Microsoft Prepares One Final, Full-Screen Get Windows 10 Nag (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader shares a ZDNet report:Those persistent Get Windows 10 pop-ups are going away soon, after Microsoft's free upgrade offer for Windows 10 expires on July 29. During those final days and hours, anyone still running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 should brace for one last round of upgrade prods from Redmond, including a full-screen message, as the GWX program moves into its final phase. The details are in a new Knowledge Base article, "Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 end of free upgrade offer notification," which includes a screenshot of the message as well as some helpful hints on how to avoid seeing it more than once. Two noteworthy additions are visible in the lower left corner of that screen. Instead of merely dismissing the reminder, you can ask to be notified up to three more times or specify that you've made your mind up and you don't want any more notifications.

Comments

Great, just fucking great

[mykepredko]

Can I sue M$ for all the time I spent making sure Win10 *wouldn't* be put on my Windows 7 development machines?

Re:Great, just fucking great

[Ash-Fox]

You can probably sue them. Don't know if you'd win.

Re:Great, just fucking great

[Known Nutter]

Not exactly the same, but in the neighborhood for sure.

http://www.pcgamer.com/woman-w...

A California woman has been awarded $10,000 in a lawsuit over a botched Windows 10 installation that she said she didn't want, didn't authorize, and left her computer running at a âoecrawlâ and prone to crashing. Microsoft's customer support service was unable to solve the problem, so she sued for lost wages and the cost of a new PC, and came out on top.

Re:Great, just fucking great

[gadget junkie]

Can I sue M$ for all the time I spent making sure Win10 *wouldn't* be put on my Windows 7 development machines?

if you take about 5 mins per claim, it would take you about two eternities.

Re: Great, just fucking great

[Anonymous Coward]

i was thinking the same thing..

Re:Great, just fucking great

[martinfb]

Can I sue M$ for all the time I spent making sure Win10 *wouldn't* be put on my Windows 7 development machines?

In a fair world, yes. Yet, we have allowed 800-pound gorillas like MS have unrestrained control. It is unethical and offensive at best. I PAID for Win 7 Pro, and I want to keep it. Win 10 offers me NOTHING except another learning curve. So, I agree - stop it or pay ME!

I have an idea for making it even more likeable

[bettodavis]

First check if the user is running any DirectX application, preferable a popular game on full screen mode for a couple of hours, then force-kill the top process and send this big 'love meeee!' message from Windows 10.

I'm sure users will appreciate.

Well I'll be dipped

[cmdr_klarg]

They actually added a "don't bug me anymore" link on the nag screen. Not very prominent, but it's there! Whether it works or not remains to be seen.

Re:Well I'll be dipped

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, it will work. For the "free" upgrade offer at least. This is how the original should have looked like.
But in a couple of months or so you can expect the payed upgrade nagging to start.
And for all of this Microsoft destroyed the integrity of the windows update system, and whatever integrity the company itself had left, to the point that many people have just disabled windows update altogether. I hope it was worth it.

Re:Well I'll be dipped

[sexconker]

It's double worth it in their eyes.
People who disable updates are less secure. When they get fucked they'll move to 10 and pay for it. And 10 doesn't let you disable the updates.

Re:Well I'll be dipped

[wonkey_monkey]

Well... it says "do not notify me again." Now, does that mean "do not notify me and don't do anything" or does it mean "do not notify me, just install Windows 10 right now!"?

Re: Well I'll be dipped

[Anonymous Coward]

The don't bug me screen just installs windows 10. You either get bugged or you install. We figured you chose windows 10. You chose long and painful.

Re:Well I'll be dipped

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it means "do not notify me until you next notify me"

Wow what a great deal!

[Anonymous Coward]

A free upgrade? How Convenient!

Re:Wow what a great deal!

[Opportunist]

timeo danaos et dona ferentes

And that the gift mentioned was the original trojan horse only adds to how fitting the quote is.

Goddamnit Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

No means no.

Re:Goddamnit Microsoft

[matbury]

For the British, consent is as simple as tea (According to Thames Valley Police): https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

No one wants your telemetry

[HBI]

I'll be waiting for Microsoft to realize that they failed and back off on their current plans, possibly under another management team. Otherwise, it's goodbye...and i'll keep running Windows 7 until driver support evaporates, and then re-evaluate. My guess is that i'll be able to keep running it beyond 2020.

