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Microsoft No Longer Allows Admins To Block Windows Store Access In Windows 10 Pro (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the windows-woes dept.

If you're an administrator, you will no longer be able to block Windows 10 Pro users on your watch from accessing the Windows Store. Mary Jo Foley reports for ZDNet: Up until a month ago, admins could use Group Policy to shut off employees' access to Windows Store if they were running Windows 10 Pro. Controlling this access is a requirement for some businesses. But last month, Microsoft changed that option, claiming that Store access was required for all versions of Windows 10 except Enterprise and Education "by design." Admins still can use AppLocker or Group Policy to block access to the Windows Store if their employees (or students) are running Enterprise or Education.

6 of 407 comments (clear)

  1. God by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This company SUCKS.

  2. Par for the course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You don't own your computer. redmond does.

    1. Re:Par for the course by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is increasingly apparent. My computer constantly bugs me about installing something I don't want, and I keep hearing stories of people whose computers decide to update anyway without their explicit permission, and of people who try to revert after the upgrade but have problems doing so. I paid for Windows 8. I don't really care for it, I preferred the last version, I liked the Start menu is much more useful than whatever the hell I've got now is called, but that's what I've got on my machine, and if it is really my machine, than I get the choice to do what I want, how I want, when I want, and if I want. Microsoft it seems does not appear to agree with that and can't take no for an answer. I don't care if Windows 10 is the best thing ever; it's my property and my choice.

      I've for years been one of those uncommon people who has had experience and done work on Mac and Linux systems but still preferred Windows. Next computer I get, and I'll likely be in that market soon, I do not think I will get a Windows machine. This is too much humbug, and I don't like where Microsoft is taking things. If this story is accurate, this is more of Microsoft trying to control what should be under your sole command and ownership, and that's not acceptable.

  3. Re:I really liked Windows 7 by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    MS realized that corp america will be stuck with them for still quite a while. home users user whatever comes installed; they mostly are just sheep and do what they are told. we are a tiny tiny exception. and beyond that, mac people are their own strange kind that will never consider using windows (most hate linux, too).

    MS can do whatever it wants and it will still have business' loyalty.

    the key was entrenching Word format and getting it so complicated that it simply cannot be made interoperable with free alternatives.

    when all your docs are locked to MS formats, you know the result. you have no choice anymore.

    MS stopped trying to get us to CHOOSE windows. they now have decided to say 'fuck it' and just force whatever they want on people and with win10, they remove all your choices. little by little, the frog is slowly cooked and users are having all their choices taken away, for rejecting updates and for setting policies on their own.

    you and I will reject windows, but again, we are not big enough ($$) to even register on the pocket-change o-meter that MS has. MS is kept alive by business licenses and the home stuff is just to keep you 'trained' on using windows so that business will continue to think that their userbase needs to continue with that same old os.

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  4. Re:I am guessing by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's probably technical reasons for this

    No, there isn't.

    additional revenue.

    The *ONLY* reason it's being done.

  5. Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,....... by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " Maybe I really will end up a Mac guy after all, or something?"

    Ok. Since the presence of the 'forced' app store on Windows 10 offended you so much that you are considering switching to Mac.

    What is the Apple supported way to remove the App Store in OSX El Capitan?

    The app store in OSX is, if anything even more integrated than the App Store in Windows is, as it delivers OS updates as well. I look around a bit and found a few articles from circa 2011 when they first introduced it in 10.6. and even back then the removal instructions amounted to hacks where "you can do a-b-c to remove it but its not supported by apple at all". And that was several releases ago now.

    So here we have a case of Microsoft doing a thing that everyone has seemingly already accepted from Apple years ago... but hate Microsoft doing it so much that they threaten to switch to Apple over it... so...um... yeah.