tech support in the given environment right there to take hopefully-appropriate action, not busy with something else or taking a vacation or whatever.

Coupled with the already negative reaction to GWX by many -- well, at least a very vocal few -- this is a rather bad move on Microsoft's part, I think.

[Trevor_Pott]

"And everyone (all Windows users, that is, obviously) will upgrade eventually."

Like fuck.

Every single one of my customers knows that as of January 1, 2020, I will no longer support any Microsoft product. Some customers are finding a new tech. Many are leaving Microsoft behind. On the consumer side, almost all endpoints under my care will be Mac by the end of the decade. A few will be Linux or BSD.

Just because we are using now doesn't mean we'll continue to let Microsoft beat us for eternity. Some of us know that when you are in an abusive relation you leave and never return.

[Malcolm Weir]

So, err, you're saying that all your users are being encouraged to, err, upgrade.

Just not to a Microsoft product.

So I think the comment ("everyone... will upgrade eventually") is entirely accurate, no?

Mind you, if you think Microsoft is an abusive relationship, what the hell is Apple? The only truly honest assessment I've seen notes that the principle difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Apple is *better* at the process of abusing you. You're still abused.

[Trevor_Pott]

I don't consider Apple, Linux or BSD "upgrades" from Windows 7, thank you. They are simply the "least worst" in support options available.

And no, I don't consider Apple abusive. Expensive, yes. Abusive, no. They've come close, but overall I think they treat their customers with dignity and respect. Most of the time, anyways.

[JeffyPoooh]

Apple "...treat their customers with dignity and respect."

Now you're just being silly.

A very wise man once described Apple, Google and Microsoft as "...any of these scummy, customer-abusing, money-suck-tuning, tax-avoiding, morally-corrupt, failed-ethics, multiple-flawed-engineering, ever-deceptive-marketing, self-interest-first, Greenwash-lying, self-destructive-product-supporting, multinational parasites or their always-flawed products..."; and went on to roundly insult anyone that still felt anything but revulsion for these corporate scum parasites.

E.g. Apple put the DRM chip in the Lightning connector on charging cables simply to extract several extra billions of dollars from their dearly 'respected' and 'dignified' customers. Fact. No rebuttal possible. That must be when they 'came close' in your book.

[Trevor_Pott]

The lightning connector thing is indeed one time where Apple came close. And if you want to have a similar conversation about Microsoft let's have a nice long conversation about VDI licensing. Or that per-core bullshit they're pulling.

But you know what? I put that all to one side. There are financial issues and there are ethical ones.

Playing silly buggers to make people pay more money is one thing. It's not great, but it's business. I'll fight that with any vendor, and they'll fight me right back. That's just the way things are.

Abusing the updates system to push nagware, spyware, entire unwanted operating systems and override clearly set user choices (repeatedly!) is absolutely not okay. That's crossing an ethical line. It's a breach of trust.

Similarly, "You aren't allowed to manage your own updates" is absolutely NOT treating customers with respect. It is saying that customers can't choose what they would like to run, and telling them that having the operating system made as cheap to support for Microsoft as possible is more important than any requirements, desires or so forth that *all* customers have.

With the faith broken, and Microsoft looking down their long noses at their own customers, why should I believe that Microsoft won't just push down a massive UI change against our will, just because they can? Or maybe even an API change that renders existing applications non-functional? Every argument you might raise is invalid because Microsoft has broken the faith and the trust is gone. No reason seems to exist behind their choices and no reasons can be expected to temper their future choices.

So yeah: Apple gouge you. But they really only gouge you for money.

Microsoft want your privacy, your security, your very right to control your own operating system and computing ecosystem to be removed from you. And they're not above breaking the sacred trust of an operating system update mechanism to do it.

Bring on the Mac, baby. Even if it costs more.

[regadpellagru]

Well, yes, I can't sum up better how I feel, vs. MS and Apple !

Sure, a macbook is a lot more expensive than a shite Lenovo laptop, but the macbook OS is still under your control. You don't want to upgrade to Yosemite or El Capitan ? Sure thing, just don't do it in the app store. I've dodged Yosemite for one year, because of software compatibility issues without any nuiance.

W10 auto install have been a problem since one year, MS putting more pressure every year to upgrade, without even speaking of Lenovo (and friends) malware !

MS has allowed OEMs to install malware on their systems, unlike Apple, and that's the difference between a macbook and a Lenovo laptop.

YMMV.

[JeffyPoooh]

"The lightning connector thing is indeed one time where Apple came close."

That you'd go with 'came close' conclusively proves that you're an Apple Fanboi of the full-on variety.

If the Apple Genius staff attacked you with swords, would that also 'come close'?

Such fanboism is deserving of utter ridicule. Write as many words as you wish, but you've self-identified as an Apple Fanboi, accepting and enjoying their more-subtle forms of customer abuse.

[Anonymous Coward]

@JeffyPoooh - lightning connector

I know you said "no rebuttal possible" so you are already as close minded as a Trump supporter standing by the wall with a gun ready to defend the USofA from illegals, but I'm going to try anyway.

If Apple was trying to use this to "extract revenue" why would they license this to allow others to sell MFi cables? Considering you can buy them for only a few dollars, if Apple is collecting a royalty on them it couldn't amount to more than a few pennies. The idea that this could extract "several extra billions of dollars" is ridiculous. Even if Apple was the only one who sold these cables (as anyone will readily admit the ones Apple sells are very overpriced) exactly how many cables do you think the average iPhone owner buys in a year or in their life?

When I bought my iPhone 5 and wanted a few extra/spare Lightning cables (one for my laptop bag, one for my suitcase when traveling, for next to my bed) to replace the old 30 pin connector spares I had, I found they were pretty pricey. Not unexpected since Lightning had just been introduced. So I waited a few months, and then bought a bag of three off eBay for $10.

Wait until all the Android users have to replace their micro USB cables with USB-C cables. Without paying those MFi license fees, they might be able to get them for less than I paid. I'm gonna feel SO ripped off by Apple if it turns out I paid several dollars more than them!

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: @JeffyPoooh - lightning connector

@DougS "If Apple was trying to use this to "extract revenue" why would they license this to allow others to sell MFi cables? Considering you can buy them for only a few dollars, if Apple is collecting a royalty on them it couldn't amount to more than a few pennies."

You'll find the answer in the Axis of Time.

*NOW* one can buy cost effective MFI cables. But the early days of Lightning, all actually-MFI certified cables were $15. Royalties often naturally go down over time. Or they're front end loaded.

"So I waited a few months..."

If your wife's cable is busted, you've got hours to deal with it.

"...and then bought a bag of three off eBay for $10."

Those are the ones that Apple would then later dusable. I've got dozens like that. And the phone WILL NOT CHARGE with them, it just throws up a message saying 'not compatible'. They typically were compatible until a SW update disallowed them.

Apple's DRM in charging cables is simply customer abuse.

And NO REBUTTAL IS POSSIBLE.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And no, I don't consider Apple abusive"

Trev, are you speaking about the same Apple that tried to force install the Safari browser on Windows users as a critical security update if you had Quicktime installed?

[Trevor_Pott]

"Trev, are you speaking about the same Apple that tried to force install the Safari browser on Windows users as a critical security update if you had Quicktime installed?"

Something for which Apple apologized and didn't do again. That whole thing didn't last very long.

You know, we've all let vendors get away with a lot. We've let Microsoft get away with a lot. But this is about the cumulative effects as much as it is the individual issues. Microsoft just keep doing it. They have no remorse, no shame, and show no indication of changing. Apple make mistakes, but they learn from them. Microsoft do not.

[Hans 1]

>Every single one of my customers knows that as of January 1, 2020, I will no longer support any Microsoft product. Some customers are finding a new tech. Many are leaving Microsoft behind.

It's not Friday, yet, but have a pint!!!!!

[RobHib]

@Trevor_Pott - Re Microsoft privacy abuse, etc.

I agree totally with your posts.

The question is what do we do about it? We've now reached the stage where the abuse of the Microsoft Monopoly is no longer just an annoyance or even a major inconvenience, what we are now seeing with Windows 10 is abuse that verges upon that of malware and virus writers.

Effectively, Microsoft is behaving like VW but we've no equivalent of environmental laws to protect us PC users. The next question is why not. Governments are forever getting in our way but never there when we actually need them!

There are millions of techies around the world who have been screaming about Microsoft's abuse of users for years but essentially they've done so in isolation, thus Microsoft just ignores them. We need to change this now! What we need is an organization with a well organized web site a la the EFF etc. whose sole purpose is to bring Microsoft's abuses to the fore and have them stopped, by force of law if necessary. As I see it, it should:

* Forcefully lobby governments to stop Microsoft abusing users, destroying their privacy etc., to seek much stronger consumer laws like the ones that are now protecting VW owners. Again, why are VW owners protected by laws and PC owners not? (Here's a first-class instance where our laws have irregular granularity, they protect one section of the community and not others). This organization would also lobby governments for better or stronger online privacy laws as well as strengthening monopoly and corporate abuse law.

* It should be a one-stop repository for what's wrong with Windows. Users would list by topic what they find wrong with various versions of Windows from basic design flaws, to serious feature omissions through to Microsoft privacy malware.

* The organization would highlight to governments, et al about Microsoft's bad behaviour, for instance that it has been spying on us uses in a serious way since XP. Here's just one specific example: users need to be told very explicitly that the Windows host file is completely useless for blocking certain Microsoft IP addresses, as Microsoft has hard-coded bypasses so Windows can always phone home irrespective of the user's wishes. Frankly, this is totally unacceptable. There ought to be widespread outrage over it; trouble is, few actually know about it. It needs widespread publicity.

* It should provide help and tips about how to minimize the damage Microsoft is causing. For example, the pros and cons about installing Microsoft updates through to providing info such as Microsoft server block lists and how to install them on external routers.

* Similarly, it would issue notification bulletins every time that Microsoft patched or updated Windows with code that spies on or otherwise breaches users' privacy.

[Remember, until recently manufacturers never knew when a customer used an appliance, it was always the user's prerogative to provide that advice, if ever. That's changed with online but customers were never asked about it beforehand. The fact that programs phone home has never been debated in the wider community, there needs to be wide public debate over the issue. Especially so with respect to operating systems. As I see it, we need laws to stop such abuse. To be truly effective they should both target corporations such as Microsoft and also those working for them–thus anyone coding spyware would know that he/she would be targeted automatically by the law for doing so.]

* The organization's website would welcome input from users, have a forum etc.

* Such an organization and its website would be structured in such a way that under no circumstances could Microsoft influence the organization's policy nor would it be able to change the contents of its website. It would be especially immune to Microsoft propaganda and lobbying.

So how do we begin such an undertaking? Are there any fledgling organizations/websites already out there with this objective that, with encouragement/force of numbers etc., could be developed into such an organization?

Any ideas, Trevor, anyone?

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: @Trevor_Pott - Re Microsoft privacy abuse, etc.

Well, my response is to simply stop supporting Microsoft software. I'm out. It's someone else's problem. If you want to be a business keeping up with MS, then you'll be one I won't work for.

