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Windows 10 Fall Update Uninstalls Desktop Software Without Informing Users (ghacks.net)
ourlovecanlastforeve sends this report from Martin Brinkmann of gHacks: Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system may uninstall programs — desktop programs that is — from the computer after installation of the big Fall update that the company released earlier this month. I noticed the issue on one PC that I upgraded to Windows 10 Version 1511 but not on other machines. The affected PC had Speccy, a hardware information program, installed and Windows 10 notified me after the upgrade that the software had been removed from the system because of incompatibilities. There was no indication beforehand that something like this would happen, and what made this rather puzzling was the fact that a newly downloaded copy of Speccy would install and run fine on the upgraded system.
An IT Director I know had this happen with ESET antivirus as well, on multiple computers. He says fixes have been rolled out for both TH2 and the antivirus software to prevent this from happening. Other reports mention CPU-Z, AMD's Catalyst Control Center, and CPUID as software that's being automatically uninstalled.
So, I guess Windows 7 will be the last Windows OS that I use. Hopefully by the time new games stop supporting it, Linux will have the support of new games.
How dare you question the infinite wisdom of Microsoft!
New CEO, new Windows VP, and yet we're still treated like children who should not be allowed to make decisions on our own. They're not going to ask if we want the applications removed or not, because we're apparently not able to make such a complicated judgement call.
They've jumped the shark and gone to plaid.
At what point do you just say "fuck it" and stop dealing with this crap?
I'll happily dedicate a lot of my time to help friends, family, and others online, with software and IT.
But I will not *waste* my time on behalf of a malicious actor like Microsoft.
My response in future will be to drop Win10.
It's not worth.
Oh wait, there are no release notes except marketing talk. Believe or not, they don't publish release notes anymore. When a company CEO talks about what a "serious" company they are, show them this story.
Anyone know when Microsoft will release a new version of Windows to replace Windows 7?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
That is IBM and they deserve that treatment as 40 years old software can run unmodified on 64 bit mainframe.
If shareholders wake up, a lot of IT managers would end up in prison for choosing Microsoft with very suspicious reasonings. One day, this will happen.
Because their NDAs prohibit them.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The problem is that it's not the IT managers that decides what to use these days, it's top level management.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Windows 10 is an unfolding disaster in slow motion. I make a living writing code that is used mostly on Windows and I had a bad feeling since the first Technical Preview. Decided to hold off the upgrade until the end of the free upgrade period hoping that the problems will be hammered out and the control will be (at least for most part) returned to the user. But instead it started bad and goes downhill from there.
"Windows 10" hasn't uninstalled anything on any of my workstations.
Could be partly because nothing I own runs any version of any Microsoft OS.
Before you get your knickers in a bunch: this is most likely just a bug, not intentional. Microsoft pulled 1511 temporarily because it thinks it's doing a fresh install of Windows 10 or upgrade from a previous Windows - version instead of just being an update to an already-installed Windows 10 and ends up resetting some settings because of that, and Windows 10, when doing an upgrade from 7/8/8.1, does remove applications it thinks may be incompatible and/or interfere with the upgrade.
Because EULA
Yeah, I really don't
think you should quit your day job
just yet, ya get me?
As far as I can tell, Windows 10 is the Microsoft play to become Google or Facebook on your desktop. In effect, you choose to run their code and in exchange they spy on you and sell all the info they get to the highest bidder. Microsoft clearly saw that investors are seeing bigger gains from non-manufacturing companies that just spy on uses and sell the info, and they've decided that as the OS itself they can do it better than anybody else.
Once you choose to run an OS that owns you, vacuums-up your every keystroke, mouse action, and utterance within microphone range and that routinely phones-home and auto-installs/auto-removes software, the auto-disabling of various applications is just another bullet-point on the features list. You are now the submissive; Microsoft is your dominant. If you wanted to complain, you should have done so before clicking on the "Accept" button of the EULA. Microsoft does not place a "safe word" in that EULA does it? Enjoy the ride to the software version of the Folsom St parade!
The only reason I (still) use W10 is games (more than 300, in Steam only). I have every second of using it. ... ever.
As soon as there are enough high budgets games running on Linux, I'll finally get rid of it for a systemd-free linux (Manjaro-openrc comes to mind).
I've good hopes that SteamOS will lead us outside of the Windows era.
Microsoft was right : Windows 10 is the last Windows version
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
Welcome to an always online walled garden experience...do you want an apple while you look out of your window?
