Microsoft Removing Windows 10 Wi-Fi Network Sharing Feature

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After a bunch of negative feedback, Microsoft has decided to remove the Wi-Fi Sense password-sharing feature from Windows 10. Listed at the bottom of the page under "other items of note" is the following:

We have removed the Wi-Fi Sense feature that allows you to share Wi-Fi networks with your contacts and to be automatically connected to networks shared by your contacts. The cost of updating the code to keep this feature working combined with low usage and low demand made this not worth further investment. Wi-Fi Sense, if enabled, will continue to get you connected to open Wi-Fi hotspots that it knows about through crowdsourcing.
 
Yakk said:
Has my vote for "WTF were they thinking" feature.
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This feature makes some sense, it'd be nice to let my friends have my wifi password so when they visit, they don't have to ask (but I did put a label on the access point, which is in plain view). OTOH, since I can't select which access points to share (or it's not obvious that I can), I didn't enable it.
 
Well there goes my biggest issues with the OS. How awesome is that! Ditching that feature and gaining BASH? Cant wait for the update
 
It's nice to see Microsoft responding to feedback and removing features people don't like. Hopefully this will convince some of the holdouts to upgrade. No one wins in the long-run from people staying on Windows 7. Microsoft can't get feedback on how to fix things, users can't get newer features, etc.
 
Yeah I always disable this on a Win10 install, as well as all the other data-collecting options you get when you upgrade or do a fresh install.
 
Excellent, they are removing a feature that should never have existed to begin with. Now maybe they will start to reevaluate some of the other goofy stuff thrown into 10.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
I want to know how this crap was somehow considered more worthwhile than, say, maintaining Media Center or including DVD/BluRay decoders.
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They probably thought people would use the feature. Very few used Media Center. I know a lot of windows users and only one of them ever used Media Center. Nevertheless, I always turn this feature off and apparently that's what most did.
 
nilepez said:
They probably thought people would use the feature. Very few used Media Center. I know a lot of windows users and only one of them ever used Media Center. Nevertheless, I always turn this feature off and apparently that's what most did.
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I actually got confused and thought they were removing Windows Media Player, thereby forcing people to download WinAmp or VLC player to play MP3s. When I asked about it, they had to explain that Windows actually had a whole separate program that did all this cable TV stuff I didn't even know about.

That was pretty embarrassing, because I'm kind of a nerd and I like to think I know Windows really well. I know about remote desktop, I know about PowerShell... but I didn't know about Media Center.
 
athenian200 said:
That was pretty embarrassing, because I'm kind of a nerd and I like to think I know Windows really well. I know about remote desktop, I know about PowerShell... but I didn't know about Media Center.
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You're not alone. There's really only one thing that made Windows Media Center unique, and that's CableCard support. While a very slick feature, the number of people using it in the era of cord cutting is pretty small. It certainly doesn't fit in the YouTube/Netflix generation. The WiFi sharing was added originally to Windows Phone 8.1 and that code just got moved over I'm assuming in Windows 10 and I'm guessing the feature goes away in Windows Mobile as well. Kind of a nice idea but something that in the real world people would never use or consider some sort of huge security issue.

The thing most notable in this build for me is that Edge FIANLLY has swipe gestures back for touch and trackpads that were IE 11 modern. And Edge extensions are now easy to install from the Windows Store. And the release build yesterday resolved some major issues for UWA games with frame rate lock. Bit by bit Microsoft is addressing things. I guess the big things still for those not happy with Windows 10 will be privacy concerns and forced updating. Not a lot has changed there in the Anniversary Update it seems.
 
it is obvious people here had no idea how the feature worked. Since it was a two sided feature that both sides had to actively set for anything I didn't see an issue with it. I personally didn't use it, but I don't have a problem with features existing that I don't use. Maybe I should start demanding that SLI and crossfire be removed as a feature of all OSs as I don't use that feature so fuck everyone else.
 
You know, the feature isn't for me, but what about the people who like it? They're just given no fucking option. Feature removed, period.

Windows continues to be less and less compelling.
 
BloodyIron said:
You know, the feature isn't for me, but what about the people who like it? They're just given no fucking option. Feature removed, period.

Windows continues to be less and less compelling.
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Very few people liked it. The majority of the people saw even having the option as a major security risk, because they believed an attacker could enable it. Quieting people's security and privacy concerns is vital to getting them to move to Windows 10. It's a bigger problem than anything else for Microsoft's image. That's definitely an image problem for a company that wants to market their software to large corporations and server rooms, because security is an even bigger deal to those people.

If you don't believe it, read all the people bashing it over "spying" and "NSA backdoors." That's now as big an issue as the UI was with Windows 8.
 
