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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

#551

Post by supernovae »

vetinari wrote: post #547
supernovae wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do ask for these features. There are millions of active windows users in the Windows Preview Program that provide feedback asking for windows to be improved in many different ways. I'm not sure where these absolutely incorrect assumptions are coming from but they're entirely false. Windows believe it or not is community driven these days. MS is delivering features for its "enterprise insides" and for its "xbox…

Do you think that these people (basically enthusiasts, nobody else would participate) are representative of all windows users? Do you even respect a feedback that goes against your business objectives? Because all in all, Windows is getting less and less useful and more and more annoying. No, you don't need to stuff Cortana, Onedrive or whatever new initiative you have. If I wanted it, I would sign up by myself. In m…

Again, why be so condescending? Without a shred of evidence over your own personal experience and the hive mind of people who would never run windows and have philosophical angst towards Microsoft there are MILLIONS of people that want to see it better and are actively providing feedback. So much so that Microsoft releases weekly builds, has a feedback hub, throws parties, online meetings, phone calls and surveys and "quests" to have people experiment and offer feedback on shaping the future of windows. Of course these are 'enthusiasts' but that's besides the point. Its a thriving community of Microsoft paying attention to its customers and people willing to interact.

I have no idea what the KB 3035583 problem is.. everyone makes mistakes. My mac had failed updates where I had to reset, my iPhone has had bad updates, my kindle fires have been borked, my android phones have been bricked, my wifi routers have been bricked.. I just take the time to learn and move on.

People are obsessively convinced Microsoft is bad, for no other reason that they're not giving them another chance yet the world turns a blind eye to very similar issues across the board.

Software isn't perfect. You don't fix software by never updating it. We're used to updates on Mobile/Tablets - many people are used to updates on PC/Tablet/Desktop but there are people who continually beat this non sequitur horse that PCS can't and shouldn't be updated.

Software is eating the world. If people want to compare MS to google - Google updates their shit all the time - does hundreds of releases a day. Now so does Microsoft. But hot damn, if MS does it they're "Evil" and "pushing crap or features no one wants" when we full know that is BS.

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

#552

Post by vetinari »

supernovae wrote: post #549
vetinari wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you were never bugged to use Edge, after you launched Chrome or Firefox? (Like this: https://superuser.com/questions/1146123/disable-microsoft-ed... ). Or your preferences for the default browser were never reset to Edge after some update ("accidentally")? Windows is the paid one here.

I am only bugged once I install what I want to use as default browser. Not everyday. YouTube, Gmail, Google et all have a dropdown advertisement asking me to switch to chrome no matter which browser I user that isn't chrome.. Lets also not forget that MS apps show up on google store, apple store and are fully cross platform whereas google is selective in what it supports. We're at a day and age where Microsoft has Co…

After each login into Microsoft partner page, it welcomes me with a page telling me, that I will get the best experience with Internet Explorer. It doesn't even bother to check, whether Internet Explorer exists for the platform advertised in the User agent string.

With the Microsoft services, the crucial difference is, that "Cortana, One Drive, Bing, Skype, Photos" is stuff that Microsoft is pushing on people, not stuff that people asking for from Microsoft. It is me too solution, it is Microsoft's version of Google+, except that Microsoft didn't learn their lesson yet.

Out of this, Office is an exception. iOS and Android users would not give up their platform, but they were willing to use another lite office suite. On a platform, where there is not a such threat, such as desktop Linux, there is no Office port. Even the macOS port hasn't got feature parity with the Windows version. Google is treating Windows Phone exactly the same way Microsoft is treating other platforms with Office.

If you consider this hate, maybe you should also consider whether it is deserved. There's no reaction without action.

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

#553

Post by vetinari »

supernovae wrote: post #551
vetinari wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that these people (basically enthusiasts, nobody else would participate) are representative of all windows users? Do you even respect a feedback that goes against your business objectives? Because all in all, Windows is getting less and less useful and more and more annoying. No, you don't need to stuff Cortana, Onedrive or whatever new initiative you have. If I wanted it, I would sign up by myself. In m…

Again, why be so condescending? Without a shred of evidence over your own personal experience and the hive mind of people who would never run windows and have philosophical angst towards Microsoft there are MILLIONS of people that want to see it better and are actively providing feedback. So much so that Microsoft releases weekly builds, has a feedback hub, throws parties, online meetings, phone calls and surveys and…

I never said that I've never run Windows - I just don't run it anymore. It is due to bad experience. Microsoft had chance, but they were blewing it regularly. I still do run Microsoft apps (macoffice and vscode). If they will blew it up with these, I have no problem switching off them.

If Microsoft has feedback hub, throws parties, online meetings, etc., then they are very good at ignoring the feedback. Did they fix the privacy issues with Windows 10? Did they re-enable end-user control over updates? Did they stop resetting user preferences after updates? It's not that they are not aware of all of these.

The problem with KB3035583 (gwx - Get Windows X) was, that no matter how many times you have hidden it (to indicate do not install), Microsoft un-hided it, and several times it has flagged it as security update, which caused for many people to install it automatically. It definitely wasn't an mistake, it was clear intent, to make target figures with Windows 10 upgrades. It is one of the biggest reason why people were turning off windows update!