... in making me not want to ever upgrade to future Windows. I guess when I upgrade my hardware in the upcoming months, and re-install Windows 7, I'll be toggling Windows Updates off.
At a guess they will hijack that complete control where it suits them with no regard for national borders.
This is one post on one forum. I can't find much evidence of this elsewhere. Has it been replicated? My thoughts are that these software were recently installed and the update rolled back to the most recent system restore for some reason. Or that the software was not intentioanlly uninstalled, but the references to in the registry, etc., were inadvertantly over-written. Sure, it could be big bad Microsoft or it could have a very simple explanation.
Thank you for coming back. I missed you!
I was a Microsoft fanboi once... while Bill Gates was still on the top.This man may have been evil, but at least he was extremely intelligent and had a vision. After his retirement, Microsoft went rapidly downhill and the end of the slide is nowhere to be seen.
any IT Director or CTO allowing Win 10 to be installed in a corporate networks is a is a moron and must be removed from his post at once.
Disregard this comment. Is cid 51e6?
Much better, a palindrome!
Hello,
The problem with the Windows 10 Build 10586 (aka v1511, TH2) installer detecting versions of ESET's software that are compatible with Windows 10 as not being compatible has been fixed by Microsoft. Simply allow the installer to connect to the Internet for the latest updates and it will download an update that allows is to recognize all compatible versions of ESET's software.
Customers who were on the latest builds of ESET's software (v9.0.318 for consumer, v6.2.2033 for enterprise) were never affected by this, but customers who had older--but still Windows 10 compatible--builds did have there versions flagged when Build 10586 of Windows 10 was installed.
For more information, see the following E SET knowledgebase article: http://support.eset.com/kb3733...
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
How will China react to Windows 10, which gives Microsoft complete control over
any computer connected to the internet?
Uhm, any developer of an OS has complete control over the computer the OS is running on, practically by definition.
Add adwcleaner
Because the license you accept to use the software denies liability and enforces arbitration.
Unless they can somehow embed binaries for ALL OS's as well as Windows and for different types of CPU (ARM for example) and find a way to launch and run the software behind the OS's or hypervisors back, then I won't be putting my tin foil hat on anytime soon. If it works by the HD somehow injecting hooks into any binary launched I reckon it'll be spotted pretty quickly.
No doubt Microsoft has killed Windows by moving to this incremental upgrade program and mucking it up at the same time. Its bad enough to get forced updates but then to get them so poorly vetted and tested its not going to be acceptable to many. This will if it continues drive Windows users to some other operating system. Users will not tolerate this happening every time a large upgrade to the OS is released. I was hoping Windows 10 would be a good OS but its been nothing but headaches ever since I started working with it. I definitely do not see a point where all my PC's will run Windows 10 ever.
My sister's new Acer laptop came with a slew of bloatware. I want a program that will remove it all with a couple of clicks rather than lengthy add-remove-programs-reboot etc.
Question: Other producers of spyware have been put in prison. How does Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella avoid a court case?
By being asked to do it by the government and then served a NSL about the capabilities?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Cows say lots of interesting things, 'moo' is rarely among them.
need a hacker? to track a cheating spouse, mails, facebook, whatsapp, credit, database and all forms of hacking, contact the hack guru. demon_teco@gmx.com. you can learn hacking too
and you will never boot with the same software as the day before, its going to be something new every boot, including drivers, will your computer work today?
but if something fails, and it will because you are not suposed to change drivers if everything is already working, thats asking for trouble, then when it fails its your motherfucking problem, if you go to cortana "hey woman, help me" she will do nothing at all. Its only your computer when you have problems. She wont even make you a sandwich while you google it. Its the most useless woman in history, thats quite an achievement
windows 10 is windows millenium, waaaay too many bugs, waaay too unpredictable (had a friend that used to lose his partition, and he only had one partition!, every 9 months with windows millenium). But they figured out a trick to get tards to install it, good for them i guess. Bad for the tards
this is sorta oftopic but, how come the tards dont have like the equivalent to sjw behind them trying to help them? they could certainly use some help. i mean, they are tards after all...
"In a democracy, citizens are allowed to participate in government."
See? You have it assbackwards right there. The citizens formed the government and gave it limited powers. We've let the government usurp our power over the years because of uneducated and apathetic voters. The evidence that we've fallen too far already is your own statement. There is no hope left if everybody is hopelessly ignorant of their own power over government.
Only at incompetent companies.
If the CIO is making a decision on the OS to use, then get the hell out of that place now.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
For me it didn't uninstall anything, it however screwed many settings in registry, e.g. keyboard layout and user specific settings. It seems like it "upgrades" by installing the ISO on background when restarting the computer once it's downloaded it.
