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Microsoft To End Nagging Windows 10 Upgrade Notifications In July (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has officially announced today it will end the annoying "Get Windows 10" notifications in July, when they end the free Windows 10 upgrade offer. In a statement to WinBeta, Microsoft said in a comment: "Details are still being finalized, but on July 29th the Get Windows 10 app that facilitates the easy upgrade to Windows 10 will be disabled and eventually removed from PCs worldwide. Just as it took time to ramp up and roll out the Get Windows 10 app, it will take time to ramp it down." This is great news for users who have decided to not install Windows 10 for whatever reason. Earlier this week, it was reported that the Windows 10 update has been ruining pro-graming streams. In April, the Windows 10 upgrade screen interrupted a meteorologist's live forecast.
Just installed without asking.
They'll probably double-down on re-enabling the "recommended" updates that add the spyware to previous versions of Windows.
Why would they spend the time? As far as they are concerned, Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1 are competitors to Windows 10 which costs them more to maintain and with fewer monetization/expansion options, why would they do anything but encourage you to move to the new great future they believe they have created?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Because they already spent the time to make spyware for Windows 7 and 8 and because data harvesting makes them money.
Because of this kind of thing it is my computer not theirs. Not their ad billboard. Not free to upload or download anything they want. Neither is my bandwidth they are using to do it. No different than breaking into my house and taking what you want because you made the door knob.
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Yet Microsoft upped the game and started to use what appeared to be malware infestation techniques to try to trick me into getting Windows 10.
Microsoft's reputation and credibility has been all but permanently damaged, imo.
Microsoft seems to have had their heart set of giving away the razor kits, but selling the blades with Windows 10.
Unfortunately, their Windows Store appears to mostly be filled with copy-cat apps and intentional scams - and when you DO buy "apps" from the store, you don't get a proper executable to use as you'd like such as you'd get from GOG or Steam.
What Microsoft is promoting is a 'Universal Windows Platform" or UWP. UWP applications aren't proper windows programs that you can freely use as you're used to. Instead, they're packaged in encrypted folders, and are essentially laden down with heavy DRM, like a new-age DIVX format. That means, no modding except for very limited things developers exactly plan for, no true fullscreen for games (borderless windowed is forced for now), very few graphics options, and essentially everything locked to how an "XBox One" would present things, since that is the basic intention, to allow game developers to simultaneously publish without separate testing or development cycles on all MS-owned platforms.
Expect to get a LOT more pressure in that direction, before they give up on this approach, almost exactly the same as happened with the horrible GFWL initiative years back.
Somehow though, there's still going to be SOME game developers that drink the cool-aide on this, and will publish UWP games. I'd say stick with Steam/GOG/etc on the platform of your choice, and politely and constructively complain on their forums if they don't bother to publish an actual PC port of the game.
Ryan Fenton
Because people paid for those operating systems and expect full support for them for the listed amount of time. Give me a break, Windows 8.1 is essentially brand new and Windows 10 has no features worth mentioning that differentiate it from a Windows 8.1 service pack. Should they list their support as "supported until 2023 or until we change our mind"?
Four. If they can't manage four operating systems at once then they should stop lying when they say that they can have long term support for four operating systems at once. Maybe that's why the current OS is (temporarily) free, so that they can say "you got it free so stop bothering us" when people are asking support for it.
No, pro-graming the metric lobby.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No it doesn't work fine. It has happened several times on Windows 7 that installing certain automatic updates causes the computer to not complete the boot process, requiring System Restore, then going back, then trying all the updates one-by-one to see which one broke the OS.
"Hello, I am a Nigerian prince and I need your help to sneak my OS onto your country's PCs."
Citation?
And did they add this 'spyware' after the releases of later operating systems?
We don't need to cite that data harvesting makes a company money. It's literally the business plan of several dot-coms.
As far as them adding the telemetry to earlier versions of Windows, it's common knowledge now.
http://techne.alaya.net/?p=124...
