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

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.

Comments

God

[Anonymous Coward]

This company SUCKS.

Re: God

[bill_mcgonigle]

Microsoft is starting to become impressively dynamic. Before it was always the implicit exercise of power - now they're in your face about it and are being honest that you probably don't know what you're doing anyway.

Once Windows 10 is entirely pervasive then companies can just outsource their whole IT infrastructure administration to Redmond. Search your feelings - you know this to be true.

re: God

[shione]

Guide to removing windows 10 app store using Powershell:
Open powershell under admin rights then type in the following commands

Remove windows 10 app store from current account:
Get-AppxPackage *windowsstore* | Remove-AppxPackage

Remove windows 10 app store from all other accounts:
Get-appxpackage -allusers *windowsstore* | Remove-AppxPackage

Remove windows 10 app store from the provisioned apps so new accounts won't be infested with that shit either:
Get-appxprovisionedpackage –online | where-object {$_.packagename –like "*windowsstore*"} | remove-appxprovisionedpackage –online

Par for the course

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't own your computer. redmond does.

Re:Par for the course

[ChromeAeonium]

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.

Re:Par for the course

[donaldm]

You don't own your computer. redmond does.

I am fairly sure that this type of thing is really going to annoy business managers since if you want to have a server updated you have to go through Q&A on all potential updates with a change request being raised and approved. This is nothing unusual in many business and any system admin who allows updates to be installed on a machine without written permission is likely to be shown the door.

Obviously this is different for an employees computer, however some firms do want some control over what is installed and updated on a PC that is owned by the firm. Just trusting Microsoft to do the right thing is for some companies risky.

Re:Par for the course

[youngone]

This also won't apply to you, because TFA is about blocking access to the App Store using Group Policies, which means a AD Domain connected device, not your home PC.

Everything else you wrote I entirely agree with, if I didn't use Photoshop and Lightroom so much I'd install Linuxmint on my main desktop right now.

Re:Par for the course

[Harlequin80]

Depending on what you need it to do I have Photoshop CS2 working perfectly under wine on Linux Mint. I haven't tried Lightroom though

Re:Par for the course

[Anonymous Coward]

CS2 is worthless if you have a newer camera and shoot RAW. Limiting access to new cameras to newer versions of Adobe Camera RAW ensures you're forced onto the new version if you want to keep shooting RAW in the Adobe ecosystem. The workaround of converting to DNG makes it slow and painful enough to work with their products that it's only useful if you have a small number of files and the limitations of this approach don't bother you.

Re:Par for the course

[epyT-R]

Yeah a really bad and broken version of what was there in windows xp and 7..

Re:Par for the course

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Windows 10 is a bug improvement.

That's how I read it. I should finally go to bed. Or maybe not...

Re:Par for the course

[inode_buddha]

" 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."

I switched to linux full-time in 1997 (same year I started hanging out here) and this is the EXACT reason why. Their whole business model and philosophy just pissed me off no end when it shows in their products and marketplace behavior. Still going strong with slackware on the desktop, every day.

Re:Par for the course

[arth1]

This also won't apply to you, because TFA is about blocking access to the App Store using Group Policies, which means a AD Domain connected device, not your home PC.

Unless you have a Windows Home Server, a Samba 4 server, or other active domain controller at home, of course.

Re:Par for the course

[SeaFox]

Thanks for the info. Like the (great) grandparent poster I'm also in a position where I will be moving away from Windows for my next machine, but I was in the conundrum of 1) I like building my own computers vs. 2) I want to be able to keep using Photoshop.

Was looking I was going to have to just get a Mac and give up the home-built hobby, but this gives me hope.

Re:Par for the course

[Harlequin80]

Depending on how much you use photoshop you may find dual booting is the way to go. I have been using Mint as my primary OS for about 4 years now and love it. However there are still a number of games that are windows only. Rather than fight with it I dual boot into windows, play my game and boot out again. The reason why I boot back out to mint though is I prefer the desktop environment, the file manager, natural support for NFS, multidesktops and the easy scripting capabilities.

I get away using Libre Office for word processing and I work full time in Mint primarily in Word & PDF documents.

Re:Par for the course

[Anonymous Coward]

Next computer I get, and I'll likely be in that market soon, I do not think I will get a Windows machine.

Well, unless you want a mac, you're most likely going to end up buying a Windows machine even if you plan on overwriting the OS.

Re:Par for the course

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is a bug improvement.

That's how I read it. I should finally go to bed. Or maybe not...

No, you're quite right, but only a bug improvment over Win8.x...
I had the misfortune to have to look at someone's Win10 laptop a couple of days ago, eventually, out of frustration with the damn thing switching to its sub-tellytubby touchy-feely interface at the drop of a hat, had to install classic shell for my own convenience. So, fixed the main 'why is the laptop so slow' problem (two AV scanners having a bit of a 'contention' issue, yet machine infested with a trojan and fck.tons of adware/spyware), give the machine back to it's keepers. A couple of days later (they only use the laptop offline for keeping a sports club's non-financial 'accounts') I get a phone call from them thanking me for fixing the start menu problem as well.. (Their other laptop is a Win7 system).

Owning a Win10 device is like owning a cat who is playing the 'second home game',you might think you're the 'primary' owner, you get to feed it, talk to it, play with it, etc., but its wee heart and soul truly belongs to Microsoft...
My opinion, anyway.

Re:Par for the course

[Anonymous Coward]

Or putty.exe in your Downloads directory.

Keep infantalising your users, Microsoft. No way anyone would ever want to download something then run it by hitting the windows key and typing the name of it, is there?

Re:Par for the course

[Anonymous Coward]

The search functionality has been broken since Win7. It is just silly, that the explorer can not find a text file with given string. Sometimes it works, but since the search is so unreliable, it can not be trusted.

Re:Par for the course

[Zontar The Mindless]

It took me a little longer, but I, too, realised that I thought *I* and not $company should be the one in control of my machines. That was in 2005. Haven't regretted it yet.

Re: Par for the course

[Anonymous Coward]

Agent Ransack for the win!!

Re:Par for the course

[stealth_finger]

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.

Win 10 is almost worth it just to get the start menu back.

Re:Par for the course

[stealth_finger]

On a fresh install on my laptop, I had only installed 2 3rd party apps. The search feature couldn't find either of them, even though they showed up in the menu. This is a similar, yet different bug to the limitation mentioned above. After days of trying various workarounds, including deleting the user account and creating a new one, the only "fix" was to reinstall the OS from scratch. Still don't know why.

I got two laptops with win 10, one is perfectly fine but the other one keeps saying about how the built in administrator account cant open this app for pretty much everything apart from 3rd party apps. I've tried adding new accounts, local accounts but it always says it. It's probably goping to need a fresh install but I just can't be bothered even looking up how let alone doing it. VLC works and that's pretty much all it does anyway.

Re:Par for the course

[Trax3001BBS]

You don't own your computer. redmond does.

I can name the date we lost control, April 4th, 2015. The update KB3035583 was listed as only to make converting to Win10 easier, more of a description has been added to it since

For seven days my HOSTS file blocked a 600K file collected over a 24 hour time from being to sent to a third party. Every malware protection on the market let it pass.

The captured material which in my case starts:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera15\28.0.1750.48\osmesa.dll 2,950.00 KB 4/3/2015 4:16:32 PM
C:\Windows\Temp\CProgram Files (x86)Opera15\installing\osmesa.dll 2,950.00 KB 4/3/2015 4:16:32 PM

Goes on for 4000 more lines ending in

C:\Users\Tone\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\4msw7c4t.default\thumbnails\cdd6f9ceb15e02a0a36b6164ce79484e.png 2.00 KB 4/4/2015 11:48:49 PM
FFFFF

Just today in the event viewer I found error entries saying GWX can't negotiate it's action (I've long ago deleted the X:windows/GWX directory).

When I found it, it had three more config.cfg files so wasn't done, it was the file responsible for installing the icon that let one download and installed Win10 for one; and viewing the GWX errors in the event viewer shows it's not done.

GWX is a pet peeve of mine. While I warned of GWX, the question I was always asked was how come I was the only person in the world to have this so called collected file, and the thread pretty much over, hey I tried. I was regulated to /.'s journal for some badly written attempts.

Because of it none saw why a hosts file is ones main defense from malware and the more one builds on it (hosts file) the better it becomes; and their loss.

Re:Par for the course

[PixetaledPikachu]

My Pentax camera shoots natively on DNG. Ha!

Re:Par for the course

[PixetaledPikachu]

Next computer I get, and I'll likely be in that market soon, I do not think I will get a Windows machine.

Well, unless you want a mac, you're most likely going to end up buying a Windows machine even if you plan on overwriting the OS.

I thought /.ers build their own computer. Even if it's a notebook, there's plenty of choice. My Vostro came with Ubuntu

Re:Par for the course

[donaldm]

This also won't apply to you, because TFA is about blocking access to the App Store using Group Policies, which means a AD Domain connected device, not your home PC.

Everything else you wrote I entirely agree with, if I didn't use Photoshop and Lightroom so much I'd install Linuxmint on my main desktop right now.

You do know there are Linux equivalents to Photoshop and Lightroom. Sure they may not be 100% equivalent but they are functionally close. Not only that but they are free and are maintained.

Of course if you absolute must have Photoshop and Lightroom and don't mind the cost then you can run them under Wine or even in a virtual machine.

Re:Par for the course

[donaldm]

Of course, in the enterprise, neither OS X nor Linux can be managed anywhere near as effectively as Windows.

I beg to differ. It is incredibly easy to customise Linux repositories for use in an enterprise environment. Basically it takes only a few hours (depends on your network) to initially synchronise with a master repository from first principles, then all you need to do is to provide the appropriate customised repository or repositories (takes a few minutes) with of course the appropriate change requests (that can take some time) and you are good to go.

The above works with Linux in the machine room and Linux for the desktop. Maintenance for such a setup normally takes less than one hour a week.

Re:Par for the course

[Lennie]

Well, Apple is busy doing the same thing.

So that leaves only one of those three choices.

Re:Par for the course

[pla]

Because of it none saw why a hosts file is ones main defense from malware and the more one builds on it (hosts file) the better it becomes; and their loss.

Microsoft (and malware authors) can - and have - simply rolled their own DNS clients to get around hosts-based blocking.

If you trust any solution running on the same machine as the malware itself (whether that means a cryptolocker or GWX), you will eventually lose.

Re:Par for the course

[cmiller173]

eh? My next machine is likely going to be a System76 with Linux pre-installed. You can also get some models of Dell computers with Linux pre-installed.