I don't think Windows 10 in general is stable yet, for instance Start menu stops working sometimes, "Modern" apps stopped working (Calculator, Photo viewer etc.), Edge browser window does not appear anymore and Windows Update Settings does not open.
I get some of the features back if I create new Windows account, but not everything. It looks like I have to do clean install sometime in near future, what a wonderful upgrade.
It installs itself on your PC, sometimes without you asking. It spies on everything you do and sends it to the virus' author. It destroys programs you already have installed without warning.
Tell me again how Windows 10 is not Malware?
You do know they discontinued that version of their control panel. Renamed it radeon software crimson and put in a whole bunch of updates and fixes.
Windows 10 updates drivers and thus it would install this new version while removing the old.
The finnish F-Secure and russian Kaspersky anti-virus companies had to create and distrubute patches (workarounds) for the uninstall incident themselves, because Microsoft only promised a solution for 15th December 2015!
Kaspersky is as big as the Kremlin, but F-Secure and about two dozen other respectable antivirus companies are relatively small shops. Can you imaging the same incident happening every second month or so, necessitating call-in of coders for overnight and weekend work, to fix the Windows 10 problems caused by Microsoft? Don't think for a minute that Redmond will pay compensation for 3rd parties' overtime costs.
This will lead to a situation where anti-virus companies will go out of business, as patch costs bleed them and recurring compatibility problems alientate their customer base. This must be intentional. Eventually, only the NSA/FiveEyes-approved, anglo-american antivirus companies will be left alive, who do no dare to detect US/IL military malware. Hopefully Kaspersky Lab will also survive (as long as the Kremlin's payroll can afford it) and give the NSA / GCHQ / Unit 8200 the middle bear-claw.
Same has been said by many a people about Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. Truth is at the end of the day when MS have a small or any screwup the open-source crowd are so divided among themselves that they can never seize the opportunity.
The last Windows I used was Windows 2000. They crossed the line with me with forced registration and remote disabling "features".
Why anyone would use a OS that has this for anything mission-critical, is totally beyond me.
In my book Windows is a Toy, an elaborate gaming bios, and the only reason to use it is if you're into frontline hardcore PC gaming or need to use a professional application that only runs on Windows - such as Solid Works for engineers or something like that.
I've been riding Mac OS X since 2004 - for professional Flash development back then - and x86 Linux since 1999. Nowadays there is absolutely nothing aside of perhaps some neat Photoshop plugins that Linux and FOSS can't offer that I need for my professional work (Dev, Software Architect and Consultant). I expect that to improve even more with Gimp 3.0. I've got no incentive to replace my broken Mac Mini now - albeit HW & SW integration with Apple is still top-of-the-line.
However, I *do* still use a MS product: The last iteration of the XBox 360. The system mature to the marrow and has dirt cheap top gametitles out of the bargain bin. Just added Diablo 3 to my collection for 20 euros last saturday. Neat.
Conculsion:
I hope Windows, the abysmally shitty Outlook Groupware, Exchange, MS Office and all those ancient crappy MS monsters die in a fire and/or gets squished by Google and Chrome OS like a bug. They would deserve it.
Google has users by a leash too, but at least I get all their stuff and services for free and have an interest in keeping them running and synced across devices no matter what.
Which is why I recommend Chrome OS over Windows whenever a n00b asks me for advice.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I've subscribed for the "Free upgrade to Win10" some time ago. Now I've decided it's not worth the shit, but every time I start up my Win7 it nags me "Hey! Your update is ready! 100 millions of cretins already took the bait!" - how do I get rid of that crap?
I have big concerns with Windows 10 so have not updated to it yet. Those are primarily around the forced mandatory updates. We've all seen drivers and software stop working when you install a new version of Windows. With Windows 10 you are in effect installing a new version of Windows every time it updates. So you no longer have any certainty that the devices and software you require will keep on working. Now it seems Microsoft will automatically remove anything it thinks is incompatible without even offering the choice. Nice. If I was the 3rd party software vendor I'd pretty miffed. I think it is only a matter of time before Microsoft is taking to court for this. It is not their job to decide what software someone can or cannot run on their own PC.