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[Anonymous Coward]

Even worse than the telemetry is the subscription model that's coming. Fuck that.

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[Barlo_Mung_42]

The problem is that from a business perspective they've not failed. Far from it. They just executed the most successful OS rollout of any OS is history. In only a few months more people were running Win10 than OSX and Linux combined. It overtook XP quickly too which was key. Eventually people will realize that telemetry is built into the fabric of the framework that makes up the machinery of our entire society. Your phone, your credit cards, probably even your car track aspects of your behavior. That's not intended to encourage you to stop complaining. I'm all for complaining about things I don't like but it does seem to be the reality of the situation and I don't think there's much anyone can do about it. Sure, I could start using Linux but all things considered it just doesn't seem worth the trouble.

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[blind biker]

I have enough laptops and motherboards supported by Windows 7 that I am sure I will be able to run it beyond 2020, maybe even much longer over that horizon. The apps I need don't obsolesce nearly as quickly as most people would imagine, since the final product (STL files, STEP files, .doc (not even .docx) and .odt) are very ubiquitous.

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[FlyHelicopters]

Otherwise, it's goodbye...and i'll keep running Windows 7 until driver support evaporates, and then re-evaluate. My guess is that i'll be able to keep running it beyond 2020.

Yea, yea... everyone said that about Windows XP as well, yet how many of you are still running that?

Windows 7 will stop being useful for general purpose computing at some point, maybe before or after 2020, but it will slowly not be a reasonable option. By 2020 it will be 11 years old, technology and time marches on...

And yes, I know there are still people using Windows 95 today, that doesn't invalidate my point, rather they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[HBI]

How do you gauge the success of an OS rollout? That they forcibly got a bunch of technically illiterate people to accede to an upgrade that was almost forced on them?

Is there a killer app for Windows 10 that will drive acceptance?

I've watched this upgrade cycle play out many times, and this is not how successful uptake is done.

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[dbIII]

Yea, yea... everyone said that about Windows XP as well, yet how many of you are still running that?

In my workplace probably around ten systems, one of them less than two years old (user wanted it). If you count virtual machines of WinXP on *nix boxes add more than a dozen more if they were all fired up at once.
A combination of some stuff not working on Vista and up plus MS Office working with no problems on WinXP means that there is far more of it about than you appear to think.
Yes, it sucks for running anything that needs more than trivial amounts of memory but some people are not running things that need much memory.

By 2020 it will be 11 years old, technology and time marches on...

Sadly not as quick as I'd like. A long list of things that were "already in Longhorn" according to Balmer are still not in MS Win10. It's not really a big improvement on Win2k in a lot of ways (note that Win2k doesn't have the artificial memory ceiling that WinXP has). That amazing new NTFS we were going to get still is not there so WinXP can still read new stuff - time hasn't really marched on when the old stuff can use what the new stuff does and more since it is still compatible with the old applications.

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[dbIII]

Yes, but those are special situations in locked down VMs, not general purpose Windows desktops with open access to the Internet (or I sure as heck hope not anyway)

No those too. A real firewall upstream and full antivirus/antispyware makes them no less exposed to malware than Win10 protected in the same way and far more robust than Win10 with nothing but MS Defender. Pretty sad isn't it?

Everything from drivers to software will slowly move on

Not yet, WinXP drivers still seem to come with everything and the only stuff I've seen demand better than WinXP to run is games. Of course it's a stupid choice if you plan to use more than tiny amounts of memory, but it still seems to work for those who don't need much.

but try installing a modern video card on XP

I did - look at the Nvidia website to clear up the misconception.

Yea, yea, of course you're not, remind me what the Linux desktop marketshare in 2016 is? That's right, almost nothing.

Since engineering workstations are a niche ignored by MS why should I care about marketshare instead of using something that works?

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[advocate_one]

you could always run that program in a VM on Linux...

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[FlyHelicopters]

Since engineering workstations are a niche ignored by MS why should I care about marketshare instead of using something that works?

Maybe you shouldn't, just don't confuse your own situation with the wider world, that's all..

There are people who, honest to goodness, still drive around daily in a 1950s car, even in the US... there aren't many of them however and don't reflect the larger car market.

Linux has a place, to be sure, it is just a small one. It is not, and never will be "the big thing for the desktop" like so many of its true believers think.

