El Reg, there IS a choice about IE11 upgrades, many have made it already!
REJOICE! Windows 7 users can get IE11, soon they'll have NO choice
El Reg, you may well say there's no choice but many of us have already made it with respect to Windows 7 and IE updates well before this authoritarian edict from Microsoft ever hit the streets.
And Microsoft, I hope you're also reading this invective, after all it's aimed at you; El Reg's only the messenger.
The fact is none of our Windows 7 machines have Automatic Updates even installed. The usual practice of nuking it is just to disable its service but we've found that is not safe because you, Microsoft, can't be trusted NOT to turn the service back on again at the first opportunity. Moreover, you do so in a deceitful and untrustworthy way by hiding offending turn-on 'Trojans' in the setup of some of your other products.
We users have made a conscious choice NOT to turn updates on yet you deliberately act contrary to our wishes. Who in Hell's name owns these PCs anyway? Well Microsoft, it's not you, and you're NOT going to dictate how we use them!
RIP Automatic Updates
Microsoft, when forced to use Windows 7, usually because you've ensured XP's drivers are not updated, we start the Windows Updates 'cleanup' process at the Command line. We begin thus:
SC delete wuauserv
To ensure its gone we also remove any relevant registry entries and 'wu' DLLs (update files). When done, there's no way that Automatic Updates has a hope in Hell of ever working as it no longer exists on the PC!
The only practical way to resurrect updates is to reinstall Windows from the distribution disk—and here there are strict rules about PCs being quarantined from the internet, as we assume newly installed Windows dial home with the eagerness and slipperiness of eels trying to flee one's hands.
Microsoft, we're fed up with years and years of your irksome one-product monopoly, your constant authoritarian dictates about what we should or should not do on our PCs and when we should upgrade them. Your incessant nagging about updates/upgrades rings like the mantra of a communist dictator who's only one product to sell—the party line. Right, your warning threats no longer work and they haven't for quite some time.
It's all over now, we've woken up to you and we no longer listen to your rants—it's mutual, after all you've never listened to us. No longer will you dictate which updates or security patches we'll install. In the past we tolerated your monopoly as our weak legislators hadn't the guts to enforce or further legislate anti-monopolistic laws against you, but from now on we'll just ignore you altogether.
Moreover, your attempts to scare the bejesus out of us XP users over the end of XP support isn't working. We're still 30-35% of the world's PC users and we've already called your bluff by putting a halt to the buckets of money we threw at you to little effect. Your 2014 XP deadline no longer worries us, especially those of us who've been happily using only XP-sp3 and occasionally Windows 7-sp1—both sans Automatic Updates! Why should it? After all, for us, your deadline won't make one iota of difference.
Why our stance? It's difficult to paraphrase in what would be a book but I'll try. If, year after year, decade after decade, you'd not produced bloated inferior code so full of security holes that it'd make a Swiss cheese blush with shame—and produced code whose fashion always dominated over substance, then many users wouldn't now take this stance. Microsoft, essentially your products have always been optimised for maximum sales, not system integrity or data security. So great the problem one can only hint its full extent here.
Why millions of XP users are still reticent of even moving to Windows 7, let alone 8 or 8.1 are many and varied, now with the enforced IE 11 upgrade there's yet another reason. Here's just a few more:
Cost: Microsoft, in your period of dominance, O/Ses have gone from giveaway utilities designed to launch programs to internet O/Ses, and now products in their own right. But with every Windows upgrade you've repackaged millions of lines of previously-used code and resold them to us over again in new packaging for an exorbitant price. Now awake to the fact, many users refuse to pay for what's poor value for money.
Innovation: Microsoft, by your actions you've shown your 'freedom to innovate' mantra of years past only translates into 'we're a monopoly so we'll do things in our own time'. For years, you've delayed and or failed to put innovation where it's really needed. Take for instance this well known example from history: the long-suffering decade where we all had an excruciating wait for you to metamorphose 8*3 filenames into something slightly better. The current list of issues/limitations with Windows would easily fill a book (which I can't dwell on here), but you've so hoodwinked the techie press with every possible distraction that almost none focus on what's key and needed to significantly improve Windows.