Re:Par for the course

[EndlessNameless]

I beg to differ.

You differ because you are talking about two entirely different things. Management in enterprise includes policing the IT staff, not just deploying a system and keeping it up to date.

Managing enterprise assets requires a simple means of prohibiting local administrators from doing bad things just to make their lives easier. Or at least being able to monitor for such changes, if you cannot prevent them outright.

Active Directory and Group Policy are free, simple, and sufficient for most cases.

Re:Par for the course

[graphius]

I was in that boat when win8 rolled out. Since I use Photoshop and Lightroom a lot, I went for a Mac. I needed a new laptop anyway, so I bought a Macbook Pro.
No regrets...
Later I upgraded my desktop and went Hackintosh. A bit more work, but it runs the programs I want and isn't Windows.

Re:Par for the course

[just_another_sean]

Also a slack user. Started with it in the late 90's, switched to Red Hat for a while because that's what the company I worked for at the time used. When Red Hat went commercial I tried a few others before settling on Debian. Still used Red Hat at work so it was nice to get used to More Than One Way of Doing It.

When systemd came along I switched back to Slackware and have been giving OpenBSD a try on smaller hobby projects.

I recently installed slackware for a friend as a personal firewall and this helped a lot... Still not just an option on install but it was easy to follow and left with me with a lean, mean machine.

http://www.slackware.com/~vbat...

Re:Par for the course

[Cederic]

I configure my own, I pay someone that does this multiple times a day to build it.

I know I can, but I can also do my own hoovering, weed my own garden and cut my own hair. That doesn't mean I have to.

Re:Par for the course

[SeaFox]

Already got a Mac laptop. Have they developed a way to install OSX maintenance releases easily on a Hackintosh yet? Last time I checked it sounded like your system was whatever you built and you had to start over again if you wanted to update the OS.

Re:Par for the course

[Qzukk]

Enough of Microsoft's users need that handholding to not run the word.exe that some website's malware dropper dropped in their Downloads folder.

Re:Par for the course

[ronabop]

You own your computer, in the case of Windows, what you *don't* own is the operating system, that's licensed.

Re:Par for the course

[RockDoctor]

so it was nice to get used to More Than One Way of Doing It.

Do you hear that sound? It's the sound of a thousand sales executives and marketing PHBs slashing their wrists in despair.

It's a start.

Re:Par for the course

[armanox]

Not just putty - but any .exe in your Downloads folder (I haven't tried .exe in any user folder, but that is my suspicion.

Re:Par for the course

[armanox]

Is it the error where even explicitly running something as Administrator it says you need to be an admin to run this? I saw that once on Windows 7 - the permissions for Administrators was corrupt on both C:\ (yes, the root) and on the system registry, and I think there was a third part to it that I am forgetting. Ultimately, that system was wiped and reinstalled because it was faster to do that and restore data from backup then to figure out the problem.

Re:Par for the course

[graphius]

I did an update from Yosemite to El Captain, but hit some other unrelated issues, so decided to do a complete clean install. We will see what happens with the next release

Re: Par for the course

[Zontar The Mindless]

You typed that on a Windows machine, did you?

Re: Par for the course

[rajafarian]

Yep. I can't believe I had to resort to a third-party utility to just search for a file! WTFF

I think a related MS-Evil feature is that deleting Cookies, Temporary Internet Files from Internet Options still leaves hundreds of cookies and files. I don't get it. Why? I have to log on with a separate account on that machine to delete the folders.

Re:Par for the course

[jez9999]

Out of interest do you develop any .NET stuff for a living, or have need of Visual Studio, IIS, or SQL Server? If so, how do you fulfil that requirement in Linux?

Re:Par for the course

[jez9999]

Out of interest do you develop any .NET stuff for a living, or have need of Visual Studio, IIS, or SQL Server? And if so, how do you fulfil that requirement in Linux?

Re:Par for the course

[jez9999]

Out of interest, do you develop any .NET stuff for a living, or have need of Visual Studio, IIS, or SQL Server? If so, how do you fulfil that requirement in Linux?

Re:Par for the course

[jez9999]

You don't get the start menu back. You get a god-awful replacement which is completely different (the clue's in the subtle change in terminology from Win7's "All Programs" to Win10's "All Apps").

It is flush with Metro tiles which are fugly and they *move* all the time which is really distracting. But the worst thing is, it behaves differently. You can't organize your programs anymore into folders and links based on the file system like you could with the old start menu. No, it's just a big list of "apps" now which don't correspond to the file system at all.

Re:Par for the course

[inode_buddha]

I don't do any of that because I'm not in IT at all, I'm in manufacturing, or whats left of it. Having said that, I have done some programming (a long time ago) in VB. I try to stick with straight c and bash scripting for my own stuff.

At work, windows is an absolute requirement; Much proprietary and expensive production software requires it. Our customers all supply their files in these formats. Our in-house engineering requires it. I was certified for SolidWorks and AutoCad 2013, and also MasterCam. Programming CNC code written by hand, but all you need for that is a text editor. Nowdays I don't do much of any of that either, I'm more old-school hands on.

So, even tho I'm a linux guy, I'm pretty realistic about it -- sometimes the windows software actually *is* better, like it or not. OTOH I won't allow a windows box to go online, full stop -- the work machines are *all* airgapped, and the USB ports full of superglue. One workstation is easily $8,000 worth of software, the company will *not* be happy if it gets bunged by some malware.

Re: Par for the course

[EndlessNameless]

First of all, those modules are part of Windows Server, not the desktop operating systems.

Second, almost every large company buys operating systems. Even Linux. At a minimum, there are support contracts

With Red Hat, they will actually support running LDAP for authentication. You'd still need a third party application to enforce host configuration---Puppet, Chef, whatever you like.

And if you want to argue that you can admin Linux without enterprise support and paid management applications, then you're going to be paying twice as much for skilled admins---so it's gonna cost you one way or another.

Or goodness...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft, can you please stop f**king up? You had one job.

Re:Or goodness...

[Noxal]

What "one job" did Microsoft have? 'Cuz I'm pretty sure they do more than one thing.

Re:Or goodness...

[Grishnakh]

WTF are you talking about? MS is doing great, they're not fucking up at all. Their job is to make more profit, and that's what they're doing. If that involves screwing over their customers, then so be it. Their customers aren't going to jump ship, so Microsoft is correct, and has every right to fuck them over to the maximum extent allowable by the law. If you don't like it, then stop doing business with them.

Re:Or goodness...

[Trax3001BBS]

Microsoft, can you please stop f**king up? You had one job.

You can see their fall back business when the Windows OS declines right?

They have been setting themselves up for it many years and more than likely become major patent trolls.

Remember they have the patent on the smiliey face; you yourself can end up owing over a post to your sweetie.

" allow a user to adopt an arbitrary image as an emoticon, which can then be represented by a character sequence in real-time communication." In other words, Microsoft now owns the idea of emoticons." http://how-toadopt.blogspot.co...

They got the patent, this even though it had been caught (earlier by a volunteer who assisted the patent company for just this thing) as weasel words for prior art.

Cell phones? They get $5:00 (US) for every one sold, by refusing incenses could intimidate other avenues of income.

No matter their life boat, they are and will constantly prove themselves as "we are evil".

Were stuck with them meddling in every facet of your life.

Re:Or goodness...

[Trax3001BBS]

Microsoft, can you please stop f**king up? You had one job.

Were stuck with them meddling in every facet of your life.

One area now is the Windows OS stylus, costing almost $100. Other approaches they would have to pay royalties.

An Android stylus can be made by anyone using a damp felt pen with a copper wire running close to it's tip to an area your finger would be.

(I have MS anger issues...KDE, Mint and a 3TB HD formatted with GPT till I noticed who retains it's license just to insure even though Win10 is so bad they will destroy your computer rather than allow you to find better).

This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Opportunist]

This time, I can actually believe it.

There is a reason now to switch.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[TheGratefulNet]

one word, though:

MSoffice

that, alone, keeps corp america locked to windows.

pretty much that.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[houghi]

I would narrow that down to Excel.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Office ... 365

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[PCM2]

I would narrow that down to PowerPoint.

FTFY.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[spitzak]

I don't think businesses that want a locked down desktop allow people to plug in random scanners and printers

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[cheater512]

Stop living in the 90's.

These days there is a vastly higher chance that 99% of consumer gear 'just works' on Linux without stuffing around with drivers.

Only with Windows can you take a new computer, clean install the OS and have not a single peripherals working out of the box.
Even basic stuff like Ethernet will often not work.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

one word, though:

MSoffice

Until they hear about Wine or Crossover. MS Office seems to have high compatibility ratings on Crossover.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Snotnose]

It's been maybe 4 years now since I've put Linux on a machine. Does audio, specifically mp3, just work out of the box?

I'm good at Unix, using it since '82 or so, was a sysadmin for Sun systems for maybe 3 years in the early 90s, used Linux since '94, have written Linux device drivers, yadda yadda yadda. It always pissed me off I had to jump through so many hoops just to get audio to work.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[donaldm]

>MSoffice

That, and the fact that I can buy cheap peripherals (scanners, printers, etc) in any store and there's a 90% or better chance that it'll work when I plug it into a Windows box. Depending on the peripheral, that rate is WAY lower on Linux.

Actually depending on the company buying so called cheap peripherals is a sure way a System Admin could loose their job. Any decent System manager has to not only look at the cost for said peripheral but present a case for it to be purchased and that means everything associated with the particular peripheral including consumables. Whatever you do with something you own is your business.

As for Linux the 1990's called and want's it's FUD back. I have worked in the enterprise and it use to annoy the managers when I who used that Communistic based Linux operating system had no problem at all connecting to and using all peripherals while they (the managers) had plenty of issues. What was even more annoying for some was the fact that I had no problems with reading and writing Microsoft Office documents by just using LibreOffice.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Dadoo]

I can buy cheap peripherals (scanners, printers, etc) in any store and there's a 90% or better chance that it'll work when I plug it into a Windows box. Depending on the peripheral, that rate is WAY lower on Linux.

Again? Really? You guys need to have a nice cup of STFU. Linux hasn't had trouble with peripherals for a long time. On the other hand, I sure wish the Windows partition on my new box would recognize my USB mouse, reliably.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Harlequin80]

Yes it does. If you were to try Linux Mint MP3s will play out of the box, on the assumption you download the international version. Due to legal issues the USA version has mp3 playback removed in the default install, but can be added with 3 clicks after install. The part that is removed is the codec to allow MP3 playback.