That won't change everyone, but it does increase my personal sanity and happiness. And maybe if fewer and fewer of us make this choice - even if it is financially burdensome for us to make it - then Microsoft will find it harder to sell into businesses, get hit in the wallet, and sink.

I also pray to Jibbers each night that an earth-cross asteroid has its orbit perturbed by another earth-crossing asteroid and plows into the Redmond campus of Microsoft, removing the problem. So far, Jibbers has declined to grant my prayers, but I will keep trying.

[RobHib]

Re: @Trevor_Pott - Re Microsoft privacy abuse, etc.

Jibbers has declined to grant my prayers, but I will keep trying.

Likewise.

You're lucky you've a plan that's set in operation with a cut-off date. I too have made substantial inroads into penguin-land.

Trouble is the vast majority don't have that luxury for many reasons, most of which we know already. Consider it this way: If Jibbers fails to deliver then there's the justice argument to fall back upon, in our system, transgressors either end up in the clink or are fined. Irrespective, Redmond shouldn't be allowed to escape.

[KeithR]

"Every single one of my customers knows that as of January 1, 2020, I will no longer support any Microsoft product"

You the only game in town, hotshot?

Who do you think you are - Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Trevor Pottymouth

"Like fuck."

Why don't you back-off a bit on your immaturely-excessive use of the word "fuck"?

Once in a while can be amusing, but you're fucking overdoing it. Like about x10 too much.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't think of that, actually - the staggered, delayed impact to Microsoft as providers get out.

Truly a choice now that will continue to bite in perpetuity?

[fruitoftheloon]

@RIBrsiq: which 'outlet' did you source it from

RIB,

Pls advise me where you bought that sh!t you are smoking?

It may seem like it is, but the following question IS NOT sarcastic, do you realise that some people may, just may have a different outlook on the world to you?

Soonish I hope to be buying a lovely secondhand laser cutter system, it may not have a USB port, are you quite sure it makes sense for my nascent business to 'upgrade' to win 10?

Do you realise that for many folks COMPUTERS ARE JUST TOOLS that exist to do a specific task, every day.

Would you be a bit grumpy to find out that after getting your car serviced, the dealer had 'upgraded it', to the point that your bluetooth phone no longer worked, you could only reverse onto your parking space if you were wearing yellow socks (and it was raining)?

Ta,

Jay

[TRT]

Re: @RIBrsiq: which 'outlet' did you source it from

Like fuck do I love it. Already lost an hour this week trying to switch a user's BYOD laptop's (Win 10) wired network port from "public" to "work" in order to get network discovery going. In Portuguese. God help me when I have to do the same with something in Chinese.

For some reason M$ decided to spread all the network settings out across a dozen different control panels, but link them up so that some functionality is duplicated across some control panels, but not all. Add in a dose of retina burning colour, hiding the control panels in a stupid slide out side bar, and just randomly putting the UI components in a black bag, shaking it up and drawing them out like some kind of lottery...

And at the end of the day, the software they wanted to download off the laboratory server (hence the network discovery) didn't f***ing run on it.

Windows 10 is like some kind of Beta. It's dreadful.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: @RIBrsiq: which 'outlet' did you source it from

@fruitoftheloon - "Do you realise that for many folks COMPUTERS ARE JUST TOOLS that exist to do a specific task, every day.' - Very accurate for any device, they tools that people use for different tasks and as long as they perform the intended task the owners are content. Another item is a tool that is not working properly will get repaired or replaced. In the case of an OS and related ecosystem this can be done with some effort. To replace Winbloat and ditch the Slurp one can install Linux or buy a Mac. Also, most people personally know someone is capable of migrating to either if they do not have the skills.

Most use whatever version of Winbloat because that is what was installed originally not because of some super loyalty to Slurp.

[Chika]

we all loved Windows 2000 (XP was at SP2 before I started widely installing it), but how many of us are still running it...?

I have VMs with W2K, WXP, Neptune, W98 and W3.1 to hand. I don't run them much but they come in useful sometimes.

[RobHib]

@Chika - Right on!

You're right. VMs are the easiest way to ease out from one OS into another. I've XP running under VMs to use data created under legacy apps that have no upgrade path to Win 7 or anything else (i.e.: the old pgm won't work under any newer OS).

Also, there's a comfort zone associated with VMs, they're a bit like Linus' security blanket, yuh know you've something familiar with which to fallback upon either when you're in a hurry or a solution in the new OS isn't obvious immediately and or without effort.

Then eventually one day you suddenly realize the past is over/passé and transition finally complete after you've reinstall the new OS but have not bothered to reinstall the VM. Over recent years this has happened to me a few times.

Seems to me that with the advent of Win 10, those of us in the know should be both advocating VM solutions as well as helping others to make that transition.

[Geoffrey W]

The article is not entirely accurate. It failed to mention another change Microsoft has made. They have now added a proper way to disable nags and disable windows 10 updates in all versions except Home, and not just enterprise versions. Since, I think, windows 7 home cannot join a domain there is no change there at all then. In professional and ultimate editions they have now added local group policies that allow you to control the win 10 upgrade process, including, I believe, disabling it altogether using the group policy editor. Its another click bait article poking the usual crowd of angry commenters without providing a full technical account of what actually is happening. See Ars Technica for a little more information:-

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/microsoft-finally-has-a-proper-way-to-opt-out-of-windows-78-to-windows-10-upgrades/

[Aniya]

@Geoffrey W something has definitely changed.

In this article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

I am 100% sure, and I am sure many users here can confirm it too, that originally under "Windows 10 upgrade is automatically blocked" it also said that computers joined to an Active Directory Domain would not automatically receive the upgrade notification. If you read the article now (it has since been changed) it only says that the upgrade notification is automatically blocked when the "computer or device is serviced through WSUS."

[Geoffrey W]

For versions that are capable of connecting to a domain there is now a method of disabling windows 10 updates via the local group policy editor.

When I said no change I was referring to Home Premium versions of windows which indeed have not changed.They never could connect to a domain and they always have GWX enabled. That's still the case. I'm not approving of GWX, which I think is a pain in the ass, but for domain enabled versions there is now a genuine way of turning off the updates. You still might get initial notifications which will then prompt admins to go into the policy editor and turn them off. That fails to horrify me.

[Dan 55]

But GWX downloads without asking using your bandwidth, gives you a 'yes' or 'yes' option which traps users who don't see the close window icon, has a countdown timer which you can't stop, and sometimes installs Windows 10 anyway on a small selection of computers, and now defeats attempts to stop it by registry key instead of group policy. It is malware and no user should not be subjected to it whether home, business, or enterprise.

MS have decided to force update those customers who can't do anything legally and it appears that as regulatory bodies are slow and stupid when it comes to IT there is a good chance they'll get away with it. I hope one day something will be done but I'm not expecting much.

Just because MS pick who to bully it does not mean it is right.

[Trevor_Pott]

@Geoffrey W

The fact that a group policy option exists to prevent GWX bullshit from infecting your system does not make it okay, nor should we pretend that this is somehow an acceptable state of affairs.

If you want Windows 10 you should have to go download Windows 10. It should emphatically not be part of nagware presented as part of Windows Update, and is especially shouldn't be part of nagware in the "important" or "critical" categories!

Using Windows Update for this shit is not okay.

Removing control of Windows Update from us in Windows 10 is not okay.

Installing spyware against our will is not okay.

Not being able to turn off spyware is not okay.

Having a knob to turn off spyware and then having that spyware NOT TURN OFF is even more not okay!

Forcing the ribbon bar on us as part of Windows Explorer is not okay.

Integrating local searches with web searches is not okay. There is no rational reason Microsoft needs to know the contents of anything on my network or what I am seaching for on my network. EVER.

Oh, and the so-called start menu in Windows 10 is a piece of shit.

But other than that, Windows 10 is fine.

[DavidRa]

And screw the admins anyway...

And the latest GWX disables those policy settings "if they've been manually set" (I believe that's the term that was used).

Now I'm guessing that means if you use gpedit.msc to set them, you're fine; but if you set them with a script, or a GPP, or manually with regedit, they'll be disabled - and your administrative changes get overridden by some dickwad manager at Microsoft.

Even large orgs are going to get hit with this, as there will doubtless be non-domain-joined PCs in weird parts of the network, probably with direct WU configuration rather than reaching through firewalls etc for WSUS. Yes, they COULD do it another way, but when you have to allow a DMZ-connected PC doing some weird task to reach in through multiple firewalls to your WSUS infrastructure, or just let it hit the net (as it's doing for $Task) for updates - which do you think many will do?

I supported the first GWX - and my support disappeared as soon as it became clear that MS has completely lost the plot (reissuing new ways to nag). It's now BS of the highest order.

[Dan 55]

Re: And screw the admins anyway...

No gpedit for home versions of Windows = home users will download Windows 10 whether they like it or not. Install now or install tonight, in other words.

People with auto-disappearing media centres are going to be happy.

[diodesign]

Re: Geoffrey W

"The article is not entirely accurate"

This article is extremely accurate: the instructions you mention are linked to in the article, and we've reported on them before.

C.

[Trevor_Pott]

Please explain to me why the sweet metric monkey fuck I - or anyone else - should have to put even a fraction of a second into disabling this shit. Why the hell is it okay for this to be opt in and not opt out?

Offering the customers you're abusing a safe word so that they can stop the beatings only if they happen to have read about the safe word on the Internet is not fucking okay. Microsoft shouldn't be abusing its customers in the first place!

I don't get MS fanboyism. In most other abusive relationships the abusive partner needs to say nice things to get the abused to crawl back.

[Malcolm Weir]

I have to wonder, given your obvious loathing of MS, why you don't insist all your customers/users simply disable the "install updates automatically" option and instead pick one of the two other options?

Mind you, I think every system I use (Linux, Mac, Windows, Andoid, etc) has some kind of "update available" mechanism, so I wonder what you're using...

[Trevor_Pott]

Until about the middle of 2015, automatic updates were a great thing! Since then, I've had to train everyone to disable them and manually allow ONLY security updates every month. That's been a pain in the ass.

And the problem isn't the existence of the update mechanism. It is that Microsoft has abused it to A) push nagware B) push an entire operating system, which is expensive as hell to those on fixed bandwidth allocations C) push spyware.

It would be one thing if Microsoft offered these as optional updates only. I would be irked at the use of the update system for such shenanigans but not completely fucking livid like I am now. No, Microsoft has broken the trust by using the "important" and "critical" categories.

This means that anyone who is using automatic update delivery but chooses to opt out of optional updates - say, everyone I ever work with - now suddenly has a plethora of customer-hostile fuckwittery on their hands that never should have pushed down to begin with.

What Microsoft has done is not okay. It has broken a sacred trust that I am not sure can be repaired. And you know what? That's why I loathe Microsoft. I used to be mildly adversarial over largely economic choices on their behalf, but this is completely beyond the pale.

Microsoft's abuse of the update mechanism is ethically unacceptable. As is the spyware that cannot be turned off (it still sends data to the mothership, even if you block all the domains in the hosts file and turn off all the settings) in Windows 10. Which makes the whole "you can't control updates in Windows 10" beyond unacceptable.

