I just re-activated that dialog (I had disabled it with registry setting changes) because I don't want to miss the free upgrade option but use it at the last moment.
Anyway - I found that when I simply say "No" to the inevitable "Terms and conditions" license dialog question the upgrade stops even if you said "go ahead" in the previous step.
Wanted to comment precisely this. Yesterday my gf called me because she had W10 on her laptop, installed, and about to start all the process of adding the user and stuff (I think).
I clicked "I do no accept" to the license, got a warning that then they needed to restore my previous version of windows, and 10 minutes later the laptop was working as before.
The change occurred because the update is now labelled
"recommended" and many people have their PCs configured
to accept recommended updates for security reasons.
Turn off automatic updating and never turn it back on, ever. At this point, the biggest threat to Windows machines seems to be Microsoft themselves.
Manually update any Windows machines you run, unchecking the Windows 10 upgrade every single time. It will never stay unchecked, nor will it ever not be recommended.
Until Microsoft decides to override that and literally force it on everyone, which I don't doubt they will do as soon as they feel they can afford the class action lawsuits that will result from the few stragglers remaining, there is no other way to avoid the upgrade, unless you actually want to hack the registry or something.
> Turn off automatic updating and never turn it back on, ever. At this point, the biggest threat to Windows machines seems to be Microsoft themselves.
And if you turn off automatic updates, you become the biggest threat to your machine's security. (As well as to many other people on the Internet, when your system becomes compromised and starts sending spam, DoS attacks, or other botnet activities.)
Yes, some people don't like Windows 10. But Windows has moved to the "evergreen" software model, as have many other pieces of software (including browsers). If you don't like Windows 10, the answer isn't "run Windows 7 forever"; the answer is "stop running Windows, because you don't like where it's going (or has already gone)".
Sadly there are a lot of people out there who will stick to 7 or XP for no particularly good reason and they'll suffer for it.
I'm curious what will happen to Windows 10 users who can no longer update their systems. The anniversary update due out next month is said to require 4GB minimum on all systems, how many systems will be left in the lurch because of that and what happens to them? I have a couple Windows Tablets that won't be able to upgrade.
The answer is whatever works for the person running the machine.
If I choose to run Windows 7 forever and only use internet services from a VM - that's my prerogative.
> And if you turn off automatic updates, you become the biggest threat to your machine's security.
The typical user is already the biggest threat to their machine's security, regardless of whether updates are turned off or on. There's no windows update that specifically protects users from even the most common threats if the user doesn't exercise due diligence.
No shit. I helped a friend buy a fujitsu 17.3" dual core i5 laptop a few years back. I remember telling him "do not get windows 8". He has no clue about security, at all. So... he let it upgrade recently to 10 and lo and behold it stopped booting. Then he allowed his neighbor to install a desktop iso of a 32bit version of windows 7. I was amazed it even booted-lol. I had to reinstall windows 7 home premium using his key and now all is well with updates off and gwx, plus antibeacon installed.
Not at all. Laptops are very proprietary and most times you can't just install whatever you want unless you can code drivers and such yourself. The fujitsu was not a TS so windows 8 was not a relevant OS. It's completely updated as far as win7 is concerned, it just broke itself when he allowed MS to update it to 10. Not that I'm very surprised.
Not sure I'd agree with that. I have a number of clients who I've built and installed machines for in their music studios. All of them were running Windows 7, and it works perfectly, and suits their workflow - doesn't get in the way, and works the way they want. Some of them (not all, but some) are connected to the 'net (not something I recommend, but there you go), and a couple have now been upgraded without their consent to Windows 10. One, in particular, caused loads of problems (because of hardware and software support), and it did so right in the middle of a large project (it happened overnight, during a week of work).
Anyway, for these people (and indeed my current studio PC) the answer IS "run Windows 7 forever" - until the OS is no longer supported by the DAW maker, I'm happy; everything works as it should do, and I can concentrate on making music and using an OS that I like, trust and that works. And, there's no option but to run Windows if you're running niche software such as DAWs where there's not an alternative OS to run them on.
And if you turn off automatic updates, you become the biggest threat to your machine's security.
What is a bigger threat to your machine's security than not being able to use it at all?
Our standard policy for a long time was not to auto-install any Windows updates, and just to manually install security ones each month.
Our standard policy today is not to install any update, no matter what Microsoft labels it with, unless we've identified a specific need for it. We do a quick pass down the usual sources after patch day and install any security updates that are potentially relevant and haven't been causing problems.
Given that Windows 7 is a relatively mature OS today and obviously we also have a variety of other security measures in place, we consider the risk of overlooking a minor security fix that actually matters to be much, much lower than the risk of 2016's Microsoft breaking something by pushing an update we didn't want.
If you don't like Windows 10, the answer isn't "run Windows 7 forever"
Yes. Yes, it is, at least for now. An operating system is just a tool you use to get work done. Windows 7 works just fine on our hardware, and it runs the software we need. If it ain't broke, don't let anyone break it, and spend your time on actually useful things.
We're essentially betting that either Nadella and co will have got the boot before Windows 7 support ends and a desperate Microsoft will have significantly reversed course and offered a viable alternative by that time, or someone else will have stepped up to offer serious business software on another platform that we can migrate to by then.
>Windows 7 works just fine on our hardware, and it runs the software we need. If it ain't broke, don't let anyone break it, and spend your time on actually useful things.
The problem is that it is broken, in a way: it has security vulnerabilities, just like any OS, and if it's connected to the internet has to be patched to protect it. A deprecated OS is not going to get those security updates. Win7 won't be supported forever.
Of course, if your Win7 machine is not networked, then this doesn't apply to you and you can run it forever, just like some industrial machines still run MS-DOS.
>We're essentially betting that either Nadella and co will have got the boot before Windows 7 support ends and a desperate Microsoft will have significantly reversed course and offered a viable alternative by that time, or someone else will have stepped up to offer serious business software on another platform that we can migrate to by then.
Why would Nadella get the boot? Look at their stock price since he's taken over: the company is doing great, much better than under Ballmer. All these actions are good and correct: they make the company more money. Customers may not like them, but too bad. Why should MS care about what its customers want? It's not like they're going to abandon MS and Windows any time soon, so MS is right to screw them over for more profit.
A deprecated OS is not going to get those security updates. Win7 won't be supported forever.
But Windows 7 isn't deprecated. Microsoft have committed to supporting it until 2020, and their customers will expect them to honour that commitment.
That is four years away. In a fast-paced industry like IT, the entire landscape could be different by then.
Why would Nadella get the boot? Look at their stock price since he's taken over: the company is doing great, much better than under Ballmer.
You and I seem to be looking at very different stock charts. In the one I'm looking at[1], MSFT had pretty respectable growth through 2013-2014 when they were doing a lot of talking about Windows 10 and the new vision, but their stock price looks much less happy since around the start of 2015 as the reality became known.
In a few months, if Windows 10 is still far less established than Windows 7 and it becomes undeniable that the campaign to get everyone onto Windows 10 didn't succeed even with literally giving it away and underhand tricks like the one we're talking about, executives like Nadella and Myerson are going to be under a lot of pressure to present a more realistic vision of what happens next and to turn the stock price back to a steady pattern of growth or their positions are going to be under threat.
Why should MS care about what its customers want? It's not like they're going to abandon MS and Windows any time soon
Perhaps not. I suspect they've probably got until about 14 January 2020 before things get really bad.
But by that time, anything could have happened. Apple could have started competing more aggressively for desktop/laptop/server markets. Less and less business software could be locally hosted, making a range of different devices that can access web apps more attractive. In more than three years, even a major new player entering the market or a shift in strategy from some other tech giant isn't out of the question.
Screwing your customers for profit looks good at the next quarterly earnings call, but not so much two years or five years down the line when your customers and competitors have had time to react.
>But Windows 7 isn't deprecated. Microsoft have committed to supporting it until 2020, and their customers will expect them to honour that commitment.
So what? They can change their mind at any time, and I for one hope they do. What are customers going to do, file a complaint? hahaha
>You and I seem to be looking at very different stock charts.
I don't know what you're looking at, but the Google chart I'm looking at for 2010-now shows constant growth, starting at about 2012 and really gaining steam in 2013, and continuing until now, albeit with some stumbling in the first half of 2015. Their stock price now is higher than it ever was in 2013-2014, and is in general going up.
>Apple could have started competing more aggressively for desktop/laptop/server markets.
>...even a major new player entering the market or a shift in strategy from some other tech giant isn't out of the question.
Apple's been competing in those markets for decades, and they're still a tiny player. Linux beat them easily in servers. The idea of Apple servers is a joke. And MS servers are locked into many places in enterprises thanks to SharePoint, Exchange, AD, etc. and of course Windows on the desktop. Apple hasn't gotten anywhere on the desktop for businesses, and not much in homes either thanks to their high prices. I don't see that changing; Apple has always had high prices. Linux has been tried on the desktop for decades too (earnestly since around 1998), to little effect. And don't make me remind you about the fate of BeOS.
>Screwing your customers for profit looks good at the next quarterly earnings call, but not so much two years or five years down the line when your customers and competitors have had time to react.
You seem to be making the classic mistake of thinking MS is a normal company which has to worry about competition. It isn't. The only real threats they have to their business are 1) their old OS versions (which they're dealing with by pushing everyone to Win10 like it or not) and 2) the need for their products being made obsolete by new technology (like tablets). #2 seemed to be a concern for a while but it looks like the tablet market has gotten saturated and that's played out. There's too much stuff you just can't do on a tablet, so while some people can and have gone to all-mobile computing, everyone else is stuck with Windows, and they aren't going to stop using it no matter what. MS might as well take advantage of that as much as they can.