Like I said, OS X could be there, if Apple wanted it to be, but perhaps they don't.

Re:No one wants your telemetry

[dbIII]

Maybe you shouldn't, just don't confuse your own situation with the wider world, that's all..

I said "niche". Did you not understand that or are you deliberately putting words in my mouth that are not there just to win some fucking stupid mass debating argument game?
Just accept that your blanket cases above is not correct absolutely everywhere and move on instead of being dishonest for some trivial reason.

You really had to go full fanboy didn't you?

Convert the LUDDITES to Appdows 10!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is simply trying to convert LUDDITES using LUDDITE Windows 7 to modern app appers by automatically appgrading their app apping device to Appdows 10!

Apps!

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only tinfoil hat losers and businesses with enterprise licensing aren't upgrading to Windows 7. If you freaks and dorks weren't so paranoid, you wouldn't have these problems.

Some of us are neither of those and are sticking with Win7 because we've got software we paid good money for that won't work on Windows 10.

hey Microsoft - here's how to bump those numbers:

[Thud457]

Why don't they just follow the proven industry standard of hiring some sweatshop in Bangladesh to simulate active daily users?

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except this story has nothing to do with upgrading to windows 7.

It's surprising people will put up with this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea how this wasn't a class action lawsuit months ago.
I have no idea how it isn't a class action lawsuit now.
It's surprising that lady who sued for $10k is the only noteworthy case to date.

Re:It's surprising people will put up with this.

[arglebargle_xiv]

Instead of merely dismissing the reminder, you can ask to be notified up to three more times

Dear Satya Nadella,

In a moment, two large gentlemen will be visiting your office to sodomise you with some form of vegetable, possibly a cucumber. You can ask to be sodomised up to three more times.

Love,

Pissed-off Windows 7 user.

Re:It's surprising people will put up with this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the Windows 10 EULA has a binding arbitration clause. This forbids users from filing claims in court or organising class action suits against Microsoft. Microsoft's lawyers are doing everything that can to protect themselves because they know that their telemetry/spyware is unethical and borderline legal.

The cost to set up an arbitration dispute is like $9000, far above the $250 to file in small claims court. Most people probably don't have $9000 to throw around, especially when arbitrators are generally untrustworthy and bought off.

Re: It's surprising people will put up with this.

[richard_mcenroe]

Apparently none of the class action buzzards Use Apple and their PCs keep losing the filings for some reason.

I still don't get it

[ErstO]

Whats the big deal over Win 10? why are pushing so hard?

Re:I still don't get it

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

It's cheaper to support ONE version of the operating system than it is three.

Of course that explanation doesn't involve the amount of tin foil that many like to introduce into the situation, but it makes the most sense to me.

Re:I still don't get it

[DarkOx]

The big deal is that I think they want to get away from numbered versions of Windows. My gut tells me they are trying to basically go to a rolling release + subscription model.

Which makes sense from a support prospective. It also permanently solves the problem of stupid device makers that tie their product to a specific Windows version.

Re:I still don't get it

[sjames]

After flopping twice, they want to avoid the psychological demoralizer of strike 3 (at least publicly). So they need to show big Windows 10 adoption numbers even if they have to cram it down people's throats.

Re:I still don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

The big deal is that I think they want to get away from numbered versions of Windows. My gut tells me they are trying to basically go to a rolling release + subscription model.

Which makes sense from a support prospective. It also permanently solves the problem of stupid device makers that tie their product to a specific Windows version.

The problem is a lot of software is written and then used for quite some time, with the writers moving onto other tasks, and maybe not even with the same company, let alone department. Sure if your lucky the source is still available and it can be updated to deal with OS changes, but it is non trivial.

Put another way, you can't blindly keep all the same apis and support forever. It just doesn't work. So even if you change the sale model, the OS must at some point not support the same software it supported previously, at least without updates. Basically it becomes harder to just stick with the same OS, at least one the machines that need it, since the OS as it was in year 1 might be quite different than the one at year 10.

Perhaps it will be a subscription model, but still will have different major revisions supported for a number of years to avoid quite so much disruption?

Re:I still don't get it

[mrchaotica]

It's a trojan horse to deliver spyware and eventually a subscription-based business model.

Re:I still don't get it

[Maow]

It's cheaper to support ONE version of the operating system than it is three.