And for these, I hope Microsoft is ruined. Completely and utterly. I hope their failure is so epic and complete that it serves as a lesson to businesses for a hundred generations: do not abuse your customers.

Trust, once lost, is nearly impossible to regain.

[Chika]

Until about the middle of 2015, automatic updates were a great thing!

But that's one of the problems. The mechanism might have saved time for the most part but it also allowed Microsoft to introduce patches that were shockingly buggy. By disabling automatic patching you avoided this but you also placed the onus on the user to check all patches coming down the line. If there were no bugs (i.e. quality testing was adequate on all patches) then fine, leave the automatic updates on.

On every other system I use (Linux, pre-Windows 8 Windows) I can make that decision for myself based on how much I trust the person/company doing the patching.

[JeffyPoooh]

"Why the hell is it okay for this to be opt in and not opt out?"

It is 'opt out'. You go through hoops to opt out of Win 10 etc.

I think you wrote it backwards by accident.

[Trevor_Pott]

I did, I did write i backwards. The shame, the shame!

50 lashes with a COA sticker and one week using Windows 8 for me.

[KeithR]

"I don't get MS fanboyism. In most other abusive relationships the abusive partner needs to say nice things to get the abused to crawl back."

And I don't get the psychotic, utterly disproportionate (and frankly infantile) railing against MS.

Great: if you don't like 'em, don't use 'em - but acting like you just caught Bill Gates in the sack with your old lady is just bloody asinine.

[Trevor_Pott]

@KeithR

Bill Gates doesn't run Microsoft. Staya Nadella does. So why would what Bill Gates does (or doesn't do) make me dislike Microsoft? I dislike Microsoft because of what Microsoft has done. Period. They have violated professional ethics and put myself and my customers at risk. They have done so against our will, which is the critical bit here. They have violated a hard built trust to do so. If you cannot understand what that is an issue then why the fuck do you think you're qualified to say anything about computers, ever?

And if I did find Bill Gates sticking it to the misses, I wouldn't be all that upset, so long as it's consensual. It's her body and her life; I don't control her and I wish her nothing but happiness. If she can find some with a continent-hopping philanthropist, who am I to judge?

I demand only control over what is mine, and nobody owns another person. Marriage is not ownership. By the same token, I get righteously pissed off when someone treats me as if they own me, or treats what is mine as though it was theirs.

And no, I do not buy the American Intellectual Property argument that just because it's software then it isn't mine. Once I have purchased it - or the rights to use it - then it is mine. Under my control, not that of the vendor. Fuck this neo-industrialism belief that the hoi polloi should never own a thing, only rent their entire lives with no control over what they rent, with the costs going ever upwards until the milled masses are forever in debt to a handful of "owners" who pay the people less than it costs to rent the facilities and tools required to live.

My equipment, my control. And I will absolutely fight to the bitter fucking end against any company or individual who attempts to change that dynamic. If you don't like it, then get fucked, mate. Simple as.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @KeithR

@Trevor_Pott

You really are a humourless twerp, aren't you. I can't recall you ever writing anything funny, or laughing at something, except in a nasty way. And your computers are more deserving of passionate outbursts than your wife is? This level of outrage is more appropriate when aimed at genocidal middle eastern groups and stuff like that, not fucking personal computers. Get a sense of perspective old chap, before you burst something.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: @KeithR

"your computers are more deserving of passionate outbursts than your wife is"

There are lots of passionate outburst for my wife that come from me. They are generally loving, caring, respectful and not tied some archaic sense of ownership.

If you are asking do I feel that I own my wife then the answer is no. She is a human being. She owns herself. That includes her sexuality. If you cannot understand that then I fear you are completely devoid of any sense of human compassion. Likely there is no hope for you.

Even if I were upset with my wife for finding happiness wherever she can find it, I completely fail to understand why I would A) be mad at her lover or B) somehow be mad at a company that individual founded by no longer runs.

Take your ancient and worthless puritanical morals and bother someone else. I don't believing in owning other human beings.

[Steve Davies 3]

Thats as maybe

However

1) How many bog Standard users know about this? IMHO 0.01%

2) How many bog standard users even know about 'group policy editor'? INHO 0.000001%#

This is akin to you signing a contract where come critical clause was printed in whte on white on page 199 in 4pt font.

Fuck all use to most of the people who need it.

[KeithR]

Jeez - you've been downvoted by a ratio of 10 to 1 just because you posted an article that DIDN'T call MS the work of Satan.

Some very broken toys on this thread, apparently...

[Geoffrey W]

@KeithR

Don't worry. Plenty to go round. You can have a few of your own too :-) I even got moderated as well but I cant say why or it'll happen again. I wouldn't mind but I'm not a very good "Microsoft FanBoy" since I don't like much of how Windows 10 is being managed. The unstoppable windows updates, the data collection policies, and the aggressive pushing of win 10 on other versions. MS is its own worst enemy at times. But I refuse to call them "Slurp" like many here do, or get shriekingly hysterical. It is hilarious though and quite entertaining, once you stop being irritated by it.

[BikePics]

New Group Policy option to disable upgrades

Perhaps it might have been useful to mention that an update released in December, Microsoft KB3112343, also updates the C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\WindowsUpdate.admx file and adds an option "DisableOSUpgrade" with the notes saying:

If you enable this setting, Windows Update will not offer you an upgrade to the latest version of Windows.

If you disable or do not configure this setting, Windows Update might offer an upgrade to the latest version of Windows

This update is for Win 7, but the group policy setting also applies to Win 8.1 Update.

[diodesign]

Re: New Group Policy option to disable upgrades

The link to the instructions is already in the story.

Did anyone read the article?

C.

[David 132]

Re: New Group Policy option to disable upgrades

Did anyone read the article?

Read the article? Before diving in to vent one's thinkings in the comment section?

The standard response in this situation is "are you new here?". But that seems inappropriate in your case. So I will just... applaud your optimism and your confidence in your audience.

(yes, I read the article, Teacher's Pet that I am)

[RegGuy1]

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, LiLinux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

(and the chorus)

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Linux: "Good morning, only 15,473 software updates so far today. Shall we get started? By the way, your Master Boot Record was delicious."

[frank ly]

@JeffyPooh Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Whatever the number, at least they download and install very quickly and you don't get nagged to restart. Even after the initial install from a CD, I only had to wait five minutes for all the updates to arrive and then 2 minutes for them to be installed.

A few days ago, I ran Win 7 Pro after an absence of two months. It took 2 hours to download the updates and some failed to download. After I'd downloaded and installed them all, it told me there were another 17 updates and they took another 30 minutes, with a couple of failures. It was a total WTF experience.

With Linux at home, I can backup my entire system by copying partitions onto a spare hard drive then restore by simply copying them back. Try doing that with Windows if it gets borked.

[Chika]

Re: @JeffyPooh Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

FUD, FUD, glorius FUD!

Nothing quite like it for stirring the blood...

I do seem to be in a musical mood today for some reason!

[Stoneshop]

Re: @JeffyPooh Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

I do seem to be in a musical mood today for some reason!

Customer: Morning,

Linus: Morning.

Customer: What have you got?

Linus: Well, there's kernel and GNU,

kernel LXDE and GNU,

Kernel and mint,

Kernel, GNU and mint

Kernel, GNU, LXDE and mint

Mint, GNU, LXDE and mint

Mint, kernel, mint, mint, GNU and mint

Mint, LXDE, mint, mint, mint, GNU, mint tomato and mint

Mint, mint, mint, kernel and mint

Mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, cinnamon, mint, mint, mint and mint.

(Choir: Mint! Mint! Mint! Mint! Lovely Mint! Lovely Mint!)

Or Lobster Thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce, served in a Provençale manner with shallots and aubergines, garnished with truffle pâté, brandy and a fried kernel on top and Mint

Wife: Have you got anything without mint?

Linus: Well, the mint, kernels, LXDE and mint. That's not got much mint in it

Wife: I don't want any mint!

Customer: Why can't she have kernels, GNU, mint and LXDE?

Wife: That's got mint in it!

Customer: Hasn't got much mint in it as mint, kernels, LXDE and mint has it?

(Choir: Mint! Mint! Mint!...)

Wife: Could you do me kernels, GNU, mint and LXDE without the mint, then?

Linus: Iiiiiiiiiiiich!!

Wife: What do you mean 'Iiiiiiiiiich'? I don't like mint!

(Choir: Lovely mint! Wonderful mint!)

Linus (to choir): Shut up!

(Choir: Lovely mint! Wonderful mint!)

Linus: Shut Up! Bloody Vikings! You can't have kernel, GNU, mint and LXDE without the mint.

Wife: I don't like mint!

Customer: Shush dear, don't have a fuss. I'll have your mint. I love it, I'm having mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, cinnamon, mint, mint, mint, and mint!

(Choir: Mint! Mint! Mint! Mint! Lovely mint! Wonderful mint!)

Linus: Shut Up!! Cinnamon's off.

Customer: Well, could I have her mint instead of the cinnamon then?

Linus: You mean mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint, mint and mint?

Choir (intervening): Mint! Mint! Mint! Mint!

Lovely mint! Wonderful mint!

Mint mi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-nt mint mi-hi-hi-hi-hint mint.

Lovely mint! Lovely mint! Lovely mint! Lovely mint!

Mint mint mint mint!

[Chika]

Re: @JeffyPooh Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

@Stoneshop

Now anybody who has known me long enough knows exactly what I'm about to say...

Linux is NOT Mint!

Bloody vikings!

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: @JeffyPooh Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Chika Minute! "FUD"

Facts.

Ubuntu offered me 15,000+ updates once, after not using it for a while.

Ubuntu 10.04 ate my MBR. It was in the tech news if you need confirmation.

Facts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @JeffyPooh Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Much as I know loath M$, Linux - at least in ubuntu flavour - has not been good to me.

I installed, played with and then decided to try the LAST LTS version of U for a new business venture.

All went well, minor updates installed perfectly; then the NEW LTS version came along - and bricked my machine.

It took out BOTH HDDs, so I couldnt access the back-up I had made on my Data disk.

This isnt an ancient PC, but a fairly new budget AMD A88 mobo with bog standard RAM and built in gfx.

Before anyone says "live disk", I tried both a CD and a usb drive version, neither could get access to the OS drive; I have had to delete the partition and start from scratch.

[Teiwaz]

Re: @JeffyPooh Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Bad luck.

Sounds like a hardware issue, unless you were using some exotic settings like an unusual file system etc.

Been using Ubuntu for 6 years on a few machines, upgrade far more often, even to unfinished alpha releases on some, never had so much as a hiccup.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

"Linux: "Good morning, only 15,473 software updates so far today."

Thank you for your informed comment. Now let's look at reality.

First, and I can't speak for other versions, but with Debian updates arrive as they're ready. You can install them when you wish but it would be silly to not offer an important update promptly because today's the first Wednesday in the month & we only release on the first Tuesday.

Today brought 5 updates. I can tell the system to update. It tells me what's to be done including the following:

"Need to get 2,560 kB of archives.

