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Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

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Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#21
Microsoft is to be fully blamed here. They brought it on themselves, pissing off anyone with a bit of a brain by turning their OSes into suspected spyware, forcing W7/W8.x users to turn off updates, allowing funny leaked tools wreaking havoc everywhere.

Author here blames people that took prudent actions to preserve their autonomy, while MS was holding them hostage by bundling security updates with unwanted monitoring. Many of them switched to Linux/BSD and are using Windows minimally as a consequence.

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#22
post #15
post #11

I don't know why people complain about updates and restarting, particularly in this thread. You fill your car up with fuel regularly because it has been warning you it's nearly empty for a while much like updates remind you regularly. People seem to complain and say "it updated right when I was in the middle of X" but they've been putting it off for ages. Do you break down in the middle of the motorway when you run o…

I hope your car doesn't stop randomly against your will so it can get a refill.

If you don't refuel it, then yes, it will stop.

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#23
post #15
post #11

I don't know why people complain about updates and restarting, particularly in this thread. You fill your car up with fuel regularly because it has been warning you it's nearly empty for a while much like updates remind you regularly. People seem to complain and say "it updated right when I was in the middle of X" but they've been putting it off for ages. Do you break down in the middle of the motorway when you run o…

I hope your car doesn't stop randomly against your will so it can get a refill.

Not yet. Only when you run out of gas. However in a few years, are people going to get pissed off when their Tesla has enough of their shit and drives itself to a charging point because the owner is too incompetent to heed the warnings?

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#24

I would like to keep my Windows Update on, but I just can't afford it. Data bundles are too expensive where I live. I can buy a week's worth of groceries with the amount I spend buying just 2GB data bundle. Not everyone lives in a country with cheap data bundles.

This is exactly my situation. Worse, ever used a wifi network slowed to a crawl by different laptops updating windows?

I once had to turn off updates on all laptops in my workplace so we could use the internet. (They thought the network was under a virus attack)

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#25
post #11

I don't know why people complain about updates and restarting, particularly in this thread. You fill your car up with fuel regularly because it has been warning you it's nearly empty for a while much like updates remind you regularly. People seem to complain and say "it updated right when I was in the middle of X" but they've been putting it off for ages. Do you break down in the middle of the motorway when you run o…

You are driving down the interstate, message pops up saying it needs to refuel, you don't hit the button fast enough, your cars shuts off, and you spend the next 15 minutes parked in the middle of the road with cars honking behind you.

Or you wake up, get dressed for an important meeting, unlock your door, and suddenly realize you're going to be late because your car decided this was the best time to finish refueling in spite of your instructions to refuel at another time of day.

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#26
That article would be more believable if Microsoft (as well as other companies) hadn't slipped all kinds of stuff in earlier updates which are not on the interest of the consumer at all. (Starting with annoying UX changes and A/B tests, to telemetry, to advertising, to removal of user software and DRM)

Oftentimes it looks suspiciously as if the (rightful) need for security and quick responses is used as an excuse for "OS-as-a-service" shift that mostly benefits the vendors.

What happened to the old practice of clearly distinguishing between "security" and "feature" updates? What happened to actually educating the users?

Re: Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

#28
post #4

I love the way he's compared the people who tell you to turn off auto-updates with anti-vaxxers; it's quite an apt analogy. Microsoft shares part of the blame here for pushing features that the user clearly doesn't want through updates (especially to the major OS version). Look at the recent ads in Windows file explorer for one example. A lot of the advice to turn Windows Update off is a misguided response to Microso…

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