They can change their mind at any time, and I for one hope they do.
Maybe the law is different where you are. In my country, the public statements they have made about ongoing support would carry legal weight, and pulling that support several years early would be obvious grounds for legal action. Potentially they are on the hook for all kinds of nasty things, starting with undermining every consumer purchase of a system with the version of Windows that is no longer supported as promised.
I don't know what you're looking at, but the Google chart I'm looking at for 2010-now shows constant growth, starting at about 2012 and really gaining steam in 2013, and continuing until now, albeit with some stumbling in the first half of 2015. Their stock price now is higher than it ever was in 2013-2014, and is in general going up.
Well, you do know what chart I was looking at, because the link is right there in my last post. Go ahead and follow it, and press the 5Y button.
On that chart, you'll see that after a couple of stagnant years around 2011-2012 that ultimately brought down Ballmer, you can draw a pretty straight line through the stock price through 2013-2014, hitting close to 27, 37, and then 47 at the start of 2013, 2014 and 2015. At close yesterday, nearly six quarters dominated by Windows 10 news later, it stood at a touch over 50, after the most volatile period of trading in years going below 40 and above 55 at times but always some way below the previous levels of growth.
You're correct that the stock price today is higher than it ever was in 2013-2014. What you're glossing over is that it's a mere 1% or so higher than it was at the peak of the 2013-2014 gains, nearly 17 months later. That's not exactly impressive for a business with such a dominant history and supposedly a whole new strategy to recover from the missteps of the previous few years. About the only thing they have going for them lately is that they haven't tanked along with the overall US markets since the start of this year.
Apple's been competing in those markets for decades, and they're still a tiny player.
Which markets? In laptops they seem to have about 10% market share. They're on a comparable scale to any of the big Windows laptop manufacturers, something like 5th or 6th by volume of sales IIRC, presumably higher by revenue since they aim for the top end of the market. That's not nowehere on the desktop for businesses.
The thing is, though, we're talking about 3-4 years out here before Windows 7 runs out of support. If Apple wanted to make a play for the middle part of the market, maybe with a secondary brand, they easily have the financial resources, infrastructure and technical chops to do it.
The other vaguely plausible alternative is that another huge tech firm decides to actually give Linux clients a serious push. Obviously none of the current distros is going to do that; the only one with anything like the resources to make it happen is probably Red Hat, and their focus seems unlikely to shift from the enterprise/server market. But if you look at Android and to some extent Chrome OS and SteamOS, the potential for an unexpected sideways move to some new type of device is always there.
In any case, if the current trend towards outsourced IT and cloud services continues during that time frame, the advantages Microsoft retains in the corporate server room will erode over time, and with them the barriers to migrating to a completely different platform. Obviously it won't happen overnight, but it doesn't have to.
Anything that really does compromise my bank account has got through a lot more than Windows' security, and almost certainly entered my system through a vulnerability that Windows updates wouldn't have fixed anyway.
Also, it's not one computer I'm worried about so much as the cost per day of downtime for everyone in my company if a Windows update were to break all our general use PCs.
If you mean LTSB for Windows 10, that's only available with Enterprise, which means it's not an option for the kind of power users or small businesses who would have used Pro with 7 or 8.x.
In any case, the idea that you should have to jump through all the hoops involved in running Windows Enterprise just to maintain a reasonable degree of control over your own computers is patently absurd, and like many others, I and my businesses will treat it with the contempt it deserves.
If you're worried about the cost per day of downtime, you should certainly consider investing in Enterprise.
>In any case, the idea that you should have to jump through all the hoops involved in running Windows Enterprise just to maintain a reasonable degree of control over your own computers is patently absurd, and like many others, I and my businesses will treat it with the contempt it deserves.
Well, I certainly hope you've got a very competent security team to assess and control the risks caused by avoiding updates.
Security team? We don't even have an IT guy. That's what small business is like. Everyone pitches in, and to some extent, everyone has to know a bit about everything.
In this case, that includes keeping up with the latest updates when they come out, looking up each KBnnnnnnn marked as a security patch, and checking whether it looks good before deciding whether we should install it. It's not rocket science, it's just more difficult than it ought to be since Microsoft stopped putting any helpful information directly in Windows Update. It's still far less hassle than either jumping through Enterprise hoops or experiencing downtime because a Windows Update broke something important and we couldn't block it.
That is what I do on my W10 Install. Hit that windows update group policy disable button ASAP. No more Microsoft bullshit. They even silently update your drivers - which are probably the worst things ever to update, especially when you chose a stable build and want to stay on it. I had the machine up for like 100 days w/o rebooting before we lost power here. Devs seem to have no clue about reliability and stability. Like they want us all on some perpetual upgrade treadmill while they continue to break shit that was already working just fine.
I get that Microsoft wants to get people to upgrade, but forcing it like this is just plain rude
Reality is, there are still driver issues on older hardware (especially laptops) with Windows 10. Some of my friends get random hangs since upgrading. My grandma's sister had her laptop upgraded and can't find anything anymore.
It's a huge download and a huge change in how your computer works. This is not something you should just force on your users by tricking them to install it. Nudges and prompts are fine by me. Pushing it as an opt-out thing you have to actively cancel is just awful.
It's not just older hardware, I upgraded an 2015 HP Stream Mini to Windows 10 and it died during the install after it had wiped Windows 8 essentially bricking the computer.
My girlfriend's laptop touchpad died upon update. After stopping her panic I had to enable using arrow keys for the cursor movement (getting to this menu without using said cursor was interesting..) and then roll back the "upgrade" using arrow keys.
Why was getting to the menu interesting, keyboard navigation in windows is a pretty well established paradigm, it may take marginally longer than you're used to but there are many people who primarily use their computer with the keyboard only.
Probably because you're telling someone who has only ever used a mouse or trackpad to get to an interior settings screen without using a mouse or trackpad. Just because "many people" do something doesn't make it easy or intuitive to someone who has never done it.
Microsoft gets a lot of flack for these breaking updates, but I wonder why more criticism isn't directed at manufacturers who pack laptops full of obscure and poorly-written drivers.
The upgrade also has the nasty tendency to forget to restore your files after the upgrade.
I had to restart 1 computer 5 times before windows 10 magically decided it's going to restore my files now so I don't have to install and configure everything again.
I'm moving everything over to Linux now anyway this latest fiasco with windows made it clear to me that it has no future.
The only annoying thing is that I need to run adobe in a virtual machine.
Similar situation: I have special purpose use cases for Windows, and so I actually have more Windows stuff at work now than ever, but it's because the core is starting to fragment and these special use cases are getting pushed out to stand-alone machines while non-Windows systems are taking over future development.
I went back to 7 twice now. My PC(which is a really modern machine, 4-th gen Core i5+GTX780) doesn't want to stay asleep with windows 10. It just wakes up in the middle of the night, "powercfg -lastwake" just shows "unknown", no one has any idea why that happens, only going back to Windows 7 solves the issue.
Not to mention annoying forced UI tweaks that nobody asked for - why does the cursor snap to the corner when moving between monitors? It's beyond infuriating - but at least in win 8 you could disable that through a registry setting. In Win 10, sorry, you can't. W
Why is the show desktop button literally 2 pixels wide now? Trying to hit it when it's on the edge between two monitors is close to impossible.
Also Start menu search takes much longer than it did on windows 7, and it's much less accurate.
Holy shit this
My brand new (somewhat expensive D:) laptop tries to commit sudoku any time I look away. I've had it for less than a month and already I've taken it out of laptop bag scorching hot twice - because it decided to wake up for no reason and then stay running with no air...
Shame no one told it there are no 1 to 9 bills :P
Kind of feels like it does with real money, because obviously the manufacturer will just blame me for it cooking itself
I hate windows 10 because before every version of windows could run spelunky without lag. Now I can barely get a consistent 54 fps on my surface. That really sucks.
Because people's computers work on Windows 8, and stop working after "upgrading" to windows 10. Those people don't care that it's a 3rd party driver causing the problem. (If it is; it's hard to know sometimes.)
As long as it's Microsoft causing the upgrade prompt, it's their problem. As long as the (terrible) drivers worked before the upgrade, it should check that drivers are available for the hardware before trying to go through with the upgrade.
There's an analogous situation with Android phones; Google doesn't try to upgrade every phone to the newest release, because they can't guarantee it will work afterwards.
I'd still blame the OEMs, of course, when the hardware stops working after installing from a retail Windows 10 disc. But in that case it was from a user-initiated action, at least.
Do the OEMs suddenly not have a responsibility to keep their drivers working on the OS they picked?
>it should check that drivers are available for the hardware before trying to go through with the upgrade
From what I've gathered the issue tends to be with drivers not working, rather than not existing. This is again entirely the OEMs fault, there isn't any feasible way for MSFT to verify that the drivers aren't broken.
These OEMs knew very well that microsoft was going to do this but still neglected to fix their drivers.
I've never even used 10 and I can tell you some of the complaints about it:
* bad driver support
* invasive telemetry
* missing accounts/files after upgrading
* slow, wonky UI
These are well known problems even to me.
I personally don't think 7 was "good", but it was tolerable. A lot of people clearly don't want 10, but are being tricked into installing it. Why not just extend the product people are happy with?
For drivers you should blame your OEM instead of pretending that MS completely ignored them when rolling this out.
AFAIK the telemetry has mostly been backported.
I don't really know about the missing files, but it's certainly been a common complaint across all new windows releases. Usually the cause has been user error.
I personally find the windows 10 UI to be a significant improvement.
