Dear Microsoft: Please Stop Breaking My Perfectly Good Windows 7

SGTGimpy said:
The Pro and Enterprise can defer updates all day long.
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Not for an infinite period of time, the period of time isn't stipulated directly yet but even Microsoft admits that it is finite:
“Some Windows 10 editions let you defer upgrades to your PC. When you defer upgrades, new Windows features won’t be downloaded or installed for several months."

Also even if you paid 99$ to get Windows 10 Pro "Security Updates" cannot be deferred, only the Enterprise version of Windows 10 has that option.
 
My solution - on my gaming partition and Media Center DVR machine(s), I turn off Windows Update. Don't need the updates. Don't want the updates. Windows is relegated to gaming and MC/DVR only. Never web browse on Windows.

For everything else, I use Ubuntu and Centos. ;)
 
nomas said:
My solution - on my gaming partition and Media Center DVR machine(s), I turn off Windows Update. Don't need the updates. Don't want the updates. Windows is relegated to gaming and MC/DVR only. Never web browse on Windows.

For everything else, I use Ubuntu and Centos. ;)
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So, in other words, you need multiple computers just to get the simplest things done. :D I do not use a computer for dvr or media center anymore, that I why I have an XBox One now. :) I also do not have pay for TV either. :D
 
rezerekted said:
Yes, yes...we get it...Microsoft can do no wrong in your opinion. :)
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Oh, Microsoft can to plenty wrong but, it is clear you did not read the article. Otherwise, you would know what I am talking about. Oh wait, nevermind, I see who I am responding to, carry on, carry on. :p
 
ManofGod said:
So, in other words, you need multiple computers just to get the simplest things done. :D I do not use a computer for dvr or media center anymore, that I why I have an XBox One now. :) I also do not have pay for TV either. :D
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I have more than just a few machines at my disposal. Both collocated and remote. I don't see any reason to have a monogamous relationship with a single machine or OS. We all pay for our entertainments. Choose your poison. :p
 
nomas said:
I have more than just a few machines at my disposal. Both collocated and remote. I don't see any reason to have a monogamous relationship with a single machine or OS. We all pay for our entertainments. Choose your poison. :p
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True, true. :) I prefer just sticking with the newest Microsoft OS as my host OS on my Work desktop, Home desktop and Surface Pro Tablet. I am only one person so I have consolidated my computing more than it used to be. (FX 8350, 32GB DDR3 ram and SSD's, I7 6700K, 32GB DDR4 Ram and SSD's.)

I like messing around with Linux and OSX but, I cannot really justify more than I have now. Besides, I have VM's of Ubuntu when I need to. I love being in IT and doing the work I do which I realize, not everyone can say.

Love the One, 360 and Original but, I just do not game like I used to. (Gaming is fun though.) 4k monitor at home, 50 inch Sony 1080p TV and 2 x 1080p monitors at work. Maybe next year, I will upgrade my work computer, maybe not.
 
Suck it Microsoft I put Mint 17.2 on my HTPC and threw WIndows 10 into VirtualBox where it belongs. Course my gaming PC still runs Windows 10 cause you have me by the balls.
 
SGTGimpy said:
Just FYI, this only applies to the Home Edition of Windows 10. The Pro and Enterprise can defer updates all day long.
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Technically, yes. If you know what you are doing on Home you can still work around it -- with a good knowledge of the registry, a good knowledge of group policy, an understanding of how WSUS works, and a good scripting ability. Which is to say, not something the average home user is going to know how to do.

