Microsoft To Disable Policies In Windows 10 Pro With Anniversary Update (ghacks.net)

Reader BobSwi writes: More changes in the Windows Anniversary update, due August 2nd, are being discovered. After yesterday's news about Cortana not able to be turned off in the Windows Anniversary update, certain registry entries and group policies have been found to be updated with a note stating that they only apply to Enterprise and Education editions. Win 10 Pro users will no longer be able to turn off policies such as the Microsoft Consumer Experience, Show Windows Tips, Do not display the lock screen, and Disable all apps from the Windows Store.

Comments

In a country far far away

[NotInHere]

Having no windows makes this story as relevant for me as the UAE story today. Interesting to know that the freedoms I enjoy are not something everybody enjoys, but nothing really relevant for my everyday life.

To all windows users: you are always welcome here in the linux world. There is a place free for you!

Re: In a country far far away

[ktakki]

Except Windows is more like condominium ownership. You still pay a maintenance fee and the condo association can change the by-laws at will.

Re:In a country far far away

[JohnFen]

Microsoft's contributions to Linux have been of minimal importance to people who don't use Microsoft products.

Re:In a country far far away

[mlw4428]

Sure. Without having to worry about WINE (since most of these tend to update fairly frequently) I'll need Quickbooks, Office 365, I have a handful of games I do like to play from time to time, Turbotax, and on occasion Visual Studio. No, I don't want crap open source replacements that only implement 30% of the functionality. No I do not want LibreOffice as it doesn't implement all of the features and sometimes has compatiblity issues from time to time that MS never has.

I need this to work with my hardware now and into the future without issues. I want to do as little configuration as possible - I don't have 6-10 hours a week to mess around with crap not working randomly. I also don't want to waste the money I spent. Can Linux do all of this? No, no it cannot. Frankly, I upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 8.1 (which itself was an upgrade from Windows 7). I had no issues and I even had Bitdefender installed. Everything migrated just fine. I don't understand the resistance, personally, from a security aspect it just makes sense. I'm no Windows fanboy (I have a Thinkpad 11E running Fedora 24 and I dual boot Ubuntu just to keep up with the distribution).

Your "free place for you" comes with a LOT of hidden costs for most people and 99.9999% of the time, people like you just shrug their shoulders. You offer a half baked solution without understanding the current needs of the populace, because YOU want YOUR platform to be as popular as Windows. It's understandable, but fustrating as a technologist. You're inadvertently advocating to make an unsuspecting user's life more difficult without telling them of the pitfalls in switching OSes on a whim - espeically one that has poor commerical software support. Push them to Apple at least.

Re:In a country far far away

[Grishnakh]

I don't have 6-10 hours a week to mess around with crap not working randomly.

Apparently you do have time and inclination and tolerance to put up with MS advertising to you and preventing you from turning off spyware and other "features".

I also don't want to waste the money I spent.

You need to go read about the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

You offer a half baked solution without understanding the current needs of the populace

Hey, if the populace doesn't mind being spied on and having advertising forced on them right in the OS, then good for them, they can have it. Not me.

Push them to Apple at least.

I don't think all that software you listed will work on MacOSX, so that doesn't seem like a viable alternative to people like you either.

Re:I'm shocked.

[BarbaraHudson]

Not as shocked as those who don't take advantage of the free "upgrade" will be if Microsoft sticks to tomorrow (29 July) being the last day that they'll try to sneak it onto your system. Somehow I don't see them giving up so easily.

What is going on here?

[myrdos2]

The consumer desktop is Microsoft's huge success story. Why degrade that experience? There are already goddamned ads in the user's start menus, plus remnants of the hated Windows 8.1 interface, plus massive privacy issues, plus strong-armed updates being forced down people's throats... I mean, what is this? It's like they're taking their productive, flagship product and doing everything they can to turn it into an annoying toy.

Re:What is going on here?

[Calydor]

Toys are meant to be fun.

What Microsoft is essentially saying is that your computer in no way, shape or form belongs to you. Not the software, not the hardware, not the decisions about when and how to interact with it.

Re:What is going on here?