At first boot it will be using the opensource drivers for your video card but a box will pop up saying "proprietary drivers are available for some of your hardware" it will list all of them and ask you if you want to install them or not. Hit yes and your machine will install the nVidia / amd drivers and reboot once. From there you are done. I haven't run into any media that won't play on a default install, it comes with LibreOffice which will do 99% of what people use MSOffice for, firefox, DVD burning software, audio recording software and image editing software.

There is always the possibility that you may have an edge case with your hardware that may cause you issues. However I haven't run into any other those in the past 5 years. I am running Mint on Dell latitudes, E6420 i7-2640m, NVS 4200m graphics, as their primary O/S, as well as multiple AMD processor (x2, x4 & x6 AM3 machines) on gigabyte boards with Nvidia graphics. I also have 3 Atom based machines with a mixture of Nvidia Ion and AMD Radeon cards that run without any hitch, including wireless, and ethernet. These are Shuttle XS35 machines and an ASUS EEbox.

All of these machines boot off the live cds with all hardware working. No hacks, grub parameters, hacking, compiling of drivers, downloading of anything weird, touching terminal or anything else required.

I have also installed mint on my MIL's crappy HP laptop which is an AMD Radeon and it worked perfectly. I can't remember any more of its specs though.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Harlequin80]

That just isn't true. I like gigabyte motherboards just because and every single one of those works out of the box on linux mint. Of those the vast majority won't work without a driver disk on windows 7 or 8. I only have 1 win10 install and it did work out of the box.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

No.... You are misinformed. Linux will work on a helluva lot more than any Winblows kernel will. And... it'll run faster and leaner.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you just buy shitty gear, even Windows 7 would recognize all my peripherals without any problems. Of course, I didn't buy no pre-built PCs from the store, I picked all my components one at a time.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[dbIII]

The web should have killed that piece of shit slideshow crap dead yet it still lives and spreads.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[i.r.id10t]

For the little that I need to do with it Office 365 seems to work great on my Mint desktop wtih the Chromium browser.... as usual, your experience may vary

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[mysidia]

Businesses usually have a lot of time and money tied up in their custom internal applications developed in-house.

Which are almost always web-based applications.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[cavreader]

Sure there are a lot of web-based applications but they usually run on top of a database, middle tier components, and services that depend on the OS. Internal web-based applications are also responsible for the slow adoption of alternative browsers. Companies designate a standard browser and all the intranet applications are developed against that one browser.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[dysmal]

Those who have no point, use PowerPoint.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

I would narrow that down to Excel.

Is that the same Excel that can read UTF8-encoded CSV files, no problems, but can only write CSV files using the current codepage? Every time one of our users complains about Excel fucking up scientific symbols and international characters in their CSV files I point them back at the big poster on our wall that says to install LibreOffice/OpenOffice instead.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[dysmal]

...Because Office 365 hasn't colossally fucked ANY organization recently!!!

https://support.microsoft.com/...

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[KlomDark]

That did used to be the case. That's one thing that made Linux suck back in the day.

But these days, I've got no problems getting any of my stuff to work. Including a couple things that don't work on Windows anymore. I've got an old legal-paper size HP scanner, there haven't been Windows drivers for it since (!!!) Windows 2000. Works just fine on Linux Mint, I was amazed. Also an old thing that lets you use an SD card as an external drive via a USB cable, hasn't worked since around Windows Vista, also works just fine on Mint. An older 8-core 64 bit Xeon box (Dell Precision 690) that I had no driver issues with.

It's really gotten better. I'm sure the Mac guys will vehemently disagree, but I'd say the latest version of Linux Mint is better than anything from Apple or Microsoft.

Try it again!

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Harlequin80]

I don't know the details as to why. There are just two versions in the download area - US / Japan & rest of the world.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[epyT-R]

well, yeah, except that powerpoint:

1. saves self contained presentations that will run on anything that can run powerpoint. This is a big deal when it comes to media.
2. local storage. presenters don't want to look bad if half the presentation fails because of some scripting error on a remote host somewhere
3. has hardware/gpu acceleration for animations and vector art. sure, web 2.0 does a lot of this too, but it's at the mercy of the browser, revision, and the os it's running on, and each company has different network policies. The only time I've seen acceleration fail on powerpoint is with those worse than useless usb video adapters which lack the proper acceleration.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Harlequin80]

What about hybrid sleep (or any kind of sleep/hibernate) without driver crashing?

Sleep / Hibernate works fine on my dells and my primary desktop. I never use it on my other machines so I can't comment. That said sleep / hibernate has always been a hit and miss for me irrespective of OS

Why do I have to manually start apps with primus if I want to run under discrete graphics?

Sorry I'd forgotten about this one. Also I am not up to date on its status as I don't have any optimus based laptops any more. I don't know if this is still the case but this was one of the only major driver issues that existed for linux and it is totally out of their control. Nvidia hadn't / still hasn't released support for optimus on linux and so a workaround of having the OS use with low power graphics all the time and using primus to drive a specific program to run through the nVidia card. Not ideal I will give you that.

Hell, why does everything related to portable power management suck so much compared to major end user platforms (windows, osx)?

I'm not seeing any major differences..... I get about the same battery life windows or linux on my dell.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[serbanp]

yes, but PDF can do all these and much, much better than PowerPoint. Probably the only appeal of PowerPoint is the ability to copy-paste snippets from other MSOffice tools.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[dhasenan]

I'm dual-booting my desktop. Everything works fine in both Linux and Windows with the exception of audio. Windows just can't do it.

Windows is convinced my speakers aren't plugged in and refuses to let me select them as the audio output, whereas Pulseaudio on Linux realizes that people sometimes want to select an audio device that doesn't appear to be plugged in at the moment.

(I might be able to find a driver to reinstall or something to get Windows to realize my speakers are plugged in, but it just isn't that important to me yet. I only installed Windows for the Unreal asset store, but I switched to Unity3d.)

Re: This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Sleep has worked better under Linux for awhile now. Winders blows goats with suspend up on my Lenovo as opposed to my crappy Ubuntu/Unity stock setup that acts like how I expect.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[colinrichardday]

PDF can also be generated from LaTeX, which allows for math and pstricks (LaTex -> dvips -> ps2pdf).

Re: This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[cyber-vandal]

It would be nice if that was true but it isn't.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[bigmadwolf]

Yes, have been using it for years professionally without any problem. The 'MS Office' issue is long solved.

Re: This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Lonewolf666]

Slightly OT,
but just yesterday Seamonkey's composer annoyed me by "reformatting" the HTML source code on the file I was tinkering with. It added line breaks and empty lines unasked. My quick fix was using Notepad++ instead.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[dbIII]

saves self contained presentations that will run on anything that can run powerpoint. This is a big deal when it comes to media

I mentioned the word "web" above but you must have missed it. The set of anything that can display a web page is a hell of a lot bigger than "anything that can run powerpoint" - so your point one is a disadvantage in comparison.


Ask anyone that has been given the task of getting somebody else's powerpoint presentation into a state where it can be viewed as a web page for some insight.

Your second point makes the very stupid assumption that someone will not put their html, pdf or whatever format their presentation is in on local storage. I do not see it as a valid point.

Point three - make fucking movies if you want fucking movies. There are thousands of more capable bits of movie making software than MS powerpoint.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[ultranova]

On the other hand, I sure wish the Windows partition on my new box would recognize my USB mouse, reliably.

Windows 7 recognizes my USB mouse, but randomly fails to register clicks. That's some quality programming for a mouse-driven OS.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[jonr]

> 3. has hardware/gpu acceleration for animations and vector art.

Are you people writing games in powerpoint?

"As you can see here in this Doom clone, quarter revenue is up by 5%..."

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[jandersen]

...HP scanner, there haven't been Windows drivers for it since (!!!) Windows 2000.

Yeah, there are loads of examples like that - I have a small Lexmark USB laser printer that stopped working under windows for that very reason. I set it up under Linux on my RaspberryPi (took me about 5 min to set up in CUPS), then shared it on the network. Now I have a networked laser printer, and I can even use it from Windows. In fact, you can take just about any old printer, and turn it into a networked Postscript printer via Gutenprint or similar.

I did the same with a scanner - which I can now use over the network as well. Not sure if that is even an option from Windows.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[nukenerd]

Windows 7 recognizes my USB mouse, but randomly fails to register clicks.

Windows does not recognise some of your mouse clicks? Luxury !!

On my laptop, set up for dual booting Windows and Debian, Windows recognises my mouse but not the keyboard. I have re-installed Windows several times but no-go. The Debian is fine, using it now.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[bluefoxlucid]

Audio worked out of the box in 2004. MP3 support wasn't included in the base install of Ubuntu in 2004, but it was there in 2005.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[mysidia]

Sure there are a lot of web-based applications but they usually run on top of a database, middle tier components, and services that depend on the OS.

I understand that..... But the Middle Tier components run on the server, not the Desktop.

Also, there's a technology called Remote Desktop Protocol based VDI and application publishing.

These latter technologies can be used to avoid putting Windows on the desktop itself: even if the frontend is a Windows app.

Yeah, you have a supporting compatibility layer for that one app; However, the management complexity of a few App-V containers on couple terminal servers is much lower than supporting a large number of Windows desktops.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, why does everything related to portable power management suck so much compared to major end user platforms (windows, osx)?
The reason is that ACPI is a standard. As with all standards, there's the "official" one, and the gratuitously incompatible Mickeysoft implementation. Guess which one everybody uses.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[mattventura]

Yeah, okay, I JUST reinstalled Windows 7 a few weeks ago, and these are the things I had to install drivers for:
1. Ethernet (especially bad one, since you know, you can't download drivers without connectivity, so you have to use another machine)
2. Other ethernet
3. USB 3.0 controller (oh, and this one means that if your system ONLY has USB 3.0 ports, your kb/m won't work during the install)
4. Video card
5. Chipset

Of the five, #4 is the only one for which I would have to install a driver to get full functionality in Linux.

Networking especially is an embarrassment on Windows. On top of the fact that even common network cards might not work out of the box, it's up to the manufacturer's drives to support things like VLANs and bonding despite the fact that those are NIC-independent. Meanwhile on Linux I can toss in specialty stuff like 10, 40, even 100GbE cards and have them work out of the box.

Oh, and you know the worst part? Windows update will try to update my drivers for NIC #2 to a version that isn't even compatible with it.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[JustNiz]

My DVD drive and my printer don't work properly under Windows 10 but work fine under Linux Just sayin.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[colinrichardday]

Does LibreOffice have text-entry math, or do I ave to use a point-and-click interface?

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Khashishi]

The chance of automatically installing malware when you plug in a USB device is also WAY lower on Linux.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Khashishi]

Why does an MP3 player have to be part of the OS? Just install an MP3 player.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[StormReaver]

There is a reason now to switch.