Other than that (see subj.) I have not had any problems with 1511. Some people reported issues with preferences and settings changing, but I didn't experience that with any of my 3 computers.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Oh well at least it's doing some good.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I've been putting off my Windows 10 upgrade because, as great as it seemed like the OS was going to be, the spyware and now the uninstalling of programs has completely put me off. I have a spare laptop (Windows Vista, I believe) that I mainly use for Kodi and to share out my external hard drive. I'm now considering installing Linux on it as a test. I'm not sure which distribution to use. Which one would be the best to migrate from Windows for Kodi/network file sharing? Would it allow me to boot the laptop back into Windows (in case I needed to access something from there)? Would it support USB remote controls/keyboards like this one?
If this install succeeds, my main laptop (used for web development, web browsing, document creation with OpenOffice, and light image editing) could be next.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I am using Cisco VPN Client v5.0.07.0440, which needs the same minor registry edit on Windows 10 that it did on Windows 8. On Windows 10, it also requires installation of a Dell SonicWall driver before it will work correctly. Once it's set up, it works great.
When I installed the Fall update for Windows, it automatically uninstalled this Cisco VPN Client citing compatibility issues. After I reinstalled, it worked perfectly again. I am not sure how Microsoft makes the decision to uninstall something automatically. Even though the configuration is not supported by the vendor anymore, there are many people using this legacy Cisco VPN software.
This is an example of Microsoft uninstalled some desktop software that was working perfectly fine. At least they didn't block the reinstall!
Welcome to what Win10 is really all about.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
All I know is...before the update my third party backup software, "Acronis True Image" didn't work well.
After the update, it works fine, as does everything else. I love Windows 10. It's the best Windows Ever, and I've been using windows since 1.0.3, and gone to several Windows Launch Parties up in Redmond. So there.
I swear, after reading a conment like this, some Slashdot commenters are the most retarded people on the planet.
When using a Microsoft owned PC, you give up control of said PC.
Microsoft knows what is best.
Be thankful Microsoft allows administrative control for now.
Trust Microsoft.
One more of many reasons I do not plan to upgrade to Windows 10. In fact I have stopped at 7 turned off automatic updates and am dual booting a couple of Linux distros for evaluation. I don't need or want the stupidity of Windows 10 and I am telling everyone that will listen to me as geek in residence to avoid it. Since many of my relatives and friends have used me as a free PC service tech for decades I first ask what version of windows they have. If it is 10 I tell them sorry they will have to get help from Microsoft.
Better get used to the idea that a proprietary operating system is just that. On the bright side, the owner has a commercial incentive to make it stable and optimize performance. On the flip side, they can do with it whatever they want that doesn't breach their contract with you. Anyone here have a contract with Microsoft that was breached? BTW, the EULA reads that they can uninstall software if it makes the system "unstable".
It doesn't 'uninstall' programs so much as it reinstalls Windows, then attempts to re-setup previously installed programs. Sometimes it's successful, too many times it's not, making it look like it uninstalled something that in fact it just wasn't able to set back up. Even if it's 100% successful though, it leaves you with the guilty-child-sounding message, "All your files are exactly where you left them", which is funny in and of itself.
Since Windows 10 updates are mandatory, what difference does it make if it tells you ahead of time that it is going to uninstall non-microsoft software?
Thank you for setting us straight. But I would like to politely remind you that the beta period for Windows 10 was supposed to end last Summer, and Windows 10 is now supposed to be in general release. This kind of mess shouldn't be happening.
Those of us with longer memories remember that this is Microsoft standard procedure with its operating systems: beta test via the general public for at least a year, including taking liberties to break people's machines in the interest of getting the OS right. This happened with Win 2000 until the first or second SP, XP until the second SP, and Windows 7 was kind of an SP for Vista (plus allowing time for hardware and drivers to catch up).
The reason XP and 7 stick around is because they each have evolved into something solid and reliable, but they got that way through a painful first year or so, after which Microsoft stopped adding features and just stuck with fixing critical bugs. So, warts and all, XP and 7 are stable, and you can write software and drivers for them and pretty much count on them working into the foreseeable future.
With 10, however, Microsoft is not only chasing the desktop, but also this crazy goal of grabbing the phone and tablet market. So how long should the Windows community expect Windows 10 to re-arrange itself whenever Microsoft feels like it? Windows 10 Home Edition (and Pro? can't remember) is the first OS I know of that actually forces updates upon people, kind of like the androids turning red in "I, Robot". Sure, this eliminates the problem of users who stick with buggy, malware-prone versions so common with XP, but more thoughtful users (and IT managers) now have to consider whether 10 is going to render something unusable, literally overnight with a mandatory update. Microsoft is apparently aware of this problem, which is why they permit Enterprise users to shut off automatic updates.