Of course that explanation doesn't involve the amount of tin foil that many like to introduce into the situation, but it makes the most sense to me.

It's true that supporting one version is easier than > 1 version, but unless they think there's a possibility of a 100% conversion, then they're still going to have to support > 1 version of Windows for quite a while still.

The best explanation I've seen for the feverish push to convert users to Windows 10 is that some bonus(es) are tied to conversion rates.

Re:I still don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. There's one simpler explanation: they believe it'll make them lots of money.

They've been desperately pushing for appy apps and their app store where they make a 30% cut of everything, the phoney interface could lead to more surface and phone sales (hence even more app store sales), and now the update subscription fees. That's besides the apps the OS is displaying and bundled crapyware (the anniversary update will double that), there's the heavy push for office 365 and onedrive (more subscription fees) and it's likely they'll manage to make money off of telemetry as well.

Re:I still don't get it

[F.Ultra]

+1 Most Insightful post in the whole article

Re:I still don't get it

[TroII]

This operating system is brought to you by the letters N, S, and A.

Re:I still don't get it

[jhanschoo]

I've seen another comment suggest that it's because MS is afraid of repeating Win XP's scenario where many computers remained on Win XP for a long time over again.

Re:I still don't get it

[Darinbob]

I think they were planning a virus that formed a big "Get Windows 10 Now" rash on your chest that you would read in the mirror every time you got out of the shower, but they stopped development on it when all their QA team were hospitalized.

Re:I still don't get it

[Darinbob]

The explanation making sense to me is that they're being run by morons, just like most corporations in the world.

Re:I still don't get it

[Darinbob]

There was nothing wrong with that scenario though. Microsoft however seems to feel that their convenience is more important than the user's convenience. After all, being a monopoly means you should be able to kick the customer in the nads and the customer will apologize for getting in the foot's way.

interestingly...

[Lead Butthead]

Just this week, the company laptop running win7 started getting the win10 upgrade nag after been completely devoid of it since the very beginning...

Re:interestingly...

[sims 2]

Get the GWX control panel. It makes telling microsoft no significantly less of a PITA.

Also it doesn't require installation which is nice.

How to avoid seeing it more than once!?!?!?

[QuietLagoon]

Why should I see it one time at all? How many times do I have to tell Microsoft that I do not want Windows 10 on my PCs????

.
Did Microsoft management fail the "no means no" sex education classes?

Microsoft intentional deafness on this matter has completely and irretrievably soured my opinion on them.

When Microsoft finally makes Windows 10 a subscription service, I will have been long gone to the World of Linux.

Re:How to avoid seeing it more than once!?!?!?

[norweeg]

did you not read what microsoft said about that executable? It's not for making windows a subscription service, it's for people upgrading to an enterprise license which is and has been a subscription service

Re:How to avoid seeing it more than once!?!?!?

[QuietLagoon]

did you not read what microsoft said about that executable?

After all that Microsoft has done to force Windows 10 upon me, I take what Microsoft says with a good deal of skepticism.

Re:How to avoid seeing it more than once!?!?!?

[Opportunist]

I have read that.

What I failed to read is anything that should convince me to believe anything they write anymore.

Re:How to avoid seeing it more than once!?!?!?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Why should I see it one time at all? How many times do I have to tell Microsoft that I do not want Windows 10 on my PCs????

That number would be "infinity plus 37 kabillion".

-

Did Microsoft management fail the "no means no" sex education classes?

The fact that a number of Microsoft's employees and executives have been accused of rape would seem to indicate that they did indeed fail the "no means no" class.

-

Microsoft intentional deafness on this matter has completely and irretrievably soured my opinion on them.

Lol, what took you so long? :) I moved to Linux Mint months ago, and I'm never going back.

Re:How to avoid seeing it more than once!?!?!?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

THat's certainly what I assumed. Now that MacOS upgrades are free for individuals, it makes little sense to think that Microsoft would think that OS as a service was a good idea.

Re:How to avoid seeing it more than once!?!?!?

[mcswell]

I have two computers running Win7, and I have yet to see an upgrade to 10 note. I get standard updates, but no nags. Why am I so lucky?

you know what would be effective?