After this operation, 1,024 B disk space will be freed."

but then asks for confirmation to go ahead rather than just doing it.

It took a second to download and a few more seconds to install. But look again at the second of those lines I quoted. Not only does the upgrade process tell you what the impact on the file system is going to be, sometimes it actually releases space.

The Linux upgrade process these days is in a universe Microsoft hasn't even thought about visiting.

[Nigel 11]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

It took a second to download and a few more seconds to install.

The Linux upgrade process these days is in a universe Microsoft hasn't even thought about visiting.

One should perhaps also mention that with a little forethought, you can snapshot your filesystem prior to applying the updates, and if you do not like the results you can revert to the snapshot in next to no time. This includes in the very unlikely event that it won't reboot - you just do the reversion from a standalone CD instead.

What do Microsoft folks do? How long does it take to "revert"? And do you get your disk back to the exact same state it was in prior to the failed updates?

[Paul Shirley]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

I revert Windows to an earlier state by restoring a drive image. Did you think it only works for Linux?

Of course thanks to the size of a Windows install, the bloat it accumulates and Microsoft's astonishing insistence on installing dev tools only on the system drive that now takes 50+ minutes. Also on the rare times I've had to blow away a Linux install, the user data and settings are still there afterwards because they didn't idiotically store them in the system drive like windows does.

So despite using the same imaging technique Linux does it better and faster!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

What do Microsoft folks do? How long does it take to "revert"? And do you get your disk back to the exact same state it was in prior to the failed updates?

Me - not that I ever have to - I'd just restore the full image backup I made beforehand. When I do so for experimental purposes, it takes about 10 minutes. There are all sorts of things the majority of users do that make me sigh and understand that they just aren't geeks, but not making regular, if any, full backups I do not understand and I don't think I ever will.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

My very own compulsive downvoter! I will name him George, and I will hug him, and pet him, and squeeze him!

[Fihart]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Ah, so you have a compulsive downvoter too. Or is this nut just downvoting everyone who's ever disagreed with him ?

[Stoneshop]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

I think I have one too.

I will name him George

Close.

[Nigel 11]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Linux, Linux, Linux,...

And if you listen hard, there's a lone voice quietly singing along in perfect harmony O-pen-B-S-D.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

> singing along in perfect harmony O-pen-B-S-D

And another in antiphony singing F-ree-B-S-D

:-)

[Teiwaz]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Why does that give me visions of a balding gorilla chanting on a stage?

Please, no, not the chilli cheese nightmares again...

[VinceH]

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

"Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux" etc

Shouldn't the full version go:

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Apple, Apple

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Apple, Apple

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Apple, Apple

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Argh, Windows, Windows, ooh, it's Windows!

[Repeating ad infinitum]

[Medixstiff]

This is a stupid move by M$

Our company like many other's have door and alarm security PC's, managed by third parties and I bet quite a few of them are going to be caught up in this stupidity.

This reeks of pure desperation, their "200 million" figure is a joke, considering it's been proven this includes X-Boxes and phones. Show us the actual PC install number M$ or are you too afraid it's going to show Win 10 is a shambles just like Win 8 was?

What I want to know is, once the free period is over and you need to pay for Win 10 as part of new PC purchases etc. will they release a version without the data slurping, so like Windows 7 through 8.1, we have control over our OS we bought with our PC using our money?

[Paul Shirley]

Re: This is a stupid move by M$

I'd quite like them to remember I paid for the Win8 copy it installed over, that had many years of support expected and expect them to treat Win8.2 as a fully paid for product. It's not a freebie.

[Medixstiff]

I have a question...

Why haven't any governments had a go at M$, such as the relevant Consumer Affairs department, over their forcing Windows 10 on people, who bought a perfectly valid Windows license with their PC's and don't want to upgrade?

After all the EU absolutely caned them over bundling IE in Windows originally, where are they now standing up for their citizens rights to run whatever they want to run without M$ bullying them into upgrading to Win 10?

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: I have a question...

EU?

Is that the same 'EU' that forced Apple to include a Micro USB charging socket on all of their iPhones?

[Anonymous Coward]

@JeffyPoooh - micro USB charging socket

So if the EU had forced Apple to do that, how smart does that look in retrospect, now that micro USB is going to disappear on phones pretty soon in favor of USB-C? All those phones would be stuck with technology frozen in time until lawmakers were able to act and correct their mistake.

To think about it another way, what if lawmakers had required a 3.5" floppy in PCs? How many years after that became obsolete would it be before they'd dump that requirement? I'd guess maybe 2010 they might have finally acted.

[Someone Else]

@ Medixstiff -- Re: I have a question...

Why haven't any governments had a go at M$, such as the relevant Consumer Affairs department, over their forcing Windows 10 on people, who bought a perfectly valid Windows license with their PC's and don't want to upgrade?

I don't know where you are, but here in the UnitedCorporate States of America, the only possible response is: Shirley, you jest!

[DryBones]

Re: @ Medixstiff -- I have a question...

Has anyone actually, formally complained, to the FTC and the like? All I'm seeing is a lot of fussing on here. I've yet to read a single article wherein anyone has legally complained, sued, cease-and-desisted, or anything of the like. It's like watching guppies nibble your toes.

[DropBear]

Re: @ Medixstiff -- I have a question...

"Has anyone actually, formally complained"

But who could do such a scary, terrible thing? Perhaps... *looks around confused* ...this foreigner from a faraway land: Max Schrems could...? *throws himself at his feet* Oh, noble warrior, have mercy on our wretched souls! Save us! Saaaaaaave uuuuuuuus...!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I have a question...

I think you think too highly of the EU consumer protection institutions. They're probably still "considering" whether W7 might be in the position to abuse the market, or something. Expect some reaction c. 2020, at best.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I have a question...

One of my customers enquired why the general press are not sounding any alarms about W10 upgrade nags and retro-fitted "spyware". Her reasoning was that if the general press don't report it as a problem then it can't be that serious.

It is an interesting perception. Are we techies modern day Cassandras? Fated by the gods to warn of impending dangers - and yet obliged to suffer the support pain of their consequences.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I have a question...

Are we techies modern day Cassandras?

I think we might -as a class- be both more sensitive to this sort of stuff and be better at visualising the implications than the average bear. Analysing complex situations; identifying bad shit incoming and heading it off at the pass is what we do. Microsoft of late has been jumping on all the wrong buttons....surveillance; bullying; decreased security; and lack of control, not to mention malware tactics that we're trained to resist. Almost instinctively, by the time you get to my age. Techies tent to be a bit egalitarian, too, so this colossal arrogance and contempt towards their customers grates somewhat.

We're all used to Microsoft being dicks; but up until now it was mainly to their competitors; and that's business; where all are playing the game voluntarily. We've seen precursors of this sort of behaviour (You WILL like what our designers say is good for you in Windows 8; You WILL like the ribbon bar in Office; you WILL give up all thoughts of offline play with the XBox1); but those were all products you could simply not buy if you objected (and I did object. Pity about the console because Sony aren't getting any of my money either. Still, Steam exists...). This is the first time Microsoft has gone full balls-to-the-wall jihad on their customers. An operating system is different to other products...it's the bottom tin of beans in the supermarket display.

There was some squawking in the mainstream press about Windows 10 being -basically- a surveillance device; but possibly even if these update shenanigans were widely reported I reckon a lot of people wouldn't get -or wouldn't care about- the implications.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: I have a question...

@moeity - IT people are more aware of how computers work. To us they are not a black box that magically does things. The average user looks at computers as if they are a minor deity to be worshipped and offer sacrifices to. They certainly do not grasp that computers are not really black boxes. Understanding the more subtle implications of W10 and Slurp's general antics is difficult.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I have a question...

Well it's not stupidity, as such; it's that nobody has enough time or interest to learn everything. You've got to have enough background to realise just how much of a dick move that is.

You have to know that:

-W10 is a surveillance device

-MS are overriding users wishes and re-enabling the nagware after the computer's *owner* has deliberately searched out the setting and turned it off

-MS are now enabling it on domain linked machines after saying they wouldn't.

-This will probably pop up the "Do you want to do it now or later" box that many people are going to press the wrong button on because it was designed to do exactly that

-Domain-linked machines mainly belong to businesses which are likely to have legacy apps; OS specific/custom software: other people's data or a combination

-Thanks to the collapse of safe harbour, attempts from US companies to involuntarily extract data are to be treated like any other hostile foreign power trying to hack you. Pressing the "OK, do it to me" button quite possibly counts as negligence if you're a data-holder

...so you have to know all that to get the full import of how fucked up this latest move is (seriously, if I was actively trying to bring Microsoft down, I honestly can't think of a better way of doing it than behaving as they are right now). Most people aren't going to know all that because it's been spread over a period of time and -frankly- it's a bit boring. I have to pay attention because I'm sitting on a stack of other people's passwords and because I sometimes do IT for other people. It will have a direct impact on my life, in other words.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: I have a question...

"Why haven't any governments had a go at M$ ... over their forcing Windows 10 on people"

That's an easy one. You're talking about governments & this has only been going on a few months.

[Anonymous Coward]

Redmond started quietly installing?????

Quiet? You're kidding??? It killed my bandwidth.

[Mephistro]

On a side note...

... I've noticed that MS has been using other nefarious tricks to force W10 down everybody's throats. Summarizing, Windows Update has been borked in such a way that if you need to reinstall W7* from scratch -e.g due to HDD issues- in an "old" machine (in this context, "old" means "more than 3 years old") the process is slow as hell and generally speaking a PITA.

Just searching for the available OS updates takes several hours and once you get the full list of updates, downloading them takes forever even if you use a fast connection. Once you have the updates downloaded, the install process itself is slow and extremely unreliable, so you need to keep an eye on it for several more hours.

Disclaimer: I'm well aware that most fellow commentards are well aware of these issues, but I consider said issues are obviously related to -and fit too well with- the MS's bullying methods described in the article.

FY, Microsoft, with a cactus!

*Note: To this day, I haven't had to do this in W8.x machines, due to most of my customers following my advice and not purchasing/installing W8.x.

[DryBones]

Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

I've yet to hear of a single lawsuit being filed, when from the way people carry on there should be dozens. I'm not saying I agree with their tactics, but I'm not seeing anyone actually do anything to knock MS back on their heels.

[Nigel 11]

Re: Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Personally I'd prefer to see Microsoft hurl themselves off the cliff into a lawyer-infested pool. Why save them from the consequences of their own folly and arrogance?

The business I work for uses Linux for almost everything. The exception is Autocad, where Microsoft has purchased a monopoly for itself. It's already running on Windows 10. The users detest it, but they have learnt how to fire up Autocad and that's all that really matters to the biz.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

I'm not seeing anyone actually do anything to knock MS back on their heels.

That is not The Way Of The Nerd. I plan to quietly fuck off to Linux and charge people when they finally realise and want me to make the crossover painless for them. I anticipate good times right about the time Microsoft start invoicing people.

[Mephistro]

Re: Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing(@ moiety)

^This!!!

I'm in a similar situation. I've been migrating my customer's Windows servers to Linux for sometime now. Penguinland is far from perfect, but is a hundred times better than Microsoft's Invisibly Walled Garden. And, if you know where to search, you can find online the solutions to most issues. When that's not the case, programs and OS are being continuously patched.