On the other hand, once you have the script written and a dinky VB app sitting on top of it providing a UI, it works pretty well (disables the update service, schedules a task to re-enable it at specified times and forces it to run, fetches the list of available updates itself, shows them, and uses some serious hackery to block the ones you don't want by effectively flagging them as already installed on the system until after updates complete and the service gets disabled again). It's not pretty but, for now (until Microsoft changes something), it seems to work for the most part.
 
nightfly said:
How f*cked up is it when a company hates that they made a product that people felt they actually got their money's worth out of, and could use for a long time before they finally managed to make something better. And then, they continue to make updates and support for it, but will only give it to you if you pay them millions of dollars more. I mean, they've already written all the code. It wouldn't cost them anything to release it to all the rest of the users, since they've already gotten the windfall from the U.S. gov't. After all, WE technically own the gov't, dammit, I'm paying over $20K in taxes this year again so at least I could get some residual XP support that the navy's getting.
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I'd hate having to support an OS for over a decade, when I had a far newer and more up to date OS available. I'd make people pay through the nose too for support.
 
Tiberian said:
Now that's a sentiment I feel strongly about myself of late with all the retroactive telemetry crap they're pushing.
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What do you think "telemetry" means?

I simply can't stand Windows 10, it offers nothing to me over Windows 7
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I suppose if security isn't that important to you it offers "nothing".

Secure boot, applocker, improved ASLR, bitlocker eDrive support & pre-provisioning, applications locked down to a restricted app experience (sadly forced fullscreen because the PMs were tablet-enamored at the time, fixed in 10), virtual smart cards for 2FA - all came in 8/8.1.

In 10, multi factor auth for login, integrated AAD support, virtualized kernel calls to mitigate PTH attacks, per-app vpn support, etc.

On top of that, multiple desktops, universal app support, and a better command line experience just add to the benefits.

So, "nothing" is quite the stretch.
 
nomas said:
I have more than just a few machines at my disposal. Both collocated and remote. I don't see any reason to have a monogamous relationship with a single machine or OS. We all pay for our entertainments. Choose your poison. :p
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Ditto. I have my own primary machine, a dedicated UnRAID server, a secondary development machine, a third "testbed" machine, our primary 7MC box that serves as our DVR with a Ceton in it, a second Lenovo "Tiny" USFF 7MC box on the kitchen TV that runs ServerWMC and pulls from two HDHomeRun CC units, a couple of ECS Liva's running 8MC and/or Kodi on my office TV and bedroom TV, 3 RPi2's running Kodi w/HDHomeRun plugin providing cable for the TV's in the spare bedrooms, a dinky Asterisk server tied to an Obi110 FXO that runs my home phone system, 3 or 4 laptops, etc. I've also go a couple of other boxes I use for testing occasionally (one's CentOS and the other's got Xen on it).

So, I guess I'm not typical... :D

Of course, the fact that my desktop currently looks like an Arduino factory exploded on it probably only helps confirm it.
 
Tawnos said:
What do you think "telemetry" means?


I suppose if security isn't that important to you it offers "nothing".

Secure boot, applocker, improved ASLR, bitlocker eDrive support & pre-provisioning, applications locked down to a restricted app experience (sadly forced fullscreen because the PMs were tablet-enamored at the time, fixed in 10), virtual smart cards for 2FA - all came in 8/8.1.

In 10, multi factor auth for login, integrated AAD support, virtualized kernel calls to mitigate PTH attacks, per-app vpn support, etc.

On top of that, multiple desktops, universal app support, and a better command line experience just add to the benefits.

So, "nothing" is quite the stretch.
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Personally, a large percentage of these "improvements" I find to be hindrances more than helps. SecureBoot and UEFI I both generally loathe -- and I generally disable them immediately (of course I also like to dual boot Kubuntu and Centos on some machines quite often). The application lock down is pretty much useless to me, as I have yet to find ANY Metro/Modern "Universal-ly useless" app that I actually use. Additionally, when I block stuff in the firewall in Windows 7 or blacklist addresses in the hosts file, it actually pays seems to pay attention to me -- Windows 10, not so much (which is why I typically configure IPTables in my router myself). Ditto on BitLocker, I don't trust it -- open source audited encryption software may not be as fast, but it is most likely more secure.
 
