Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Will Resume Pushing Windows 10 To Machines With Win7, 8.1 (computerworld.com)
LichtSpektren writes: After previously apologizing on October 16th for forcing Windows 10 on some users of Windows 7 and 8.1 via the Windows Update mechanism, Microsoft disabled the default update option for Windows 10, so that users eligible for the new OS would have to opt in manually. Gregg Keizer at ComputerWorld reports today that Microsoft will soon switch the default option back to "on" again, possibly as early as tomorrow's "Patch Tuesday" update. Users who do not want Windows 10 are strongly advised to turn off automatic updating to avoid accidentally installing the OS.
But Windows 10 contains SO MUCH LEGACY.
It's just bigger and slower than Windows 7. :(
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Add this to your registry and the Windows 10 update will go away...
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx]
"DisableGwx"=dword:00000001
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
If you have older hardware, you might have difficulties getting the drivers to work. Half of my Thinkpad X200's hardware wasn't working with Windows 10. Also Windows 10 is fugly compared to 7 and still feels like an early beta.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
"Accidentally installing the OS." Now there's a computer problem that nobody would've predicted!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
... when you click-through the sixteen page license agreement presented to you in 3 pt font in dark grey text on light grey background, some three years ago when you installed Win7. Right there on page fourteen, paragraph 4, sub paragraph 2, it said you agreed that the licensee (that's you) permits unscheduled, unannounced, update to the computer by the vendor, at vendor's sole discretion, with no recourse.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
A few....
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technol...
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/windo...
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Sorry, you're mistaken. Read the comments on Ars Technica for the previous article: once the Windows 10 update was accidentally downloaded, it couldn't be stopped, only rescheduled. Some users had to go through the full update and then do the full regression back to Windows 7.
No the problem here is that this OS vendor thinks it's OK to force users to download gigabytes against their will.
Many users reported that they had no way to interrupt the installation, only to reschedule it or hard reboot.
Not true, I actually watched it automatically download and then attempt to install itself with no user interaction.
Ads in the Start menu, Telemetry, possible hardware incompatibilities?
My coworker left automatic updates on her computer (Windows 7 Professional). She left for the weekend Friday. Came back Monday and Windows 10 was installed.
I have also read some comments on Ars Technica's article that some users could not find any way to interrupt the installation, only hard reboot, or wait for the full installation to finish and then regress back to 7.
Yep. That's where I was. I simply let it go and then tested my apps. Everything seems to still work but there wasn't a clean way to prevent the upgrade. I'm still checking some of the third tier apps I use (don't run very often but want to check) and can just reinstall Windows 7 if I find something horribly bad (yes, I have regular backups as well).
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Because if you were the customer, MS would be charging you for the privilege of purchasing their product.
You are the product, and MS is trying to downgrade functional Win 7 machines (general-purpose computers that run software at the user's discretion and transmit telemetry only when the user misconfigures them) into telemetry-gathering nodes on something that is becoming increasingly-indistinguishable from what we used to call a botnet.
Microsoft now has Windows 7 users shutting off auto updates to stop this. They are getting the unintended consequences that any rational person should have seen coming a mile away. This is not going to go well for MS, and it would not surprise me if it ended up in court. They are basically turning the most used OS on the planet into an advertising platform with an app store built in. They were making a ton of money on the paid-for versions like 7, so I don't know why they let the bean counters talk them into switching revenue streams. If bundling IE got them in trouble with courts, there has to be a class action lawsuit in here somewhere, regardless of what is in the EULA.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
By the time a case makes it to court, the damage is done. Your computer is "upgraded", Windows telemetry knows everything that is on your machine, and all your secrets are public. Not to mention, that half of your software no longer works, because of compatibility issues.
It gets harder and harder for me to understand why so many people stay on Microsoft operating systems.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
"Shedding legacy" if fine. If that were all there were to it, MS could offer Win7 users an OPTIONAL update, which turns off various legacy functions that have exploits associated with them.