I'm also campaigning for migrating desktops to Linux and Libre Office whenever possible. I've installed almost a dozen of Linux desktops already.

For the vintage Windows programs that the company can't live without, a VM running whatever lightweight old windows version the program needs usually fixes the issue without too much effort. The Windows VM doesn't need to receive security patches, as it's not even connected to the Internet. Windows XP FTW! :-)

So far, the strategy is working all right and the customers seem happy.

MS should be noticing anytime now that alienating both customers and techies is not a winning strategy. It'll be too late, though.

[Anonymous Coward]

A Question of Consistency?

How many people here have an Android mobile phone?

How many people here use Google/Bing/etc search engine, maps, mail, etc?

How many people here have a Nest, FitBit, or anything like it?

If you do, then you already are a fucking product.

How many of those who said yes are vehemently opposed to Windows 10? Fine, but it is inconsistent. I'm not saying that's wrong (it's right, it's your choice, our 'free' world, etc). However, MS are going to be saying, "Why us?". Of course the very fact that they'd be asking that question shows how out of touch they are, especially with their corporate customers. At this rate they won't have customers at all.

Me? So far fending off Windows 10, I'm using Oscobo for search, my mobile is BlackBerry, I have made my own arrangements for email, I don't have a Twitter, I do have a (dormant) Facebook, and BlackBerry maps are fine for getting places apart from in Japan. And yet the prices of things in shops and restaurants still contribute to Google's / everyone else's cash pile - advertising is really not free. My employer also has to advertise online to survive - that's a lot of money not going into salaries.

The whole thing stinks. It's one massive market gouge.

[bazza]

Re: A Question of Consistency?

There's going to have to be a backlash at some point.

Online advertising in the UK costs every working person £240 per year (see here and here; £7.2billion / 30million = £240ish). They pay for that through the price of goods in the shops. The Consumer always pays.

The likes of Google, etc, depend on growing that. But at what point does it become unsustainable? At what point does the population start turning away from advertised products, throwing their devices in the bin wholesale? Will that happen when online advertising is worth £1000 / wage earner, £2000, £10,000? £10,000 would be like having a second mortgage for most people. Yet Google's entire reson d'etre is to achieve that.

I reckon if you asked someone was Google Maps worth as much to them as their house, they'd say no. Half? Tenth?

At some point the sense of proportion will have to kick in, especially if the economy goes wrong again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A Question of Consistency?

How many people here have an Android mobile phone?

Yep. There's no SIM card in it and I use it as a combined PDA/book reader and occasionally to email myself notes back from the pub (using a (private) email address that is specific to that device) over the pub's wifi.

How many people here use Google/Bing/etc search engine, maps, mail, etc?

Nope.

How many people here have a Nest, FitBit, or anything like it?

Not a bloody chance.

[Chika]

Re: A Question of Consistency?

How many people here...

We know, we know! Just because we bitch about Microsoft here, we aren't ignoring Google et al. and their slurping habits. Pointing this out isn't an argument, it's just a provocation.

[Nattrash]

Seen this before..?

Just a pre-coffee thought...

Is it just me, or have I seen this kind of "business life cycle" before?

Kodak Eastman any one?

[chivo243]

200 million people?

"200 million people can't be wrong." ®

Some people are wrong... I doubt 200 million people have installed windows10... Maybe a few people have installed it 1,000,000 times...

[Steven Davison]

The cake is a lie, just like 'Windows 10 is free'

@ Jeffy Poooh

Linux: "Good morning, only 15,473 software updates so far today. Shall we get started? By the way, your Master Boot Record was delicious."

I Read this in the Voice of GlaDOS. Was that intended? <WEG>

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The cake is a lie, just like 'Windows 10 is free'

Linux: Good morning, only 15,473 software updates so far today

That sounds about right. Linux classifies each upgrade (application, library, kernel) as an separate one because it has nothing to hide. An out of the box Windows machine will also spend a heck of a lot of time online, especially if you also install all the apps that are available by default (but for free) on a Linux box.

The only difference is that you have to think twice about hooking up a Windows box to the Net, if you don't install anti-virus first you may never complete the updates before the box is breached. No such issue with a default Linux install: even when it still needs so many patches...

[Adam 52]

"straight out of its 1990s bullyboy playbook"

I really don't think this is. Microsoft in the 90s competed with the product. Yes they abused the monopoly to push IE and yes they abused by embrace and extend but they always left the customer choice - you could always install Netscape if you wanted to and you didn't have to write ActiveX and you always controlled what runs on your PC.

This time they are abusing their monopoly to force people who have actively rejected an update into accepting it. They've crossed the line between providing choice and, well, writing malware..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "straight out of its 1990s bullyboy playbook"

The "extend, embrace and extinguish" is back, though.

If you think Microsoft's Open Source efforts are out of the goodness of their treasured little management hearts you have failed to examine Microsoft's history - good examples are what happened to Kerberos or the "open" document mongrel MSOOXML and what they did to make that an ISO standard. I think ISO is still suffering from the damage that did.

That's why there is no hope in hell we will ever return to Microsoft products. We prefer to use IT that works for us, not for the provider.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "straight out of its 1990s bullyboy playbook"

They've crossed the line between providing choice and, well, writing malware..

1 - the absence of choice is the prerogative of any monopoly

2 - Windows has always been malware, pretty much from Windows ME onwards. It all went downhill after Win 98, with Win XP probably the last version that was reasonably clean. OK, maybe Win 7 as an update, but at that point you're also hitting apps as malware (with the ribbon UI being the most pervasive destroyer of productivity ever).

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "straight out of its 1990s bullyboy playbook"

"with Win XP probably the last version that was reasonably clean"

Wasn't XP the one that introduced phone home? I'd count W2K as the last one that was reasonably clean.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "straight out of its 1990s bullyboy playbook"

Wasn't XP the one that introduced phone home?

You're right, but I think that was still reasonably controllable. I found W2K less than impressive, so I guess it depends on your tolerance for risk and how many resources you're willing to throw at containing its "natural" habits :)

[iMap]

BYTEBACK at M$

Well, looks like we'll have to get Crash Overide and Acid burn on the MS case

[N2]

After the disaster that Vista, 8 & 8.1 were, I thought Id give Windows 7 a chance as it sounded OK - ish.

But if Microsoft is going to ram 10 down my throat they can Fuck Off.

[Chika]

But if Microsoft is going to ram 10 down my throat they can Fuck Off.

Yeah, but my name isn't Off.

[Fred Flintstone]

After the disaster that Vista, 8 & 8.1 were, I thought Id give Windows 7 a chance as it sounded OK - ish. But if Microsoft is going to ram 10 down my throat they can Fuck Off.

As I said before, if Microsoft wanted to market Windows 7 they could not have chosen a better way, but I suspect that wasn't actually their intention :)

[Vince]

urgh.

I like Windows 8/8.1, and I am not interested in "upgrading".

Still, my office PC hasn't had updates since august 2014 (and nothing has broken), and hasn't been upgraded to 8.1 yet. No real need.

My home desktop is on 8.0 ... same story. My laptop is on 8.1 with updates disabled when this circus act began.

Every PC I go near now gets given the "no updates" treatment. The relative risk of the issues those updates tend to fix is considerably less than the risk of the GW malware, which is ultimately what that is. I'll pick and choose if I need to install any update from now on thanks.

Forcing it on home users... nasty. Forcing it on business and domain joined systems... un-f***ing acceptable.

About the only positive thing 10 has done so far is increase our revenue from helping people straighten systems back out and get them operational again (almost always by binning 10)

[Herby]

Maybe we should "call as it is"!!

Yes, Windows 10 (or at least the updater) is a VIRUS.

Get CERT or some such to label it as such when it interrupts something vital requesting you do an update.

Then it MIGHT be fixed (or likely not).

Me? I use Linux (actually Fedora 8) an older version that I haven't updated much as it still functions quite nicely, but I suspect it will need it soon (*SIGH*).

[Anonymous Coward]

A whole can of worms...

I work for a small company and I know for a fact Barclay's business banking website does not support Windows 10. The accountants machine is the only machine in the company that is still on windows 8.1. Now if Microsoft was able to force a windows 10 upgrade on it, it would have serious implementations on payroll & the accountants ability to work.

Sure the machine is locked down and shouldn't allow the accountant to run the update, but Microsoft is getting awfully aggressive with their forced upgrade policy.

[jason 7]

At the end of the day...

I bet this is at the command of a couple of high-up marketing-sales bods that have no concept of IT Support and is just making all the real tech guys at MS go "WTF???"

[Allaun Silverfox]

Saw this happen to a McDonald's about 3 weeks ago. The screen they had up had been interrupted with a Upgrade to windows 10 ad. That was both hilarious and disturbing.

[JudeKay]

If any of you see this sort of thing in the wild - PLEASE take a snapshot and send it to [e-mail] I'm suddenly hungry for a beige chocolate milkshake...

[Nigel 11]

There are some buildng-sized billboard screens in Las Vegas. At least one of them has previously been snapped displaying a BSOD. Unless they are all still running XP, it's only a matter of time.

[Anonymous Coward]

If we see it on a bank machine, are we allowed to press Yes ? <evil grin>

[Halfmad]

I can't stop thinking that..

Windows 10 would be a lot less unpopular if MS stopped trying to ram it down peoples throats, now before any fanboys on either side open their mouths - I use windows 10 at home and REALLY like it, but then again I decided to upgrade to it the day it was released.

I'm not sure I would have if I'd held off and been nagged about it constantly since. It's insanely stupid marketing by MS.

[JEF_UK]

I'm monitoring a patched win 7 machine in my malware environment.

This is windows 7 not 10, is not being used; Just sitting idle.

Domain name--------------------------number of lookup

settings-win.data.microsoft.com ______ 76

vortex-win.data.microsoft.com ________62

telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com __ 4

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

[Doctor Syntax]

"number of lookup"

Over what period of time?

[JEF_UK]

"number of lookup"

1 day.

It varies by about 5 each way

[Laquey]

No you're not a product but you're not very objective are you?

You can walk away from Microsoft and into the loving arms of Google, vastly worse than Microsoft, Apple, much worse than Microsoft, or the open source community which is probably worse than MS but for a whole host of different very not business friendly reasons.

The nag screen is able to be disabled, the article said as much and more importantly if you pride technical expertise and how much your clients mean to you why the hell are they on a domain without basic WSUS configurations for one download for all when it's A FREE PART OF THE PRODUCT? #justsaying

To privacy:

Every part of Microsoft's personal data leaking sieve of an operating system is configurable to be turned off except one; when you use the start search function what you type there is sent to the bing search engine with a UUID, that's the only gripe I have about MS and privacy. All the rest you can turn off in the all settings feature, privacy section except for the feedback information and this can be disabled by stopping and disabling the "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry" service. Also disabling Windows Update will allow you to schedule or manually update your machine with no issues.

