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Microsoft Exec Admits They 'Went Too Far' With Aggressive Windows 10 Updates (softpedia.com)
It's no secret that Microsoft has been aggressively pushing Windows 10 to users. Over the past year and a half, we have seen users complain about Windows 10 automatically getting downloaded to their computer, and in some cases, getting installed on its own as well. The automatic download irked many users who were on limited or slow data plans, or didn't want to spend gigabytes of data on Windows 10. A company executive has admitted for the first time that they may have went overboard with Windows 10 updates. From a report on Softpedia: Chris Capossela, Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, said in the latest edition of the Windows Weekly that this was the moment when the company indeed went too far, pointing out that the two weeks between the moment when users started complaining about the unexpected behavior and the one when a patch was released were "very painful." "We know we want people to be running Windows 10 from a security perspective, but finding the right balance where you're not stepping over the line of being too aggressive is something we tried and for a lot of the year I think we got it right, but there was one particular moment in particular where, you know, the red X in the dialog box which typically means you cancel didn't mean cancel," he said. "And within a couple of hours of that hitting the world, with the listening systems we have we knew that we had gone too far and then, of course, it takes some time to roll out the update that changes that behavior. And those two weeks were pretty painful and clearly a lowlight for us. We learned a lot from it obviously."
They got close to a billion users to upgrade and have their computing environment be monetized with marginal cost to the company and they acted too quickly for the FTC or whomever to do anything about it.
They did this just right. If you're Microsoft, of course.
The 2% of people who switched to Mac and and 0.5% of people who switched to FLOSS desktops are totally acceptable costs.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They still go too far. I have no problem the default behavior being that updates are applied automatically but what goes too far is that 1. this isn't disable-able, 2. their "Active Hours" can't be longer than 12 hours so I can assume my machine won't reboot for only 12 hours out of the day (morning OR night but can't have both), and 3. I should be able to decide what my machine does if I so choose; not Microsoft.
I really like Windows 10 aside from their automatic updates, data collection, and ads in my start menu. They all get disabled in the end but it's kind of a pain in the ass because Microsoft doesn't want me to do so. At least they can't stop my router from denying access to network services ^_^
-SaNo
When I cloned my HDD to an SSD on a USB adapter, Win10 marked the SSD as a "portable OS" in the registry and that later prevented the anniversary update from installing on a USB drive (never mind that the SSD booted from SATA). I actually had to open regedit.exe to edit the "portable OS" key from "1" to "0" for the anniversary update to install properly.
That's a really great question. What tipped them off in just a couple of hours after months of customer moaning.
it looked and worked the same as Windows 7. No weird splash pop-ups. No Cortana, no bin of broken-dependency plugins which somehow cause the whole system to be unstable. After months of fighting with Windows 10 (common refrain in my house "Oh my gawd, why is this taking so LONG!"), and some of my forum-sourced tweaks at trying to speed things up (to just even a reasonable speed, I had given up hoping it would be as fast and reliable as Ubuntu), the thing was so broken I had to re-install ... Windows 7.
It was like stepping out into a clear day from the fog. Everything works (sorta, after figuring out the initial Get Updates Functional and Started fiasco, which requires a separate download, since their original update manager doesn't play with the current update server). Programs load. The Start menu works, and just has Start menu stuff in it, no weather, no news, no ads. Seriously, who came up with the brilliant idea of putting ads in my Start bar. STOP IT! I should have to install some seriously advanced viruses to get that s**t. But now they come with a fresh install, directly from Microsoft.
And now they're un-supporting Windows7 entirely, no new updates. Don't see why, as far as I can tell, most of the base operating system is the same, except for Windows 10 built in spyware. None-the-less, I will stick with Windows 7 until it becomes unusable, and then I think my family will just have to figure out Mint or Ubuntu or something. I'm done with Microsoft.
I actually consider Windows 10 to be completely flawed due to its forced and frequent update scheme.
I often only boot up my Windows PC every week or two. Invariably, there will be updates to process. What this means is that just about every boot takes multiple minutes to complete.
I consider an operating system that takes many minutes to start up in the year 2016 when using a fast SSD drive, to be fundamentally flawed.
Additionally, there have been times when I have left a long-running boot up and had the operating system force-reboot my system for updates while I was in the middle of actively using it.
That is 100% unacceptable. Even if by design, I consider it to be intrinsically flawed as an operating system.
These issues are so onerous to me that they lead me to hate Windows 10 with a white-hot passion. The only reason I am using it is because I have to for my VR PC ...
The core of the problem is capitalism. Microsoft needs to maintain a certain level of sales to keep their profit margins. Since an operating system is really something that does NOT need to be replaced every year (let's face it, there's no reason windows XP needed to be replaced--or at least not with an equally buggy pile of shit code), the only solution is planned obsolescence. By refusing to properly address security issues in the core of the operating system, Microsoft has only to stop supporting the older releases to scare everyone into updating. It is the danger of a combined overreaching IP system, that extends copyright way too far, and abusive monopoly powers.
If Windows XP was out of copyright, you can bet that an entire industry would spring up right now to patch and maintain it, and it would be extremely profitable. This is yet another great example of where reduced copyright terms would drive innovation.
As someone who knows three people who were Windows-10'd against their will, telling them to waste x hundred hours of time trying to get compensation for the dozen hours (or $200) it took for them or someone else to undo the damage seems a little... counterproductive.
However, when we passed a Microsoft store advertising the Windows 10 upgrade, I did have to stop my wife (one of the victims) from barging in there and giving the staff a piece of her mind.
You missed something important: They don't have to do it again. Windows 10 is the final version of Windows.
Yes, this was one nail for the coffin.
With more and more business and office applications going online, or locally hosted instead of locally installed, the OS lock-in becomes less and less. If PC vendors and Google got their shit together, this could indeed be the final version of Windows, and new PCs have a business friendly offshoot of Android or other OS. Not that anything Android-based would be an improvement for privacy, but it wouldn't be Windows.
I think it's coming, but I think it will take a few more years.
"They will never learn when the CORRUPT CEO IS STILL RUNNING THE COMPANY." Under Gates and Ballmer, MS may have screwed over potential competitors, but with Satya Nadella, they are screwing over the customers. Forcing a spyware loaded, system breaking, auto update "upgrade" on unsuspecting customers is straight up evil and they should be prosecuted for false advertising (abuse of common knowledge of what an update is and/or systems that were reviewed and labeled Windows 10 ready when they werent) and or vandalism (damaging/modifying another's property without their consent; you could have a street artist paint a beautiful mural on the front of your building, but it is still vandalism if he didn't have your permission). And don't give me that BS about giving windows update permission: users gave windows update permission to update their OS, not replace it with a new, different OS that behaved differently, had a different set of utilities and much lower level of privacy and control. MS customers want Nadella gone as a first step in the right direction.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like