>Why not just extend the product people are happy with?
And that is how you end up with another XP fiasco.
I have already spent several hours this week on the university student IT helpdesk fixing laptops broken by this Windows 10 update.
Every single person said they hadn't chosen to update - clearly it was a result of this popup. Most of the failures were broken drivers that prevented Windows from even booting. It particularly annoys me that Windows 10 tries to install itself on completely incompatible hardware.
I'm going to share the best way I have found to kill any particular thing in windows you don't like, including GWX: (this is not my full script, just a section, so you will have to modify it)
edit: one thing I ran into that caused me to use this hackish script is that, at least in the early GWX days, windows updates were re-enabling the GWX and update registry keys. So a few tuesdays later and GWX is back and asking to upgrade again.
I copied the first part from a domain joined PC before a later update caused them to receive the upgrade prompt as well. It's kind of belt and suspenders so it doesn't harm but may not actually be needed.
Having done a fresh install of Win7 recently, I can confirm that only installing important updates, not treating recommended updates the same, and being highly selective of which optional updates (i.e. drivers only) prevents any of the Windows 10 upgrade stuff from being installed.
This doesn't help anyone who has previously done things differently (which was generally accepted as the best practice), but if you're setting up any new hosts, the above may work out as well for you as it has for me.
For those of you (or people you know) that still keep getting nagged about Win10, this freeware works great at killing all the system tray, balloon, and popup notifications: http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/
While that is true, you're missing that this is a change from how the upgrade dialogue worked for the past several months.
In the past, it popped up a window asking when you want to schedule the upgrade, and the only way to get rid of it without agreeing to upgrade was to close the window.
The difference is that now the upgrade is immediately scheduled without the user's consent. If you close the window, following your past behavior, it upgrades anyway. To stop the upgrade you need to click on an 8 point blue link.
This didn't just start today. Everybody running windows 7 or 8 today has REPEATEDLY declined Windows 10 upgrade notifications for months on-end. These consumers made a choice not to upgrade, and Microsoft tricked them using standard malware tactics!
That's why this is nothing less than a _shameful_ act by Microsoft.
In the past, you received notifications that you could upgrade. You clicked the Red X to dismiss the notification.
This time, you received a notification to tell you it was going to upgrade. You clicked the Red X to dismiss the notification.
They're exactly the same process. The difference is that if you didn't actually read the notification, you didn't know what it was telling you.
Anybody that really didn't want Windows 10 would have used one of the many ways, either through group policy or 3rd party apps, to prevent even being asked.
Sure, many people don't read dialogs or notifications, but that's not Microsoft's fault - it's user's that can't be bothered to actually understand what they're doing.
> Sure, many people don't read dialogs or notifications, but that's not Microsoft's fault - it's user's that can't be bothered to actually understand what they're doing.
Your response is either disingenuous or naive.
Changing how software behaves as established by previous UI conventions with the differences restricted to changes in text labels is a known dark pattern. Furthermore, it is well known that an increasing percentage of users will not read to the end of a notification as they attempt to return to their initial task. [0]
> As we all know, people tend to start reading at the beginning of a piece of text and as they advance, an increasing percentage of people give up and do not read to the end.
Unquestionably, the effect of dismissing the notice is different and, also unquestionably, the people responsible for this behavioral change are well aware of how such a change would affect users who have no intention of upgrading.
What such a change achieves, in addition to tricking unwitting users into upgrading, is plausible deniability.
In both cases, clicking the Red X dismisses the notification. That's it. Nothing more. That's the UI convention as it always has been.
As for users not reading, that may well be the case - it doesn't mean it's not their fault.
If you wanted to take aim at a screwy dialog, I'd go for the original [A]bort [R]etry or [C]ancel... This 'change' (that isn't) is nothing compared to around 75% of UIs today.
Sure, lots of people are upset because something didn't do what they expected. Yup, the engineers sorting this out maybe aren't the greatest UI/UX people.
To state that MS are trying to 'trick' people is the disingenuous line though.
Anyway, I really can't be bothered to discuss it anymore, as (a) I read dialogs, (b) I have machines that aren't auto upgrading because I followed the methods to stop the prompts a while back, and (c) xkcd tells me it's time to stop.
Regardless of people not reading dialog boxes, a major update of Windows can take a long time and be very disruptive. When it's done, things may look and feel unfamiliar and applications may not work.
Such a significant change should not come about automatically by way of simply closing a dialog box.
There should at least be one final dialog box requiring confirmation: "go ahead with Windows 10 update now? Yes/No" and if that dialog box has an X close button, it should be wired up to "no".
If user clicks "yes", it would be polite to double check with "this update could take awhile, are you sure?" and supply links to a checklist of things people might want to know ahead of updating.
This is undoubtedly a deceptive and aggressive UI pattern by Microsoft for their own product agenda, and the bad press is deserved.
I've been using Microsoft software since IBM PCs actually were IBM PCs. I have never known Microsoft to be as blatantly user-hostile as they have been since the current leadership took over and the business strategy shifted.
Until a few months ago, I might not have chosen to use their product in every case, but I generally trusted them. In particular, I expected the products I did use to be relatively good software by industry standards, to be relatively well-supported, and to provide genuine and effective ways to turn off any features like auto-updates or telemetry that I didn't want to enable. None of those things is true any longer, and I really am quite sad about that.
Ballmer-led Microsoft was the scurge of the industry - it's improved 10-fold since Nadella took over. It's less user-hostile now than it's been in a long while.
Anybody sufficiently tech-savvy enough to know how to keep safe without auto-updates can easily prevent them - for most people, they're a good idea.
It's strange how in the web world, everything is always up-to-date and full of telemetry in every sense, but nobody really complains about that.
It's not easy to avoid auto-updates-- you need to edit a group policy to do it.
Now your response would be that anyone who lacks the sophistication to do that should be forced to auto-update anyway.
And I would agree, except the updates also force a reboot, which can be catastrophic to non-saved work, running processes, etc. And stopping the forced reboot after updating Win10 is VERY much non-trivial-- it's step 2 in the link below.
I would agree about the updates, except that since having the most recent build (1511) on most of my machines, they rarely reboot after updates.
Sure, there was a spate of them for a while, but they were all schedulable. If the forced reboot is a problem because people honestly expect to keep work unsaved and open 24/7 for days on end then... I'm not sure what to say.
If it's just the upgrade reboot, then it should be noted, shceduled and performed at a suitable time - which it has been done by many people already.
Regular saving, backups, and scheduled maintenance should be a standard part of any computer setup. To pretend they don't exist is madness.
Regular saving, backups, and scheduled maintenance should be a standard part of any computer setup. To pretend they don't exist is madness.
And they are sensible precautions against system failure. However, system failures should only be caused by something unavoidable like hardware breaking or a sudden power outage, not by your own operating system pulling the rug from under you.
Good operating systems have long supported extended 24/7/365 uptimes even with most security updates being applied. I have servers -- which get attacked, for real, far more than any workstation -- where the last time I needed to reboot them was when I chose to migrate to a new Linux kernel as part of a distro upgrade some number of years ago.
There is simply no excuse for shipping a consumer OS in 2016 that interrupts average users every few days just to apply some updates. The need to do so betrays a deeply flawed underlying software architecture.
Less user hostile?
I've just gotten a Win10 on my laptop. I had to go registry diving just so I could have normal touchpad behaviour back (Three finger tap gave me fucking Cortana instead of middle click. Two finger tap was doing something equally stupid)
They changed how DPI scaling works, now I have HD screen that looks like turd because 2/3 of programs are blurry
Fun fact: the old DPI scaling is present too! More registry diving! Buuuut... it just reverts to new "improved way" every so often anyway...
VLC keeps getting kicked off default programs
PDF reader getting kicked off default programs
Anybody sufficiently tech-savvy enough to know how to keep safe without auto-updates can easily prevent them - for most people, they're a good idea.
Security updates, if that's really what they are, are a good idea by default for people who don't know enough to handle it themselves.
General automatic updates, including completely reorganising how the entire system works and moving lots of UI around unexpectedly and literally overnight, are a bad idea for just about everyone.
It's strange how in the web world, everything is always up-to-date and full of telemetry in every sense, but nobody really complains about that.
Plenty of people complain about both of those things. They are the two most damaging trends to hit our industry in a generation, and that remains true whether we're talking about the OS, native applications, web apps, online X-as-a-Service offerings, or anything else.
I know several people who tried to be super diligent in opting out of windows 10 only to wake up to a win10 install on their PCs. They all ended up buying Macbooks the next day.
Forced windows 10 upgrades seem to be the best advertisement OS X could ever get.
Sounds fishy. I get that sneaky OS updating is unwanted, but it can be avoided and there's an easy 3 click process to roll back if Windows 10 is installed.
Don't forget that Apple now enforce mandatory iOS updates, with no option to opt out or disable the annoying reminders. Even if you have automatic system updates turned off, the point release iOS updates are downloaded without your permission in the background when the phone or iPad is charging. These updates might be between 80 - 300 MB. The notification dialog boxes then begin their attack, every day with two options "install now / remind me later".
This is actually worse than Windows, since on Windows we at least have the option to disable the scheduled update and the reminder notifications. Not so on iOS as of version 9.
I got tired of being asked, so I used Never10 [1] which is freeware from a reputable developer [2]. Never10 can also undo the decision and let you upgrade if you change your mind.
Gibson isn't a reputable programmer, he's a noted Infoseek charlatan [1]. The proper tool for preventing Windows 10 upgrades is Ultimate Outsider's GWX control panel [2], not Gibson's poor me-too gimmick.