I had that same thought back in 1999, and have been astounded for the last 17 years at the convoluted mental gymnastics people performed to defend Microsoft's evil.

I've been free of the Microsoft disease since 1999.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Opportunist]

Doesn't matter. Ponder for a moment what's less effort: Letting your do 3 more clicks or trying to navigate the legal minefield that US patent law is.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Opportunist]

It does? Really? Well, allow me to take you back to my most recent Win7 reinstall odyssee.

Win7 installed. Slip in the driver DVD of the board manufacturer and install a bunch of drivers. Find out that they are somehow not really for this board. Reinstall Win7 (but not before trying to deinstall the drivers that blew the system completely). Download current drivers for the mainboard. On another machine, mind you, because, you guessed it, any kind of networking functionality is on the mainboard and requires a driver because Win7 somehow refuses to acknowledge its existence. Find a USB stick that actually is big enough to transport that bloated, oversized "driver" (which doesn't come as a driver-only but has to come along with all sorts of "management software" and "demos" that are rolled into the driver installer and can't simply be stripped). Watch Windows 7 copy from the stick like a snail because anything past USB 1.1 requires, guessed it, a driver. And do all that at a resolution of about 600x400 because of course there is also no sensible graphics adapter driver available yet.

And we're now at about 5% of the total install time. Should I go on or does that illustrate well enough just how "fine" Windows 7 works on any hardware out of the box?

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Opportunist]

The only compatibility problem I ever had with Linux was with malware. WINE is a full replacement for windows, my ass!

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[orgelspieler]

Now that everybody uses tablets, does it matter what's on the desktop?

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[tepples]

Why does an MP3 player have to be part of the OS? Just install an MP3 player.

I guess people fear they will forget to install an MP3 player in advance, and the first time they want to play an MP3, they will be offline and thus unable to download an MP3 player's package. This is especially true of laptops, which are often used while out of range of Wi-Fi.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[tepples]

Linux hasn't had trouble with peripherals for a long time.

Not even the webcam in a Transformer Book?

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[Blaskowicz]

You can just print a Powerpoint into a PDF file. No more LibreOffice viewing issues and it makes it easier to read and transmit to your victims/readers.

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[rajafarian]

Certainly the year I deleted Windows and stopped dual-booting just to game!

Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You can actually use both, even though setting it up for the results to look a bit nicer takes a bit of work either way. (I think there was also some extension that allowed you to render math through actual TeX.) Well, I ended up using TeXmacs anyway...

I really liked Windows 7

[flopsquad]

Why are they continuing to aggressively push invasive, paternalistic, and generally super-assholey "features" that make me never want to go back to a Microsoft OS?

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[turkeydance]

me, too. 95 to XP to 7. nothing in-between. i'll stay 7 and wait.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[TheGratefulNet]

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.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

NSA pushed them to do this. Soon they'll have the biggest botnet on the planet. Microsoft is taking advantage of this by cashing in on private info to sell to advertisers. It's a bit like forcing people to have a facebook account.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[mhkohne]

Because renting you stuff and getting a steady revenue stream is a WAY better business model than trying to get you to buy a new version every few years.

The truth is that selling the OS & Office the way they have been is a sucky way to make money - you have to put out a bunch of cash making the new version, then hope you can con enough suckers into buying it to make your money back at the end. Much better to sell monthly subscriptions to Office 365 through your controlled App store. Plus, you can charge a fee to let other people sell through your app store.

I'm waiting for the day that they try to block non-app store installs.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[Tablizer]

Why are they continuing to aggressively push invasive, paternalistic, and generally super-assholey "features" that make me never want to go back to a Microsoft OS?

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[jtownatpunk.net]

I miss Windows 2000.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[donaldm]

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.

Unfortunately the frog (read populous) has been in the pot too long and it is now almost too late for them to jump out although there are now a few brave ones doing so.

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.

You are quite right, however at least we can say that we have saved allot of money by not purchasing Microsoft applications when most of the applications we use fit our requirements perfectly.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[KlomDark]

> I'm waiting for the day that they try to block non-app store installs.

Ugh, you are probably right.

Is there any good open-source memory-managed languages out there with a solid IDE to use. Sorry, I am way too many years down the C# path to just easily jump to C/C++, I hate dealing with memory issues. I'm spoiled, I don't want to think about allocating and deallocating memory, and even worse, memory leaks. I just want to build new software and get things done. I don't wanna do Java, another corporate language. I want something else, but it's also got to be a compiled language, not an interpreted language. And something that makes talking to the database as easy as Linq to Entity Framework. I don't know of any open source language like that. Does something like that exist?

Or do I just deal with the fact that despite my awareness, Microsoft basically owns my soul at this point?

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[KlomDark]

Life was good then...

Re: I really liked Windows 7

[yithar7153]

OCaml then maybe? But It's different as it's functional with imperative elements. Interesting thing is it can be compiled to bytecode or native code.

Re: I really liked Windows 7

[Lonewolf666]

Windows 2000 was as good as XP, except for lacking some details such as 48bit LBA support out of the box.

I ran Windows 2000 until 2007, when I couldn't get my new PC to run stable under it. Switching to XP solved the issue. In hindsight, I suspect the drivers for the Nvidia graphics card (8600 GT):
That card was not officially supported under Windows 2000, so I was running it under the XP driver. Which would start and run without complaining, until the computer crashed...

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[Jamlad]

The only reason I'm dual-booting my Macbook Pro is gaming. I left Windows for day-to-day affairs five years ago and never looked back. I didn't find OS X particularly better or worse. Just different. Given the increasing gaming support, and hopefully a final push from Valve with SteamOS, and I may never use Microsoft products at home again.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[squiggleslash]

Corporate America moves slowly - but that also means that most of corporate America hasn't moved to Windows 10 yet (I happen to know - I don't work for them, but I know people who do - that FPL, Florida's main power company, only moved from XP to Windows 7 about three or four years ago, for instance.)

This kind of thing means they're less likely to switch from Windows 7, which is going to be a problem for Microsoft in the long term. Let's face it, 7 isn't broken, and the only "disadvantage" it has over 10 is the inability to run Windows Store apps, which most corporate environments couldn't give two hoots about.

Re: I really liked Windows 7

[dywolf]

Ditto.
Went from 98 to 2000, until I upgraded video card to GeForce 8800 which wouldn't run under it.
From 2000 to Vista, which to me wasn't all that bad, just released early; basically like a 7 Alpha release.
So then jumped to 7 when came out with full 64bit support, and using that since.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[Waccoon]

I'm waiting for the day that they try to block non-app store installs.

What scares me even more, is the thought that MS may be the last corporate entity to do this. Apple will probably go exclusively iOS shortly, and Google will almost certainly try to bring Android/ChromeOS to the desktop.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[twokay]

I am involved with supporting two 500+ employee businesses that recently switched to Gmail and Google Apps after having been MS Office shops. Now only accounts and the analytics guys use office for Excel.

Of course it is my view that this is out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire, but it wouldn't be so sure that Microsoft's smaller corporate customers dont have exit options.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[nukenerd]

Because renting you stuff and getting a steady revenue stream is a WAY better business model than trying to get you to buy a new version every few years.

Then again, renting customers switch much more readily to the competition

Firstly, Microsoft think they have no significant competition in the areas they are now focussing on (corporates and home), apart from in the entrenched Apple zone.

Secondly, the obstacles confronting a renting customer switching are just as high as they are now - FUD, file formats, familiarity, and the MS name (which means a lot to many users, believe it or not)

Actually, the GP forgot to mention the biggest advantage of all of renting for MS : they do not need to develop much any more. When selling their OS's over the last 30 years they had to produce something different every couple of years (and get people to buy it) or their revenue dried up. XP and Win7 being fairly good, combined with the fact that PCs themselves are now powerful enough to do almost anything the user needs (so fewer Windows pre-loaded ones sold) has hurt Microsoft and they don't want that scenario ever again.

But with rental they can sack most of their developers, lean back, and collect steady predictable rents for ever more (company accountants love a steady income). Well almost : obviously they will do cosmetic make-overs now and then, and do security patches, and will eventually need to stir at some time in the future when other developments threaten to overtake them (like has happened with tablets).

Rental had been Microsoft's wet dream for a long time now.

Re:I really liked Windows 7

[Grishnakh]

Unfortunately the frog (read populous) has been in the pot too long and it is now almost too late for them to jump out although there are now a few brave ones doing so.

Very few are, though, so it's actually very amusing to sit back and watch all these loudly-complaining frogs bitch about how hot it is.

Re: I really liked Windows 7

[Blaskowicz]

There is a version of Ocaml that would likely fit the bill i.e. talk to databases and such. The only problem is it's Microsoft's F#.

I am guessing

[mrprogrammerman]

There's probably technical reasons for this but I am sure they also don't mind the ability to get greater visibility of the store and additional revenue.

Re:I am guessing

[rudy_wayne]

There's probably technical reasons for this

No, there isn't.

additional revenue.

The *ONLY* reason it's being done.

Re:I am guessing

[im_thatoneguy]

I imagine even if you don't install apps from the store, the store still has all of the deployment and patching code built into it that's necessary to install an AppX.

Re: I am guessing

[Billly Gates]

Yes. Enterprise edition which is alot more expensive has the gpo support to block it. Go buy the enterprise will make them more money and app store for not. MS wins either way. On Neowin
Net there are lots of folks defending it saying if you have more than 20 employees you should pay for a $100,000 license and audit rights anyway. Jeesh

Re: I am guessing

[iampiti]

Honestly, I can't imagine why would defend what Microsoft is doing with windows 10 at this point. You gotta imagine they're either trolls or work for ms. ... but no, apparently some people are happy being owned by ms

They've forgotten...

[hawleyg]

...who the customer is.

Re:They've forgotten...

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

No,they haven't. It's not the people they're giving free upgrades to 10 to,

Wanna guess who the customer is?

Re:They've forgotten...

[hawleyg]

It's a free upgrade. Meaning that those customers have paid for Windows and had it upgraded.

But I take your point - the advertising $$ will be coming into Windows 10 through Cortanna/Bing adverts and probably much more down the road.

Time for an alternative.

It isn't a problem.

[dstyle5]

Since the number of good apps in store is next to nothing, employees will have nothing to find to distract them.

Re:It isn't a problem.

[TheGratefulNet]

you mean, there isn't an angry-flying-toaster app, even for a screen saver?

Defective by design....

[iCEBaLM]

Forced "upgrades", removing features after the fact, spyware you can't disable.