That is not the case here. MS is pushing their telemetry. In effect, they want your machine to become a part of their cloud. That is unacceptable.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
NOW can we put the "Bill as Borg" icon back for Microsoft, Dice?
Oh and, I hope you don't having anything Microsoft deems as "unacceptable" such as "pirated" software. ;-)
Not to worry MS will just Uninstall your apps. I mean you did read the eula right?
http://saveie6.com/
I actually have an idea about this. This is purely opinion, but I think it's all about Microsoft's App store.
Apple is making buckets of money from their App store. Microsoft sees this, concludes it is unacceptable, and wants to get that money for itself, or at least as much of it as possible.
Now, Windows 8 and 8.1 had the App store, but 8 - while perhaps not a marketing disaster like Vista - still doesn't sit well with people. Windows 7 is well-liked, but there's no App store. Therefore: Upgrade everyone to Windows 10 for free, and wait for money to start rolling in via app purchases, in-menu advertisements, and other benefits. Maybe they can even sell telemetry data to marketing firms, depending on how much they wash it and how close they want to toe a legal line about turning over such information to third parties.
I've yet to hear any better explanation.
That is still unacceptable behavior. My workplace is in an area where Verizon has refused to upgrade the phone lines and Time Warner doesn't cover large chunks of each block. So most businesses are on crappy 1.0-1.5 Mbps DSL connections, with the fastest possible being just 3 Mbps. Combine that with each business having 3-10 computers and this automatic multi-gigabyte download behavior is completely unacceptable. Especially for the couple businesses who've resorted to cellular LTE Internet with extremely low data caps to try to get decent speed.
Right, somebody broke into our locked office building just to maliciously update our OSes? It happened on her computer because her updates were set to "Install updated automatically (recommended)". Perhaps your settings are different. But lots of users have reported Windows 10 installing without any user interaction whatsoever.
Changing the EULA after the fact for something material like this should make the EULA null and void in its entirety.
But much like Sony, this is enough reason for me to never use MS products again, were I still using any.
Captcha: takers
speaks for itself
I only use my paid copy of Windows 7 on weekends for gaming. Regardless of what you think I deserve I feel entitled to voice my discontent when the vendor is acting as if he owns my machine. If you want to promote people moving off Windows entirely It might eventually happen, but I don't think that you are helping.
No, you can't. Windows bypasses its hosts file when contacting Microsoft domains hardcoded into the OS. You have to block the domains from the router (or maybe a third-party firewall would do the trick).
> It'll merely be downloaded to your machine
Yup - it did this to me...
On a machine that connects to the internet via a 3G dongle...
With a 500MB/month data plan...
Downloading both win8.1 and 10.0 (without asking) cost us in the region of 150 GBP.
Because it is wrong?
According to you. If you don't like it, don't buy from that business. If you do buy from that business, you're just an enabler.
Because it is unethical?
According to you. And so what? Why does this matter?
Because it is a poor business decision?
Wrong. It's a good business decision. Do you see Microsoft's profits disappearing? I don't. People keep buying from them. So their strategy seems to be working, therefore it's a good thing for them to do.
If your auto dealer installed a camera in your car to snoop on you, an when you complain they say "we updated the EULA", are you going to just accept it?
It is not acceptable to do that in other industries. Why give Microsoft a pass?
Removing the telemetry in Windows 7 and 8.1 is possible if you know what you're doing (unlike Windows 10, at least so far). See here: https://gist.github.com/xvital...
Except Microsoft has already installed the windows 10 update without user input at least once. It could happen again any time.
http://arstechnica.com/informa...
"over the last couple of days, the situation seems to have become a little more aggressive. We've received a number of reports that people's systems are not merely downloading the installer but actually starting it up. Our own testing shows that, yes, the optional update is getting chosen by default, and that's not supposed to happen to optional updates."
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If your auto dealer installed a camera in your car to snoop on you, an when you complain they say "we updated the EULA", are you going to just accept it?
It is not acceptable to do that in other industries. Why give Microsoft a pass?
