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Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

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Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#81

Post by mung »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #78
robertelder wrote: post #59

Re-posting my comment from the other thread which didn't get as much attention: I spent about 3 hours this week doing tech support for my mom over the phone because of Windows 10's aggressive upgrading behaviour. I told her to keep her the best way to keep safe security wise is to make sure the os/browser is up to date, and because Windows 10 keeps asking to upgrade, she went ahead and did so. After upgrading to Wind…

> Perhaps people from MS trying to do damage control? While I appreciate the rest of your comment, I personally find comment like these are obnoxious. I sincerely doubt that vote and comment brigading are anywhere near as prevalent as reddit and this community seem to so routinely imply. Perhaps I'm the naive one, but it is tiresome to so regularly see comments (especially those close to one's own personal beliefs) c…

Anyone who believes that it's okay to force unwanted updates onto someone's computer without unexpectedly and without their consent is a bit obnoxious.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#82

Post by mrmondo »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #78
robertelder wrote: post #59

Re-posting my comment from the other thread which didn't get as much attention: I spent about 3 hours this week doing tech support for my mom over the phone because of Windows 10's aggressive upgrading behaviour. I told her to keep her the best way to keep safe security wise is to make sure the os/browser is up to date, and because Windows 10 keeps asking to upgrade, she went ahead and did so. After upgrading to Wind…

> Perhaps people from MS trying to do damage control? While I appreciate the rest of your comment, I personally find comment like these are obnoxious. I sincerely doubt that vote and comment brigading are anywhere near as prevalent as reddit and this community seem to so routinely imply. Perhaps I'm the naive one, but it is tiresome to so regularly see comments (especially those close to one's own personal beliefs) c…

I'm not going to go into detail right now, but believe me it happens from Microsoft more than any other company I've seen.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#83

Post by saidajigumi »

tekklloneer wrote: post #72
acqq wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same link I've already given above? And fascinatingly for you, "the writing was on the wall," and for some other commenters, it's unimaginable that it even happens. The perceptions of individuals are really hugely different.

The difference in context is important. If you're working in IT, the writing was on the wall.

This is exactly what I was getting at. For individuals and small organizations that often have no dedicated IT staff at all, they're the ones who'll get hit by Microsoft's forced-upgrade policy.

But for any large organization with deployed Windows systems, that absolutely requires a managed Windows environment for an ocean of reasons. That means a competent Windows IT staff that handles all those things, including: security configuration and updates, controlled testing and release of updates, data retention and deletion policies, and on and on.

For such shops, handling a change like this from Microsoft is already day-in-the-life. They already have to vet updates that may (and do) break business-critical software, while also ensuring that critical security updates are pushed out in a timely manner, etc.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#84

Post by BuckRogers »

MS is getting pretty draconian with the Windows 10 shtick. I'm not sure why there's such a push, just let people buy a Windows 10 computer when the Windows 7 machines fail.

Fighting MS on this is a losing battle, all the workarounds are going to be a non-stop, futile exercise. Unless I have a specific needs for Windows, if this makes anyone uncomfortable to read (like myself)- I think this is the ideal time to jump on Mac, Linux Mint, Ubuntu Mate or Antergos.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#86

Post by ross-life »

IgorPartola wrote: post #51

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Windows badly needs a better update mechanism. This has been a huge pain point for consumers for a long time, which often results in buying new hardware instead of updating the browser, etc. On the other hand I think this will drive people away from Windows and towards OS X and Ubuntu. Oh right, there is no downside to this!

> On the other hand I think this will drive people away from Windows and towards OS X and Ubuntu.

They already pushed too far. Was a life long Windows user, used at home for gamedev and Steam, chosen at work (mainly QA) because it's what I knew extensively, VS is great and it's what users used. Was literally the only Windows user in a sea of OS X machines at some companies.

Now? All my personal and work devices run Ubuntu or Arch. My partners devices now all run Ubuntu or Arch. Projects I'm planning that were going to be "Windows first" will now be "Linux first".

Sounds silly, but I was enjoying the progress Windows was making security-wise. From Vista to 7 and 7 to 8 (and even to 10) the "under-the-hood" part of Windows seemed to be making great strides in protecting the user, even if they were screwing up the UI.