> People are obsessively convinced Microsoft is bad

You know, I'm some 25 years in this business and there are many reasons why they are right. Microsoft worked hard to earn this reputation. From "knifing the baby" to their today's attitude regarding privacy and pushing their services.

> Software isn't perfect. You don't fix software by never updating it. We're used to updates on Mobile/Tablets - many people are used to updates on PC/Tablet/Desktop but there are people who continually beat this non sequitur horse that PCS can't and shouldn't be updated.

As I've written elsewhere, existence of updates is not the problem. The update process (hogging up entire core with wsupdate service? No problem! Installing updates for 30 minutes? No problem either!) is one problem. The shoveling of unwanted stuff into updates is another. Compare that to apt/dnf on Linux side or App Store on Apple side - they are as unobtrusive as possible.

> Google updates their shit all the time - does hundreds of releases a day.

Google updates do not make your machine unavailable for 10-30 minutes at the most unfortunate times in the day. Ever been to ambulance, where the nurse has lined up patients, because her computer doesn't work right now? Guess which fault it was, Googles or Microsofts?

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

#554

Post by supernovae »

vetinari wrote: post #552
supernovae wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am only bugged once I install what I want to use as default browser. Not everyday. YouTube, Gmail, Google et all have a dropdown advertisement asking me to switch to chrome no matter which browser I user that isn't chrome.. Lets also not forget that MS apps show up on google store, apple store and are fully cross platform whereas google is selective in what it supports. We're at a day and age where Microsoft has Co…

After each login into Microsoft partner page, it welcomes me with a page telling me, that I will get the best experience with Internet Explorer. It doesn't even bother to check, whether Internet Explorer exists for the platform advertised in the User agent string. With the Microsoft services, the crucial difference is, that "Cortana, One Drive, Bing, Skype, Photos" is stuff that Microsoft is pushing on people, not st…

lol, I doubt that.. Microsoft doesn't support internet explorer anymore and would only recommend edge if you're on windows..

People are asking for these services.. just because you don't run them doesn't mean no one does. Skype is still the largest voip network, bing is slowly still growing against goole, onedrive is huge for private and corporations, Cortana ins on over 600 million devices..

As for office on OSX, it is updated all the time and feature comparable if you bother to run 2016 with updates enabled..

THe hate is far from deserved, its misguided.

Microsoft is so cross platform Visual studio for OSX is full RTM, Visual studio code runs great in Linux/windows/OSX, they're writing Linux drivers, they have the Linux subsystem for windows that runs native windows apps, they're a core supporter of the Linux foundation. .net is cross platform now too and they're starting to merge xamarin/XAML/xml forms so apps can be written once and run everywhere..

doing more for software and systems than google is but people will continue to have this misguided hate

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

#555

Post by MertsA »

supernovae wrote: post #550
MertsA wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, but at least when Canonical was doing it it was just searching Amazon for something relevant to your query. All of the outrage was that doing this meant that Amazon would get searches for stuff like local file names that presented an information leak. Canonical also proxied these searches so Amazon didn't actually get enough information to tie a search back to a particular user. As for Apple though, I dis…

Microsoft isn't injecting adware, spyware or malware into the OS either.

Telemetry can't be completely turned off in Windows 10. It's software that phones home what the user is doing without the user's consent or knowledge of what is being sent home. That's literally the definition of spyware. Windows 10 also bundles advertisements with no way for the user to opt out of them. Windows 10 was also installed on millions of computers without the user's consent. Again, textbook definition of adware. When GWX was being intentionally blocked Microsoft decided to evade that block by ignoring the registry key that used to be able to block it. Microsoft also promised that they wouldn't try to force the upgrade or GWX on domain joined computers, that was a lie. They also said that Windows 10 would be opt in only and that they wouldn't upgrade without consent. They also lied about that, unless you believe Microsoft obtained consent by the user not pressing "no thanks" and ignoring the GWX spam once.

Even just the upgrade itself broke more than hundreds of thousands of computers. Sure, you can blame that on drivers or sketchy hardware but the bottom line is that Microsoft still upgraded those computers and caused them to become nonfunctional. Even after the upgrade, Microsoft allowed users to revert back to the previous version of Windows but I've personally seen that fail on three separate occasions.

I'm not just using hyperbole here, Microsoft really did do all of that and more with Windows 10.

And if you doubt the users who say that it upgraded when they weren't at the computer and that they never consented, there are plenty of cases of isolated machines like HVAC computers that didn't even have a display or input hooked up to them that broke because Windows 10 was installed. How exactly did Microsoft get consent for a computer that had literally zero input devices and no display?

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

#556

Post by evand »

supernovae wrote: post #434
jessaustin wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any process can be more or less usable. GP described a setup in which the user is responsible for noticing that updates are available. That is just terrible.

