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Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

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Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#111

Post by sundvor »

Mithaldu wrote: post #52
Joeri wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a user action to install it, but it's pretty sneaky. MS changed the behavior of the upgrade question dialog that if you close it with x it will start the download and then install when ready. Your girlfriend must have clicked the x some time prior to the sudden upgrade. Even my tech-savvy coworker who didn't want to upgrade got caught out by this. Anyway, you can still roll back, and then install never10.

Edit: After some thinking: Yes, i agree this is a dark pattern and MS needs to be held accountable to it accordingly. My only disagreement with the current direction of discourse is that people are not saying "MS manipulated me into an update", which is the truth, but "Windows updated on its own and there was nothing anyone could do", which isn't. -- They didn't change it, it was always that way. People only realized…

'll most likely be downvoted for this, but whilst I sympathise with the plight of those being auto upgraded at inconvenience a small part of me thinks that those users who cannot be bothered to read the important OS information notices, are the ones who may need the upgrade the most.

As parent (+1'ed) notes, the message itself is quite clear in its intent. I would not for a second think that closing the window would infer the "cancel path" as the result.

Yes, they are being too forceful, and Microsoft ought to have given users a clear "I do not want to upgrade, ever" option, yet at the same time Windows 10 represents a significant increase in security, and in these days of massive botnets and what not that is a good thing on a big scale. In a roundabout way, I'm picturing this as forced immunisation for the greater good.

Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#112

Post by metaphor »

yuhong wrote: post #57
cm2187 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe a single second that Microsoft is adopting this hard line for security considerations. They want to monetize their users. They want them to watch their in-OS ads, they want to accumulate data on people, they want them to go to bing for search, etc.

I think the most important one here is the Windows Store.

Agreed. [1]

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3135657

Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#113

Post by Mithaldu »

swang wrote: post #101
Mithaldu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is in the normal font size for that system, compare it with the window title. The "this is recommended" and the date are the only enlarged bits in that window. > all that I don't know about you, but to me and most anyone i know the amount of text in that window is miniscule. Difference in perspective i guess. As for what users are taught to: What i and everyone else i know have been taught to is "Read everything t…

if you were designing that dialog box to actually let users control whether or not they could upgrade to win 10 and made sure they made the right choice, is that how you would have designed the dialog box? again the dialog box microsoft designed was not to help out the users. it was to trick them into upgrading win 10. the dialog is purposely built to trick users into clicking on the X, something users have been taug…

You have a good point.

And to be fair, the misreporting and misrepresentation of the reality in the discourse about windows upgrades caused my pendulum to swing too far in the other direction.

MS is engaging in dark patterns, and that is what needs to be stated clearly, and directly, not the sensationalist, and wrong "windows updated automatically and there was nothing i could do".

> having the close button _agree_ to the changes rather than canceling them.

See that kind of thing is wrong. No such thing happens, period. The window tells you that at the date a change was scheduled, and gives you the options of "change", "cancel", "do now" or "dismiss the information". Closing it does not agree to anything, the agreement was taken implicitly before the window even opened. You're opted in, and given an option to opt out. And that is the dark pattern here.

Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#114

Post by tobias3 »

cm2187 wrote: post #60
yuhong wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the most important one here is the Windows Store.

I forgot it and completely agree, they want a cut of anything installed on the machine. And following this logic I wouldn't be surprised if they would make it increasingly difficult to install any non store app. Requiring them to be signed first, then signed by them against a fee, then simply not allowed like iOS does. Which is why not having the option to turn down upgrade after having been upgraded to windows 10 is…

They are already doing it with drivers. Windows 10 will only load Microsoft signed drivers and Windows Server 2016 will only load WHQL signed drivers for which you have to pay a fee.

Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#115

Post by yrro »

hendersoon wrote: post #103
ksk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The difference is, iOS asks. You can say no. Yeah, and then it asks again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.. and again....

No, it doesn't. I'm running iOS 9.0 on my iPhone, because that's the last jailbroken version. My phone NEVER nags me to upgrade. NEVER. Now if I plug it into my computer and run iTunes, iTunes does ask. But I don't do that very often, as there's no reason to plug your phone into a computer these days.