But non-Enterprise users want a stable, reliable platform, too. Right now, that means sticking with 7. My guess is that's part of Microsoft's master plan, why 7 is still officially supported, whereas people with 10 are still considered "early adopters" who should expect to go along with all the updates and spyware intended to "improve the Windows 10 experience".
Would be nice to know when beta is really over, hopefully before 7 goes the way of XP.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
And what alternatives are there? Don't say Linux -- because if you look at the overall ecosystem, things don't "just work", and every updates breaks just about everything else...
They really ought to have a full time team work on this. As I said previously, have 2 versions - a 32-bit drop in for XP, and a 64-bit drop in for Windows 7. Lose the meme of a moving target - there is no reason they have to chase Windows 8 or Windows 10.
For NTFS, which is patent protected, define an extended superset of the file system, and make that the default file system for the new OS in a way that will be transparent to native win32 or win64 applications. But please go full steam ahead on this.
I know I will NEVER even think of trying windows 10. Im staying with windows 7 for as long as I can, when I cannot no longer do so, I'm going with a macintosh and using apples operating system. Aint no one gonna change my mind.
That makes sense. I could have sworn I had installed CPU-Z. I guess I did.
Peddle your FUD some place else.
Things do "just work" and updates are entirely optional. It's only Microsoft products that need to be patched daily to deal with the virus du jour.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Only at incompetent companies.
If the CIO is making a decision on the OS to use, then get the hell out of that place now.
Well, companies have to make money, and that means doing their job and doing it better than the other guy. It's not that some top level management says, "We will use Windows 10!" but that in order to fulfill the business requirements and get a decent ROI, they will have to run certain software. That software will have to perform certain functions and will have dependencies, especially if coming from a vendor since most software is not written in house. Out of that, they're going to have to go with the most common denominator of an OS (sometime least common denominator) which will most likely eventually be Win10 because any other choice would cost more money that it would save.
But don't worry, I suspect that enterprise will be able to get out of a lot of the things we don't like about Win10 such as the spyware. There are simply too many legalities that MS would be susceptible to if there wasn't from things like SEC rules and HIPAA laws. Of course, the solution for such will be as it is with even many simple things that should be a check box for home users, "Go set up a group policy in your Active Domain".
I work almost exclusively over RDP. I have a gaming machine at home on my desk of which I never sit. I go to the office, RDP into home. I go home, I go to the bedroom and RDP to the other room. Whatever. But here is the thing, after an update, the first RDP connection in sits on the blue screen showing your avatar for about 10 minutes (or however long your PC takes to do the last second steps of the updates). It tells you nothing about what is going on, and any prompts that you would normally see get auto OK'd while you are stuck in the login spinning animation. So not only will your shit get uninstalled (I have seen this as well, and not just the latest release) but you won't even know, because you won't be shown the progress prompt during the RDP connection.
Unlock the car. Install a fix on the engine. Change the steering ratio. Remove the radio.
Lock up and leave.
You wouldn't mind that would you?
>>The affected PC had Speccy, a hardware information program, installed and Windows 10 notified me after the upgrade that the
>> software had been removed from the system because of incompatibilities.
Glad to say my house has recently become microsoft-free!
Thank you Linux.
Doesn't that sound like something a virus would do?
Hmmm, Win10 is a virus.
Who woulda thought?
Cue the die-hard Linux users who act like a package/kernel upgrade has never broken all of the dependencies on the whole system and rendered it useless or uninstalled a bunch of packages or broken GRUB
I've had plenty of stuff not "just work" on Ubuntu and Mint installations. I guess you could pay a bit more and go Apple Mac, might be worth it.
Beware of the Redittor who loans you a Sharpie.
I have worked as a MS platform developer for over 15 years. While I do applaud some of their actions on the development front, I fundamentally disagree with what I was seeing in their OS platform (one UI for all platforms, mandatory data collection) and their licensing hijinks. So I finally made the move... my home machines run Mint Cinnamon now. When I recently started a new job, I switch to a Mac for the first time since college. Still not a huge Mac fan, but it's a platform to get work done and the hardware (save the keyboard) is reasonably nice.
My wife is perfectly happy and has no issue using Linux. My data is more secure than it has ever been. And I finally kicked the MS habit. Thanks MS for finally making your software so crappy that I couldn't deal with it any more. And I know I am far from the only one.
Can you hear me now?