[norweeg]

Reminding people that after July 29th, it's going to cost $119 to upgrade and you'll eventually have to upgrade anyway, so you might as well get it now while it's free. Free >>> buying a new PC that's gonna have Windows 10 anyway >>> switching to Mac and let's be real: anyone who could switch to Linux already has and doesn't use windows anyway.

offline iso upgrade

[suxorzomg]

im downloading the update iso now because it will probably still work after the 29th (if i ever need to upgrade for some reason)

with apologies to Theodor Geisel

[Thud457]

Would you like free Windows 10 ?

I do not want free Windows 10 ?

Would you like it here or there ?

I would not like it here or there.
I would not like it anywhere.
I do not like Windows 10.
I do not like it, Microsoft man.

Would you like it in your house?
Would you like it on your mouse?

I do not like it in my house.
I do not like it on my mouse.
I do not like it here or there.
I do not like it anywhere.
I do not like Windows 10.
I do not like it, Microsoft man.

Would you use it on Xbox?
Would you use it to run Firefox?

Not on Xbox.
Not with Firefox.
Not in my house.
Not on my mouse.
I would not use it here or there.
I would not use it anywhere.
I would not use Windows 10.
I do not like it Microsoft-San.

Would you? Could you?
In your car?
Use it! Use it!
Here you are!

You WILL LIKE IT.
You will see.
You WILL LIKE it
in a tree.

I would not could not in a a tree.
Not in my car! You let me be!
I do not like it on XBox.
I do not like it running Firefox.
I do not like it in my house.
I do not like it on my mouse.
I do not like it here or there.
I do not like it ANYWHERE!
I do not like Window s10.
I do not like them Microsoft man.

&etc...

oh, we've enabled this crap again...
Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 15.3).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 15.3).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 15.3).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 15.3).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 15.3).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 15.3).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 15.3).

Install GRC's "Never 10"

[ziani]

to prevent an involuntary overwrite. I don't think it stops the nag, but you won't get a "helpful surprise" install against your will.

Available here (free): https://www.grc.com/never10.htm

Re:Install GRC's "Never 10"

[Qzukk]

Yeah! just run this program you downloaded off some random website with admin privileges! That's what I should have told my mother!

Re:Install GRC's "Never 10"

[galen]

GRC.com is hardly "some random website." Steve Gibson is one of the most well respected computer security gurus around.

Re:Install GRC's "Never 10"

[adolf]

I don't know if I'd call him a well-respected computer security guru.

But he did write Spin-Rite and seems to have built a cult of followers based on that, so there is that I guess.

A quick summary of the past few months

[GrumpySteen]

Microsoft: Thanks for signing up for Windows 10 facts! You now will receive fun daily facts about Windows 10!
Users: Um. We didn't sign up.
Microsoft: Windows 10 uses Cortana to search for information and recognizes nearly eight languages! To cancel Daily Windows 10 facts, reply 'cancel'
Users: Cancel
Microsoft: Command not recognized. Would you like to receive a Windows 10 Fact every hour? reply 'Tyxt333358dggyf' to cancel
Users: Tyxt333358dggyf
Microsoft: Command not recognized. You have a year subscription to Windows 10 facts and will receive fun hourly updates!
Microsoft: In ancient Egypt, not installing Windows 10 was a crime punishable by death. Thanks for choosing Windows 10 facts!
Users: Ehhh whhhhyyyyyssss. WHHHYYYYSSSSS????!!!!!!
Microsoft: Command not recognized. Please let us know you are human to cancel by completing the following sentence:
Microsoft: Your favorite operating system is (blank).
Microsoft: We're sorry, we didn't get that. Please let us know you are human to cancel by completing the following sentence:
Microsoft: Your favorite operating system is (blank).
Users: Linux!
Users: We're human!!!!
Microsoft: INCORRECT. Your favorite operating system is Windows 10. You will continue to receive Windows 10 facts every hour.
Users: Not if we kill ourselves first!!!
Microsoft: Command not recognized Did you know know there are about 100 distinct versions of Windows 10? Plenty of digital love!
Microsoft: Windows 10 uses encryption to cover its surveilance activities from users. To cancel Windows 10 facts reply 'dgjeiwodf4422223jeirof'
Users: dgjeiwodf4422223jeirof
Microsoft: Do you want to cancel? Please answer the following question to confirm you are human:
Microsoft: Your favorite operating system is (blank).
Users: Windows 10
Microsoft: INCORRECT. You said your favorite operating system is Linux. You will continue to receive Windows 10 facts.
Users: EH WHHHHYYY?!!??!