Seeing them this desperate to get windows 10 on to people's computers for FREE really has me worries about their motivations. I know it's loaded with tracking and spy features, are they selling that collected data and want as many people contributing to it as possible? Whether they want to or not? If I could afford it I'd get a mac and be done with this nonsense. Used to use ubuntu but I need photoshop :(
I found myself in the same boat, but eventually just dropped Windows altogether. Once Linux desktops can better work with and calibrate ICC profiles, I'll really have no urge to go back.
A chunk of the telemetry recorded by Windows 10 has been back-ported to 7 and 8 in updates since anyway so that isn't a reason not to upgrade (though if it is a concern to you it is a reason not to use 7 or 8 as much as it is a reason not to use 10).
I have two machines that will likely never see Windows 10: a laptop on which it ran like a one legged arthritic dog (8 wasn't terribly fast on there, 10 was just impossible, it currently runs Debian as a test-bed for a few things) and a tablet that had significant driver issues that I don't particularly expect to see resolved (so it'll be sticking at 8 as I don't have time to upgrade and roll back again if it fails, my time is precious!).
The "but it is free" thing amuses me somewhat. Does anyone else remember hearing the "Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing" mantra from various Microsoft supporting camps?
Fair point, but you have to actively not install them if you have the officially recommended configuration (automatic update, include recommended updates).
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I can't believe the behaviour won't "accidentally" get in without continued effort on the part of the user to check that it isn't there. I for one don't have time not the care to keep constantly monitoring the situation.
I accept that Windows is watching me, whatever version, and if Windows watching me becomes a problem in my mind I'll stop using Windows, whatever version.
The thing is, my personal views are such that I wouldn't be happy using Windows with unclear phone-home behaviour, but for my small businesses, accepting that Windows is watching us in unknown ways is absolutely out of the question for regulatory and contractual reasons.
The average home user might be set to automatically install recommended updates, but I doubt many businesses or power users do that. The important thing in this case is that they do have the option not to.
As for telemetry "accidentally" getting in, this is why as mentioned elsewhere our policy is now not to install any Windows updates by default, even security ones. We install selected security updates manually, if and when we've confirmed they are relevant to our needs and not getting reported for anything sneaky.
Several of our machines can't even install those updates at the moment, because Microsoft appear to have horribly broken Windows Update in the past few weeks anyway, so until that's fixed it's a moot point anyway.
Update broke my parents friends wifi and of course they call me and ask for help, and of course they don't own an ethernet cable, and of course all he does is use the web browser to look at porn.
If that is really the only thing they use I would just install Linux mint on it in the long run it's probably better for them.
It's surprisingly easy to install mallware and viruses on a windows computer cumputer these days see download.com for a good example.
Even I've done it a few times by accident luckily it was in a VM so I just scrapped it.
There's basically no difference if all you do is browse the internet and if they run into issued doing something and the only way to do it requires a command line then revert it.
These days most basic things can be done very easily in linux without ever touching the command line so the only barrier to entry is that computers don't come pre-loaded with it.
MS also continually re-enables the update if you block/hide it in Windows Update. I've blocked it like 5 times in the past 5 months at my company's workstation only to have it magically re-appear on a Monday morning. Just leave me to my Windows 7 peace!
This bricked my sister in law's computer AND GUESS WHO GETS TO FIX IT.
Microsoft messed up. Instead of losing a windows 7 user and gaining a windows 10 user, they lost a windows 7 user and gained a boots-to-blackscreen user.
>It is sad that they would stoop this low. I just don't understand it.
There's nothing "sad" about it. If this increases their corporate profits, then it's the correct course of action. I'm only surprised they didn't resort to tactics like this earlier; they were much too nice with their customers before. They're doing a lot better now, by showing their customers who's boss.
What's sad is that customers actually think they deserve to be treated nicely. I just don't understand that mentality. If you're willing to allow a vendor to abuse you, over and over and over again, and you absolutely refuse to ditch that vendor, then why shouldn't the vendor treat you poorly if they can make more money doing so?
They're doing a lot better now, by showing their customers who's boss.
Microsoft might indeed be about to learn who's boss.
Spoiler: Absent legal or regulatory shenanigans, in the long run it's going to be the people spending the money.
If you really believe Microsoft are strong enough to coerce most or all of their entire market to move to Windows 10 when it's not in their interests, I invite you to look up the current market share of Windows 7 vs. Windows 10, and to consider that this is about 10 months into the 12 month free update period already.
Businesses are still buying new PCs with that "decade old OS" today. People will get off it when there's a better choice, but so far in the intervening decade, those have been lacking.
>If you really believe Microsoft are strong enough to coerce most or all of their entire market to move to Windows 10 when it's not in their interests, I invite you to look up the current market share of Windows 7 vs. Windows 10, and to consider that this is about 10 months into the 12 month free update period already.
A huge number of people have upgraded to Win10. Many of those are because of the underhanded tricks, but it doesn't matter; they've switched now. Now MS just has to squeeze them some more by cutting support for Win7 early, or maybe they could be like Apple and start pushing Win7 updates which massively slow down the OS, in effect forcing people to upgrade.
What are people going to do, stop getting security updates? Or switch to a different OS?
Face it, people and businesses are locked into Windows, and aren't going to stop using it no matter what. MS can do whatever they want at this point; it's not going to hurt them, and will only help them. The more people they can push to Win10, the more money they'll make from advertising. I can't wait to see them pushing mandatory advertising and spyware in Win10 Enterprise.
Now MS just has to squeeze them some more by cutting support for Win7 early,
That would surely result in lawsuits on such a scale that even Microsoft would be lucky to survive the results.
or maybe they could be like Apple and start pushing Win7 updates which massively slow down the OS, in effect forcing people to upgrade.
They already do seem to be crippling Windows 7 updates; there have been numerous reports of problems since earlier this year where Windows Update will sit there taking literally hours to do the most simple tasks, apparently including several controlled experiments using new machines to prove that it really is Windows Update at fault.
This doesn't bode well for anyone remaining on Windows 7, but of course it bodes even less well for anyone committed to whatever update mechanism Microsoft wants on Windows 10.
What are people going to do, stop getting security updates?
Probably.
Or switch to a different OS?
Possibly.
Face it, people and businesses are locked into Windows, and aren't going to stop using it no matter what.
There is rarely true lock-in within this industry. Usually there is only the relative cost of migrating to new systems vs. staying put.
The thing is, migrating to a new OS is already an extremely expensive, time-consuming and risky proposition for large organisations. Entire teams of IT staff spend months planning the switch, testing hardware and software on the new platform, and so on. That is going to be true even if organisations decide to upgrade to Windows 10 from whatever they're on already.
That is the inertia Microsoft really has to overcome if it wants to establish Windows 10, and it's the same inertia that meant some organisations were willing to pay millions for support beyond the official cut-off date with Windows XP because that was still better for them than risking a migration even to Windows 7, which had relatively few areas of risk in that scenario.
If they fail to do that, either by not making 10 an attractive proposition or by trying to degrade 7 until people give up, then those big corporate migration exercises do have alternatives they could consider, and sooner or later some big names will actually make the jump. And if a few of them do that and it becomes clear that they've done well out of it, that's very, very bad for Microsoft. That's why I don't think they'll let it come to that.
>That would surely result in lawsuits on such a scale that even Microsoft would be lucky to survive the results.
Unless they're bound by a contract, which would only apply to very large customers, they're under no obligation to continue support for Win7. It's just like XP; there's no support for that unless you're a special customer who pays extra for that support.
>They already do seem to be crippling Windows 7 updates; there have been numerous reports of problems since earlier this year where Windows Update will sit there taking literally hours to do the most simple tasks,
Yep, and there's no legal recourse here either. They can run Windows Updates however they want. Don't like it? Don't get any updates, and leave yourself open to hacking and malware.
>>What are people going to do, stop getting security updates?
>Probably.
See above. Good luck dealing with the malware and hacking.
>>Or switch to a different OS?
>Possibly.
You're joking, right? Linux backers have been trying to encourage people to switch to that for ages and it hasn't gotten very far. Apple has a very strong brand with huge success in mobile devices and they haven't gotten very far either.
>There is rarely true lock-in within this industry.
WTF are you talking about? Every time anyone proposes switching to Linux, tons of people pop up talking about all the applications they're bound to which only work on Windows. Lock-in (with apps) is the entire reason Windows is so dominant. It's the exact same reason that WinPhone has been a disaster and can't make a dent in the Android and iPhone marketshare: there's no apps for it.
>If they fail to do that, either by not making 10 an attractive proposition or by trying to degrade 7 until people give up, then those big corporate migration exercises do have alternatives they could consider
No, they don't. They're locked into tons of applications that only run on Windows. As everyone knows, there's no Photoshop on Linux. The same is true for countless business applications that most of us have never heard of, but are critically important to businesses (and each business has different, obscure applications it's bound to).
Don't forget, with larger businesses, they do site licenses, so they pay constant license fees to MS no matter which MS they run. No matter what these customers do, they're going to be paying MS for the privilege of running their software. There's no way MS can screw this up, it's just a matter of which tactic will maximize profit. At worst, they'll have a steady but constant revenue stream.
Unless they're bound by a contract, which would only apply to very large customers, they're under no obligation to continue support for Win7.
After giving clear public statements of their future support cycles? Good luck being the lawyer defending that one in a nine-figure dollar lawsuit with a Fortune 100 or ten.
Apple has a very strong brand with huge success in mobile devices and they haven't gotten very far either.
Now who's joking? Apple owns the high end of the laptop market and has for years.
They're locked into tons of applications that only run on Windows. As everyone knows, there's no Photoshop on Linux.