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/microsoft-has-no-plans-to-tell-us-whats-in-windows-patches/
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/09/leaks-show-that-microsoft-writes-release-notes-so-why-cant-it-publish-them/
https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.html
http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/how-can-any-company-ever-trust-microsoft-again-3569376/
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2956574/microsoft-subnet/windows-10-privacy-spyware-settings-user-agreement.html
http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/08/22/nsa-windows-8-exploit/
http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/07/11/microsoft-gave-the-nsa-direct-backdoor-access-to-outlook-skype/
http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/how-stop-windows-10-upgrade-downloading-your-system
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/195592-with-windows-10-microsoft-could-move-to-a-subscription-based-model
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/205320-microsoft-windows-10-will-be-the-last-version-of-windows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GU5uv28a3I
http://techrights.org/2015/07/31/vista-10-anticompetitive/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwRYyWn7BEo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gghj03J_ri0
http://localghost.org/posts/a-traffic-analysis-of-windows-10
http://www.ghacks.net/2015/08/28/microsoft-intensifies-data-collection-on-windows-7-and-8-systems/
THESE
https://gitlab.com/windowslies/blockwindows
^(have to uncomment the #'s on two url's in the hosts file per latest change)
https://senk9.wordpress.com/checklists/windows-10-privacy-checklist/
^Applies to 7/8/8.1 too.
Where did I say anything judgmental about the analogy I used?????
Some people are entirely too sensitive and seek to find personal offense in every corner. The whole SJW thing is a disease than needs to be quarantined in any civilized and free society. So, if you are offended, then should I be offended that you're offended and do my hurt feelings trump your hurt feelings? Can you then trump my hurt feelings by claiming to be offended by my being offended by your being offended about what I typed? The whole anti-intellectual and anti-free-speech thing is insane and contrary to the most basic tool of civilization: clear communication and exchange of ideas.
I simply said that people who sign onto a deal in which they know they will be abused are free to do it, but they ought to pay attention to what they're getting into before committing to it, and then if they do it they are just being annoying or silly when they complain since they agreed to submit to the situation conditions and dominant entity. That's a basically Libertarian/freedom/responsibility/rational-thinker position. In fact, there are plenty of people who have voluntarily submitted to all the invasive of Microsoft/Facebook/Google/etc contracts as part of a relationship they think of as mutually beneficial, while others see it all as abusive; I believe the analogy is nearly perfect even though it is obviously going to be uncomfortable to various people for various reasons across the entire political/cultural spectrum. I guess I forgot to add the obligatory Seinfeld-style "not that there's anything wrong with that" tag. [sigh]
How do you know? Have you personally gone through their company's books and verified that?
Do you honestly believe that they have become one the the largest, most-powerful and richest companies on the planet by giving you free stuff and not manufacturing actual products? Do you truly believe all their billions of dollars come from those little sponsored quasi-search-result ads and that all their metrics and data gathering and analysis is not used to raise money, or is that just what you keep telling yourself so you can talk yourself into using their service? In actuality, you are talking yourself into being used BY their service whose actual customers are the people paying them real money (you're not one of the people paying them real money, are you?)
Lotsa "Free" stuff without data mining and selling? "Oh, sunshine, you don't get both." [Walking Dead's Carol style]
Born yesterday, you were? [Yoda style in honor of the impending flick]
"...Hopefully the backlash reaches M$..."
I think, at this point, that Microsoft no longer cares. I suspect that they will eventually give the OS away for free like Linux, and will make their money from the total access they get to you and your data by being your OS. As the OS, they get total access to everything about you and your data which is something no browser or web site can get at AND they can (if they choose to) inject ads right into their menus, onto your desktop, into your applications, even overlayed in front of you interrupting your other activities like ads on a TV show. The dataminers and advertizers will pay far more for access to you at this level (which Microsoft can provide) than for the amateur-by-comparison level of extreme invasiveness of Facebook. With the control the desktop gives them, they could even take money from software vendor A to make software vendor B's products look and run worse on your desktop and then offer to "upgrade" you to the competing product from vendor A at a discount...
Remember: the original Microsoft workers who wrote the early code for the early products, and who probably actually cared about the software, are long gone. Some like Gates are very wealthy and retired, while others have moved-on to other jobs or even other careers. The current company is just a typical corporation after all its founders have left - a beast that just seeks to maximize profits for its investors by any means necessary including by discarding the original business model and even selling-off assets and entire divisions for short-term gains or to move into new markets and business models because some hired-guns have told them they can get better returns that way. See: IBM, Motorola, XEROX, HP, McDonnell Douglas, etc.