Also regarding privacy Microsoft is probably the only company of the big three who plasters privacy and "what the big bad has got on you in the could" information all over the place. Personally I've turned everything off except for my maps app which I allow only to use local information when it's running. I've checked this with network monitors and everything except for the search engine UUID data sticks. You could certainly argue that MS should go from closed to open with regards to privacy and I think this will change in the future to be the default much like they went from security open to closed model during the 2000s but you can't argue, except for one minor detail, that you can't switch it all off (bar one piece).

Looking at MSes current approach to users and what the average user does and wants they are pretty much right on the money. The average personal user wants something that works right out of the box with little to no configuration and have it connect seamlessly; if you've actually ever dealt with a typical user then this is what you'll find I know this and it infuriates me but they really don't care. It's our job as IT experts and people who manage infrastructure and devices to make this balance work so that users get that experience and still have their systems private and working. It would be very difficult to design systems with binary choices such as "allow bluetooth" and "disallow bluetooth" to work seamlessly out of the box with "disallow" set, it would piss the average user off to have to manually do that and it's the same reason that most users wander around draining their phone batteries with their mobile Antenna, Wireless and bluetooth enabled. I'm the sort of guy that runs five addons on their browser to ensure privacy and anonymity but most users couldn't give a damn, start up random browser X and lets go!

Re Nagware:

Yeah they fucked some of this stuff up, true. Pushing an OS down a metered connection was a bad choice as well as not having a don't nag me again button on the pop up window, this was also a bad choice. Then again, apple added Wi-Fi assist to their phones in an effort to help users and ended up with a shit load of billshock across the board. Companies do stupid things all the time but when you compare the big three objectively Microsoft seems to learn more from their mistakes than the others.

For example the security landscape has changed and people want to be patched but can't be assed managing their patches so MS just makes sure they get them while enterprise and pro users can opt out of this model. There are definitely pros and cons to this but it's now the world norm and it's probably the only way to manage average users effectively; see above where they just don't care. How will this pan out? Who knows but if it goes badly MS will change it's tack again, adapt or die yeah?

In short it's all a trade off and there are so many choices that you don't really need a large infrastructure form society to support your choice to leave your abusive spouse, most business really don't have a lot of IT requirements anyway outside of internet access, desktop text editors, spread sheeting software maybe an internal intranet and a database or two. All this stuff you can find with minimal support in open source land but you don't have a lot of enterprise level support unless you pay through the nose for it. Trade off.

You can choose to leave sure but the grass is always greener yeah?

[present_arms]

Re: No you're not a product but you're not very objective are you?

You're special ain't ya :)

[Richard Crossley]

Computer Misuse Act, 1990

This is beginning to look like an offence under Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act, 1990.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/pdfs/ukpga_19900018_en.pdf

3. A person is guilty of an offence if—

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if—

(a) he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of computer

(b) at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and the requisite knowledge

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite intent is an intent to cause a

modification of the contents of any computer and by so doing—

(a) to impair the operation of any computer;

(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer; or

(c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data.

(3) The intent need not be directed at—

(a) any particular computer;

(b) any particular program or data or a program or data of any particular kind; or

(c) any particular modification or a modification of any particular kind.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite knowledge is knowledge that any modification he intends to cause is unauthorised.

If I've configured my computer not receive updates and Microsoft ignores that configuration and the updates are being re-applied I think Section 3 would apply.

It would be hard for Microsoft to deny they have the requisite knowledge since they wrote Windows and the updates.

A new version of an OS could well impair the operation of a computer, especially if some feature has been removed that an application required.

IANAL.

[Nigel 11]

Re: Computer Misuse Act, 1990

This is beginning to look like an offence under Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act, 1990.

A plan, for anyone whose applications software is dependant on Windows 7.

Send a letter via recorded delivery to MS UK's registered company address (address for serving formal legal papers), stating that you are running Windows 7 and that you require your systems to continue running Windows 7 and that you will seek a prosecution under the above act should they cause your computers to cease to run Windows 7. Better still, pay your solicitor to draft and deliver this letter.

This might make them think harder. It will certainly help you no end when you sue them for damages. They ignored the warning. They cannot claim that the damage to your systems was accidental.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Computer Misuse Act, 1990 - Windows 10 and the Anniversary Update

The Windows 10 Free Upgrade is indeed Computer Misuse if only, despite heavy advertising and frequent warnings of its impending actions, Microsoft eventually disregarded its own guidelines on Dialog design and treated dismissal of a dialog as acquiescence to its request. Although reversal of the upgrade was possible within one month there were consequential damages in lost time and resources.

But the Windows 10 Anniversary Update is an even greater culprit and is something of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Purporting to be an update and not an upgrade we were expecting an easily reversible change that could be undone by System Restore. Or perhaps we might have expected something like a Service Pack of older Windows versions that consolidated many incremental updates and repaired deficiencies.

Instead we have a collection of unexpected new features and disabled capabilities.with a time-limited and awkward reversal. If Microsoft was attempting to deliver Windows 10.1 we should have been told.

A prosecution or civil suit under the Computer Misuse Act would be extremely expensive and vigorously defended by Microsoft. However, claims raised with the Small Claims Court are relatively cheap and, if not defended, would result in at least some redress for business and legal costs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for the author of "Tiny7" to get back to work

Despite the headline saying that M$ are NOW pushing 10 at PRO and above versions, my Pro install has been seeing these 10 and data slurping "updates" for several months.

After being alerted by the first El Reg story, I have been through and deleted the first batch, then manually go through each months offering to weed out the crap.

Even the optional hardware drivers updates are pants, I am being offered older versions than I have already installed - in one case a gfx driver I know is very unstable.

My big worry is that M$ will start lying in the descriptions; at least for now you can easily see if the optional update is crapware; security updates are a big concern, because they already use the exact same description for 90% of them.

If things get any worse, I am going back to XP and dual booting some flavour of Linux for web access on my work machine.

yeah, I use Google Search, but I have ALL GOOGLE "services" blocked unless I want to use them, and immediately block again afterwards.

[Aitor 1]

Re: Time for the author of "Tiny7" to get back to work

Same here, one w7 pro in Spain and one w8.1 in Scotland, both got the spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Time for the author of "Tiny7" to get back to work

"My big worry is that M$ will start lying in the descriptions"

"My big worry is that M$ are lying in the descriptions" FTFY

they are lying You have to go through not only the description but the install payload list of each upgrade and then you cant be sure. as a (ex Domain Admin) home user i don't have a large hardware firewall and traffic monitoring box so how would i know if they did slip in some telemetry without telling anyone. until it was too late and i read it on the register.

Turned off Updated on all family and friends PC's that i manage and will only manually update once each KB has been manually checked and applied to a guinea pig machine.

[PK]

Time to get the popcorn yet?

At some point, some company with good lawyers and a good publicity department are going to be onto MS Support saying "We're currently losing $million per hour. Sort it"

Me? Laughing? I'm still happily on Vista so no nagware at all :-)

[Yugguy]

Re: Time to get the popcorn yet?

"happily on Vista"

Oxymoron shirley?

[Bubba Von Braun]

Re: Time to get the popcorn yet?

"happily on Vista"

Oxymoron shirley?

Nope Vista came out of the Special Project Division also known as "The Dungeon" it was a special time when all M$ guru's played with their sadomasochistic dark sides. (cross between Darth Vader and 50 Shades of gray") While Steve B went on his "Hit me, Whip Me, Beat me tour.."

[Anonymous Coward]

"If things get any worse, I am going back to XP [...]"

I fired up my old XP P4 laptop yesterday to run a custom Winconsole application that crawls on W7 even on my big PC. At first I thought it wasn't working because it completed its data crunching so fast - but it really was that fast without whatever bloat W7 had introduced into the execution path..

[c:\boot.ini]

If it is creating a lot of new processes, then that might be the case ... creating a process on Windows Vista+ is insanely expensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

I will give this the attention it deserves..

.. which is b*gger all - I'm simply going to recycle an earlier statement.

We saw all of this coming years ago when it became clear that Microsoft was simply incapable of coming up with something original and failed miserably at imitating others - the inevitable conclusion was that it would soon revert to type. We implemented a strategy to become as much Microsoft free as possible, also because we started to get pissed off with the complexity of assuring we were licensed properly (that's aside from the security issues which had already pretty much defined our exit).

An interesting side effect of that effort is that it has also rather accelerated our integration capabilities. Personally, I would recommend *any* organisation that plans to go on an M&A tour to go Microsoft free and move to an Open Standards based core.

Our only remaining problem is that we have to keep one single copy of Microsoft Office alive :)

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: I will give this the attention it deserves..

"we have to keep one single copy of Microsoft Office alive"

But which version? There's the rub.

[jason 7]

Re: I will give this the attention it deserves..

Well 2003 was the last proper version. Then it all went a bit wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I will give this the attention it deserves..

"we have to keep one single copy of Microsoft Office alive"

But which version? There's the rub.

That's what the "have to keep alive" refers to - the price for sticking to a version is that you have to guard it very carefully. Once you lose it, it's very hard to replace it with the same version, and once your hardware registers a sufficient distance between the end of its warranty period and the current date you'll have a fight on your hands - just a restore from backup will no longer work.

The irony here is that this was actually what provided the last straw - this happened to an executive machine and the guy on call managed to get the user to try LibreOffice as an "interim solution" until he could come back to base. Now it's the only thing we use.

[MJI]

8.x is bad enough

Got a VM at work I have been assigned with setting up and what is installed - Windows effing 8 with a install windows 10 option.

I offered to fdisk but that would take out other VMs

Start menu is totally broken no obvious run box

CMD is my friend.

Doing as much as possible with file transfer helps too.

I am seriously wondering if I can make Win7 last until 2029 at work!!!!!!

If it was not for the reason I write WIN32 applications I would move like a shot to a more logical OS

And I managed to avoid ME, Vista, and 8.x until now!

[MJI]

Late last year for the first time ever.

Some one asked my advice for a new lap top.

Found out they owned an Apple phone.

So recommended an Apple laptop. And I mentioned the OS disarray from MS as an issue

[jason 7]

Re: Late last year for the first time ever.

A decent option until they want some IT support that's more complicated than it being dropped in the toilet.

That's been the problem with the folks I know that have moved to Apple. Finding good support.

The Apple Store moves in, takes out all the good independent local IT support for Apple and you are stuck with the hipster in the Tshirt who only know how to swap something or setup iTunes.

[Indolent Wretch]

Was dragged into a clothes store at the weekend. Store had a CCTV system and a visible monitor parceled up into 9 mini windows showing 8 camera images.

Or it would have done, 66% of the screen real estate was taken up with a big banner saying "Microsoft recommends you upgrade to Windows 10!".

[Wensleydale Cheese]

'Or it would have done, 66% of the screen real estate was taken up with a big banner saying "Microsoft recommends you upgrade to Windows 10!".'

Did you get a photo?

A picture is worth a thousand words :-)

[Jess]

The telemetry phoned home to Redmond

Why does anyone think that if they seriously want this telemetry, it won't be slipped out inside Windows 7 and 8 updates anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The telemetry phoned home to Redmond

I don't think anyone does think that - we already know that a number of the updates since the middle of last year (at least) are concerned with back-fitting telemetry to Win 7 and 8.1.