GM customers seemed happy to keep doing business with GM after they did just that (well, audio, not video) for OnStar - there were several incidents, from police snooping to bored operators.
I'm OK with laws to enforce privacy, but it's a democracy and if most people don't care, well, we get the government we deserve. In the meantime, consumers also have a duty to stop doing business with assholes. Legal or not, when a company makes an asshole move like this, and you decide to keep doing business with them, well, decisions have consequences.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I don't see MS doing this for the sake of users, I see them doing it because they think this will provide greater revenue streams. There is not other explanation for them pushing a change to 10 so aggressively. They need as many eyes on the app store as possible, or it isn't going to pan out.
Your instincts from a year ago were more on target.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
Because it is wrong?
According to you. If you don't like it, don't buy from that business. If you do buy from that business, you're just an enabler.
Because it is unethical?
According to you. And so what? Why does this matter?
Because it is a poor business decision?
Wrong. It's a good business decision. Do you see Microsoft's profits disappearing? I don't. People keep buying from them. So their strategy seems to be working, therefore it's a good thing for them to do.
According to everyone. It's wrong and unethical if you override someone else's will to do yours on something you don't own. The customer bought the computer and the OS. Overriding their will with their computer isn't an opinion, it's just flat-out wrong.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
First rule in IT: Never put 100% stock in what users tell you. Always test for yourself.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Microsoft now has Windows 7 users shutting off auto updates to stop this.
I've had to shut off auto-updates for a very long time. My graduate students are VERY unhappy when they start a week-long model run and a few days later the computer has rebooted to install a needless update.
Windows 10, as I understand it, makes this problem worse.
I don't know what is in the mind of the Microsoft people. They finally get an OS that is stable enough it can run for a week without needing to be rebooted (or rebooting on its own) and they decide you have to reboot anyway.
Microsoft now has Windows 7 users shutting off auto updates to stop this.
I've had to shut off auto-updates for a very long time. My graduate students are VERY unhappy when they start a week-long model run and a few days later the computer has rebooted to install a needless update.
Windows 10, as I understand it, makes this problem worse.
I don't know what is in the mind of the Microsoft people. They finally get an OS that is stable enough it can run for a week without needing to be rebooted (or rebooting on its own) and they decide you have to reboot anyway.
You should learn how to make a local policy which you can push to all machines. No business or school should be blindly using the automatic update schedule from Microsoft. Create your own so you don't have unnecessary loss of productivity and downtime. You can't blame Microsoft for this. They only want computers more secure.
None [of my Win 7 PCs] have forced it on to me. I just have to click decline every week or so
So the default is the upgrade and you must decline repeatedly to avoid it? And you find that perfectly acceptable ? It is a pity that in being modded down as Troll (as you will be) you will slide down out of sight of many readers. It is a pity because to see an attitude like yours is itself an education in the strangeness of human nature. Unless of course you are trying to be funny.
You can also download a blocker from Microsoft.
Afraid not, a traffic analysis of Windows 10 shows that not only is it sending data when you turn on your cam, or talk on your mike, but apparently they left the keylogger on from the beta so you might as well have somebody from MSFT standing behind you with a camera and notepad. Care to try again AC?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I've never understood the boot time argument in the post-Windows Vista world. You do that, what, once a day, maybe? For most people that don't shut down or reboot unnecessarily, it's once a week or so. You just saved 30 seconds out of a week. Who gives a shit?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
MS tried to stick to a model (buy/own a product) that was antiquated by Google's model (ad supported). Google instead offers everything at no charge while making money off the ads they push in your face. Users have embraced this model (even if most claim they hate it). For that reason MS is changing it's offering by monetizing through ads + a cut of app sales. Some will argue that MS is late to the game but I believe they resisted the change because they though people would go back to owning software.
MS is in the process of killing themselves because they are unable to understand Google is a search engine and Windows is an operating system.
So at the end of the day these changes are the result of what users want (not us the techies).
Wrong, nobody wants it.