Microsoft Ends Support For Windows Vista; Begins To Roll Out Windows 10 Creators Update

On Tuesday, Microsoft began the roll out of Windows 10 Creators Update, the latest update of the company's desktop operating system. Incidentally, today is also the day Windows Vista, a decade-old OS as well as some parts of Office 2007 hit end of life. Earlier this month we asked Slashdot readers if they would be upgrading their computers to Windows 10 Creators Update. Many people answered with a resounding no.

Comments

Re:Not worth having

[zlives]

dont worry it will be.

Do I have a choice?

[Ostrich25]

I somehow suspect that Windows won't exactly give me the option to say 'no' to this update.

Re:Do I have a choice?

[Solandri]

Just disable the Windows Update service. You'll have to re-enable it eventually to get security updates, but at least this way you can control when the updates occur. I've had to do that since Win 10 keeps installing "updated" video drivers which don't work on my laptop. Every month I enable updates long enough to get the newest security updates (along with everything else Microsoft forces on you), then disable it again and reinstall the "older" working video drivers.

FWIW, they did let you put off the Oct 2016 major update for as long as you wanted. It was treated much like the upgrade to Win 10 (in fact it used the same procedure - moving the previous system into Windows.old for 10 days* and allowing you to roll it back). Meaning you could end up with it automatically (and unwillingly) installed, but for the most part the customer was in control of it.

* Yes they reduced the roll-back period from 30 days to 10 days. Was a major PITA since some of my clients experiencing problems with it didn't realize they'd been forcibly upgraded, and by the time they notified me of problems it was past the 10 day window and we had to restore from a backup to revert the system.

Re:Do I have a choice?

[exomondo]

I somehow suspect that Windows won't exactly give me the option to say 'no' to this update.

That's right, going forward they're trying to keep everybody up to date. It's much easier to address security and stability issues when the operating system is the same on all the systems, especially given the millions of different possible hardware configurations.

But this is hardly a new thing, my Macs don't forcibly update but they certainly constantly ping me to tell me I should install and prompt to allow auto updates because keeping the OS up to date is generally a good thing. If you consider it an afront to your freedom or control then you wouldn't be using Windows anyway, instead you would use a Linux or BSD system and just use Windows in an isolated, sanitized VM if you need to do Windows-specific things.

Can the update work on a Dell system?

[__aaclcg7560]

Does it seem like Dell systems have a problem installing the Windows 10 Anniversary update? I had to do a clean install on my own Dell laptop. A friend's Dell desktop can't install the Anniversary update and may require a clean install.

Just installed it

[Espectr0]

So far, doing good. I installed by mounting the iso and just upgrading.

Some notable changes:

1. win+x doesn't show control panel or command prompt anymore
2. regedit shows full address of current key on top. Nice for copy and pasting
3. Revamped installer. Allows you to disable some of the ads
4. Speaking of ads, there are lots more to disable this time around. There's a helpful article over at howtogeek that explains how to do so
5. You can actually uninstall onedrive now at it is listed under programs and features, no need to use the command line
6. More windows update options are available
7. Edge has some more features, and right now it's the better choice for Netflix (at least when using a browser)

Old Vista laptop or PC to ZFS HOWTO

[Wolfrider]

https://freedompenguin.com/art...

--If you have an old Vista rig that has a 64-bit CPU, at least 1-2GB RAM and would like to make it more useful... Turn it into a ZFS+Samba file server