Microsoft To Make Saying No To Windows 10 Update Easier (zdnet.com)

Less than a week after a California-based woman won $10,000 lawsuit against Microsoft over Windows 10 upgrades, the Redmond-based company has announced it will make it easier for users to say no to Windows 10 updates. The company plans to change the Windows 10 update prompt to make it clearer and easier for Windows 7 and Windows 8.x users to schedule or reject upgrading to Windows 10. ZDNet reports:Microsoft officials said late on June 27 that the new update experience -- with clearer "upgrade now, schedule a time, or decline the free offer" -- will start rolling out this week. Microsoft also will revert to making clicking on the Red X at the corner of the Windows 10 update box dismiss the update, rather than initiate it, as it has done for the past several weeks. Microsoft officials said they are making the change "in response to customer feedback."

Comments

Too little too late

[LichtSpektren]

I have no doubt that this was all planned by Microsoft. Perhaps they didn't anticipate the backlash, but making it easier to deny the update without manually removing KB3035583 or installing a third-party program (GWX Control Panel, Never10, etc.) in the eleventh hour is too little, too late. There's only another month of the "free" "upgrade", so who's left to take it? The people who intentionally waited for the last possible moment in order to get the most stable upgrade, but they've already decided to go to Windows 10 anyway.

In other words, the damage is already done. Now's the time to cry for your government to begin imposing criminal penalties to Microsoft and cancel their contracts with them, or MSFT will get away with it.

If you didn't know about Microsoft a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

You are probably already hosed.

This site had the old school way to block it all if you did the other manual steps using the hosts file.
https://github.com/WindowsLies/BlockWindows/

A slashdot commenter had made a video of "wiresharking" his Windows 10 and posted it on YouTube. For those unfamiliar it is a packet sniffer and detects and displays the nature of each incoming and outgoing network packet. By nature I mean IP address, protocol as in TCP, UDP, RDP, etc name it.

That video was pulled from YouTube nearly immediately, and obviously there was no moral reason to pull a video showing how your OS connects to Microsoft and Markmonitor servers. (among other tracking hosts)

Then there were many articles and they are still around about how to do it manually, and even grc.com has a small portable app called Never10 that is reckoned to block installing Windows 10 over 7/8/8.1 etc.

The problem and pertinent factors are thus. They snuck new server lists in other "security updates" and never disclosed the change. I haven't checked recently but there was a period (maybe still is) that Microsoft decided to not disclose what is actually in their so-called security updates.

What I mean by problem AND pertinent factor is why they even force spyware on you at all. Bill doesn't need the money and it is not for anybody's protection that they track everything you do on your PC. The lies are asinine. The deceit shameful. The employees and Bill himself are forced by the US spy agencies to incorporate every possible tracking you can imagine. This is the same with Google and Facebook and others. The higher the traffic, the higher the priority to force tracking on you. Slashdot connects to myriad CA Cert servers that change on a daily basis it seems. Sometimes more than once a day.

You should use NoScript (and remove the XSS default-to-allow permissions under advanced, and uncheck all boxes on the ABE tab). You should also use Adblock Plus or similar. Ghostery is no good any more because it's settings rely on remote server to change and it chats with it. BetterPrivacy for flash cookies is the 4th I would recommend to run on Firefox.

Now this is important. Spy agencies and Google (gstatic, google-analytics, etc) track you all over the Internet and yes it is cross-reference-able. From your porn likes to your Facebook profile to your bank account to your SMS log on your cell phone to your shopping history at Walmart if you use a card. By face recognition too if you already have their special attention. It is accessible by any US government spy agency at will in the name of "security" but like Microsoft, it is the same lie.

They know all about browser parameters and whatnot but blocking works. THIS IS THE BIG TIP OF THE DAY.

Ready? Set your PC time to an inaccurate time. Change time zones. Make it as screwy as possible unless you need to sync implicitly for something. They rely on time logging and IP addresses as a failsafe tracking mechanism. This totally messes up their monitoring ability. Better than that is to use Tor, but you will notice you bump into Google captcha after Google captcha. I don't intend this to be a long tutorial but just set a wrist watch or your phone next to your monitor and keep your clock on your laptop/desktop coming from Liberia or whatever. That little clock is a itsy bitsy little teeny weeny convenience for you.. and night/day for the monitoring ability of US spy agencies.

Also, your data is shared internationally especially Facebook profiling because the FBI has an unconscionable amount of moles.

Re:How to fix for good:

[bill_mcgonigle]

I find it faster to google for Never10 and run it than to launch Regedit and find the keys. (Both do the same thing.)

Re:Microsoft has no choice now

[Anonymous Coward]

now there is a precedent so next person wouldn't need to go though and the class action lawsuit can go ahead.
fuck MS