No, there isn't. But people said the same thing about Adobe moving to Creative Cloud a few years ago, and initially they dominated the market too, with a few FOSS applications the not-really-competition. Today, though, there are several very reasonable alternatives to CC applications in various parts of the market, and they're gaining a foothold and loyal customer base very fast. Most of them run on Macs rather than Windows, by the way.
>After giving clear public statements of their future support cycles? Good luck being the lawyer defending that one in a nine-figure dollar lawsuit with a Fortune 100 or ten.
Yeah, so what happens when they pull support for Win7 Home and maybe Pro, and continue it as normal for Enterprise, so that the Fortune 100 companies aren't affected? Home users aren't going to sue MS, and SMBs aren't too likely to either.
Don't forget, MS can claim they don't need to offer support to these smaller users, because they're giving them a free "upgrade" to their latest and greatest! You're right about the F100 companies, but they're a totally different market. MS is still supporting XP for some companies remember; they'd likely do the same (but maybe without any extra cost for a while) for their enterprise customers running W7.
>Now who's joking? Apple owns the high end of the laptop market and has for years.
iOS upgrades are forced in all but name. Apple can and do remove versions of apps that supporter older iOS versions from the App Store.
If you want the latest version of an app, you can be forced in practice to update iOS as well, and with so many mobile apps depending on remote services, something as simple as a change in the protocol for communicating with some essential remote facility in an app can lead to an entire OS update.
The even crazier thing is that they also don't let you downgrade either the OS or the apps if a new version is worse than what you had before.
iOS now forces point release updates as of version 9. Not sure about major versions, I guess we will see. I'm betting they will.
To be clear, by "force" I mean the update is downloaded automatically in the background to your device regardless of whether you have system updates turned off. Then you are continually hounded with reminders to install that update, with no option to stop the reminders. It's actually worse than Windows because at least with Windows we can disable the notifications and prevent the update.
There needs to be a class action lawsuit. The people doing this at Microsoft are not that familiar with western legal systems or basic sensibilities or just don't care. A lawsuit will maybe wake them up.
Evidently the lawsuit needs a higher damages award. I thought the motivation for having punitive damages in a legal system was so that courts could make sure it was never cheaper to do the wrong thing and hope to ride out any resulting legal action.
Doesn't matter, in the end all members of the class action lawsuit will receive a coupon for a free copy of Windows 10 for their damages. The lawyers will be paid in cash.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Win10 user agreement includes provisions such that using Win10 counts as agreeing to the EULA, as well as a class-action waiver[0]. There, sadly, will be no class-action to wake them up, unless an individual user is willing to go out of their way.
I'll upgrade my family members to Linux if they want. But if they need help fixing Windows, they're on their own. I'm not a Windows expert, nor do I have any wish to learn about it.
@Grishnakh I'm not a windows user. I just got instructions on how to fix it from the desktop support guy at work. I don't like leaving people in a rut.
My sister-in-law is a nurse. I don't expect her to give me free medical care; even less so if I knew she was such a complain-nik about it to her friends online.
One solution that seems to not get much attention is setting the windows firewall to block outgoing connections by default. You then whitelist the couple of programs that actually do need internet access (it isn't many, mostly just web browsers).
Then you don't have to worry about windows or any other program pulling a bait and switch on you.
More downvotes without any explanations. I've literally been doing this for multiple years and it works great, I don't know why it ends up being such a controversial solution.
Because "mostly just web browsers" isn't correct for a typical PC with decent collection of good software. Many applications need outbound access and whitelisting all of them would be painful. I would never attempt that on my PC and agree with those who downvoted you!
Not only that, but sometimes it's not obvious which .exe file needs the outbound access. Some programs use other modules to connect to remote servers for application update checks and other things. Besides, you want Windows security patches, so on many levels your idea tanks hard!
I have quite a bit of software on my computer and it really didn't turn out to be necessary to whitelist very many of them. It really isn't a huge deal. There are added benefits that something like visual studio tries to access the internet for things that aren't really a benefit to someone who doesn't want to give 'smiley face feedback' or log into their locally installed IDE for some reason.
Does anyone have data on what percentage of devices fail the upgrade process? Surely Mircosoft does. They also probably have data on how many people then end up purchasing a new machine.
Microsoft seems to me like car dealer who in their spare time pours sugar into the gas tanks of parked cars. They don't care how many people the inconvenience. If even one percent of them buy a new car then it was worth the sugar.
They could easily know, by counting the machines they told to upgrade and counting the ones that came back from upgrade and subtracting one from the other.
But you might be fired if you tried to implement the collection of that data.
The underhanded and manipulative approach that Microsoft have taken with Windows 10 has put me off Microsoft completely. It is important to trust your OS and OS vendor and Microsoft have slipped up badly in this regard. Now they expect me to give them full update control with Windows 10 - never going to happen. Next OS is Linux.
My plan for my next computer is to not run windows on the bare metal but run it in a VM as fast as possible. Does any know of a linux distribution that is geared towards this? I basically want to boot to linux then choose various virtual machine images to run.
My win7 configuration uses programdata and users folder on D. This is not supportby windows 10, i tried the upgrade and everything broke, reverted through cloned hdd. I have no plan in upgrading, my pc will die before and at that point i'll format and reinstall (and never use users directory again), they still push me that upgrade, it's terrible. People says "always update your pc", but usually things get worse when you do
> I find it hard to believe that anyone not employed by Microsoft would take this position.
Insinuations of astroturfing and shillage without evidence are a breach of HN's civility rule and not allowed here. Someone holding an opposing view does not count as evidence.
When there are genuine concerns about astroturfing, we look into them carefully and (in the case where we find something) ban the accounts involved. But casual accusation and insinuation is not ok. Extrapolated, it would wreck this place.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 190 ms ] threadAnyway - I found that when I simply say "No" to the inevitable "Terms and conditions" license dialog question the upgrade stops even if you said "go ahead" in the previous step.
I clicked "I do no accept" to the license, got a warning that then they needed to restore my previous version of windows, and 10 minutes later the laptop was working as before.
Guess now I know why that happened.
Manually update any Windows machines you run, unchecking the Windows 10 upgrade every single time. It will never stay unchecked, nor will it ever not be recommended.
Until Microsoft decides to override that and literally force it on everyone, which I don't doubt they will do as soon as they feel they can afford the class action lawsuits that will result from the few stragglers remaining, there is no other way to avoid the upgrade, unless you actually want to hack the registry or something.
And if you turn off automatic updates, you become the biggest threat to your machine's security. (As well as to many other people on the Internet, when your system becomes compromised and starts sending spam, DoS attacks, or other botnet activities.)
Yes, some people don't like Windows 10. But Windows has moved to the "evergreen" software model, as have many other pieces of software (including browsers). If you don't like Windows 10, the answer isn't "run Windows 7 forever"; the answer is "stop running Windows, because you don't like where it's going (or has already gone)".
I'm curious what will happen to Windows 10 users who can no longer update their systems. The anniversary update due out next month is said to require 4GB minimum on all systems, how many systems will be left in the lurch because of that and what happens to them? I have a couple Windows Tablets that won't be able to upgrade.
"free" upgrade, yeah right
If I choose to run Windows 7 forever and only use internet services from a VM - that's my prerogative.
> And if you turn off automatic updates, you become the biggest threat to your machine's security.
The typical user is already the biggest threat to their machine's security, regardless of whether updates are turned off or on. There's no windows update that specifically protects users from even the most common threats if the user doesn't exercise due diligence.
Anyway, for these people (and indeed my current studio PC) the answer IS "run Windows 7 forever" - until the OS is no longer supported by the DAW maker, I'm happy; everything works as it should do, and I can concentrate on making music and using an OS that I like, trust and that works. And, there's no option but to run Windows if you're running niche software such as DAWs where there's not an alternative OS to run them on.
What is a bigger threat to your machine's security than not being able to use it at all?
Our standard policy for a long time was not to auto-install any Windows updates, and just to manually install security ones each month.
Our standard policy today is not to install any update, no matter what Microsoft labels it with, unless we've identified a specific need for it. We do a quick pass down the usual sources after patch day and install any security updates that are potentially relevant and haven't been causing problems.
Given that Windows 7 is a relatively mature OS today and obviously we also have a variety of other security measures in place, we consider the risk of overlooking a minor security fix that actually matters to be much, much lower than the risk of 2016's Microsoft breaking something by pushing an update we didn't want.
If you don't like Windows 10, the answer isn't "run Windows 7 forever"
Yes. Yes, it is, at least for now. An operating system is just a tool you use to get work done. Windows 7 works just fine on our hardware, and it runs the software we need. If it ain't broke, don't let anyone break it, and spend your time on actually useful things.
We're essentially betting that either Nadella and co will have got the boot before Windows 7 support ends and a desperate Microsoft will have significantly reversed course and offered a viable alternative by that time, or someone else will have stepped up to offer serious business software on another platform that we can migrate to by then.
The problem is that it is broken, in a way: it has security vulnerabilities, just like any OS, and if it's connected to the internet has to be patched to protect it. A deprecated OS is not going to get those security updates. Win7 won't be supported forever.
Of course, if your Win7 machine is not networked, then this doesn't apply to you and you can run it forever, just like some industrial machines still run MS-DOS.
>We're essentially betting that either Nadella and co will have got the boot before Windows 7 support ends and a desperate Microsoft will have significantly reversed course and offered a viable alternative by that time, or someone else will have stepped up to offer serious business software on another platform that we can migrate to by then.