[jellomizer]

Well there are a few things.
1. Most Home Users and Small Businesses are unable to maintain and administer their own computer. Many of the big security problems and hacks come from the users lack to properly Admin their home PC. This lack of Administration skills put Microsoft in a worse light than it deserved. Because they fixed the problems quickly and offer fixes. But too many users just didn't want to waste the time keeping their system operational.

2. People no longer want to pay a lot for computers. 1980s $4k was a reasonable price for a good PC. 1990s it was 2k, 2000s 1k, 2010s $500 Price is going down while inflation is going up and the cost. We are getting cheaper computers. Gone are the solid steel cases, mechanical keyboards, with components that were suppose to last for decades. We are cheap plastic, flimsy membrane squishy keys, and components that will last you 2 or 3 years if you are lucky. Because of this the OS cannot sell for more than the cost of the hardware. So Microsoft is doing these control things to keep cost down.

3. Because of the cheaper hardware much of the extra processing needs have moved to "the cloud". Being that many of the OS Components are on the cloud if you disable it. You will suffer performance and feature hit.

If we can get people willing to spend $2k for a desktop PC and $300 for the OS, I wouldn't expect Windows or OS X to become more power user friendly.

Windows 10 sucks the big one!

[oldgraybeard]

I continue to be amazed by the stupidity of Microsoft. Just when you can't believe there could be a worst version of Windows, here comes Windows 10! An invasive, poorly designed and unfit for any business use at all. I never thought I would say this but maybe Windows ME had some redeeming features after all. When compared to the turd that Windows 10 is and is morphing in to. Come on Microsoft!!!! make Windows 11 an updated, business usable Windows 7 Pro lookalike! Otherwise, I don't see how business will continue down the Microsoft road.

Re:Windows as a Service

[Eponymous Coward]

I think they want everybody on Windows 10 to entice developers. If you are going to write a Windows application, they want you to target Windows 10 and their universal platform. Until they get a big enough number of users there, it's a pretty tough argument to make.

If that's true, then I think they are damaging their brand for nothing. Other than games there's just not a lot of interesting things happening in Windows for mainstream consumers anymore. Windows is most interesting for business users and Microsoft has shown that they aren't willing to accept that yet.

Re:Free my ass.

[houstonbofh]

If you don't pay, you are not the customer. You are the product.

Re:I'm shocked.

[cdrudge]

"We noticed you entered a credit card number. Cortana went ahead and purchased your upgrade license for Windows 10 for $449.95 renewed annually."

Re:I'm shocked.

[Aaden42]

"Windows has been updated! Please enter your credit card number to purchase a license for Windows 10 or press any key to power off your PC."

Microsoft is NOT primarily a software company...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft To Disable Policies In Windows 10 Pro..."

Translation: Microsoft can slowly add more abuses. Microsoft has complete control over your computer when it is connected to the internet.

Microsoft is NOT primarily a software company. Microsoft is an ABUSE company that uses software as a way of delivering abuse.

My opinion, shared by many others.

Need to rename the editions

[ilsaloving]

It seems to me that Microsoft needs to rename their windows editions to properly reflect the changes in feature sets:

Windows 10 Home => Windows 10 Games and Web-browsing Only Edition
Windows 10 Pro => Gimped But Still Somewhat Usable Edition
Windows 10 Enterprise => We Rape Your Wallet If You Want The Same Control You Used To Enjoy with Previous Professional Editions Edition

Re:Free my ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you do pay, they make you into the product anyway, with extra profit.

Re:The Latest Innovations

[ilsaloving]

These moves by Microsoft amount to nothing less than extortion. Our company uses Windows 7 Pro as our standard desktop because Enterprise costs approx 3 times more, and we arn't going to get 3 times the value for it.

By doing what they are doing with Windows 10, they are basically holding companies like ours over a barrel because if we stick with Pro, we end up with *reduced* functionality.

I can say right now that I'm going to be sticking with Windows 7 for as long as humanly possible. Maybe Apple can get away with this kind of silliness since, despite their billions in the bank, they are still basically a niche company so no one cares. No one is forced to use Apple.