Get ready to follow me in the clss-action.

[Khyber]

And if I'm lucky, it will be the LAST thing Microsoft gets to do with ANY Windows. I figured out how they got their updates through even though I had Windows Update Disabled. Took some system log reading and double-checking time stamps from the OS.

My attorneys are salivating over the evidence from my computer right now.

Typed on my shitty but usable Android.

Re:Get ready to follow me in the clss-action.

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

You go, Internet Tough-Guy, you go.

Bunch of fucking luddite tin foil wearers. Seriously.

SOME people MAY say...

[Thud457]

I heard if you go into the bathroom, turn off the lights and say "Windows 10" three times it appears in the mirror and tries to consume your soul.

Re:SOME people MAY say...

[TangoMargarine]

Except it turns out human hardware doesn't support soulflaying so it fails and you end up as a zombie.

Re:SOME people MAY say...

[Anonymous Coward]

> I heard if you go into the bathroom, turn off the lights and say "Windows 10" three times it appears in the mirror and tries to consume your soul.

That's not true! It only consumes your RAM and that can be purged with a sleep cycle.

Your soul program is stored on the brain's hard drive and will not be affected.

Still waiting for that damn Windows 10 download

[cpghost]

On one of my Windows 7 machines, I actually reserved the Windows 10 upgrade many months ago, but nothing happens. Clicking on the icon in the task bar always shows "Your upgrade is reserved... blah blah blah". So it's kind of funny to be nagged by GWX, and at the same time to wait in vain for a download that never completes. Not that it matters that much to me, it's just funny. If it doesn't complete by the deadline, that machine will stay on Windows 7 which runs just fine. I got an upgrade on another test machine without any problems; and all this is only to analyze the behavior of Windows 10 w.r.t. security. Real work with sensitive data I do on Linux and FreeBSD anyway.

Re:Still waiting for that damn Windows 10 download

[F.Ultra]

Even more funny is that the upgrade to win10 fails on a guest Win7 running in VirtualBox since the VBOX graphics driver is unsupported. However a fresh install of Win10 never complained and worked perfectly fine. But of course this will not stop MS from nagging me to upgrade that guest even though it cannot be done.

I'm on vacation all next week..

[kheldan]

..and on my To-Do List is to migrate my computers off of Windows and onto some version of Linux. Enough is too much.

Re:I'm on vacation all next week..

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

..and on my To-Do List is to migrate my computers off of Windows and onto some version of Linux. Enough is too much.

FWIW, I recently moved to Linux Mint and I'm pretty damn happy with it. You may find something (another distro) you like better but all in all I have zero complaints with Mint.

It loaded/installed without a hitch, everything worked right off (wifi, sound, mouse, bluetooth, DVD/CD player, etc) and updating it is a snap. I like not having to reboot every time I update something. WINE runs the few niche Windows apps I want to keep (a cardfile app and some other junk) but I'm sure I'll find native replacements for those when I stop being lazy about it (I'm actually testing a few now).

So, yeah, I can recommend Linux Mint without reservation.

Re:I'm on vacation all next week..

[kheldan]

Thansk for the recommendation, I'll check it out. Big bonus points if the old Dell Lattitude laptop I've got will run it, too.

Re:I'm on vacation all next week..

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I'd bet that it'll probably be fine. I've installed Mint on about a half-dozen different PCs, two of which were laptops and so far it's installed and run great on all of them.

If you would, please let me know how it goes.

You have a nice system there it will be a scame

[Joe_Dragon]

You have a nice system there it will be better with windows 10 we don't want something bad to happen with your copy of windows 7 or 8.

Alloow me

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

...on behalf of everyone who hasn't already been forced into an "upgrade", allow me to say "NO".

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Win10 "upgrade" may be free, but it will downgrade your retail 7 or 8 licence to an OEM Win10 licence. It is locked to that machine and invalidates your original retail licence.

Linux or Suicide

[stooo]

A better alternative to suicide is simply to install Linux.

So...

[johnsmithperson123]

How are they going to get people to pay for something that they refused when it was free?

Re:So...

[F.Ultra]

DirectX12, and this is why I hope that game devs move to Vulcan instead.

Re:So...