I don't follow. Windows 10 has an action center, it shows everything pending. If there are security updates and they're frozen or pending restarts they show up in there if you misted the toast notification. Nearly all OS's have the problems of security updates being hidden unless they're forced (like a phone). OSX you have to click update inside the app store, Linux you have to check apt-get / yum update or whatever…

For what it's worth, as of 16.04 Ubuntu automatically installs security updates: https://blog.appcanary.com/2016/unattended-upgrades.html

In snapcraft, all updates are automatically installed: https://docs.ubuntu.com/core/en/reference/automatic-refreshe... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLxqdf89hRo

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

#557

Post by evand »

roesel wrote: post #87

The reason for turning off updates is (I believe) rarely that one doesn't want important security updates. Just as Ubuntu servers have an option to automatically install critical security updates and for the rest you run `apt-get` when you want, the same should be available on windows. Blaming the users is nice and easy, but Microsoft definitely deserves half of the blame (if not more).

That option to automatically install security updates is on by default in Ubuntu 16.04, by the way: http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2016/10/dirty-cow-livepatched...

Snaps were designed from the beginning to push automatic updates, even of non-security updates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLxqdf89hRo

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

#558

Post by vetinari »

supernovae wrote: post #554
vetinari wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After each login into Microsoft partner page, it welcomes me with a page telling me, that I will get the best experience with Internet Explorer. It doesn't even bother to check, whether Internet Explorer exists for the platform advertised in the User agent string. With the Microsoft services, the crucial difference is, that "Cortana, One Drive, Bing, Skype, Photos" is stuff that Microsoft is pushing on people, not st…

lol, I doubt that.. Microsoft doesn't support internet explorer anymore and would only recommend edge if you're on windows.. People are asking for these services.. just because you don't run them doesn't mean no one does. Skype is still the largest voip network, bing is slowly still growing against goole, onedrive is huge for private and corporations, Cortana ins on over 600 million devices.. As for office on OSX, it…

Well, I about that message loled too ;). Later it became annoying and a nice example how Microsoft really cares.

If you claim people are asking for these services, then what about not showing them down the throats of those who didn't ask for them? Seem simple, right? If they are so popular, why piss off those who don't care about them? Why do I have look after every Cmd-O at Onedrive file chooser, when I'm never going to use it and there's no option "do not bother me with this again?". I'm sure that Cortana might be on 600M devices, but there are not 600M active users... more likely users what resigned on looking for a new ways to turn it off. See the difference?

Office for Mac 2016 is updated every month indeed, but it is still missing features. For example, everything that starts with Power (PowerQuery, PowerPivot, PowerMap), or Inquire. The Mac version of Office does work with exactly 3 ODBC drivers. It doesn't work with exactly the same ODBC drivers, that the Windows has no problem with (PostgreSQL, for example - it crashes).

There was a lot written about Visual Studio for Mac and it being a rebranded Xamarin. See past discussions here, at HN.

And let's go back to the Office for Linux, shall we? That's the Microsoft prime lock-in device for many. Drivers for Hyper-V or Linux subsystem for Windows help Microsoft, not Linux.

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

#559

Post by supernovae »

vetinari wrote: post #558
supernovae wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, I doubt that.. Microsoft doesn't support internet explorer anymore and would only recommend edge if you're on windows.. People are asking for these services.. just because you don't run them doesn't mean no one does. Skype is still the largest voip network, bing is slowly still growing against goole, onedrive is huge for private and corporations, Cortana ins on over 600 million devices.. As for office on OSX, it…

Well, I about that message loled too ;). Later it became annoying and a nice example how Microsoft really cares. If you claim people are asking for these services, then what about not showing them down the throats of those who didn't ask for them? Seem simple, right? If they are so popular, why piss off those who don't care about them? Why do I have look after every Cmd-O at Onedrive file chooser, when I'm never goin…

same could be said of google/apple.. i'm just throwing these out as comparisons..

BTW, i never see any ads/popups other than after a fresh install when the guided tour is starting up so i have no clue what people are flipping out about.

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

#560

Post by supernovae »

vetinari wrote: post #558
supernovae wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, I doubt that.. Microsoft doesn't support internet explorer anymore and would only recommend edge if you're on windows.. People are asking for these services.. just because you don't run them doesn't mean no one does. Skype is still the largest voip network, bing is slowly still growing against goole, onedrive is huge for private and corporations, Cortana ins on over 600 million devices.. As for office on OSX, it…

Well, I about that message loled too ;). Later it became annoying and a nice example how Microsoft really cares. If you claim people are asking for these services, then what about not showing them down the throats of those who didn't ask for them? Seem simple, right? If they are so popular, why piss off those who don't care about them? Why do I have look after every Cmd-O at Onedrive file chooser, when I'm never goin…

Also, shortcomings in the mac version of office may be shortcomings in the Mac OSX platform.

VIsual studio for mac is a re-write of xamarin, that doesn't change anything - xamaerin/visual studio/c# are all converging to offer a unified platform.

And i'm so glad you seem to know everything about everyone. THe same "billion google now" users probably only 1% USE it day in/day out.. but we're just going to be blindly bashing windows..

please, do us a favor and get over yourself. We get it, you don't run/don't like windows... so just stop wasting energy hating something you really don't have any clue about or care about.

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