Please Microsoft, keep pissing off users and administrators. Soon since everything will be "in the cloud" and all apps will be web based we won't have a reason to use your shitty OS anymore.

Re:Defective by design....

[iCEBaLM]

They already are, with Geforce Now.

Once we can get the businesses off of Windows, the home users will follow which means the games will follow too.

Re:Defective by design....

[iCEBaLM]

My future? It's the way the industry is going. Pretty soon you won't be able to buy copies of Adobe Creative Suite or Microsoft Office. The only option you'll have is a subscription service to cloud based versions.

Once that happens, it doesn't matter what OS you're using.

Re: Defective by design....

[Anonymous Coward]

You sure. Several games already require an internet connection, even single player.

Re: Defective by design....

[Lonewolf666]

Which is just for DRM. Best example is the last Sim City, where it turned out that the "needs servers for single player" was fake.

No way the cloud can keep up in latency with the local PC, and games that need too much processing power for a typical gamer PC would be too expensive to run server side.

The only kind of game where an internet connection is legitimately necessary are MMO games.

Re:Defective by design....

[Grishnakh]

Please Microsoft, keep pissing off users and administrators. Soon since everything will be "in the cloud" and all apps will be web based we won't have a reason to use your shitty OS anymore.

Yeah right. People have been complaining about MS for decades and threatening to leave, but they never do. A small minority of us switched to Linux at some point, but most people will continue to just sit in the pot and be boiled alive.

Re:Defective by design....

[tepples]

What sort of lag and data use can a user of GeForce Now expect?

Re:Defective by design....

[iCEBaLM]

It's actually not terrible. You can stream a game in HD with as little as 5mbit down and play with slightly noticeable latency with 25-40ms one way.

Re: Defective by design....

[iCEBaLM]

Nvidia seems to be doing it with Geforce Now, so it would seem all your points are moot.

Re:Defective by design....

[iCEBaLM]

I don't like the move to the "cloud" any more than you do, but what it will do is make the operating system irrelevant to major application developers so that the vast majority of the populace can get by with buying chromebooks. When this happens I think you'll see games finally shift to linux, as more people use it, and apps follow the gamers.

Re:Defective by design....

[tepples]

You can stream a game in HD with as little as 5mbit down

Or 5 Mbps * 3600 sec/hr / 8 bits/byte / 1000 GB/MB = 2.25 GB per hour against your monthly cap. It's fine for fiber or cable subscribers, whose cap is typically in the hundreds of GB/mo, not so fine for home LTE and home WiMAX which are usually more harshly capped.

Re:Defective by design....

[iCEBaLM]

A gamer would do everything he possibly could to have some form of wired internet at home.

Coming soon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Candy Crush Pro Business

Re:Coming soon...

[rudy_wayne]

+1

Would buy.

Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using Windows 7 for a long time and i haven't seen much of a compelling reason to upgrade to 10. I mostly use my computer for gaming so i'm worried about the the future of gaming on a windows 7 machine.

Anyone on here have any advice for me? Is it worth the upgrade? I'm really comfortable using Win 7 and I basically hate change.

Does it add anything over 7 and if I do upgrade is it possible to make it look similar to windows 7 because I don't like the touchscreen square icons for a desktop.

Thanks in advance.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[vux984]

I've been using Windows 7 for a long time and i haven't seen much of a compelling reason to upgrade to 10.

Most of the worst bits of windows 10 telemetry etc have been backported to 7 so unless you are spending more than normal amount of time inspecting updates there's no advantage to 7 on that front.

Better and simpler IMO to update to 10 and just install one of the telemetry blockers.

Ok... as for compelling reasons to upgrade..
.
DirectX 11.3 / 12.0 -- whether that's compelling is up to you.
HyperV -- and better virtualization support in general
Multimonitor -- better than 7, better than 7 with 3rd party addons IMO
Sleep / Wake / Reboot -- markedly better/faster than 7
Task Manager -- much improved over what's in 7
Antivirus -- built in good enough to run without more
SystemTray -- much better system tray/notifications setup
Security -- More OS hardening features
Smaller footprint -- smaller on disk, smaller in memory

There's a bunch of features (built in) and addons (like classic shell) you can use to make 10 look more like 7; but IMO sticking with the look of 7 vs 10 really just amounts to "resisting changes" for the sake of "resisting changes". I know people who jumped through hoops to make XP look like 98, then to make 7 look like XP etc... I don't think its productive or worth the effort, and you do miss out on some of the actual improvements by being close minded to the idea that maybe just may the windows 7 really might not be the pinnacle of user interfaces. (Not that windows 10 is... but it took little effort to adjust to it)

As a user of several windows versions 3.1 onward, Mac os7 thru X, and several linux desktops I can say that windows 10 desktop has some flaws (the confusing mix of old control panels and new "settings" to set things is probably the worst; and the a bunch of the defaults are idiotic; -- the default start menu tiles for example; I unpinned all of them; or the default file viewers for a few things being useless "modern apps" but that is all easily and quickly tamed. )

Is 10 a big upgrade from 7? No. But it is an upgrade, and it doesn't cost anything but some time and effort.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[Harlequin80]

If you ignore the telemetry slurping, which has been back ported to 7 anyway 10 is ok. I think its seriously ugly but that is a personal preference. Like you I also hate the boxes in the start menu but I rarely hit the start menu in windows as I only use it for games and I run steam so its a non issue. Outside of that photoshop gets an icon on the desktop.

As for games DirectX 11.3 / 12 is probably the reason to move.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[vux984]

Yes. Smaller footprint. RAM usage from task manager doesn't really mean anything anymore; for a lot of reasons.

Windows 10 runs markely better on a system with 2GB ram than 7 or 8 does for example.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[GerryHattrick]

I keep a dozen cousins' kit clean via TeamViewer. It takes me ten minutes each a month to sort out the messes they've made, on XPpos, 7 and 8. Of course I locked out the Win10 nags, but having tried 10 myself, and found I could make it look just like XP and kill telemetry, I no longer recommend against 'upgrade' to 10. Seems big daddy Microsoft will keep them all a bit tidier with 10, whether they like it or not, and what do I care? Sure, Mint is on their HDDs as dual-boot, but they won't use it because it doesn't run their heap of ancient programs (tell me about OED full-install?)

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[thegarbz]

Add to that:

Better touchscreen / pen integration.

This may not be a big thing for a lot of people but in a world that seems to be getting more tablet / slate style devices the difference between Windows 7 and Windows 10 are incredible. Sloppy dragging on window borders, keyboard / pen integration etc all make Windows 10 usable with a pen, and in many cases even with a finger. Windows 7 is IMO unusable in this scenario.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[Ash-Fox]

Anyone on here have any advice for me? Is it worth the upgrade? I'm really comfortable using Win 7 and I basically hate change.

Windows 7 stopped having mainstream support last year in January, it is now irrelevant. If you want to play new games like the new Minecraft, Killer Instinct, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War, Fable Legends and Gigantic then upgrade to Windows 10. If you want to keep playing old titles, then there is no need to upgrade.

Does it add anything over 7

Performance.

if I do upgrade is it possible to make it look similar to windows 7

It is possible, good luck figuring it out.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[Christopher_G_Lewis]

Wow - a thoughtful and logical comment on why Windows 10 is actually interesting.

My biggest addition to this is the boot time - Win10 boots in under 5 seconds on my SSD laptop, compared with 15-20 on my desktop with a high end Seagate hybrid 7200 (I know, bad purchase. If I could have waited another year...) My desktop boots up with a couple of active HyperV instances (Plex Server, Ubuntu, FreeBSD), so its not really usable for an other couple of minutes, but that's my own issue.

The Windows 10 interface is an interesting combination of the old and new - all your programs are immediately available like 7, but you have the live tile pane for all the new "chatty" applications - weather, news, recipes, Facebook, etc. all with their own ADHD inspired "Hey! Click me!" look. I'm running insider/fast on one of my boxes and the interface changes that are coming for the summer release are quite good. I've got tile sections for Office, Development, Admin tools and other crap - which is sort of back to the old Program Manager Groups from Win3.1 :-)

Updates, well, its windows so it will do that. I've only had issues when I clicked the "do it now" button, then realized my wife was watching something off the Plex server.

Other than a couple of minor issues, it just works.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[Espectr0]

Almost every feature you specify already comes with Windows 8.1. The only valid reason to upgrade to 10 is that it is currently free and DirectX 12 for gamers.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[vux984]

Almost every feature you specify already comes with Windows 8.1

1) He's upgrading from 7. And it makes no sense at all to upgrade from 7 to 8.1. Given 10's UI walks back some of the most annoying things about 8.1.

2) while several of the improvements I mentioned started with 8/8.1 they got incrementally better in 10. HyperV in 10 is better than it is in 8.1. Multimonitor support in 10 is better than 8.1. Security / hardening got incrementally better in 10. etc etc.

Seriously if you are on 8.1 there is absolutely no good reason not to upgrade to 10 that I can think of.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[vux984]

ineffective host file etc

Modifying hosts to trivially defeat DNS is a common practice for malware.

Use the firewall to block services and block destination addresses.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[vux984]

Are there telemetry blockers for Win 7?

If so, its then better to block at that point, rather than installing Win 10.

If the only reason you aren't upgrading to 10 is the telemetry the installing a telemetry blocker and then staying on 7 makes no sense. The telemetry blocker solves the problem you have.

But by all means, yes, if you are planning to stay on 7 for whatever OTHER reason aside from telemetry then yes, install a telemetry blocker in 7 or 8.1.

Its far less hassle than playing whack-a-mole with updates.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[toddestan]

With 8.1 you can, with the same level of difficulty as Windows 7, avoid the telemetry. You can also forgo updates, while Windows 10 will shove them down your throat. Windows 8.1 is also faster than Windows 10 (and especially Windows 7). Windows 10 also removes Windows Media Center if you care about that kind of thing. Windows 8.1 is also the ONLY version of Windows to handle multiple keyboard layouts in a sensible manner.

Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic.

[vux984]

OTOH
8.1's multimonitor isn't as good as 10s
modern apps and the start menu have to be full screen
the hyperV in 10 is better
directX 11.3 / 12.0
And I dispute your argument that 8.1 is faster than 10.

I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[AbRASiON]

I'm not your normal /. "#$%! Microsoft" kinda guy. I've been an MS guy my whole life, only dabbling in other OSs briefly.

Often you see people (here) chanting about #@$%^ Microsoft or "are you surprised" or any other snarky remark, I traditionally dismiss these as the extreme tinfoil people who would hate whatever they do, regardless.