BloodDonor said:
I liked Vista, but then I only got it with Service Pack 1, and had 4GB of ram back then...
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My PC in the day wasn't bad, but Vista was the first Windows OS I ever "backed away from" and re-installed XP64 (hey it was 2006). The RTM was just not comfortable and felt clunky even with decent specs. Took about a year before I tried it again, and by then it was vastly improved.

As for the topic, I do wish there was a simple checkbox to opt out of notifications. Put a single checkbox (not a "takes half the window" box) on Windows Update to do the upgrade, and default unchecked. How hard can it be? Instead it's like a pushy car salesman.

I genuinely like Windows 10 but the upgrade notifications are extremely annoying, and given many Win <10 installs are out there in legit business environments, flailing the Win10 notification at secretaries and developers isn't making MS any friends.
 
JDon said:
From an elevated command prompt, run: "wusa /uninstall /KB:3035583".
Then, hide the update when it is offered again.
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i have hidden it twice and it was on the list yet again last week. accidently installed it, uninstall, put on "hide" again. until it may show up again next month.
 
SuperSubZero said:
My PC in the day wasn't bad, but Vista was the first Windows OS I ever "backed away from" and re-installed XP64 (hey it was 2006). The RTM was just not comfortable and felt clunky even with decent specs. Took about a year before I tried it again, and by then it was vastly improved.

As for the topic, I do wish there was a simple checkbox to opt out of notifications. Put a single checkbox (not a "takes half the window" box) on Windows Update to do the upgrade, and default unchecked. How hard can it be? Instead it's like a pushy car salesman.

I genuinely like Windows 10 but the upgrade notifications are extremely annoying, and given many Win <10 installs are out there in legit business environments, flailing the Win10 notification at secretaries and developers isn't making MS any friends.
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Agreed 100% on the last point. I have already had several "over-eager" secretaries schedule and/or unknowingly upgrade their Windows 7 Pro boxes to Windows 10 -- with generally bad results -- and have had to go back and roll them back to Windows 7 or, in two cases where the upgrade TOTALLY borked, re-image them back to Windows 7.

There are a HUGE number of Windows 7/8/8.1 Pro installs out there in small businesses that are NOT joined to a Domain. These boxes SHOULD NOT be getting the Windows 10 updates flagged on them like Windows 7 Home boxes are -- unless this is a not so stealthy attempt to push everyone to AD servers and into getting them all onto SA (which is also one of the obvious factors in making Windows 10 Enterprise the only one that can legitimately block updates). Out of even most of the larger organizations I know of locally, pretty much none of them run Enterprise/VL versions of anything -- they have specifically made it a point to purchase Retail/FPP copies of everything so that it is a one time fee/cost without ever having to pay the recurring costs of SA and they generally continue to use software for 5-10 years per upgrade cycle -- within the next two weeks I have two boxes that I am scheduled to upgrade to Windows 7 and Office 2010 (and the ONLY reason they are upgrading to W7 from XP is that QB2015 doesn't support XP anymore -- but QB Statement Writer for QB2015 doesn't work 100% properly with Office 2013/2016 and no longer supports 2003: it ONLY works 100% with Office 2007 or 2010, which is total BS. Honestly, Intuit often makes even Microsoft look good -- though both look like saints if you compare their licensing to Oracle's).
 
temujin987 said:
i have hidden it twice and it was on the list yet again last week. accidently installed it, uninstall, put on "hide" again. until it may show up again next month.
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Every time MS Update has pushed out a new version of "Update" itself, it has unhidden these updates.

Simple solution, I wrote a vbs script that uninstalls the updates if it finds them, hides them again, and scheduled it to run about 30 minutes after everytime Windows Update does. I've got a list of updates it checks for, including all the Windows 10 ones and all the telemetry ones.
 
Tawnos said:
I suppose if security isn't that important to you it offers "nothing".