My iPad 3 nags me to install the latest iOS update every single time I unlock it.

Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#116

Post by yrro »

asimuvPR wrote: post #40

I tune cars as as as a hobby. My current setup is based around windows xp due to driver supports (technically an embedded application). My plan was to upgrade to a windows 8 machine and emulate an xp install. But I'm not going to anymore. I tune while driving and it could be catastrophic to have the machine install updates. I'll continue with the air gapped xp machine. Too bad because I was looking forward to not usi…

Your decision is the correct one, but I'm pretty sure that no consumer version of Windows has ever shipped without a requirement that you shouldn't use it for real-time/safety-critical purposes.

Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#117

Post by Tempest1981 »

Mithaldu wrote: post #66
mattkevan wrote: post #49

The windows boxes in our office have been upgrading themselves, much to everyone's dismay: The one in the meeting room decided to upgrade and then break in the middle of a client presentation I was leading. I got my Mac and continued on, but it was embarrassing. My colleague's machine upgraded itself overnight, and in the process deleted a bunch of files and corrupted creative suite. I know having as many people as p…

Edit: Note that i am not disagreeing that MS is engaging in a dark pattern by opting-in users implicitly, and then only informing them about said opt-in having happened. The snide and snark in this post only came about because i realized rather suddenly what was actually happening, and how the misreporting and sensationalizing had skewed this whole thing in a way that the reporting helped literally nobody but people'…

No Cancel/Later button?! What does "OK" do, vs Upgrade Now, or the Close [X] button?

Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#118

Post by Mithaldu »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #117
Mithaldu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: Note that i am not disagreeing that MS is engaging in a dark pattern by opting-in users implicitly, and then only informing them about said opt-in having happened. The snide and snark in this post only came about because i realized rather suddenly what was actually happening, and how the misreporting and sensationalizing had skewed this whole thing in a way that the reporting helped literally nobody but people'…

No Cancel/Later button?! What does "OK" do, vs Upgrade Now, or the Close [X] button?

The cancel button is in the blue box under the huge date, at system-normal font size. OK does the same thing as [X], dismiss the opt-in the OS informed you about.

The problem here being that such an opt-in happened in the first place.

Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#119

Post by Mithaldu »

sundvor wrote: post #111
Mithaldu wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: After some thinking: Yes, i agree this is a dark pattern and MS needs to be held accountable to it accordingly. My only disagreement with the current direction of discourse is that people are not saying "MS manipulated me into an update", which is the truth, but "Windows updated on its own and there was nothing anyone could do", which isn't. -- They didn't change it, it was always that way. People only realized…

'll most likely be downvoted for this, but whilst I sympathise with the plight of those being auto upgraded at inconvenience a small part of me thinks that those users who cannot be bothered to read the important OS information notices, are the ones who may need the upgrade the most. As parent (+1'ed) notes, the message itself is quite clear in its intent. I would not for a second think that closing the window would…

I'm on the edge about agreeing that this is a good thing, but you're right. Due to the long history of people ignoring updates and then blaming MS for when they get hit by the latest 0-day, parts of MS are probably feeling very antagonistic against some of their users at this point.

Re: Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa

#120

Post by CamperBob2 »

cmurf wrote: post #48
CamperBob2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this debacle can be blamed on Ballmer, and certainly not on Gates. In fact, I have to wonder if the reason why Ballmer was finally handed his walking papers by the board was that he was unwilling to greenlight these frog-marched upgrades to Windows 10. Somebody very powerful at Microsoft, or perhaps elsewhere, wants everybody to accept this free update way, way too badly, and it's not clear why.

They're getting their asses handed to them by malware. They have a huge attack surface of users on various versions of Windows. Forced upgrades reduces that attack surface of older versions of Windows. That's all I can think of. In open source software where this is more transparent, computer security is hard. Backporting fixes is harder, and expensive, and has its own risks. Microsoft can't be immune to the same pro…

They can address security issues (as they always have) without forcing an OS upgrade.

The low-level 'attack surface' is mostly unchanged. Windows 10 is not a total rewrite of Windows Vista/7/8, or anything close to it. As proof of this assertion, you'll note that most security patches that apply to Windows 10 will correspond to equivalent patches for earlier versions.

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