It's really a separate issue to the one that this article is all about : telemetry is a reason not to go to Win10, but sticking on 7 while still allowing all updates won't, as you say, achieve the desired aim.

But there are many who just want to stick with 7/8.1 because they think 10 is naff, and that's what the issue is - Microsoft using malware techniques to ride rough-shod over user preference.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is worse than Cryptowall

Something like this (ie 10 installing itself onto production machines and disabling drivers) could cost jobs especially if the machines aren't backed up.

I Hereby issue a challenge to Anonymous: Bring down Microsoft, by any necessary means.

Extra bonus points if all the traffic lights in Redmond are green as well, Die Hard 4.0 style.

[jason 7]

Re: This is worse than Cryptowall

Trust me..it's not as bad as Cryptowall.

Now calm down and put away the Monster energy drink.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfectly understandable

With Windows 10 'Redstone' coming in 2016, it's quite right MSFT makes this available to customers who wish to take advantage.

Seems there's a lot of worried grey-beards here who haven't bothered to maintain their skills since getting certified in administering Windows 2000 so spread FUD rather than admit they are out of their depth with cloud etc. Just saying.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Perfectly understandable

> ...makes this available to customers...

My I make make my fist available to your face?

[hplasm]

Re: Perfectly understandable

"My I make make my fist available to your face?"

Digital Interface!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Perfectly understandable

Digital interface would be fingers poked in eyes surely

[hplasm]

Re: Perfectly understandable

"Digital interface would be fingers poked in eyes surely"

Not if the digits are tightly packed...

[Rezillo]

"This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Operating System Council.

As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the replacement of all operating systems within your star system, and regrettably your system configurations are scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than one of your Earth minutes, subject to connection bandwidth for GWX download. Thank you."

(sound of distant sysadmin screams)

"There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the charts and orders have been on display in our EULA in Alpha Centauri for years so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. Apathetic bloody planet, I’ve no sympathy at all."

[GrumpenKraut]

200 million flies can't be wrong

... Mr Hanky icon implied.

[Anthony Hegedus]

The thing is, I *like* windows 10 (much as I *like* not having to use windows xp) but that's not the point. Windows 10 is, in and of itself, more or less OK (apart from the usual microsoft crashes), BUT... it's the upgrade procedure that doesn't work. We've upgraded several machines and found problems in at least 50% of cases:

- old versions of Sage don't work

- search bar doesn't work

- control panel doesn't start

- Outlook doesn't work (come on MS, seriously?)

- "previous versions" which worked in win 7, doesn't work in win 10

Most of these are fixable, but when people realise that a) they might have any or all of the above problems (which are fixable, but again, that's beside the point) and b) it might take a couple of hours to do

It's totally disingenuous to make people upgrade to something when chances are it'll cause them problems. Perhaps if Microsoft actually wrote software than worked for a change, it would be OK. But seriously, I am so pissed off with everything from microsoft either being shrouded in unfathomable rules or just plain not working.

Take outlook 2013 and 2016. They don't work with IMAP accounts. They *look* like they will, but they don't sync all the folders all of the time on some installations.

The whole thing is abusive. I hope microsoft flounder this year too, like many other posters on here

[jason 7]

"- old versions of Sage don't work"

Well thats a given in any version of Sage. Sage only works after you've called the tech support (hoping you get through because your support ended 2 years ago), told them what error message you are getting and then they let you into the secret patch garden and let you have the specific patch that fixes the problem. You know, it's almost as if they designed that into it.

[Kobus Botes]

Who's squeezing Microsoft?

Given Microsoft's increasingly desperate efforts/attempts to get WX on to as many machines as possible and PRONTO! it seems to me as if someone has Microsoft's gonads firmly in a vice and they are turning the screw seriously hard.

The question is: who is doing the squeezing? Is it advertisers who were promised 1 billion installs (with concomitant income from advertisements served) (as I have speculated earlier in these hallowed pages), or is it someone else (like NSA/GHCQ/whichever other spy agency who might want an in on the data) and, in the latter case, what do they have on Microsoft and what do they want?

If it is the first case, I suspect that Microsoft is on a hiding to nowhere (unless, of course, they manage to get that billion installs in real, actual numbers): hubris may have led Microsoft to vastly over-promise and now the REAL clients are putting the screws on big-time.

Who would first relent, though? - the party(ies) doing the squeezing, Microsoft or the users of Microsoft's wares? Options two and three are equally unpalatable to them, as it would have a serious effect on Microsoft, possibly leading to a much-reduced company and/or the demise of Microsoft altogether (that would probably also mean that BillG has an MS thumb in a screw and is putting the squeeze on them, with Monkey-boy having similar fun with the other thumb; except that it is no fun for anyone (at least, not for the squeezers and the squeezee)).

A much smaller Microsoft would actually be A Good Thing (TM), as it would mean that they would not be able to do whatever they want anymore, but be forced to play nice with everyone. Hopefully in that (admittedly rosy) future it would leave the door open for two or three major Linux distro's to get equal traction (even if one have to pay for it, no problem with that). A more level playing field would then also foster healthy competition and real innovation. One can but dream, no?

[Mr Eve]

Re: Who's squeezing Microsoft?

If you expect that end-to-end encryption is going to become the norm at some point in the future, then where else are you going to put your spy-points?

Inside the 'end' in the OS is the only place you can do it.

[Fihart]

Re: Who's squeezing Microsoft?

Maybe you are over-thinking this one. It doesn't take a conspiracy for MS to make a cockup of this magnitude.

I've worked with enough large clients (on the marketing side) to know that the inertia/momentum in something like a car company will propel stupid decisions with an unstoppable force. Everyone below board level knows it's a disaster but it's not worth anyone's career to argue.

Before the Second World War (and for some years after as their factories had not been worn out or bomb damaged) American cars were common on every continent. Just look at movies of the period.

Microsoft is at the same size and life-cycle stage as the US car giants were in the 60s when, even at home, their products began to be displaced by better made imports.

What happened with IBM when, irritated by PC clones, they brought out the PS/2 range with non-standard connectors ? Obvious (to everyone except IBM) that many customers would switch to Compaq and Dell to maintain compatibility.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Who's squeezing Microsoft?

> or is it someone else (like NSA

I'm not sure they need to, I think they have them where they want them.

I don't think the mysterious disappearance of the huge anti-trust case, their purchase of skype, and even their bribe to nokia to kill symbian were totally co-incidental.

[Wade Burchette]

I had another update unhide itself

I hid KB3035583 hidden. A few weeks later, there it was, unhidden and checked. Thankfully, I manually install updates because several security updates interfere with Windows Sever Essentials Client Restore. (So far, the ones I've identified are: 3033929, 3035131, 3042058, 3045999,3046049, 3057154, 3060716, 3061518, 3067505, 3071756, 3080079, 3081320, 3088195, 3101246, 3101746. I think it is very annoying how Microsoft's own updates break a Microsoft product.)

Today, several new updates were in my Win7 update queue an lo and behold, one was unhidden yet again, but this time not checked. KB2952664. My vigilance to stop Win10 on my machine is eternal.

[Boothy]

Re: I had another update unhide itself

KB whack-a-mole, I know it well :-/

From what I understand, they keep tweaking the existing patches rather than release a new one, so it pops up in WU again!

I guess at least that way, you start to recognise the KB numbers, without the need to reference your stick-it note again!

[SotarrTheWizard]

I made the mistake. . .

. . . of upgrading during the "Preview".

Suddenly, my Printer (a 3-year-old Epson all-in-one) wasn't recognized. Neither was my Radeon video card. The USB 3.0 ports on my mobo stopped working.

Needless to say, I rolled back almost immediately. . . . And even THAT killed some functionality.

Box now dual-boots Mint and Win7. Because, alas, Fallout 4 hasn't been ported to Linux. . . .yet. . .

[Mephistro]

Re: I made the mistake. . .

Have a NukaCola on me.

"War, war never changes"

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple to disable

MS has made the folder a critical, so you can't delete it, but as a sysadmin, just change the getwx folder name & the pop ups stop :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Simple to disable

Can you expand on this, posting some instructions for those of us who don't know what the "getwx" folder is or where it is?

Though if Microsoft is willing to change registry entries every 12 hours to prevent those who change them to try to stop Windows 10, and has made this folder undeletable, I'm sure if this method catches on they'll have that folder recreated when missing, or "better yet" make Windows 7 machines check for that folder on boot and blue screen with some cryptic error if it is missing.

[Howard Hanek]

What To Expect Next

Their boffins are probably working on upgrade messages sent through the sewer system.

So that next time you lift the lid you'll be regaled with "Upgrade to Windows 10 Today For Free!"

[Asok Asus]

we need a class action lawsuit ...

How many businesses being crippled because of this will it take to precipitate the necessary class action lawsuit to stop this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: we need a class action lawsuit ...

Even if they aren't crippled, what about retraining costs and lost productivity when your employees have to re-learn how to do things that don't work quite the same?

[present_arms]

Sitting here

I'm sitting here on my Linux box reading all the bitching about forced upgrades and so on laughing, then I suddenly stopped and thought for a second. In business as we know time is money, I earn regardless, anyway how much time are you using to play whack-a-mole, seriously, how much time and expense has it caused companies so far, expecially those small outfits where it's not worth having a domain for the secretary? someone said about updates, I can tell you this as fact, on an i5 Haswell, 1gig net link, ssd it took from a fresh windows 7 install 2 1/2 hours... I thought about that and thought okay so he updated to 10 as well, nope, that's just updates to where 10 could be installed, so I installed PCLinuxOS from 2014, December to be exact, 1000+ packages to update.. gulp, how many? clicked apply... apply 10 mins all done, installed kernel update, reboot, works, 10 minutes on my machine (i5, 90MB/s net ssd)

For all that MIcrosoft has done and continue to do to it's customers, why do people defend it, seriously if it was anyone else they'd be murder I tell ya :)

I often will summarily end such discussions amongst the "blindozed" when they suggest turning off, disabling this and that in their unholy holey OS etc - "Say you found out that your rental home was rampant with spy cameras, hidden microphones and one-way mirrors, you are comfortable to continue living there... covering each subsequently discovered peep hole with roll after roll of masking tape?

Alie

[Nanners]

No where to turn

Been saying it for years. The world needs an alternative. Someone on the end users side. Someone who knows what they are doing. Our current two party system has given absolute power to the few. Humanity needs a savior. Don't give me that Linux/Google crap unless you are planning to build me a fully functioning OS out of it. The first person to invade the market with an affordable alternative will be infamous.

[present_arms]

Re: No where to turn

I did with help of others, :P not my fault you want to be whipped

[Boris the Cockroach]

I am so glad

I turned off updates on the Win 7 laptop we use to communicate with the machine tools, it runs custom software orginally designed for XP and an actual serial port, but clunks along on win 7 and a RS232 to USB converter

If it goes to win10 I know the software wont be supported if it falls over, and without that, we wont be able to send data to and from about 16 machines/robots... cue much lost money (about 35-40 pounds per hour per machine)

Luckily for us the big milling machines all use Heinenhien controls.... praise be to their wisdom of dumping windows and building their control on top of a custom linux distro.