Why would Nadella get the boot? Look at their stock price since he's taken over: the company is doing great, much better than under Ballmer. All these actions are good and correct: they make the company more money. Customers may not like them, but too bad. Why should MS care about what its customers want? It's not like they're going to abandon MS and Windows any time soon, so MS is right to screw them over for more profit.
But Windows 7 isn't deprecated. Microsoft have committed to supporting it until 2020, and their customers will expect them to honour that commitment.
That is four years away. In a fast-paced industry like IT, the entire landscape could be different by then.
Why would Nadella get the boot? Look at their stock price since he's taken over: the company is doing great, much better than under Ballmer.
You and I seem to be looking at very different stock charts. In the one I'm looking at[1], MSFT had pretty respectable growth through 2013-2014 when they were doing a lot of talking about Windows 10 and the new vision, but their stock price looks much less happy since around the start of 2015 as the reality became known.
In a few months, if Windows 10 is still far less established than Windows 7 and it becomes undeniable that the campaign to get everyone onto Windows 10 didn't succeed even with literally giving it away and underhand tricks like the one we're talking about, executives like Nadella and Myerson are going to be under a lot of pressure to present a more realistic vision of what happens next and to turn the stock price back to a steady pattern of growth or their positions are going to be under threat.
[1] https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MSFT#symbol=MSFT
Why should MS care about what its customers want? It's not like they're going to abandon MS and Windows any time soon
Perhaps not. I suspect they've probably got until about 14 January 2020 before things get really bad.
But by that time, anything could have happened. Apple could have started competing more aggressively for desktop/laptop/server markets. Less and less business software could be locally hosted, making a range of different devices that can access web apps more attractive. In more than three years, even a major new player entering the market or a shift in strategy from some other tech giant isn't out of the question.
Screwing your customers for profit looks good at the next quarterly earnings call, but not so much two years or five years down the line when your customers and competitors have had time to react.
So what? They can change their mind at any time, and I for one hope they do. What are customers going to do, file a complaint? hahaha
>You and I seem to be looking at very different stock charts.
I don't know what you're looking at, but the Google chart I'm looking at for 2010-now shows constant growth, starting at about 2012 and really gaining steam in 2013, and continuing until now, albeit with some stumbling in the first half of 2015. Their stock price now is higher than it ever was in 2013-2014, and is in general going up.
>Apple could have started competing more aggressively for desktop/laptop/server markets. >...even a major new player entering the market or a shift in strategy from some other tech giant isn't out of the question.
Apple's been competing in those markets for decades, and they're still a tiny player. Linux beat them easily in servers. The idea of Apple servers is a joke. And MS servers are locked into many places in enterprises thanks to SharePoint, Exchange, AD, etc. and of course Windows on the desktop. Apple hasn't gotten anywhere on the desktop for businesses, and not much in homes either thanks to their high prices. I don't see that changing; Apple has always had high prices. Linux has been tried on the desktop for decades too (earnestly since around 1998), to little effect. And don't make me remind you about the fate of BeOS.
>Screwing your customers for profit looks good at the next quarterly earnings call, but not so much two years or five years down the line when your customers and competitors have had time to react.
You seem to be making the classic mistake of thinking MS is a normal company which has to worry about competition. It isn't. The only real threats they have to their business are 1) their old OS versions (which they're dealing with by pushing everyone to Win10 like it or not) and 2) the need for their products being made obsolete by new technology (like tablets). #2 seemed to be a concern for a while but it looks like the tablet market has gotten saturated and that's played out. There's too much stuff you just can't do on a tablet, so while some people can and have gone to all-mobile computing, everyone else is stuck with Windows, and they aren't going to stop using it no matter what. MS might as well take advantage of that as much as they can.
Maybe the law is different where you are. In my country, the public statements they have made about ongoing support would carry legal weight, and pulling that support several years early would be obvious grounds for legal action. Potentially they are on the hook for all kinds of nasty things, starting with undermining every consumer purchase of a system with the version of Windows that is no longer supported as promised.
I don't know what you're looking at, but the Google chart I'm looking at for 2010-now shows constant growth, starting at about 2012 and really gaining steam in 2013, and continuing until now, albeit with some stumbling in the first half of 2015. Their stock price now is higher than it ever was in 2013-2014, and is in general going up.
Well, you do know what chart I was looking at, because the link is right there in my last post. Go ahead and follow it, and press the 5Y button.
On that chart, you'll see that after a couple of stagnant years around 2011-2012 that ultimately brought down Ballmer, you can draw a pretty straight line through the stock price through 2013-2014, hitting close to 27, 37, and then 47 at the start of 2013, 2014 and 2015. At close yesterday, nearly six quarters dominated by Windows 10 news later, it stood at a touch over 50, after the most volatile period of trading in years going below 40 and above 55 at times but always some way below the previous levels of growth.
You're correct that the stock price today is higher than it ever was in 2013-2014. What you're glossing over is that it's a mere 1% or so higher than it was at the peak of the 2013-2014 gains, nearly 17 months later. That's not exactly impressive for a business with such a dominant history and supposedly a whole new strategy to recover from the missteps of the previous few years. About the only thing they have going for them lately is that they haven't tanked along with the overall US markets since the start of this year.
Apple's been competing in those markets for decades, and they're still a tiny player.
Which markets? In laptops they seem to have about 10% market share. They're on a comparable scale to any of the big Windows laptop manufacturers, something like 5th or 6th by volume of sales IIRC, presumably higher by revenue since they aim for the top end of the market. That's not nowehere on the desktop for businesses.
The thing is, though, we're talking about 3-4 years out here before Windows 7 runs out of support. If Apple wanted to make a play for the middle part of the market, maybe with a secondary brand, they easily have the financial resources, infrastructure and technical chops to do it.
The other vaguely plausible alternative is that another huge tech firm decides to actually give Linux clients a serious push. Obviously none of the current distros is going to do that; the only one with anything like the resources to make it happen is probably Red Hat, and their focus seems unlikely to shift from the enterprise/server market. But if you look at Android and to some extent Chrome OS and SteamOS, the potential for an unexpected sideways move to some new type of device is always there.
In any case, if the current trend towards outsourced IT and cloud services continues during that time frame, the advantages Microsoft retains in the corporate server room will erode over time, and with them the barriers to migrating to a completely different platform. Obviously it won't happen overnight, but it doesn't have to.
What kind of a threat is that?
Is your computer worth more than the contents of your bank account?
Also, it's not one computer I'm worried about so much as the cost per day of downtime for everyone in my company if a Windows update were to break all our general use PCs.
If you mean LTSB for Windows 10, that's only available with Enterprise, which means it's not an option for the kind of power users or small businesses who would have used Pro with 7 or 8.x.
In any case, the idea that you should have to jump through all the hoops involved in running Windows Enterprise just to maintain a reasonable degree of control over your own computers is patently absurd, and like many others, I and my businesses will treat it with the contempt it deserves.
>In any case, the idea that you should have to jump through all the hoops involved in running Windows Enterprise just to maintain a reasonable degree of control over your own computers is patently absurd, and like many others, I and my businesses will treat it with the contempt it deserves.
Well, I certainly hope you've got a very competent security team to assess and control the risks caused by avoiding updates.
In this case, that includes keeping up with the latest updates when they come out, looking up each KBnnnnnnn marked as a security patch, and checking whether it looks good before deciding whether we should install it. It's not rocket science, it's just more difficult than it ought to be since Microsoft stopped putting any helpful information directly in Windows Update. It's still far less hassle than either jumping through Enterprise hoops or experiencing downtime because a Windows Update broke something important and we couldn't block it.
Installing specific KBs works fine until Microsoft stealth patches something, which isn't exactly unheard of.
Reality is, there are still driver issues on older hardware (especially laptops) with Windows 10. Some of my friends get random hangs since upgrading. My grandma's sister had her laptop upgraded and can't find anything anymore.
It's a huge download and a huge change in how your computer works. This is not something you should just force on your users by tricking them to install it. Nudges and prompts are fine by me. Pushing it as an opt-out thing you have to actively cancel is just awful.
I had to restart 1 computer 5 times before windows 10 magically decided it's going to restore my files now so I don't have to install and configure everything again.
I'm moving everything over to Linux now anyway this latest fiasco with windows made it clear to me that it has no future.
The only annoying thing is that I need to run adobe in a virtual machine.
Not to mention annoying forced UI tweaks that nobody asked for - why does the cursor snap to the corner when moving between monitors? It's beyond infuriating - but at least in win 8 you could disable that through a registry setting. In Win 10, sorry, you can't. W
Why is the show desktop button literally 2 pixels wide now? Trying to hit it when it's on the edge between two monitors is close to impossible.
Also Start menu search takes much longer than it did on windows 7, and it's much less accurate.
This seems like the nicer option.
Why is windows 7 a good product?
Here's one example, but there are plenty of others: https://www.asus.com/uk/Notebooks/ASUS_EeeBook_X205TA/HelpDe...
Here's the faqs that begin "After installing Windows 10".
https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1016168/
https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1016490/
https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1016169/
https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1013137/
https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1015923/
https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1015947/
https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1015970/
And it affects network connectivity, so you'll need to use a different machine to look find these FAQs: https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1015954/
We don't blame microsoft for superfish either, do we? Or hard drive failures?
There's an analogous situation with Android phones; Google doesn't try to upgrade every phone to the newest release, because they can't guarantee it will work afterwards.
I'd still blame the OEMs, of course, when the hardware stops working after installing from a retail Windows 10 disc. But in that case it was from a user-initiated action, at least.
>it should check that drivers are available for the hardware before trying to go through with the upgrade
From what I've gathered the issue tends to be with drivers not working, rather than not existing. This is again entirely the OEMs fault, there isn't any feasible way for MSFT to verify that the drivers aren't broken.