That being said, Microsofts moves with Windows 10 have gone from "hmm ok that's questionable, but I can see past it" and "this looks desperate, it's kinda shitty, but oh well" and "well that's definitely dumb, but I'm sure some great nerd will hack up an awesome all-in-one little 'fixit' tool for Windows 10 to take out all the crap"

It's now at a point where it's outright sounding BAD. Like proper, bad. The things they keep doing are worse and worse, more and more intrusive. I thought the pushy installer was rough but ok, once it's on, they aren't going to abuse it too much, they are getting their data, from most people who aren't clever enough to turn stuff off.
Nope! It's getting SO bad, I'm really thinking of sticking with 7 as long as humanly possible. Maybe I really will end up a Mac guy after all, or something?

Super unimpressed at this point.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[cfalcon]

Basically, if you can pay the Mac tax, consider it. Also consider Linux and BSD.

I've always had a real beef with Microsoft's many shady dealings. If you have followed them closely, they did a lot of really shady stuff, and had legal pushback. Eventually, they settled into a path where they were making plenty of money and were sort of easy to predict- when they screwed up, which was sometimes, they would try to make it right. This long gentle summer of Microsoft had its peak with Windows 7. Windows 8 didn't feature any of the strange drama we see in 10, but we saw the designers essentially say "we want to move casual users away from the old UI". That's why they pretty much did everything they could to ruin it- if it was still there and easy to turn on, power users would run a script for their friends, and everyone would have the old UI. But this decision was ACTIVE and MALICIOUS. Windows 10 is an absolute nest of drama, as you've noticed.

Basically, the reason you weren't a "screw Microsoft" guy is that you weren't paying attention. I was fine with 7- it offers way less freedom than non-Windows OSes, but it ultimately belongs to the user. Windows 10 breaks that totally. Microsoft sometimes briefly releases the coils. That's just to get you to inhale and exhale so it can clamp down tighter next time. Stop falling for it. Use another OS for everything you possibly can. Evaluate carefully each demand from those around you to install a new MS-only thing. Push back where you can. If you really can discard Microsoft completely, good. But you'll never see how hard it is until you try, how thoroughly they have themselves wrapped tight around anything that they can.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[labnet]

The issue is, most technical workers have to use windows, as most pro level CAD, CAM and even Embedded Development platforms, are windows only.
The monopoly will be around for at least my lifetime.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[Anonymous Coward]

I just set up someone's brand spanking new Core i7 laptop. Fast machine, so I thought it would be.. until I booted it up the first time or two. First things first, set privacy and network configurations. Done.. or is it?

Windows update.. slow to a fucking crawl. Internet completely tied up for a half hour, computer damn near unresponsive... and this was AFTER I set the wireless to "metered" to prevent this very thing from happening. Megabits per second being transferred across the "metered" (and thus, supposed to be not used for automated updates, among other things) connection. Cortana being one of the major culprits, even after that feature was turned off completely.

Install Office 2016 (not subscription).. email required just to get the product key. what the fuck? sell a disc for fuck's sake. Microsoft's site times out during account creation.. takes several further attempts to obtain the actual product key, including having to get a "security code" texted (so they got the fucking mobile phone number too)... Finally, get the stupid product key and try to enter it into the preloaded Office.. wrong version it says. WTF? it's a brand new fucking computer, why was it preloaded with Office 2013?.. another hour+ download needed for Office install.

Install Chrome.. no you can't have it as your default browser.. YES i can... Windows reluctantly accepts it. Later install Firefox (owner decides to have both installed). Edge goes back to default. Have to manually choose Firefox for default browser. Install Adobe Reader (for full forms support), Crashes when it sets itself as default, Windows defaults back to Edge for PDF files.. have to manually change that, too.

Throughout all of this, the neighbors think there's someone being violently assaulted from all the yelling and screaming.. I say to them, "You're not too far off, just setting up Windows 10". They quickly understood the pain, and were glad that they checked-in on what was really going on before calling 911.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[vux984]

" 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.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, if you can pay the Mac tax, consider it.

Why? Microsoft is just making Windows closer Apple's and Google's OSes. They noticed the money coming in from apps stores and data mining and saw that it was good. Microsoft is getting worse, but the others were already worse. People are only complaining about Windows because it didn't have those 'features' built-in at the start like the others did.

Microsoft didn't have to wrap itself very tightly even thought it did (seamless integration between your products is a good thing). It's 2016 and Outlook with all its issues is still the best email client by far. Built-in calendaring, encryption, signing, vacation messages, email recalls, email polls, expiring messages, etc...

The document suites are mostly even for the smaller cases but Office still wins for all advanced documents. The average user can't use LaTeX. Hell, I have two LaTeX editors on my LMDE and documents written in one aren't correctly opened with the other. WTF?

From an average user's perspective, there is nothing better than Microsoft on your desktop.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[Anonymous Coward]

"Restrict App Store to MDM installed apps and software updates only": "When this option is on, the App Store can only be used to update apps installed by MDM and Apple software updates. The default is Off."

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[AbRASiON]

This isn't me angry about the forced App store in Windows 10, it's about the culmination of all the shitty things they've done in the past 18 months.

They might have a history long, long ago of being quite evil but there was a period there, where I personally, really didn't see them being all that bad, within reason for a business anyhow. It's now getting utterly ridiculous.

Yeah proprietary Mac store is frustrating but for the most part with MacOS you're the consumer, under Windows 10 and the spying stuff (which is sadly, mostly true) you're the product.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[i.r.id10t]

One (dedicated and heavily firewalled) machine for the CAD/CAM/wahtever special tool, one for desktop use. Relatively easy, relatively cheap. Treat those super specialized applications as an "appliance" instead of a software package on a desktop machine...

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[110010001000]

Really? I think the point is you should be using Enterprise if you want to do things like let admins block apps. That is what Enterprise is for. It sounds like it was a bug in Pro.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[vux984]

under Windows 10 and the spying stuff (which is sadly, mostly true) you're the product.

It's really not much different in OSX.
1) Spotlight has been in OSX forever and can be used to search web so potentially 'local search terms are sent out to the internet'. Same issue as windows search.

2) "Microsoft Accounts" to sign-in; again just retreading a feature OSX *already* has, where OSX prompts you to create an account tied to your AppleID with itunes, appstore, and icloud links.

3) App Store you can't remove... as discussed OSX had it years ago.

4) Telemetry -- ok windows got here first; but honest to goodness telemetry really isn't the bogeyman its made out to be. Yes, its truly irritating microsoft hasn't been transparent enough, and bizarre they won't just let you turn it off. (Most people won't even bother so why not just let that vocal group turn it off and avoid the circus I don't know.)

5) "Spying"; ok... lets stop there and talk Cortana first. Because again OSX did it first, with siri. But so far Siri is only on your phone -- and a TON of the information that is so-called spying (and part of why the EULA is such a wide cast net) is related to the cortana "feature"... to function as designed it "needs" to know who your contacts are, your search terms, your calendar, document meta data, etc, etc. And it needs to be in the 'cloud' so it can be processed and available on other devices you use, etc, etc. And further for Cortana to be be any use she needs to be pretty integrated into the OS... so where am I going with this? Siri is exactly the same, on IOS. All the same problems are there. Microsoft's only 'innovation' is to put it on the desktop.

So what about apple? Watch for the June WWDC where Apple annouces Siri availability for OSX... and then check out the accompanying EULA that has to go with it.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[vux984]

"Restrict App Store to MDM installed apps and software updates only":

Do you not need an OSX Server to do that though? Fewer people have those than have Windows 10 Enterprise licenses.

I mean even Microsoft has a very simple solution involving Active Directory and Windows 10 Enterprise licensing. Its there its just not cheap.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[tlhIngan]

"Restrict App Store to MDM installed apps and software updates only":

Do you not need an OSX Server to do that though? Fewer people have those than have Windows 10 Enterprise licenses.

I mean even Microsoft has a very simple solution involving Active Directory and Windows 10 Enterprise licensing. Its there its just not cheap.

Yes, it does need OS X server, which since Mavericks is a $20 add on to OS X - OS X server is no longer a separate OS you install. Instead it's just an addon (which doesn't really add anything other than some really nice configuration utilities).

Or other MDM solution - Apple's is but just one to manage devicevs. The same server app can also be used to configure iOS devices for the enterprise as well.

I doubt Microsoft's Enterprise versions of Windows is merely a $20 addon to the existing OS... you probably h ave to install a special Server version of the OS.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[Anonymous Coward]

>1) Spotlight has been in OSX forever and can be used to search web so potentially 'local search terms are sent out to the internet'. Same issue as windows search.

When you disable spotlight's web search it stays disabled.

>2) "Microsoft Accounts" to sign-in; again just retreading a feature OSX *already* has, where OSX prompts you to create an account tied to your AppleID with itunes, appstore, and icloud links.

And you can freely ignore this with no real drawbacks.

>3) App Store you can't remove... as discussed OSX had it years ago.

It's not that you can't remove it, you stupid fuck. It's that MS won't let the admin block it. Apple *does* allow MDM to restrict the app store to updating MDM installed apps and the OS only. Which is what MS just removed from their platform.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[PostPhil]

SERIOUSLY? It's only NOW that you've figured out Microsoft's true colors?

I don't remember a time when Microsoft bad behavior *wasn't* the case. Dude, I was using their stuff during MSDOS and the Stacker/Doublespace debacle. And that was over 20+ years ago. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish and shoving things down your throat has been their modus operandi since the early days and every year afterwards. They NEVER stopped.

On the other hand, those DOS days were good times, though. When hard drives were typically maxed at only dozens of MB or less (not GB) and 1.44 MB floppies were the norm, it was handy to be able to use Doublespace to compress floppies so that BMP image files (since JPG et al weren't commonly used yet) would fit without having to explicitly compress with something like PKZIP. I found the idea of compression so interesting that I did crazy things like create a RAM drive using some memory, Doublespace *that*, then use it as storage for running some games (e.g. X-Wing and some D&D games). Not very stable, but it was a fun experiment.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[vux984]

When you disable spotlight's web search it stays disabled.

I've disabled send search queries to bing on windows 10 and it's stayed disabled too.

And you can freely ignore this with no real drawbacks.

And you can with windows 10 too. I only use local accounts, and its never caused the slightest problem.

It's not that you can't remove it, you stupid fuck. It's that MS won't let the admin block it.

Unless you have enterprise or educational editions. Home and Pro are apparently consumer/pro-sumer editions now.

Apple *does* allow MDM to restrict the app store to updating MDM installed apps and the OS only.