Secure boot, applocker, improved ASLR, bitlocker eDrive support & pre-provisioning, applications locked down to a restricted app experience (sadly forced fullscreen because the PMs were tablet-enamored at the time, fixed in 10), virtual smart cards for 2FA - all came in 8/8.1.

In 10, multi factor auth for login, integrated AAD support, virtualized kernel calls to mitigate PTH attacks, per-app vpn support, etc.

On top of that, multiple desktops, universal app support, and a better command line experience just add to the benefits.

So, "nothing" is quite the stretch.
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Oh yes, the "you want to be safe, don't you?" boogeyman scare tactics. Except none of that shit matters when the OS itself has become the worst and most intrusive security threat in 10.

I'll take my chances with Win7/8 and a decent AV and Anti-Malware, control over updates and a thing called privacy in my $144 paid OS.
 
mdburkey said:
Agreed 100% on the last point. I have already had several "over-eager" secretaries schedule and/or unknowingly upgrade their Windows 7 Pro boxes to Windows 10 -- with generally bad results -- and have had to go back and roll them back to Windows 7 or, in two cases where the upgrade TOTALLY borked, re-image them back to Windows 7.

There are a HUGE number of Windows 7/8/8.1 Pro installs out there in small businesses that are NOT joined to a Domain. These boxes SHOULD NOT be getting the Windows 10 updates flagged on them like Windows 7 Home boxes are -- unless this is a not so stealthy attempt to push everyone to AD servers and into getting them all onto SA (which is also one of the obvious factors in making Windows 10 Enterprise the only one that can legitimately block updates). Out of even most of the larger organizations I know of locally, pretty much none of them run Enterprise/VL versions of anything -- they have specifically made it a point to purchase Retail/FPP copies of everything so that it is a one time fee/cost without ever having to pay the recurring costs of SA and they generally continue to use software for 5-10 years per upgrade cycle -- within the next two weeks I have two boxes that I am scheduled to upgrade to Windows 7 and Office 2010 (and the ONLY reason they are upgrading to W7 from XP is that QB2015 doesn't support XP anymore -- but QB Statement Writer for QB2015 doesn't work 100% properly with Office 2013/2016 and no longer supports 2003: it ONLY works 100% with Office 2007 or 2010, which is total BS. Honestly, Intuit often makes even Microsoft look good -- though both look like saints if you compare their licensing to Oracle's).
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Have you tried the DisableOSUpgrade registry key? Does anyone know if it (does/doesn't) works? (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\
Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate add DisableOSUpgrade as DWORD = 1)
http://www.howtogeek.com/228551/how-to-stop-windows-7-or-8-from-downloading-windows-10-automatically/ (I'm asking because I don't know either way and wouldn't be surprised if MS Updates undo this)

I can attest that Quickbooks 2015 Enterprise Solutions doesn't work properly with Office 2013. When we got it "working" with Office 2013, it was through a hack that was finally "published". Even then, Excel 2013 performs much slower than 2010 and 2007 with QBSW. We found the workaround here: http://www.sleeter.com/blog/2014/09/make-quickbooks-statement-writer-work-office-2013/ which is now on Intiut's site here: http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/HOW24547
 
ccman said:
Have you tried the DisableOSUpgrade registry key? Does anyone know if it (does/doesn't) works? (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\
Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate add DisableOSUpgrade as DWORD = 1)
http://www.howtogeek.com/228551/how-to-stop-windows-7-or-8-from-downloading-windows-10-automatically/ (I'm asking because I don't know either way and wouldn't be surprised if MS Updates undo this)

I can attest that Quickbooks 2015 Enterprise Solutions doesn't work properly with Office 2013. When we got it "working" with Office 2013, it was through a hack that was finally "published". Even then, Excel 2013 performs much slower than 2010 and 2007 with QBSW. We found the workaround here: http://www.sleeter.com/blog/2014/09/make-quickbooks-statement-writer-work-office-2013/ which is now on Intiut's site here: http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/HOW24547
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I have been pushing registry settings to disable upgrades and disable gwx whenever possible -- but these are machines that are in many different locations and not centrally managed (I do contract IT support for a LOT of different companies and individuals).