PS our machines robots are small ones in the £80 000 to £150 000 range... some companies use machines costing £1 million plus and on windows based controls..... automatic update anyone? thought not.

[Anonymous Coward]

there are a number of SEPERATE issues here

1) Microsoft pushing a new OS ("Upgrade") through an update system and being FAR from truthful about it.

A) No excuse for this

2) people not liking the GUI of windows 10.

A) User preference and new generations of users will not understand why there was a fuss. *

3) the telemetry in windows 10.

A) 2 options here. 1) Installed on all free versions after end user is informed this is the cost if you take the free upgrade. 2) Microsoft SHOULD have to sell a paid for version WITHOUT ANY telemetry GUARANTEED to anyone who wants to pay. this way businesses can use 10 and still be compliant with any security or information regulations they have to comply with. I as a home user (W7 PRO) WOULD pay $€¢£¥₩₪฿₫₴₹ for a spyware free version of windows 10* (without the option of a telemetry free version then there is no "reasonable" option so an "informed choice" without being detrimental to the end user is not possible so the choice ceases to be fair due to the power and market dominance of the other party "Microsoft")

4) back porting the telemetry included in windows 10 back in to windows 8.x and windows 7 as an "update" and making it "recommended" and being divisive about its description and scope.

A) No excuse for this

5) software compatibility on windows 10.

A) well I suppose its called progress but if Microsoft were not pushing so hard and by devious methods people could see what is and is not compatible through testing or trial and error and make their own decisions. be that to upgrade windows and the other software or stay on the current versions of OS and software or change either OS and/or 3rd party software or any combination of the above.

* as I'm used to using the GUI of windows 7 and earlier versions of Windows for now if i was to update to a no spyware version of windows 10 to get a hopefully more secure OS. I probably would use classic shell or start10 to keep familiarity as much as possible for now..

[Hans 1]

Re: there are a number of SEPERATE issues here

>2) Microsoft SHOULD have to sell a paid for version WITHOUT ANY telemetry GUARANTEED to anyone who wants to pay. this way businesses can use 10 and still be compliant with any security or information regulations they have to comply with. I as a home user (W7 PRO) WOULD pay $€¢£¥₩₪฿₫₴₹ for a spyware free version of windows 10* (without the option of a telemetry free version then there is no "reasonable" option so an "informed choice" without being detrimental to the end user is not possible so the choice ceases to be fair due to the power and market dominance of the other party "Microsoft")

>4) back porting the telemetry included in windows 10 back in to windows 8.x and windows 7 as an "update" and making it "recommended" and being divisive about its description and scope.

You paid for 7/8, they installed it anyway, I doubt there will be a telemetry free W10 ... the only savior is the EU, but even then, I doubt they will react ... since MS is shooting itself in the head with this ... it is widely known that W10 is full of spyware, even outside tech circles ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: there are a number of SEPERATE issues here

"it is widely known that W10 is full of spyware, even outside tech circles ..."

BUT end users either know its there but are not aware of the reality of what is being collected, dont care, or dont know.

It will take a "Snowden" inside Microsoft and international media coverage to get end users attention and instigate change unless as you say the EU get involved but with the Govt (UK and France) snooping bills I also doubt the EU will even raise an eyebrow unless an individual or company take MS to court personally...... Any Austrians looking for a new chalenge?

[Mikel]

It's for your own good

They aren't going to stop until everyone still using Windows is on Windows 10. And they are retrofitting the offensive tracking into prior versions anyway.

It's the final battle.

[Colin Ritchie]

M$ declares war on small businesses.

I shall continue to watch this car crash from my Hackintosh and weep for the small businesses that suffer.

[Joe User]

Automated way to stop GWX

GWX Control Panel

http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

I've used it on several Windows 7 machines, and it works great. Has options to block downloading the Windows 10 files and to block automatic upgrades. Also has a monitor mode to warn you if any of the settings are changed without your knowledge.

[Roland6]

Re: Automated way to stop GWX

NB. The latest version of GWX Control Panel is:

Version: 1.7.0.2

Date: December 30, 2015

Source: http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

If you installed it previously, you really need to update it.

Aside: I do hope people are donating, because what started out as a simple tool is developing into a really useful utility that will most probably have to be regularly reviewed until both Win7 and 8/8.1 go end of life.

[KeithR]

"1) How many bog Standard users know about this? IMHO 0.01%"

The meaningful question is:

"1) How many bog Standard users CARE?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Minted

Like many I've put off trying linux for the desktop for many years despite using it for my business. Windows 10 nag ware finally pushed me into making time, The hardest thing to making my laptop windows8/mint dual boot was getting windows 8 to resize it's partition. That done installing mint was a breeze, it automatically updated the UEFI partition. Not yet needed to reboot windows since.

I run windows 7 pro on my desktop and its been nagging me for months however today (after doing a windows update I got a HUGE nag pop up from microsoft. I just click them away, life is too short. The desktop may well soon be going the way of the laptop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally

maybe 2016 will be the year of the linux desktop

[sola]

Re: Finally

>maybe 2016 will be the year of the linux desktop

We could safely say that currently, Microsoft is the one who puts the biggest effort into the "year of the Linux desktop".

There have been huge advances on the Linux desktop in recent years but they are nothing compared to the effort Microsoft puts into its own destruction with Win10.

The nice thing is that Linux is now basically ready to take over the disgruntled Windows users. If commercial sw like Photoshop and AutoCAD was also available, we would see mass migrations now.

[Retro-Coward]

Re: Finally

It worked for me. I had dabbled with Linux many times, but always slid back to Windows. The WinX nag popups and the ever increasing feeling of battling with windows 8.1 every boot has forced me to look again, and so far, my experience with Ubuntu Mate has been fantastic.

[Winkypop]

It's telemetry dear Watson

No!

[Pompous Git]

I think we need a slogan

Slurpy gives you herpes.

Where do you itch today?

Stink different.

Microsoft rectangles have sharper corners.

[FreeBrad]

We're ahead of the curve for once.

For once (and it is not very often I can say this) we took the right decisions and are moving away from Microsoft. The big stumbling block has always been exchange server and it hasn't been easy replacing it with something that will do exactly what we wanted but we have successfully built and installed a linux box that has taken over the functionality and allowed us to standardise everything on the postgres dbs. We started off with 4 MS servers and now we have one that is nothing more than a backup domain controller which will be retired soon. The workstations are already running cross platform applications such as thudnerbird, firefox and libre office, the accounting software is php and any remaining bespoke software can run on OSX.

It has taken about 8 - 10 months of hard work, but we will be Microsoft free (save for a couple of laptops) in the next few weeks.

[Stretch]

Turn off updates like any sane person? No update ever fixed anything or made anything better. Updates just bring new bugs you never had before and remove essential functionality.

Currently running Win7, two KBs installed in 6 years. Current up time 134 days. Never seen a Win 10 message on here ever. I am happy.

[Anonymous Coward]

MSFT Fires Shotgun at Both Feet

I have several middle-aged netbooks...each currently worth about $50.00 USD on Ebay...that run 32-bit Windows 7 "starter". I've been getting the MSFT "free Win 10 upgrade" nagging pop-ups and full-screen blockers for several weeks. So I figured, "Why not try it?" I made hard drive backups of both systems, using Clonezilla, and then clicked on the "upgrade to Win 10 now" button. To make a long story short, it doesn't work. On either netbook. On netbook #1 I get a screen that says, "Downloading Windows 10 - Getting setup files...". This screen has been visible for nearly three days now. Since late Thursday night...14-Jan-2016. Windows task manager shows zero/nada/zilch network activity. On netbook #2 the install self aborts. It leaves a message on the desktop, in the lower right hand corner, to the effect that the operating system "...is not genuine". Since I purchased the name-brand netbook new, from a reputable vendor, with the OS and considerable bloatware pre-installed, I suspect the MSFT alert is mistaken. So. Two trials with the MSFT "Free Win 10 Upgrade". Two failures. 100% FUBAR. I'll be reloading the original Win 7 starter OS on both systems on Monday. It's a holiday here, and so I'll have the day free.

[Kiwi]

Probaby been said but..

Does MS need reminding?

#1 Our work machines are our business critical machines - it's what we make a living from. I see a lot of borked W10 updates now, with machines that cannot function as purchased by the user for the jobs they're doing. When your business cannot receive emails and emails are a significant part of how you communicate with you clients.. Also W10 is well known to delete "incompatible" software including purchased AV, competing office software, various business-critical programs that MS doesn't even know of (and that don't compete with MS products). Law suits will hopefully be coming.

#2 Many small businesses around the world are on low but expensive bandwidth. You will be causing them extra and unnecessary expense.

#3 Your telemetry will put any business who uses W10 in breach of any national privacy laws, and will also put them in breach of any thing like "non-disclosure agreements". I seriously hope you are sued into non-existance this year, and the people behind this rubbish spend the rest of their lives paying towards the problems this will cause. Although that said, the way you screw up network drivers in 10 does quite limit the ability of your spyware to steal the data of your remaining loyal/uninformed users. Hmm. Once people used to believe smoking was good, but now we know how bad it is.. We live in hope...

#4 I am glad I moved on elsewhere. I am glad I have the knowledge to teach others to move on. Any chance there was of me ever recommending anyone use any MS product is gone. You have breached trust in a manner which should never be regained. I'd rather stick Michael Jackson's ghost in an unmonitored room full of unconscious kids than ever let MS products near a customer's machine again.

Icon - the cure to your security and malware woes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Probaby been said but..

Windows 10 should be euthanized humanely.

In fact someone did suggest that reunification between MSFT and AAPL is possible as they are now using nearly identical hardware.

Apple's iOS is essentially a closed source Linux distro running on mostly Intel hardware anyway, and if you go back far enough all current CPUs share the same basic architecture.

AC, because MSFT and AAPL would sue me back to the Cretaceous for saying this.

[Brian Milnes]

It get's worse (a LOT worse)

For the last 10 days or so, my wife and I (who both work from home) have noticed really poor performance on our laptop/notebooks.

The symptoms on her notebook have been as severe as unworkable. (Delaying reaction to everything by time scale measured in minutes, not seconds.)

On my Laptop (with it's beefier i7 CPU) the primary symptom was a hard blowing system fan. Especially when supposedly idle.

I isolated the issue on her notebook to the activity of GWX, and used

1."uninstall update KB3035583",

2.Change Update Settings to NOT accept recommended updates and then

3. Scan for Updates and Hide update KB3035583

Despite the fact the my Laptop is a member of my Domain, it too got GWX, and I had to do the same process to get rid of it.

Or have I? I'm not convinced and am still suspiciously monitoring it.

I have to work through the other PCs I have within the domain and those belonging to the rest of family.

Microsoft, I am a (minor) MAPs partner of yours, You didn't advise me of this. You have cost me and mine (and presumably millions of others) hours in lost productivity.

It's an absolutely criminal act, as it was deliberate, understood and unannounced.

You should be deeply ashamed of yourselves.