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BloodyIron said:
You know, the feature isn't for me, but what about the people who like it? They're just given no fucking option. Feature removed, period.

Windows continues to be less and less compelling.
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Maybe MS saw that millions were using it and because they hate their customers decided to remove it. Or maybe they removed it, because almost nobody uses it and there's no point in maintaining code that's not used by man.
 
nilepez said:
They probably thought people would use the feature. Very few used Media Center. I know a lot of windows users and only one of them ever used Media Center.
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That's more than the number of people using Metro/Modern apps. When are they going to kill that garbage off?

Microsoft has shown a willingness to try and compete in rather obscure niches (Anybody want a $700 ARM-based tablet? Anybody?...). It cost them next to nothing to maintain the program. In Windows 8 they actually charged $10 for it and required the pro version of the OS despite the fact that it was completely identical to the free version of Media Center in Windows 7 Home Premium. Killing off media center had nothing to do with what users actually wanted, a running theme with Windows 8 and 10 in general.
 
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athenian200 said:
Very few people liked it. The majority of the people saw even having the option as a major security risk, because they believed an attacker could enable it. Quieting people's security and privacy concerns is vital to getting them to move to Windows 10. It's a bigger problem than anything else for Microsoft's image. That's definitely an image problem for a company that wants to market their software to large corporations and server rooms, because security is an even bigger deal to those people.

If you don't believe it, read all the people bashing it over "spying" and "NSA backdoors." That's now as big an issue as the UI was with Windows 8.
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Wouldn't it be better to have it as an installable option instead then? So people who want to can install it? I mean, I'm all for removing it, but if there are users for it, why not keep the option. I don't actually care too much either way, but having options is a great thing.

I wish they would think of options when they look at updates... just found out win 10 doesn't let you choose what updates you want to install.
 
I would say no, but people like weird things >_> and I guess it does increase convenience and that goes a long way for some.
 
nilepez said:
They probably thought people would use the feature. Very few used Media Center. I know a lot of windows users and only one of them ever used Media Center. Nevertheless, I always turn this feature off and apparently that's what most did.
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Except the people that use Media Center usually make heavy use of it.
We only have it installed on one system, but everyone in the house uses it, and we sometimes have it recording on all 4 tuners. If you include all the time it's on recording shows off cable, watching recorded shows and other movies, it gets more use than our other 4 computers combined.
 
Ruoh said:
it really is a bizarre function.
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No it wasn't. It's just that everyone assumed it was bad because everyone was on the "Windows 10 is reporting everything you do back to Microsoft" train and didn't actually do any research into it. It didn't share passwords with everyone, you had to opt in and you could turn the feature off.

I have a 30+ character wifi password. it was a whole lot easier to turn it on, let the person get the password and then turn it off and change the password (which I routinely did anyways when I let other people on)
 
nilepez said:
They probably thought people would use the feature. Very few used Media Center. I know a lot of windows users and only one of them ever used Media Center. Nevertheless, I always turn this feature off and apparently that's what most did.
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i think its hard to argue your point, but media center was an excellent piece of software.. i used to run 2 tuner with it.. they should have stayed with it wrapped it over a bare os and sell it stand alone for 30$. wasted opportunity in the name of Xbox. its not like they cant afford to do this, but so often it about strategy and all that jazz. not just good products.. can't argue too much they are making tons of money.
 
Jovian said:
Well there goes my biggest issues with the OS. How awesome is that! Ditching that feature and gaining BASH? Cant wait for the update
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You know them implementing bash is a direct hijacking of open source. Right?
 
Will Microsoft now be responsible for patching and updating vulnerabilities in the bash library?

Familiar with their philosophy of "Embrace, Extend, and Exterminate"?
 
wgm3446 said:
Will Microsoft now be responsible for patching and updating vulnerabilities in the bash library?

Familiar with their philosophy of "Embrace, Extend, and Exterminate"?
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You can't use Bash to interact with Windows apps and vice versa, it just has file access. And Canonical is the one providing the binaries Microsoft is working on the subsystem. It's about keeping Windows relevant with developers, not to kill off linux.
 
wgm3446 said:
Will Microsoft now be responsible for patching and updating vulnerabilities in the bash library?
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In Windows, sure. Which would include porting fixes to bash that need to be ported to Windows.

wgm3446 said:
Familiar with their philosophy of "Embrace, Extend, and Exterminate"?
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Microsoft is getting more and more into Linux, announcing SQL Server for Linux recently as a big example of that. I get the "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" theme of Microsoft of the 1990's this is a different time. Linux isn't going anywhere and if one if a Linux proponent, a Linux console to Windows just extended to Linux console 10 fold on desktops.
 