These OEMs knew very well that microsoft was going to do this but still neglected to fix their drivers.
* bad driver support
* invasive telemetry
* missing accounts/files after upgrading
* slow, wonky UI
These are well known problems even to me.
I personally don't think 7 was "good", but it was tolerable. A lot of people clearly don't want 10, but are being tricked into installing it. Why not just extend the product people are happy with?
AFAIK the telemetry has mostly been backported.
I don't really know about the missing files, but it's certainly been a common complaint across all new windows releases. Usually the cause has been user error.
I personally find the windows 10 UI to be a significant improvement.
>Why not just extend the product people are happy with?
And that is how you end up with another XP fiasco.
Maintain the current product, take the time to make the product work, and make it appealing to them, then you won't have to push them.
>And that is how you end up with another XP fiasco.
Every single person said they hadn't chosen to update - clearly it was a result of this popup. Most of the failures were broken drivers that prevented Windows from even booting. It particularly annoys me that Windows 10 tries to install itself on completely incompatible hardware.
A nasty dark pattern.
taskkill /IM GWX*
takeown /r /d N /f c:\windows\system32\gwx
icacls c:\windows\system32\gwx\. /c /t /deny everyone:F
icacls c:\windows\system32\gwx /c /t /deny everyone:F
reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx /v DisableGwx /t REG_DWORD /d 1
edit: one thing I ran into that caused me to use this hackish script is that, at least in the early GWX days, windows updates were re-enabling the GWX and update registry keys. So a few tuesdays later and GWX is back and asking to upgrade again.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade] "ReservationsAllowed"=dword:00000000 "KickoffDownload"=dword:00000000 "KickoffSource"=dword:00000000 "AllowOSUpgrade"=dword:00000000 "Refresh"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade\State] "OSUpgradeState"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate] "DisableOSUpgrade"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx] "DisableGwx"=dword:00000001
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3080351
This doesn't help anyone who has previously done things differently (which was generally accepted as the best practice), but if you're setting up any new hosts, the above may work out as well for you as it has for me.
This is just laughably evil. You can just imagine the Microsoft CEO sitting on his throne and chuckling like a supervillain.
The red X simply closes the notification - nothing more. Like pretty much every notification ever.
The dialog is telling the user something will happen rather than asking them to make a choice.
Unfortunately, users largely don't pay any attention to what they're doing...
In the past, it popped up a window asking when you want to schedule the upgrade, and the only way to get rid of it without agreeing to upgrade was to close the window.
The difference is that now the upgrade is immediately scheduled without the user's consent. If you close the window, following your past behavior, it upgrades anyway. To stop the upgrade you need to click on an 8 point blue link.
This didn't just start today. Everybody running windows 7 or 8 today has REPEATEDLY declined Windows 10 upgrade notifications for months on-end. These consumers made a choice not to upgrade, and Microsoft tricked them using standard malware tactics!
That's why this is nothing less than a _shameful_ act by Microsoft.
In the past, you received notifications that you could upgrade. You clicked the Red X to dismiss the notification.
This time, you received a notification to tell you it was going to upgrade. You clicked the Red X to dismiss the notification.
They're exactly the same process. The difference is that if you didn't actually read the notification, you didn't know what it was telling you.
Anybody that really didn't want Windows 10 would have used one of the many ways, either through group policy or 3rd party apps, to prevent even being asked.
Sure, many people don't read dialogs or notifications, but that's not Microsoft's fault - it's user's that can't be bothered to actually understand what they're doing.
Your response is either disingenuous or naive.
Changing how software behaves as established by previous UI conventions with the differences restricted to changes in text labels is a known dark pattern. Furthermore, it is well known that an increasing percentage of users will not read to the end of a notification as they attempt to return to their initial task. [0]
> As we all know, people tend to start reading at the beginning of a piece of text and as they advance, an increasing percentage of people give up and do not read to the end.
Unquestionably, the effect of dismissing the notice is different and, also unquestionably, the people responsible for this behavioral change are well aware of how such a change would affect users who have no intention of upgrading.
What such a change achieves, in addition to tricking unwitting users into upgrading, is plausible deniability.
[0] http://alistapart.com/article/dark-patterns-deception-vs.-ho...
EDIT: Supply missing object. Rhetorical emphasis in last sentence.
In both cases, clicking the Red X dismisses the notification. That's it. Nothing more. That's the UI convention as it always has been.
As for users not reading, that may well be the case - it doesn't mean it's not their fault.
If you wanted to take aim at a screwy dialog, I'd go for the original [A]bort [R]etry or [C]ancel... This 'change' (that isn't) is nothing compared to around 75% of UIs today.
Sure, lots of people are upset because something didn't do what they expected. Yup, the engineers sorting this out maybe aren't the greatest UI/UX people.
To state that MS are trying to 'trick' people is the disingenuous line though.
Anyway, I really can't be bothered to discuss it anymore, as (a) I read dialogs, (b) I have machines that aren't auto upgrading because I followed the methods to stop the prompts a while back, and (c) xkcd tells me it's time to stop.
Such a significant change should not come about automatically by way of simply closing a dialog box.
There should at least be one final dialog box requiring confirmation: "go ahead with Windows 10 update now? Yes/No" and if that dialog box has an X close button, it should be wired up to "no".
If user clicks "yes", it would be polite to double check with "this update could take awhile, are you sure?" and supply links to a checklist of things people might want to know ahead of updating.
This is undoubtedly a deceptive and aggressive UI pattern by Microsoft for their own product agenda, and the bad press is deserved.
Until a few months ago, I might not have chosen to use their product in every case, but I generally trusted them. In particular, I expected the products I did use to be relatively good software by industry standards, to be relatively well-supported, and to provide genuine and effective ways to turn off any features like auto-updates or telemetry that I didn't want to enable. None of those things is true any longer, and I really am quite sad about that.
Anybody sufficiently tech-savvy enough to know how to keep safe without auto-updates can easily prevent them - for most people, they're a good idea.
It's strange how in the web world, everything is always up-to-date and full of telemetry in every sense, but nobody really complains about that.
Now your response would be that anyone who lacks the sophistication to do that should be forced to auto-update anyway.
And I would agree, except the updates also force a reboot, which can be catastrophic to non-saved work, running processes, etc. And stopping the forced reboot after updating Win10 is VERY much non-trivial-- it's step 2 in the link below.
https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wak...
That's some serious mojo.
Sure, there was a spate of them for a while, but they were all schedulable. If the forced reboot is a problem because people honestly expect to keep work unsaved and open 24/7 for days on end then... I'm not sure what to say.
If it's just the upgrade reboot, then it should be noted, shceduled and performed at a suitable time - which it has been done by many people already.
Regular saving, backups, and scheduled maintenance should be a standard part of any computer setup. To pretend they don't exist is madness.
And they are sensible precautions against system failure. However, system failures should only be caused by something unavoidable like hardware breaking or a sudden power outage, not by your own operating system pulling the rug from under you.
Good operating systems have long supported extended 24/7/365 uptimes even with most security updates being applied. I have servers -- which get attacked, for real, far more than any workstation -- where the last time I needed to reboot them was when I chose to migrate to a new Linux kernel as part of a distro upgrade some number of years ago.
There is simply no excuse for shipping a consumer OS in 2016 that interrupts average users every few days just to apply some updates. The need to do so betrays a deeply flawed underlying software architecture.
"User friendly"
Security updates, if that's really what they are, are a good idea by default for people who don't know enough to handle it themselves.
General automatic updates, including completely reorganising how the entire system works and moving lots of UI around unexpectedly and literally overnight, are a bad idea for just about everyone.
It's strange how in the web world, everything is always up-to-date and full of telemetry in every sense, but nobody really complains about that.
Plenty of people complain about both of those things. They are the two most damaging trends to hit our industry in a generation, and that remains true whether we're talking about the OS, native applications, web apps, online X-as-a-Service offerings, or anything else.
Forced windows 10 upgrades seem to be the best advertisement OS X could ever get.
Don't forget that Apple now enforce mandatory iOS updates, with no option to opt out or disable the annoying reminders. Even if you have automatic system updates turned off, the point release iOS updates are downloaded without your permission in the background when the phone or iPad is charging. These updates might be between 80 - 300 MB. The notification dialog boxes then begin their attack, every day with two options "install now / remind me later".
This is actually worse than Windows, since on Windows we at least have the option to disable the scheduled update and the reminder notifications. Not so on iOS as of version 9.
[1] https://www.grc.com/never10.htm
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Gibson_(computer_program...
1) http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/7 regarding "raw socket panic"
2) http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.org.user-groups.linux.gnhlu... regarding questionable SpinRite application to fix hard drive errors
[1] http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/steve_gibson/ [2] http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/
I have two machines that will likely never see Windows 10: a laptop on which it ran like a one legged arthritic dog (8 wasn't terribly fast on there, 10 was just impossible, it currently runs Debian as a test-bed for a few things) and a tablet that had significant driver issues that I don't particularly expect to see resolved (so it'll be sticking at 8 as I don't have time to upgrade and roll back again if it fails, my time is precious!).
The "but it is free" thing amuses me somewhat. Does anyone else remember hearing the "Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing" mantra from various Microsoft supporting camps?
Of course it is a reason not to upgrade: in Windows 7 or 8.x you don't have to install the telemetry, but in Windows 10 you have no choice.
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I can't believe the behaviour won't "accidentally" get in without continued effort on the part of the user to check that it isn't there. I for one don't have time not the care to keep constantly monitoring the situation.