Cosmetic Changes for Marketing's Sake: Nothing illustrates this more than the Windows 8 fiasco. For some perverse illogical reason, you've deliberately not kept backward compatibility and ergonomic consistency between Windows versions and it's annoyed your users beyond belief. Why you've done this and alienated so many is the big question—surely market research would have alerted you otherwise. Presumably, your reason goes 'we're a monopoly so they'll all have to fall in line eventually'. Well, over 30% of the world's Windows users have answered 'Stuff-you Microsoft, we're not paying you more money just to go backwards, we're staying firmly put'.
First-Class Annoyances, of which Windows 7 possesses in heaps, are best illustrated with an example: XP users love Quick Launch, now in Windows 7 it's gone—or so difficult to get back it may as well not be there. To what purpose was Quick Launch removed? Even if there are logical explanations then why isn't there a simple one-click solution to bring it back? Your actions are just perverse, as we know Quick Launch code is still there inside Windows 7.
Unnecessary Retraining Costs: Changing UIs etc. without giving users options to fall back to previous ways of working by deliberately removing earlier features not only reeks of an authoritarian bully but it costs IT departments significant amounts of money for what ought to be unnecessary retaining costs.
Upgrading from XP to Windows 7 breaks too many things: Unlike iPhones, for many the novelty of Windows has long worn off, thus there's little incentive to upgrade when incompatibility breaks too many existing programs. Why pay for Windows 7 to break an environment that works perfectly well under XP? For many, not upgrading is a no-brainer, especially so in situations where there's little user interaction other than to launch dedicated apps—display signs, industrial processes, single-application environments, etc. It'll be decades before XP is eliminated from all of these niches.
Windows 7 is Bloatware Personified: I've just reinstalled Win 7 on a laptop and the default install—i.e.: no extras over the distribution disk—and it came to a whopping 28.5GB! Sure, there's gigabytes of paging file, there's also the massive hibernation file (which you never thought to ask us about or option at installation time); irrespective the base size of Windows 7 is absolutely huge. Microsoft, even those publicly batting for you make the point about bloat: Mark Russinovich (of Winternals, Sysinternals fame and your employee) has said that the core of Windows is only some 20 or 30 files and the rest only serve ancillary functions. With every new version, Windows bloatware continues to escalate. Examine this issue holistically and the only logical conclusion is that bloatware is out of control—simply it's ridiculous; in fact it's outrageous.
Security Holes—The Ongoing Windows Legacy: With so much bloatware contributing to Windows, it's little wonder the O/S has so many ongoing security issues. A small streamlined Windows would be easier to maintain and secure.
Microsoft, again your greed and perversity is at the fore. If you allowed users to decouple huge chunks of non-essential code such as Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, Media Player and even integral parts such as TCP/IP and LAN functions and allow 3rd party replacements then there'd be less security risk.
Automatic Updates: Bloatware still unsatisfied, the moment Windows 7 goes on line you've the damn audacity to allow it download well over a gigabyte of updates WITHOUT ever warning the user! Updates wouldn't be necessary or significantly less so if your product was actually fit for purpose and worked as stated in your sales blurb.
Microsoft, your hide has no bounds: as if that weren't enough, you make no distinction for wireless internet connections. With wireless connections now commonplace you still allow gigabytes of updates to download via wireless again WITHOUT warning the user beforehand. Too many times we've been unexpectedly caught out, left high and dry WITHOUT any internet connection whatsoever, because Automatic Updates has consumed both all available bandwidth and credit!
It's no wonder so many users nuke Automatic Updates!
Microsoft, a class action should be launched against you to recover the millions of dollars lost to wireless and internet charges directly attributable to Automatic Updates! You're actually stealing internet time from us, and your shoddy, substandard, poxy Windows merchandise is directly responsible.
...And don't for a second dare you blame us or say we're irresponsible for turning off or disabling Automatic Updates! Moreover, Microsoft you've a damn fucking hide attempting to make us users feel guilty about not upgrading or using updates.
Microsoft, this time we've your measure and we're calling your bluff.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