Ryokurin said:
You can't use Bash to interact with Windows apps and vice versa, it just has file access. And Canonical is the one providing the binaries Microsoft is working on the subsystem. It's about keeping Windows relevant with developers, not to kill off linux.
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Yeah, it's basically a Linux console subsystem that runs natively on Windows which has a lot of utility for developers especially in heterogeneous development environments which is the case for the enterprise these days on the server side.
 
There are plenty of features in Microsoft products, and many other products by other people, which when poorly used are insecure. That doesn't necessarily mean they should not be available.

For example, directly exposing your AD server to the internet.

Just because a feature can be insecure, doesn't mean inherently it should be removed. Not installed by default? Turned off by default? That seems more reasonable. Completely removing it as an option... well, good thing you paid for that OS, because you don't actually own it.

The point is that Microsoft will do whatever the fuck they want with Windows, and Windows 10 gives them literally direct access to remove and add things to your computer, and often without your permission. This isn't the first time they've done this in Windows 10 either.

I don't know about you peeps, but I'm not willing to give up control over my computer.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
That's more than the number of people using Metro/Modern apps. When are they going to kill that garbage off?

Microsoft has shown a willingness to try and compete in rather obscure niches (Anybody want a $700 ARM-based tablet? Anybody?...). It cost them next to nothing to maintain the program. In Windows 8 they actually charged $10 for it and required the pro version of the OS despite the fact that it was completely identical to the free version of Media Center in Windows 7 Home Premium. Killing off media center had nothing to do with what users actually wanted, a running theme with Windows 8 and 10 in general.
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If you say so. I regularly use Netflix and I use the calculator as well as the mail app. And when you get right down to it the settings and other applets are all moving to metro. I don't get the hate. If this was Windows 8, then I'd totally agree, because I rarely use full screen apps, but Metro in 10 is windowed, so I have no complaints.
 
nutzo said:
Except the people that use Media Center usually make heavy use of it.
We only have it installed on one system, but everyone in the house uses it, and we sometimes have it recording on all 4 tuners. If you include all the time it's on recording shows off cable, watching recorded shows and other movies, it gets more use than our other 4 computers combined.
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Yes, but that's not exactly a reason to maintain the feature going forward. They're looking at the percentage of licenses that use it, and I suspect it's less than 1%. What's more, with the FCC's plans to open up cable boxes, it may become less of an issue. If I can buy a DVR that works with cable, satellite, regular TV and YouTube, Amazon Prime, Netflix etc, then some existing users may switch. I know I'd rather have a Tivo that does it all than a computer (assuming Tivo is as good as it was 10 years ago).
 
BloodyIron said:
There are plenty of features in Microsoft products, and many other products by other people, which when poorly used are insecure. That doesn't necessarily mean they should not be available.

For example, directly exposing your AD server to the internet.

Just because a feature can be insecure, doesn't mean inherently it should be removed. Not installed by default? Turned off by default? That seems more reasonable. Completely removing it as an option... well, good thing you paid for that OS, because you don't actually own it.

The point is that Microsoft will do whatever the fuck they want with Windows, and Windows 10 gives them literally direct access to remove and add things to your computer, and often without your permission. This isn't the first time they've done this in Windows 10 either.

I don't know about you peeps, but I'm not willing to give up control over my computer.
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If you are one of the few who use it, if it's enabled when you install the update it will stay. otherwise it will be removed. That is probably the most fair way to do it, definitely better than how media center was treated, although I do understand it was totally different circumstances, MCE was starting to become a big attack surface in 7 and 8.
 
it took almost a year for MS to come to their senses and realize that was a stupid feature?...MS is also removing the Windows 10 nagware from Windows 7...someone with some sense must have taken over at MS
 
polonyc2 said:
it took almost a year for MS to come to their senses and realize that was a stupid feature?...MS is also removing the Windows 10 nagware from Windows 7...someone with some sense must have taken over at MS
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Overestimation or an underestimation? I'm sure they know, they just want to know if they can keep it around or not, and they finally thought that is more bad than good. Like when pharmaceuticals selling a bad pill because the money they will be fined/sued for is less than their gain.
 
How does this affect the safe naming of networks? What parts of "optout" and "nomap" do we need to include now?
 
polonyc2 said:
it took almost a year for MS to come to their senses and realize that was a stupid feature?...MS is also removing the Windows 10 nagware from Windows 7...someone with some sense must have taken over at MS
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They're removing it after the free upgrade ends. IOW, they're likely doing what they planned to do from day one.
 
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