I accept that Windows is watching me, whatever version, and if Windows watching me becomes a problem in my mind I'll stop using Windows, whatever version.
The average home user might be set to automatically install recommended updates, but I doubt many businesses or power users do that. The important thing in this case is that they do have the option not to.
As for telemetry "accidentally" getting in, this is why as mentioned elsewhere our policy is now not to install any Windows updates by default, even security ones. We install selected security updates manually, if and when we've confirmed they are relevant to our needs and not getting reported for anything sneaky.
Several of our machines can't even install those updates at the moment, because Microsoft appear to have horribly broken Windows Update in the past few weeks anyway, so until that's fixed it's a moot point anyway.
still a reasonable statement about linux desktops.
1. you don't have to install those updates
2. supposedly, even if you install them, they do nothing unless you also enable CEIP: http://www.infoworld.com/article/2981947/microsoft-windows/t...
It's surprisingly easy to install mallware and viruses on a windows computer cumputer these days see download.com for a good example.
Even I've done it a few times by accident luckily it was in a VM so I just scrapped it.
There's basically no difference if all you do is browse the internet and if they run into issued doing something and the only way to do it requires a command line then revert it.
These days most basic things can be done very easily in linux without ever touching the command line so the only barrier to entry is that computers don't come pre-loaded with it.
Microsoft messed up. Instead of losing a windows 7 user and gaining a windows 10 user, they lost a windows 7 user and gained a boots-to-blackscreen user.
It is sad that they would stoop this low. I just don't understand it.
There's nothing "sad" about it. If this increases their corporate profits, then it's the correct course of action. I'm only surprised they didn't resort to tactics like this earlier; they were much too nice with their customers before. They're doing a lot better now, by showing their customers who's boss.
What's sad is that customers actually think they deserve to be treated nicely. I just don't understand that mentality. If you're willing to allow a vendor to abuse you, over and over and over again, and you absolutely refuse to ditch that vendor, then why shouldn't the vendor treat you poorly if they can make more money doing so?
Microsoft might indeed be about to learn who's boss.
Spoiler: Absent legal or regulatory shenanigans, in the long run it's going to be the people spending the money.
If you really believe Microsoft are strong enough to coerce most or all of their entire market to move to Windows 10 when it's not in their interests, I invite you to look up the current market share of Windows 7 vs. Windows 10, and to consider that this is about 10 months into the 12 month free update period already.
This type of thing is probably why they want to drag people kicking and screaming onto 10. Otherwise people refuse to get off a decade old OS.
A huge number of people have upgraded to Win10. Many of those are because of the underhanded tricks, but it doesn't matter; they've switched now. Now MS just has to squeeze them some more by cutting support for Win7 early, or maybe they could be like Apple and start pushing Win7 updates which massively slow down the OS, in effect forcing people to upgrade.
What are people going to do, stop getting security updates? Or switch to a different OS?
Face it, people and businesses are locked into Windows, and aren't going to stop using it no matter what. MS can do whatever they want at this point; it's not going to hurt them, and will only help them. The more people they can push to Win10, the more money they'll make from advertising. I can't wait to see them pushing mandatory advertising and spyware in Win10 Enterprise.
That would surely result in lawsuits on such a scale that even Microsoft would be lucky to survive the results.
or maybe they could be like Apple and start pushing Win7 updates which massively slow down the OS, in effect forcing people to upgrade.
They already do seem to be crippling Windows 7 updates; there have been numerous reports of problems since earlier this year where Windows Update will sit there taking literally hours to do the most simple tasks, apparently including several controlled experiments using new machines to prove that it really is Windows Update at fault.
This doesn't bode well for anyone remaining on Windows 7, but of course it bodes even less well for anyone committed to whatever update mechanism Microsoft wants on Windows 10.
What are people going to do, stop getting security updates?
Probably.
Or switch to a different OS?
Possibly.
Face it, people and businesses are locked into Windows, and aren't going to stop using it no matter what.
There is rarely true lock-in within this industry. Usually there is only the relative cost of migrating to new systems vs. staying put.
The thing is, migrating to a new OS is already an extremely expensive, time-consuming and risky proposition for large organisations. Entire teams of IT staff spend months planning the switch, testing hardware and software on the new platform, and so on. That is going to be true even if organisations decide to upgrade to Windows 10 from whatever they're on already.
That is the inertia Microsoft really has to overcome if it wants to establish Windows 10, and it's the same inertia that meant some organisations were willing to pay millions for support beyond the official cut-off date with Windows XP because that was still better for them than risking a migration even to Windows 7, which had relatively few areas of risk in that scenario.
If they fail to do that, either by not making 10 an attractive proposition or by trying to degrade 7 until people give up, then those big corporate migration exercises do have alternatives they could consider, and sooner or later some big names will actually make the jump. And if a few of them do that and it becomes clear that they've done well out of it, that's very, very bad for Microsoft. That's why I don't think they'll let it come to that.
Unless they're bound by a contract, which would only apply to very large customers, they're under no obligation to continue support for Win7. It's just like XP; there's no support for that unless you're a special customer who pays extra for that support.
>They already do seem to be crippling Windows 7 updates; there have been numerous reports of problems since earlier this year where Windows Update will sit there taking literally hours to do the most simple tasks,
Yep, and there's no legal recourse here either. They can run Windows Updates however they want. Don't like it? Don't get any updates, and leave yourself open to hacking and malware.
>>What are people going to do, stop getting security updates? >Probably.
See above. Good luck dealing with the malware and hacking.
>>Or switch to a different OS? >Possibly.
You're joking, right? Linux backers have been trying to encourage people to switch to that for ages and it hasn't gotten very far. Apple has a very strong brand with huge success in mobile devices and they haven't gotten very far either.
>There is rarely true lock-in within this industry.
WTF are you talking about? Every time anyone proposes switching to Linux, tons of people pop up talking about all the applications they're bound to which only work on Windows. Lock-in (with apps) is the entire reason Windows is so dominant. It's the exact same reason that WinPhone has been a disaster and can't make a dent in the Android and iPhone marketshare: there's no apps for it.
>If they fail to do that, either by not making 10 an attractive proposition or by trying to degrade 7 until people give up, then those big corporate migration exercises do have alternatives they could consider
No, they don't. They're locked into tons of applications that only run on Windows. As everyone knows, there's no Photoshop on Linux. The same is true for countless business applications that most of us have never heard of, but are critically important to businesses (and each business has different, obscure applications it's bound to).
Don't forget, with larger businesses, they do site licenses, so they pay constant license fees to MS no matter which MS they run. No matter what these customers do, they're going to be paying MS for the privilege of running their software. There's no way MS can screw this up, it's just a matter of which tactic will maximize profit. At worst, they'll have a steady but constant revenue stream.
After giving clear public statements of their future support cycles? Good luck being the lawyer defending that one in a nine-figure dollar lawsuit with a Fortune 100 or ten.
Apple has a very strong brand with huge success in mobile devices and they haven't gotten very far either.
Now who's joking? Apple owns the high end of the laptop market and has for years.
They're locked into tons of applications that only run on Windows. As everyone knows, there's no Photoshop on Linux.
No, there isn't. But people said the same thing about Adobe moving to Creative Cloud a few years ago, and initially they dominated the market too, with a few FOSS applications the not-really-competition. Today, though, there are several very reasonable alternatives to CC applications in various parts of the market, and they're gaining a foothold and loyal customer base very fast. Most of them run on Macs rather than Windows, by the way.
Yeah, so what happens when they pull support for Win7 Home and maybe Pro, and continue it as normal for Enterprise, so that the Fortune 100 companies aren't affected? Home users aren't going to sue MS, and SMBs aren't too likely to either.
Don't forget, MS can claim they don't need to offer support to these smaller users, because they're giving them a free "upgrade" to their latest and greatest! You're right about the F100 companies, but they're a totally different market. MS is still supporting XP for some companies remember; they'd likely do the same (but maybe without any extra cost for a while) for their enterprise customers running W7.
>Now who's joking? Apple owns the high end of the laptop market and has for years.
Not in the corporate space they don't.
If you want the latest version of an app, you can be forced in practice to update iOS as well, and with so many mobile apps depending on remote services, something as simple as a change in the protocol for communicating with some essential remote facility in an app can lead to an entire OS update.
The even crazier thing is that they also don't let you downgrade either the OS or the apps if a new version is worse than what you had before.
To be clear, by "force" I mean the update is downloaded automatically in the background to your device regardless of whether you have system updates turned off. Then you are continually hounded with reminders to install that update, with no option to stop the reminders. It's actually worse than Windows because at least with Windows we can disable the notifications and prevent the update.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_LLC_v._Concepc...
Then you don't have to worry about windows or any other program pulling a bait and switch on you.
Not only that, but sometimes it's not obvious which .exe file needs the outbound access. Some programs use other modules to connect to remote servers for application update checks and other things. Besides, you want Windows security patches, so on many levels your idea tanks hard!
Microsoft seems to me like car dealer who in their spare time pours sugar into the gas tanks of parked cars. They don't care how many people the inconvenience. If even one percent of them buy a new car then it was worth the sugar.
But you might be fired if you tried to implement the collection of that data.
But lets move past that and just say-- I strongly disagree with your stance.
Insinuations of astroturfing and shillage without evidence are a breach of HN's civility rule and not allowed here. Someone holding an opposing view does not count as evidence.
When there are genuine concerns about astroturfing, we look into them carefully and (in the case where we find something) ban the accounts involved. But casual accusation and insinuation is not ok. Extrapolated, it would wreck this place.
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11764493 and marked it off-topic.
http://imgur.com/9WQcjyT