And, yes, I am aware you can more or less get Statement Writer working with Office 2013 -- which is why I put in the "100%" part in my comment. We have found a few glitches with it here and there when it comes to printing and, as you stated, even when it does work it is almost unusably slow on all but the highest end machines (and there it is still annoyingly slow). Most of the machines that were in use at the accounting office in question were Athlon II X4 645 vintage with 4Gb -- which, albeit a bit dated, you would think would be fast enough to run nothing but standard accounting software (and with QB2013, they were). We've swapped a couple over to new "high end" i3's and they do better, but still not wonderful. And, from what we can tell, the faster clock-speed variants of the i3's do better than the slightly lower frequency i5's in the same family do -- a testimony to how poorly threaded QB is: the raw clock speed + turbo boost helps more for single threaded than the 2 additional "real" cores of an i5 do.
 
DPI said:
Too late.
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indeed. this situation has been made worse by 3 things imo.

1 - win10 was released too early both the fact it isnt ready, and also the fact it doesnt offer enough incentives to ditch win7 and especially win8
2 - The differences between win 7 and win10 is too small for many users, on a security level 7 is as good as 10, hardware tech supported again is good enough on win7, win10 has native support for 4k sectors, usb 3.1 and full trim support however none of those things are killer as win7 has workarounds. The biggest advantage is dx12 and there is no dx12 aaa games yet.
3 - enforced updates by default (can be changed on pro via policy editor) as well as moronic data collection is making people stay away from the OS. They probably should have held off these policies for a year or two after enough migrated over.
 
Tawnos said:
What do you think "telemetry" means?


I suppose if security isn't that important to you it offers "nothing".

Secure boot, applocker, improved ASLR, bitlocker eDrive support & pre-provisioning, applications locked down to a restricted app experience (sadly forced fullscreen because the PMs were tablet-enamored at the time, fixed in 10), virtual smart cards for 2FA - all came in 8/8.1.

In 10, multi factor auth for login, integrated AAD support, virtualized kernel calls to mitigate PTH attacks, per-app vpn support, etc.

On top of that, multiple desktops, universal app support, and a better command line experience just add to the benefits.

So, "nothing" is quite the stretch.
Click to expand...

Some of those security features you list were available in older operating systems. Bitlocker, for example, was around before Win8. You could fully encrypt drive partitions with EFS in Win2k. Bitlocker is really just a marketing term tossed atop drive encryption that's existed for a long time.

Secure Boot exploits were demonstrated at DEFCON in 2013 and are widely known now in the computer security community.

Multifactor authentication hasn't really been proven to genuinely benefit security or reduce the number of intrustions and has been around for a long while, costing pretty large dollars while not really stopping or preventing much of anything.

It's nice that Microsoft os trying, but security isn't really that much of a selling feature in a new OS. With that much code, just like any previous version, there are lotsa security holes in it and the new data collection mechanisms that can't be turned off are actively farming user behavior in order to build a pervasive, Google-like mining operation. Microsoft needs to do that to keep up with other companies so they're not totally to blame for it, but I think a few of us feel that it's gone a bit too far and gotten a bit too pushy.

Besides that, we can get security, features, and capapbilities in other operating systems without having our information harvested by our own hardware. At this point, the uptick in Linux adoption following the release of the last two Microsoft operating systems is a pretty clear indicator that people are indeed looking elsewhere and that there's nothing in Windows 10 that's keeping them on Microsoft products.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Some of those security features you list were available in older operating systems. Bitlocker, for example, was around before Win8. You could fully encrypt drive partitions with EFS in Win2k. Bitlocker is really just a marketing term tossed atop drive encryption that's existed for a long time.

Secure Boot exploits were demonstrated at DEFCON in 2013 and are widely known now in the computer security community.