I am truly saddened for the world we are creating for future generations who will grow up and live their entire lives having never known the serenity that comes from being both "free" (in the speech sense) and "private" (as most people were decades ago). They will be unable to ever escape, in adulthood, from audio and visual records of every dumb thing they've done in their lives, never have an employer who hires them without preconceived notions of their worth, never be approached by a government employee (from the IRS, to the local police, to the DMV that produces drivers licenses, and the FAA that licenses pilots, and medical people who will judge the value of their lives before selecting treatments...) never be given a huge number of opportunities in many aspects of life because of such info and the ways people who have that info choose to use and interpret it. History is full of remarkable people who did amazing things in nearly every field of human endeavor precisely because they were able to escape their pasts with the levels of anonymity people used to have. Future generations of humans will be robbed of all this, unless those of us who can do it can succeed in always making sure there are non-snooping non-datamining ways for people to live and work.
We need more than just Linux. We need all sorts of freedom-embracing and privacy-protecting alternatives in hardware and software to what the super-wealthy for-profit spies and manipulators and governments are offering, AND we need to be explaining to average people what the differences and relative merits are. This is a fight for the future.
I've been running Linux since the early Slackware days. I have embedded it into various systems, written applications for it and drivers for it and I run my business on it...
I never let an important Linux machine do any of those auto-updates for security or any other reason because in all these years I've never seen a system do this successfully. Every update breaks SOMETHING, often many things. Admittedly, I have some systems with less-popular hardware and run less popular software, so the people who write their code, test it once on their personal system and then launch it into the world are not covering the less usual cases, BUT THAT'S PART OF THE BASIC TASK (assuming there's other systems out there in the wild not configured the same way and thus writing vode that's robust enough not to break when run on lots of systems)
Far too many Linux developers are too focused on building the next "really neat" thing they are interested in, and like twitchy hamsters they seem unable to resist building their creations on mountains of other code written by other squirrely programmers so that you end up with hundreds of overlapping stupid and contradictory dependencies that even the least competent programmers never used to be able to drop onto people in the pre-internet age. Now days, these guys go all in all sorts of directions using all sorts of libs and toolkits and boutique languages with the assumption that an internet connection and an automated package manager will magically just make it all work.
I'm pretty MS-hostile, but your attitude in going after the previous poster as "FUD" is a major part of what cripples Linux and keeps people buying Windows.
Sounds like it's all software that installs a driver.
F-Secure Client Security also got removed... Said it was incompatible with a "Technical Preview". Happened on Windows 10 Enterprise 10240 upgrade to 10586 (1511)
Sign the Change.Org Petition:
Bad Microsoft! Stop Pushing Windows 10 On Consumers Uninvited!
There is a new Change.Org petition to protest Microsoft's unilateral push of Windows 10 onto consumers whether they want it or not. The petition specifically addresses the issue of Bandwidth and Disk Space consumed, the various Privacy Concerns, the fact that Personal Data is sent out to Microsoft and other "unnamed" third-party entities with little way to Opt Out-- yes, it is possible, but not straight-foward, and it isn't entirely clear whether additional monitoring occurs anyway. This issue is not about whether the Windows 10 Operating System is "good" or "bad" particularly, but specifically protests the manner in which it is forced upon consumers with very little regard for their systems which can be broken by the install, or the problems which can occur afterwards such as with device drivers and whatnot, of the changes in the EULA which make it harder to hold Microsoft accountable for these kinds of actions in the future. This petition is about Microsoft unilaterally taking away consumer choice and forcing their choice onto our computers.
BAD MICROSOFT. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES.
You can sign the petition here:
https://www.change.org/p/bill-...
I had similar bad experiences with my work laptop, until I could get Windows 7 on a new laptop.
I was with a small workplace and given a laptop for work, one of those cheap ones you get at the local electronics store. It had Windows 8, a whole host of preloaded crapware, and was incredibly clumsy.
When I complained, I was given a small budget to get my own laptop. I got a refurbished Lenovo Yoga, one of those two-in-one things that could open fold back the screen completely on itself, and pretend to be a tablet if you ignored the keyboard on the back. Conceptually great, but also came with preloaded crapware, the biggest of which was this monstrosity known as Windows 8.
Moreover, there was a big problem for people like me who needed to close up the laptop, tuck it under my arm to walk into the next room, and open it up again without the laptop powering down.