But everything they've pulled with 10 have completely pushed me away from the platform. Adverts in my OS? The nagging? The "updates can be installed even if you really don't want them"? Phone-homeing I can't turn off at all with a consumer edition? I understand wanting to make it hard to turn it off so they can collect reliable stats or protect the consumer from themselves but as a technical user I want my OS to do exactly what I want it to do. MS completely killed that.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#87

Post by rabboRubble »

martinald wrote: post #60

Sorry, why is this a big deal? We've completely accepted auto updates for browsers (chrme & firefox) - years ago. Obviously better, compatibility improves and security issues are easier to push out and fix. To me the browser is as important as the OS, I spend the vast majority of my time in it. Why should MSFT not do this? It's a free update. They're not charging for it. On many aspects, it's a lot better than Window…

Why is this a big deal? Why should MSFT not do this? Here are a couple of reasons why...

Perhaps the machine hardware is not Win10 compliant

Perhaps a machine hosts software that requires significant regression testing before permitting an upgrade to Win10

Perhaps the machine's software is not Win10 compatible and needs to be rewritten before a Win10 upgrade

Perhaps the machine in question has specific greenzone periods and should not be upgraded without an agreed outage schedule between IT provider and user base. (Think banking, power generation, healthcare, airline sectors, etc.)

Perhaps your Mom owns the computer and you want to personally manage the upgrade when you visit at Christmas instead of having to spend 6 hours on the phone with her.

MSFT has no idea whether or not its SAFE to automatically roll out an update for their OS users. They make no effort to check hardware compliance status with all hardware manufacturers. They make no effort to check the compliance status of 3rd party software. They make no effort to ensure that critical infrastructure systems (power, health, banking) individual greenzones are followed to prevent unplanned outages.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#88

Post by xjay »

saidajigumi wrote: post #49
justinclift wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really hoping this crap badly affects the computers of some large justice/gov systems around the world (and/or the home computers of senior judges). That should get the right people involved for sticking the boots in.

If the IT staff for any large organization hasn't reviewed their inventory for affected systems and taken appropriate steps... that's outright incompetence. The writing has been on the wall for years and MS clearly documents unaffected systems (which includes Windows 7 Enterprise) and the required Group Policy to block the update[1]. [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

Not sure why someone would downvote this.

Incompetence is pretty much a constant in IT in varying degrees, but I'd expect IT professionals to know about kb3080351.

It's certainly not "news" given the media attention this subject has had ever since the "explosion" in June/July, when Microsoft chose to ignore that opt out setting, and even re-enabling telemetry prior to the upgrade.

Edit: I can take a downvote defending a factually correct point, which was originally posted by saidajigumi (who was downvoted, which is why I posted my somewhat cheeky (in retrospect) response, and why I upvoted his post). I don't think most people disagree about it being unfortunate for normal users to be upgraded, but that wasn't what our comments were about.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#89

Post by marklawrutgers »

robertelder wrote: post #59

Re-posting my comment from the other thread which didn't get as much attention: I spent about 3 hours this week doing tech support for my mom over the phone because of Windows 10's aggressive upgrading behaviour. I told her to keep her the best way to keep safe security wise is to make sure the os/browser is up to date, and because Windows 10 keeps asking to upgrade, she went ahead and did so. After upgrading to Wind…

I had this exact same issue with my work machine and my at home workstation. Wifi adapter completely broken, I tried to revert back to Windows 8 on my work machine and it gets stuck on a black screen for over 24 hours. I tried to power down to restart it but no luck. Somehow everything got corrupted. Had to completely reformat the drive and install the operating system all over again, which it then proceeded to upgrade straight to Windows 10 again. I lost months of work but was able to recover from a backup I had a week prior to the incident. Absolutely disgusting business practice by Microsoft. The only times where a Windows 10 installation has worked well for me is when it's a brand new machine with little to no extra content on top of the existing OS. If you've used Windows 7 or 8 for over a year and accumulated a fair amount of apps, files, content, I can almost guarantee you're going to run into something breaking after the update.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#90

Post by 21 »

electrotype wrote: post #45

What do you think about this script on Voat? : https://voat.co/v/technology/comments/853510 I'm really curious to know your opinion Hacker News. Is this a good way to live with Windows 7 now? It seems to be open-source, easy to apply, it disables telemetry and Windows 10 crap. Any better alternatives?

This seems to disable 51 updates from installing. That is quite a list. Some of the updates are blocked for other issues than privacy - one of them for example is a graphics stack security update which is blocked because it broke some older games.

This reminds me of the older "registry cleaner" apps which are highly debatable.

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