So does active directory + enterprise desktop. The only difference is how much you have to pay. Apple's OSX server is pretty reasonable... Windows 10 enterprise quite a bit less so.

Which is what MS just removed from their platform.

Removed from 1 edition. It was never in home edition, and it always was and remaints in enterprise and education. All microsoft has done is shifted Win 10 pro more towards being a pro-sumer os rather than a business os. Why? I expect to sell more enterprise versions to more businesses.

Does it suck yes, but tweaking the differentiation characteristics of different editions of windows is hardly "removing something from the platform"

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[Khashishi]

To encourage users to upgrade to Enterprise, we will be slowly removing features from pro and home. Have a nice day.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[StormReaver]

I traditionally dismiss these as the extreme tinfoil people who would hate whatever [Microsoft does], regardless.

Remember, the word, "Sheeple" was coined at Microsoft. Microsoft loves the sheeple who will not only take an ass pounding, but will inexplicably defend the rape and ask for more.

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[Espectr0]

While the Mac appstore is indeed integrated in the OS, it doesn't bother you, and you can disable updates. You can't even block updates if you are a domain admin in win 10 coming from WSUS

Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,.......

[vux984]

While the Mac appstore is indeed integrated in the OS, it doesn't bother you,

and you can disable updates

I have the ability to turn off app updates in the Microsoft store.

OS Updates on the other hand, you are right; but the thread here isn't about windows update... its about the app store. And win 10 updates... given MS's history... I'm not sure its the wrong move. Far too many admins will run swiss cheese networks on theory that if its not broken leave it alone. But it is broken, and they just don't recognize it until after the hacks and data breaches. Unpatched systems exposing vulnerabilities that have been fixed is a huge issue -- and what we'd been doing so far hasn't been working. IT admins in corporate networks were NO better than consumers at getting critical fixes out.

(Yes everybody here is a responsible competent admin who validates each security patch, and rolls it out promptly. So I guess I'm talking about the hundreds of millions of corporate networks run by people who aren't here. Because those unpatched swiss-cheese corporate systems are definitely out there in the millions.)

Re:One month

[rudy_wayne]

i just block the outgoing connection with my firewall.

Re:Don't blame Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, blame Microsoft. They don't have to do this just because Apple did.

Perhaps Microsoft forgets ...

[jgreco]

Administrators control the network between Microsoft's servers and end user workstations. This will simply turn into another example of "They think they're going to dictate what, again?" where Microsoft's store app on the PC finds itself unable to talk to anything back at the mother ship due to firewall or URL restrictions.

Re: Perhaps Microsoft forgets ...

[Billly Gates]

Yeah until your executives with laptops install keyloggers malware and then hold you the IT guy responsible for being hacked

Re:Perhaps Microsoft forgets ...

[ultranova]

Administrators control the network between Microsoft's servers and end user workstations. This will simply turn into another example of "They think they're going to dictate what, again?" where Microsoft's store app on the PC finds itself unable to talk to anything back at the mother ship due to firewall or URL restrictions.

You underestimate the power of the Dark Side. If Win10 can't contact the App store, it can't verify you have the licenses to run it and "your" programs, and must therefore block all usage to protect Microsoft's and third parties copyrights.

But where can I buy^Wrent my software?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux has no Linux Store. I need to be protected by the garden walls. I need to feel safe. I need to be loved. Microsoft provides me with all these.

Re: But where can I buy^Wrent my software?

[Anonymous Coward]

More than a few of us have been dragged through dependency hell, where you try to install a new DVD burning program and several hours later are still downloading components of a gnome desktop environment you didn't want and won't use.

There's no panacea. Different software sucks in different ways.

Re: But where can I buy^Wrent my software?

[Ash-Fox]

More than a few of us have been dragged through dependency hell, where you try to install a new DVD burning program and several hours later are still downloading components of a gnome desktop environment you didn't want and won't use.

15 years ago, I just did "urpmi k3b", "apt-get install k3b" (or brasero) and that was that... No dependency hell, no problems, it just worked.

So what you're saying is... Our base comparison for Windows should be something older than 15 years, like Windows ME.

Re:But where can I buy^Wrent my software?

[Ash-Fox]

Linux has no Linux Store.

Just open the "Ubuntu Software Centre" on Ubuntu, you're welcome.

Re:But where can I buy^Wrent my software?

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, but the repositories are all free! In a true app store, I have to pay for each and every app. Everyone knows that the quality of something is directly proportional to how much you paid for it, so Linux will never work as long as it doesn't have an app store with every app costing $$$.

(/s)

Re:But where can I buy^Wrent my software?

[colinrichardday]

Are you aware of how sarcasm detectors work?

Re: But where can I buy^Wrent my software?

[colinrichardday]

If only Debian could develop an apt solution for this!

Re:But where can I buy^Wrent my software?

[Opportunist]

You're of course able to pay for Linux. Just ask Red Hat for a quote.

grr

[nanodec]

Sorry but it's a royal PITA to have to contend with Candy Crush, XBox and misc stupid shit in Win10 on a corporate environment. Still fucking hate 10.. >:(

Bullshit...

[Lumpy]

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.

Works just fine with some firewall rules on the core router in the office.

Re:Bullshit...

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't even know that my watch could even RUN Windows 10 Pro...

Re:Bullshit...

[umafuckit]

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.

Works just fine with some firewall rules on the core router in the office.

Even at the DNS level? Even you block it before it can enter the building? I know it's shit, but there must be a way of blocking it. Frankly, this seems like a bizarre move on their part. There must be enterprise scenarios where blocking the store is needed.

Re:Bullshit...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ding ding ding! That's why they did this. Enterprise scenario means enterprise tier license costs and CALs!

Re:Bullshit...

[Lumpy]

yes it's trivial to block at the DNS level. Utterly trivial.

Hello firewall

[Keick]

What competent windows administrator hasn't already blocked the telemetry, live tile, and play store IP addresses at the corporate firewall already?

This is a dick move for sure by microsoft (not that apple didn't do this years ago), but seriously folks... Maybe for certain elements you use the domain policy to disable features and whatnot, but blocking access to other computers is EXACTLY why we have firewalls.

I'm not a very good windows admin, just a programmer for a small consulting company. And the very FIRST thing we did after installing a test Windows 10 box on a isolated test network is determine all the IP addresses to block, and which ones to not block to let update and search still work.

Re:Hello firewall

[Anonymous Coward]

You shouldn't have to do this. Essentially you're treating the OS itself as malware.

Re:Hello firewall

[dbIII]

What competent windows administrator hasn't already blocked the telemetry, live tile, and play store IP addresses at the corporate firewall already?

What competent windows administrator is inflicting MS Windows10 on their users when MS Windows 7 is still on sale :)

You brought up the "competent" thing so expect something back when you frame things in such a way.

Re:Hello firewall

[dbIII]

A competent administrator knows that AMD sell CPUs as well.

Re:Hello firewall

[Ash-Fox]

A competent administrator would be weary of the high errata on AMD processors.

Re:Hello firewall

[Ash-Fox]

I never specified "Windows". A competent administrator doesn't specialize in just one thing.

Re:Hello firewall

[dbIII]

First I've heard of it and I'm in a field where clusters of enormous numbers of things with opterons are the go. If anyone is going to complain it's the ones filling thousands of sockets at a time, but for some reason they are not complaining.
I think it's time for some sort of citation on your part since your comment appears on face value to be silly fanboy bullshit unless there is some current scandal that I'm sure you will be able to provide evidence of.

Re:Hello firewall

[acoustix]

Run Windows 7 in a VDI environment and disable any instruction sets newer than Skylake. I'm in the process of moving all users to VDI for full DR capability. The ability to run Win 7 for years is a side benefit.

Re:Hello firewall

[Ash-Fox]

First I've heard of it

Not my problem.

If anyone is going to complain it's the ones filling thousands of sockets at a time, but for some reason they are not complaining.

In my experience, it's going to be people that are security oriented, particularly those that specialize in security at low-levels. Fortunately, errata issues are commonly solved by microcode updates instead of hardware replacements.

I think it's time for some sort of citation

Sure, you can find out about AMD's errata here.

Re:Hello firewall

[dbIII]

And that is supposed to be some sort of showstopper? Why did you bother to post at all as if there was some sort of major problem?

Re:Hello firewall

[Ash-Fox]

And that is supposed to be some sort of showstopper?

It has been for me where security issues are concerned.

Re:Hello firewall

[thejynxed]

Get it while the getting is good, because Oct 31, 2016 is the final cutoff date for Win7 Pro (retail versions of Enterprise, Home, Basic, and Ultimate are already cutoff) sales. From what I've gathered, they won't even activate keys after that date if they haven't been previously activated.

Subscribers to SA of course get downgrade rights, hah.

Re:Hello firewall

[dbIII]

Well F00F to you :)
I suspect you are just using that as an excuse to bash one vendor despite other vendors having problems as well.

Re:Hello firewall

[Ash-Fox]

Quantity of errata was the key point here.

Is it the nineties again?

[iusty]

'cause it definitely looks so. Why does Microsoft ruin the whatever small goodwill they managed to acquire in the last few years?

Lead us not..

[Master Moose]

Just as I am getting tempted to try windows again for my next P.C build, I read stories like this.

It is not that this would necessary affect me in a negative way either - I just don't want to support a product that (overtly) treats me more like a commodity than anything else.

Thankfully delivered from evil.

Don't trust - firewall

[dbIII]

Don't trust policy settings. Drop those packets instead.
It will at least work until updates have to come from their marketing site.

See Comment...

[LVSlushdat]

FUCK MICROSOFT!! (*somebody* had to say it.. the fanbois never will...)

Good.

[JustNiz]

This should piss off all the sysadmins that keep pushing windows/Microsoft infrastructure down our throats at work.

Re:"pro" user who buys windows is no pro

[myowntrueself]

a so called "pro" user, who by his own choice, buys windows(or any m$ product), or needs it to do anything, or depends on it for anything, is no pro user, but an rank uninformed idiot.
same btw goes for anyone buying, needing, or depending, in any apple product.

You don't seem to have any idea how professional people actually use computers.

Simple solution

[einar.petersen]

Migrate to a different OS that allows you to tweak everything and do proper user and rights management. For legacy related software use, create a walled garden and tell people insisting they can't use anything but windows that perhaps they should be looking for a new job.

Windows admins don't need to

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Given how often the store crashes on Windows 10 right now a good portion of Windows user can't access it anyway.

Lost all trust in Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just that they make horrible technical and UI decisions. Now it's also apparent that they make them for reasons which are openly hostile towards their customers. That company has lost it. Their inertia buys them lots of time, but I have no faith that they'll turn around.