I have personally deselected and hidden these updates only to see them get un-hidden and added automatically as Recommended updates to download and install at a later date. I'd also like to note this had happened more than once with some of these individual updates, and it often happens when I get a large (15-30 updates) list at once from Microsoft. These large groups of updates are not "backed up" updates I have missed since last time. I have Windows Update run as a startup item when I log in to my computer, so I'm manually checking for updates every day on my PC. And every day I get an update for the Windows Defender definitions. But once in awhile I get a dozen or so "important" updates for Windows itself, and it's quite coincidental that one of the updates I had previously hidden is added into that list.
Seems like a orchestrated attempt to get me to install it. Stick it in a large list, and I'm more likely to just say "install all" than actually read the KBs for each or compare them to a list of known problem ones.
Tell me, if these updates are so harmless, why is Microsoft so vehement I install them after I tell them once I don't want them?
On July 31, there will be an out-of-band update that will prompt the user, "Would you like to ruin your life and everything in it?" If you select "Yes" then it will install Windows 10. If you select "No" it will install Windows 10 and say, "you're welcome". ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
There's streams about professional graham crackers?
There s'more info if you search Google.
This is his they lead you to their walled garden. Eventually UWP will get all the new API versions and updates, such as DirectX, and Win32 will be left to stagnate and eventually will be shed and relegated to legacy VM only.
Twinstiq, game news
What kind of valuable support does Microsoft even offer outside of security updates? The updates are it.
Yes it is, however are you aware of Windows 7 support by Microsoft actually expired on January 13, 2015 and unless you have extended support which expires January 14, 2020 you are effectively running on an unsupported operating system.
You are mistaken...
Microsoft ended mainstream support, which simply means no new product features...
EVERYONE gets extended support for bug fixes and security updates until 2020.
I was originally going to wait and see how Windows 10 worked out before upgrading. I heard a few bad things, but things I could deal with by control settings and registry, and because I could get pro edition free. But over time Microsoft has gotten worse, and more information has come out. Even Pro edition is required to accept all updates (not just security updates); Microsoft has been cheating and tricking people into installing their advertisements, "accidentally" downloading copies, adding worse features (no ability to set group policy to disable the store), and so forth. It's not as bad as everyone said it was going to be, it's worse.
Ok, sure, ask people to upgrade, let them know about Windows 10. But do it ONCE. Instead they're acting like someone offering you a free cheese sample at the grocery store but who keeps following you around the store and pleading "just one bite, do it now, you know you'll be forced to eat the cheese at the checkout line so why wait, oh I shoved a piece in your bag when you weren't looking".
Only "mainstream" support for Windows 7 ended. That only means no new features. No one cares about new features. Extended support is still ongoing though meaning you will get security updates and updates for reliability.
The new version is NOT better. It has changed but change is not always better and Microsoft has proven that.
And I don't care if Microsoft needs money. Everyone needs money but I can't give some to everyone. Microsoft will have to wait in line. Now if they had a useful product then maybe I would consider bumping them ahead in line.
Don't be surprised if 10 years from now, ISPs don't allow your out of date computer to connect to the Internet at all
That's about the dumbest thing I've read on /., just as dumb as when I read it 10 years ago, just as dumb as when I read it when /. was young. The ISPs give approximately 0 fucks about how horrible their customers' machines are - they just want the money.
Meanwhile, MS has an obligation to keep patching their OSs until they're ready to piss off their corporate customer base, when is about when the number of corporate customers still on the old OS approaches 0. When people pay actual money for an OS, they do expect long term support.
EOL for Win7 will eventually come, of course, but the forced WIn10 upgrades aren't about that - the upgrades aren't even being forced on corporate customers, so there's no advantage in terms of EOL.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
what really matters with a 'shit sandwich' is how much bread you have in it and how thinly the shit is spread....
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
... how microsoft installs and uninstalls software on our pcs via updates. You install an update and expect some bugfixes and improvments and end up with a new program installed. You install the next update and the program will be uninstalled. That's not how updates are supposed to work.
And it's scary, what ms might install in the future via an update.