Multifactor authentication hasn't really been proven to genuinely benefit security or reduce the number of intrustions and has been around for a long while, costing pretty large dollars while not really stopping or preventing much of anything.

It's nice that Microsoft os trying, but security isn't really that much of a selling feature in a new OS. With that much code, just like any previous version, there are lotsa security holes in it and the new data collection mechanisms that can't be turned off are actively farming user behavior in order to build a pervasive, Google-like mining operation. Microsoft needs to do that to keep up with other companies so they're not totally to blame for it, but I think a few of us feel that it's gone a bit too far and gotten a bit too pushy.

Besides that, we can get security, features, and capapbilities in other operating systems without having our information harvested by our own hardware. At this point, the uptick in Linux adoption following the release of the last two Microsoft operating systems is a pretty clear indicator that people are indeed looking elsewhere and that there's nothing in Windows 10 that's keeping them on Microsoft products.
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Uptick, right, all 5 more people. :p
 
ManofGod said:
Uptick, right, all 5 more people. :p
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Yup, it's been a pretty small number of total computers, but for an OS which had about 1.4% of the market before 10's launch, jumping to 1.75% is a pretty big deal. And if you sort out the math from netstats, all of that share came out of Microsoft. A roughly equal number picked up OS X in the same time. It's not bleeding users, but there's certainly continuing losses that the release of 10 has failed to do anything to stop.
 
For me all I did was to create the REG key to disable GWX and that was that. Never had to try and uninstall the KBs to block it, or hide any actual updates, just utilize the REG key. Have never seen an upgrade prompt again, are you all having different experiences?


This in other words:


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx]
"DisableGwx"=dword:00000001
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
The developer of the GWX program thingy has been saying that it's been getting circumvented by MS in some cases...like it's on his website.
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There was some weird update that MS took down that I think they were talking about. I have been having to run it every patch Tuesday but it seems to stick until the next patch Tuesday.
 
You can turn off the updates in windows 10. You might not have access in services but in regedit you can under services. Just goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\wuauserv and change the start to 4 instead of 2. I do this on windows 10 machines then run updates later when I hear they maybe fixed something.
 
Wolf_Tech said:
You can turn off the updates in windows 10. You might not have access in services but in regedit you can under services. Just goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\wuauserv and change the start to 4 instead of 2. I do this on windows 10 machines then run updates later when I hear they maybe fixed something.
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Does that turn off ALL updating? I read that it made automatic driver updates mandatory, and that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen in the event of a buggy driver release for a piece of your hardware.
 
tetris42 said:
Does that turn off ALL updating? I read that it made automatic driver updates mandatory, and that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen in the event of a buggy driver release for a piece of your hardware.
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I read that you believe everything you read...

Why are false arguments being used as arguments...are we that far out?
 
(no edit) I meant to add that this is seriously one of my reservations about moving to 10, I don't want ANY unauthorized updating. If that registry key blocks drivers from automatically updating also, great. If not, I want to know exactly how to block all automatic updating before I even consider 10.
 
I'm pretty annoyed at the blue window advising me to "Reserve my copy of Windows 10" that I can't get rid of. Killing the process doesn't do it. It comes right back. Thanks for the Adware Microsoft.
 
Not sure if I found this here, but Destroy Windows Spying is an open source tool designed for removing and disabling sending information back to microsoft. Havent used it myself since I did some of the manual removal and hiding of windows update, and registry edits before I came across it.

http://dws.wzor.net/
 
Tawnos said:
Secure boot,
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067_jpg_7893.jpg


applocker,
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067_jpg_7893.jpg

improved ASLR,
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067_jpg_7893.jpg

bitlocker eDrive support & pre-provisioning,
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067_jpg_7893.jpg

So, "nothing" is quite the stretch.
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And yet you forget the one reason why everyone switches. DX12...

rs_560x300-131127145911-blackfriday2.gif
 
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