Re: I really can't beleive it at this point,......

[yithar7153]

Yep, systemd is a bummer. Them EEE tactics. But Gentoo and Slackware have not succumbed. Currently trying out Void Linux.

Absolute truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is designed as the final version of Windows, and Microsoft are working hard to ensure it.

Re:Company is good

[TheRaven64]

Did you even RTFS? They've just removed a feature that is something that enterprise users want. Home users don't care about group policy controls, they're solely an enterprise feature and they've just removed it from the version of Windows 10 targeted at enterprise customers.

Re:Company is good

[Anonymous Coward]

Many companies deploy Windows pro as they get the license OEM'd. This is just a mark up trick to sell more Enterprise and/or get more people into their ghost town shop.

Re:Company is good

[JaredOfEuropa]

According to TFS, they removed the feature from Windows Pro only, not Enterprise. Home users don't care about group policy and enterprise users are already using Enterrpise; this move is to get small / medium businesses to move to the more expensive Enterprise version as well.

Re:Company is good

[Sique]

I don't get it. A professional user is someone who uses an item professionally, e.g. when he is on the job. The only difference to an enterprise user is that the enterprise might have a centralized IT support. So I would understand if a pro version does not have much in the terms of central and remote management. But if for instance the computer in question is used by several people working shifts, it makes sense to block access to the app shop for all users except the one tasked with managing the computer. It does not follow that the installed version has to be an enterprise version.

Or "Windows Pro" does in fact mean that in reality, it wasn't thought for professional users to begin with.

Re:Company is good

[GungaDan]

"The only difference to an enterprise user is that the enterprise might have a centralized IT support."

No. The main difference is that the enterprise coughs up the money for "Enterprise" licensing. I don't know what the market for "Professional" licensing is supposed to be anymore. That flavor has lost its meaning.

Re:Company is good

[robmv]

No, millions of small business just buy computers with Windows Professional installed and join them to a small domain. Only big companies pay again for the Enterprise edition. Those small business are being f...ed removing this policy.

Re:This is the YOLOD

[nukenerd]

There is a reason now to switch.

That's exactly what people said when Windows XP came out and Microsoft introduced the "activation" process that's required.

And many did switch, and they did with Win Vista, and many are switching today because of Win10. However, this is not the YOLOD which will never happen, thank goodness. The YOLOD would be like the Eternal September on the Internet.

* YOLOD : Year of Linux on Desktops - can't we make this acronym official?

Require by Design v2

[Rastl]

Didn't they try this stunt with IE - stating that it was required for the OS to run properly? And weren't they shot down hard by the European courts?

Access to an application store should not be required for an operating system to run. Actually access to the internet shouldn't be required at all. If your OS can't run without checking home then your OS doesn't belong in the enterprise much less in the wild.

I agree with other posters that they will attempt to quietly roll back this change when enterprise customers tell them that they're not going to upgrade and start looking for alternatives. I can see the US government putting out a statement that they won't be upgrading due to security concerns and that will start the ball rolling.

If they put out a special edition for 'secure installations' then they'll have invalidated their whole spiel for making it necessary in the first place.

It goes beyond the arrogance of trying to force the upgrade down the user's throats now. They've done something that will enrage their core business - the enterprise. Really great marketing move there.

Not Hard to Fix

[TyIzaeL]

As someone who has been deploying Windows 8.1 for a while, it's pretty easy to remove apps you don't want from your system images. You can even do it on a running system:

Get-ProvisionedAppxPackage -Online | where-object {$_.DisplayName -eq "Microsoft.WindowsStore"} | Remove-ProvisionedAppxPackage -Online

Could firewall rules block updates?

[mnemotronic]

I'm still using 7 Pro on personal & company-issued laptops. I have no experience with 10. Could I use local (machine)or home router based firewall rules to block specific updates?

There's always a way

[Virtucon]

powershell -> Remove-AppXPackage Microsoft.WindowsStore_.... still works for me. Of course they'll patch it but the community at large will come up with a mechanism, just like Office Cloud Upload which is #AAF

Blatant Money Grab from Businesses

[EndlessNameless]

The Enterprise editions of Windows have only been available with Software Assurance, which is a subscription-like add-on to standard Windows licenses.

Acquiring SA grants access to additional support, enterprise tools, and some additional use rights. There is a cost-avoidance consideration since licenses with SA are upgraded to new versions of Windows (provided the SA is maintained through the date the new version is released).

Many enterprises---including my employer---bought SA on its own merits because the program benefits were worth it. However, some companies have decided that SA is not worth the price.

This move pushes businesses who need to disable access to the Windows Store to buy SA. Any admin can easily add/remove the Store feature from the OS, so if you are required to block it then you now need to pay for it.

Only Home and Professional editions are eligible for the free upgrade to Windows 10, so this ensures that businesses will be paying one way or another---enterprise customers will have to pay for the upgrade even if Microsoft decides to offer Enterprise without SA.

This is 100% about soaking enterprise customers for more money. If it happens to inconvenience some home users, well, that's just too bad.

Re:Company is good

[Grishnakh]

Yep, and too bad. That's what they get for making themselves reliant on Microsoft. Hopefully MS will make life even more miserable for these SMBs soon with more policies like this. I really enjoy seeing MS screw over their customers, and their customers continue to bend over for them. It's amusing, in a dark way.

Re:Company is good

[EndlessNameless]

The edition naming still has a point---Professional is the lowest version that can join a domain. Pretty much every organization steps up to Professional when it outgrows the "mom and pop" market.

Many mid-sized organizations do not go up to Enterprise.

If you have a thousands of employees, it's almost certainly worth it---but it doesn't start looking attractive unless you have a large IT footprint, above-average security requirements, or both.

This move forces businesses with security requirements to pay for Enterprise. I know for a fact that security requirements in the finance and defense industries will prohibit the Windows Store on most of their computers. I suspect HIPAA will force companies in healthcare to deploy Enterprise as well.

Now Professional is setup as the basic small-business version of Windows, and Enterprise will be necessary for most medium and large businesses. Microsoft will probably push this trend even further. They tweaked the features and licensing of their Server products when 2012 launched.

Re:Company is good

[ilsaloving]

Right, and OEMs are not allowed to sell machines with Windows 10 Enterprise. So companies have to license enterprise at it's full retail price, which is about 500 dollars a unit. This puts Enterprise outside the price range for most small/medium businesses.

Microsoft is essentially doubling down on an already dangerous precident: You either buy Microsoft's ridiculously inflated prices for the Enterprise version, or you allow Microsoft to dictate how you deploy and manage your computers. First with the telemetry, and now with the app store.

What's the quote? "I have altered our agreement. Pray I do not alter it any further."

As a sysadmin, the computers under my care are MY responsibility. That means *I* control what happens to them, and I will not be forced to almost double our upgrade costs just to satisfy Satya Nadella's "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine" freak fetish.

We've experimented with a couple of machines running Windows 10, but at this point it's become painfully clear that I will never upgrade our machines to Windows 10 because Microsoft has has demonstrated that despite all their hand wavy "I got better!" bullshit, they're still just as monopolistic and ruthless as ever.

Extremely pissed off

[Espectr0]

Windows Store is defective by design in an enterprise environment. EVERY user download the same provisioned apps all over again in the domain, therefore consuming tons of space and bandwidth. And now as an admin i can't even block the store in our group policy? I will stop deployment to Windows 10 in our company unless this stupid decision is reversed

Re: Company is good

[s4m7]

Naw, MS is obviously really nice guys. That's why it's news when they remove useful, desirable features from a product you already paid for.

Re:Well....

[CimmerianX]

Not a 'non-issue'. Large companies with assurance licencing may have enterprise.... but all the small companies with 10-200 employees order PCs with an OEM windows PRO lic on it.

Re:Company is good

[mythosaz]

The main difference is the availability of LTSB and Remote App, and then, to a lesser extent, AppLocker, BrancheCache, Credential Guard, Device Guard, DirectAccess, and better policy management choices, like...the Windows Store.

No off-Store Chrome extensions in Home

[tepples]

Home users don't care about group policy

Unless they're users of Google Chrome on Windows who want to use a particular Chrome app or Chrome extension that Google has not approved. The official solution from Google to use extensions or apps not available from the Chrome Web Store is to use Group Policy to whitelist particular extensions. But this doesn't work on Home, which is missing the Group Policy Editor. Chrome does have a developer mode, but extensions installed in developer mode disappear when Chrome is restarted.

Re:No off-Store Chrome extensions in Home

[toddestan]

That sounds more like a Chrome problem if you ask me. Possibly intentional, as I've noticed that Google has been pushing Chrome as the new corporate standard browser pretty hard. Probably for the same reason that Microsoft did the same for IE.

Not really an issue!

[slasher999]

Small companies should use Microsoft for updates and software distribution so Pro is fine and store access isn't an issue. Large companies should use Enterprise exclusively. No exceptions. Updates and software distribution should be done via System Center or a similar solution where IT is controlling this. Enterprise users don't really need store access. It's a non-issue really.

Atom Bay Trail is a huge edge case

[tepples]

There is always the possibility that you may have an edge case with your hardware that may cause you issues.

The current batch of 10 inch laptops, which are really 10 inch tablets with an included keyboard dock, are more likely to be edge cases because Intel refuses to fix bugs related to their Atom Bay Trail CPUs. The ASUS Transformer Book T100TA has a bunch of stuff missing, broken, or needing a proprietary driver that the Debian project cannot distribute. As of today, this includes suspend (broken), hibernation (broken), backlight power level (no driver exists), Bluetooth (broken), Wi-Fi (no free firmware exists), sound (no free firmware exists; no firmware at all exists for Linux 4.5 and later), and camera (no driver exists).

Re:One month

[RockDoctor]

I'm surprised that I got this far down the thread before I saw this comment. It would seem to me to be the3 obvious thing to do. DENY microsoft.com, possibly ALLOW knowledgebase.microsoft.com (or whatever their wiki/ help page is called) ... that should fix it.

Or maybe I'm missing something. I don't do windows myself any more.

UWP is the new platform, Windows is deprecated

[HalAtWork]

They will never stop you from loading non-app store apps on Windows. They will however stop supporting Win32 APIs, as focus shifts to UWP. UWP is getting new features first, and eventually Win32 (and Win32 development) will be suffocated. This is how they kill Steam (or at least your Win32 steam library, putting them on equal footing), this is how they have DRM top to bottom for Hollywood, this is how they get you in a walled garden.

Re:"pro" user who buys windows is no pro

[Blaskowicz]

So what do you think a "pro" would have to use? A Solaris desktop?