On the other hand, people ARE forced to use Microsoft because they have an almost perfect monopoly on PCs and business computing. As long as people can continue to stick with Windows 7, I don't see too much of a fuss happening, but I see a massive shitstorm in Microsoft's future, and they deserve every single turd.

With Win10, can't turn off the microphone....

[Fencepost]

I have a couple of ThinkPads that I use, one of which (T510) I upgraded to Windows 10 as my less-used guinea pig system. Very obvious post-install: the hardware Mute button (with its LED indicator) no longer worked under Windows 10.

That's not creepy at all, now is it? At least I can sticker over the cameras except if I'm doing a videoconference.

Trying so hard to fail in a market they dominate

[xeno]

Reality check:

TL;DR: Older geek, former windows guy struggling to GAF. Moved on.

I'm on a plane, using a Chromebook to browse the web and post here, because chromebooks get free GoGo service on a dozen flights a year. Gotta pay $15 to use Windows. If I flip the keyboard back, people mistake it for an iPad, kinda sexy looking, fun to use, not Windows. I get 14hrs per charge from a device that literally cost less than a Windows license by itself. Win10 provides an ok switchable touch-or-type experience, but it's not as mature. (The distinctive principles behind recent MS Office UI seem to be "waste space on your small screen" and "guess if this is clickable". Jerks.)

In another couple tabs, I have my work's Office365 open -- outlook, calendar, a word doc, and I can see edits in onenote as one of my guys updates it a continent away. It's clunky compared to Google Apps at my last company, but it totally eliminates any compatibility issues re MSOffice files. Work just gave me a mac, and to be honest its just a different way to launch a browser, so I left it home as well. (Hmm. Onenote is nicer than Keep, but it's basically a direct copy of Lotus Organizer... 20 years ago...20!!. Funny. ) I kinda miss Visio.

In my bag is a nice ultrabook running Mint 18, which is super stable and runs shockingly faster than Win10 on the same system.This weekend's project is scanning a couple thousand pages of family documents, and I can't bring a Windows laptop with me because the windows software for the hi-end scanner is an unstable clusterf*ck on WIn7/8 and Win10 simply doesn't recognize the device at all. Tried diff hw; it's the OS. I don't have hours to waste making this crap work on WIndows when it just works on Linux (Simplescan and XSane both worked perfectly with no jiggery-pokery at all). Same for numerous storage, wireless, input, a/v and other devices; I end up trying to fix Windows Update's wrong or borked drivers, when stuff just works on Linux. I find the reversal over the past decade pretty funny-not-funny.

I have backups at home on external systems, some with NTFS and some with EXT4. The kids asked me to buy a consumer media server a while back, and then we pulled the drives when the p/s died. Surprise, surprise, EXT3. Why would I screw around with Windows when it can't read half of my media drives and most of the IOT devices out there?

Bing? Oh please, I worked in Redmond for years, and tried hard to like them, but Microsoft simply can't get its collective shit together regarding search quality. Duckduckgo gives better results without the stalking behavior and implied-consent analysis. Win10 sending filesystem hashes back to the mothership without consent (or an ability to turn it off now) is creepy and rude. Even my kids were creeped out by the Xbox1 camera kerfuffle, and said they would rather have steam accounts and a badass theater projector+sound setup. So the old Xbox360 went to Goodwill. Want a cheap xbox and kinect?-- head over to the thrift store.

Cortana? Not as good as Android voice search. Doesn't work on my phone. Doesn't work on my recent stupid-toy-smartwatch. Doesn't remotely replace a voicerec program like Dragon, which I still used occasionally until recently. But then the goog rolled out voicerec on Chrome, which gives me an excellent voice input into Docs and decent nav experience on this here Chromebook. Super convenient, just works.

I'm struggling to find any reason why I care about Windows at all. Except I kinda miss Visio. And now they want to prevent me from turning off the WIndows App Store and the "Consumer Experience" that sends oodles of inappropriate data back to them? I just don't care anymore, but they're like the loudest guy at a party -- just waiting for him to leave.