[drinkypoo]

If both GPU makers focus on Vulkan performance in their drivers, then it should come to pass fairly rapidly. The way we got Microsoft dominance in 3D PC graphics to begin with was that we didn't have OpenGL drivers for our cheap hardware.

MS Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's a nice machine you have there, it would be a shame if something happened to it"

Re:Not afected

[Khyber]

I had updates turned off - they got turned back on thanks to another well-known company which many have their software installed.

Hint - it's an online games distribution platform.

Like I said, my attorneys are salivating, not just because Microsoft, but also because of this other company involved. There's a FUCKTON of money that is about to get passed around from both guilty parties.

Oh man

[ArchieBunker]

Her computer was " running at a âoecrawlâ" How awful to experience an âoecrawlâ"

Re:This is what fake support companies did no?

[F.Ultra]

Add to the problem that since Microsoft now does shit like this the users will more easily get fooled by the scammers since they get accustomed to these nag screens being "real".

UNSUBSCRIBE: Cat Facts and Windows 10 Thanks

[Rainwulf]

Fuckin microsoft. Windows 7. Every single person bar 1 has told me the same thing "windows 10? its hard to use."

Like that developer humour post on reddit.

A terrible GUI is like a bad joke. If you have to explain it, its not a good GUI at all.

Re:Not afected

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

I'm pretty sure that Microsoft's lawyers make a fuckton more than you're paying yours.

Good luck with that frivolous lawsuit though. That should be a ton of fun to see updates on.

Dear Microsoft,

[c9brown]

I'd upgrade my other machines if my Windows 10 machine didn't BSOD every couple days.

FTC Blowing MS Forever

[BrendaEM]

Microsoft can do no wrong in the eyes of the Federal Trade Commission.

Re:Not afected

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Hahaha. OK...

Have fin with all that time you wasted with 7 gigs of screenshots. Good job getting outraged by something that

Just.

Doesn't.

Matter.

Get a little more angry.

Same with moving to UWP

[HalAtWork]

This is how they get people off Win32 and onto UWP as well. The Windows PC will end up closed and signed top to bottom one way or another.

The GWX virus etc.

[os2fan]

Some of us who lived in the dim past days of OS/2 and limited support. You just make your own i suppose. A great variety of programs are removed by hand, especially if the system is not pre-emptively single-tasking in just the way ye want. So you fire up the range of utilities needed to do things.

Until recently, I used Windows 2000, but have since moved on to Windows 7 Ultimate. They started putting on this 'free upgrade to windows 10' on Windows 7. Kind of like how websites offer you free toolbars for your web browser that pins your computer in. I suppose it's one thing if your Browser updates, cause you can dump it overboard, it's different if your OS does.

So you can hand-remove it. The trouble is that the programs are locked, and run on the user System authority of 'TrustedInstaller' So if you don't have a neat utility that can wrangle the trustedinstaller permsisions, it's pretty hard. Someone cobbled a ' run as trusted installer' program, which copies the token of TI and runs your proggie on that token. Ok. Then you can hunt down the directory and trim the files (ie you can't delete them even if you're running as administrator or system). Needless to say GWX appeared about five or six times.

Being for the benefit of users who pay by the megabyte upload, Microsoft provided a 'background' service which hammers the hard drive for a good few minutes. You can't stop that outside of running as TI either. You can't even read the strings in the binary until you do it as TI. "We're just poking around your hard disk and seeing what sort of stuff you have".

It is of course, spaghetti ini files. Microsoft tried it in the Win2k resource kit (which i looked at at this time), which uses a local ini file, bounces to a CLSID back to a DLL in the system32 directory, back to a registry for more settings, and bounce back to an INI file in the reskit directory. I wanted to add the support kit to this stuff. It worked, sort of.

So "TrustedInstaller" seems to run at a level hitherto reserved for viruses. Even the clever folk would not have the wherewithall to cope with TI without serious hacking. It is little wonder that people use GWXCP and Never10. Vigilance is the price of democracy.

Re:Who cares?

[GuB-42]

I was talking about upgrading to Windows 7, not from Windows 7.
If you have XP, Vista, or anything older, you can't upgrade for free to neither Windows 7 nor Windows 10.
And if you have Windows 8.x or Windows 10, you can't go back to Windows 7 without a paid license. For some, 8-10 to 7 is the upgrade.