If you held the laptop the wrong way up, the software would detect that you had rotated the screen, try to act like it was an iPad, and turn all the windows 90 degrees, squeezing them into the now-narrower-and-taller screen. The windows would get narrower to fit, but wouldn't grow taller to take up available space on the screen. It also took about 2 seconds for the software to realize that gravity had changed direction. The upshot was that when I walked into the next workroom, sat down, and opened my laptop, the windows would be sideways or upside down for a few seconds, and then rotate to the correct orientation but not size. I actually had to write an AutoHotkey routine to resize windows.
I tried to install Linux on these. I was able to boot from flash USB drive and install, but it would not naturally boot the installed Linux without the USB drive. It refused to boot GRUB and give me a boot selector.
I bemoaned the loss of Windows 7 (which is still a Microsoft product but a lot more predictable and came before the Let's-Make-Windows-A-Tablet-GUI era) and the ubiquity of crapware, until I was given a slightly higher budget to get a Dell laptop after bitter complaining.
Lo! and behold! The Dell Vostro small business laptop was available with Windows 7! It had no crapware, and the BIOS not only allowed but actually defaulted to legacy non-secure boot which allowed me to install Linux. (Some of the BIOS settings actually mentioned Linux: "such-and-such a setting should be used for Ubuntu", the BIOS said.) The Windows 7 must have been through some loophole, because this Dell laptop comes with a "recover disk" for Windows 8 and not Win7 (even though the computer comes with Win7 installed). It comes with a "generate your own recovery disk" software so that you can restore Win7 -- I guess somehow Dell's not allowed to provide a Win7 disk.
I am so happy that I can actually take shelter under Windows 7 and hopefully ride out the Win8/Win10 crapfest until something reasonable comes along. I swear if Linux had anything like AutoHotkey, I'd stop using Windows altogether.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
"stronger drive to a subscription model"
That seems to be Microsoft's plan. Eventually everyone will pay monthly to use Microsoft software, following the lead of Adobe Systems.
"Windows 10.0 is the devil."
Microsoft's Software is Malware. "Malware means software designed to function in ways that mistreat or harm the user."
Apparently the idea of Microsoft management is that many, many small abuses cause people to accept abuse. Then the abuses can be made bigger.
I use Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 at work. At home I use more Debian Linux and Mint than my Windows 7 box. When I develop anything for the web, there is no flash, landing pages have no Javascript or anything else to infect or slow them down...just full disclosure. I do not plan to ever have 8.1, 10 or any future Windows OS on equipment in my home. What would be the point.
As others have said, MSFT has advertised that this will happen with Windows 10...so why use it. For me, like others here, the biggest issue is the subscription model...I despise it. Revolving charges make you poor. They prevent you from investing for your future and making yourself financially indpendent and strong. Anything that can dip in your checking account and extract funds without you saying Ya or Na first will bite you one day, its not if, only when.
With UEFI, their subscription model, their uninstalling of apps on your desktop, their installing updates against your wishes, even when you configure your desktop to first ask you before it updates, without Active Directory your toast....MSFT has already advertised that the equipment we purchase does not belong to us, it belongs to them. Without that operating system, its an expensive paper weight...
UNLESS you purchase your hardware from a Linux ONLY vendor like ZAREASON. No UEFI. You do NOT HAVE to purchase Windows to use it, even if all you want to use is LInux Mint. Of course if you want to purchase Windows and install it, you can. Best of all words.
WHY BUY FROM any VENDOR that FORCES UEFI on any piece of HARDWARE? Stop expecting a different result from MSFT. They have shown their colors time and time again. They have no incentive to change. Are you going to be stupid enough to go along with them?
You are obviously not speaking from experience on either point. So, who told you that and why do you believe them?
Tolerance of diversity is necessary - Indulgence in diversity is intolerable
And what alternatives are there? Don't say Linux -- because if you look at the overall ecosystem, things don't "just work", and every updates breaks just about everything else...
I'll say Linux. (Actually, PC-BSD is what I'll be trying to migrate to.) Your FUD aside, I have yet to spin up a Linux system that didn't "just work," for all use cases I had in mind. That's been primarily on Ubuntu, Mint, and Puppy.
Aside from that, I'd say that if you don't want to invest your time in learning how to use computers, by all means stick with Windows and OSX. These OSes now have in common the, "we want those too stupid to use computers to be able to use computers," mindset. And you're more than welcome to participate. The rest of us will keep on using systems that don't trade you for the ability to use your computer, and overcoming the challenges of the learning curve in the name of freedom.
Nearly every time I update 10, it uninstalls my MotionInJoy driver for my PS3 dual shock and I have to reinstall it. Strangely, that didn't happen with this particular update.