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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

#191

Post by Mithaldu »

sundvor wrote: post #190
Mithaldu wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_ t…

Just came across how you get "signed up" for the upgrade - see the main screenshot here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3078663/windows/microsoft-den... That's definitely a textbook case of a dark pattern.

I believe the screenshot is what you get when you did not cancel the scheduled upgrade and the process starts in earnest.

Note the very nice video in there.

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

#192

Post by frik »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #43
aswanson wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Nadella would bring an ending to such hamfisted, Ballmeresque/Gatesian approaches what with him supporting such open projects lately. This is sad.

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.

Bill is back, and he is a major force behind Nadella, Nadella is just a marionette. Yes, Microsoft used to be a better citizen when Ballmer was in charge.

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

#193

Post by cm2187 »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #187
cm2187 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the drivers problem isn't really behind them. I just purchased a lenovo laptop after reading similar comments noting the progress of linux desktop, and can't get the laptop to connect to an external monitor, despite the device being on ubuntu's certified list.

If you post your model laptop on the Ubuntu forums or on reddit.com/r/linuxquestions with your issue, you'll likely get either a solution or enough information to know how about soon support will be added for your device. It's often a solved problem just with no upstream patch yet.

Thanks. I'll give it a try.

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

#194

Post by cm2187 »

zxcvcxz wrote: post #177
cm2187 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the drivers problem isn't really behind them. I just purchased a lenovo laptop after reading similar comments noting the progress of linux desktop, and can't get the laptop to connect to an external monitor, despite the device being on ubuntu's certified list.

I'm 100% positive that for every single instance of Linux having some driver issue, I can find 10 times the amount of issues on Windows through a simple google search. Multi-monitor setups not working on windows 10: http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1255544-windows-10-10074-n... answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-start/win-10-wont-recognize-multiple-monitors/fb5c5f33-b9e7-4158-ab82-833a9595e466 http…

No usually when you buy a laptop, it pretty much works out of the box. Now there might be some smaller compatibility issues but not some core feature simply not working like this.

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

#195

Post by frik »

Reese1379 wrote: post #55

This has to be the only tech site where a suggestion to use Linux results in a down vote.

MS kind of infiltrated HN in 2015, visible to HN users during the Build 2015 conference in early 2015. Coincidentally Microsoft and Y Combinator formed a partnership, https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/stevengu/2015/02/09/y-combi... and somewhere I read that they formed a joint venture (but I haven't found the source again).

In 2015 a lot of new (green) sock puppet and corporate accounts appeared that down vote comments and flag stories that share not their "nice vision". The worse situation around MS all started when Gates (who is apparently still a driving force) replaced Ballmer with Nadella, a marionette. I am viewing HN using a third party front end, and every time a unfavorable MS story appears it doesn't last long on HN until it gets flagged - no other company story is handled that negatively or flagged in any way that often. So there is a clear pattern behind it. To make my point clear, also this story quickly vanished from the HN frontpage. And I would have no chance to even know about it. HN used to be a better site :(

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

#196

Post by DanBC »

cm2187 wrote: post #85
jmiserez wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even linux (which is awful as desktop system) I disagree. Linux is great as a desktop system precisely because you're in control, not some third-party. And in terms of desktop functionality there is no meaningful difference anymore.

But the drivers problem isn't really behind them. I just purchased a lenovo laptop after reading similar comments noting the progress of linux desktop, and can't get the laptop to connect to an external monitor, despite the device being on ubuntu's certified list.

Plenty of windows machines, with MS logo stickers, have terrible windows drivers. Or have drivers that sort of work in Microsoft Windows 8.1 with Bing but not in Windows 10.

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

#197

Post by jgalt212 »

Our business's recent experience with forced upgrades

Our accounting team used Quickbooks Pro 2014 which worked on Windows 7. Then all our machines went to Windows 10, and Quickbooks no longer worked. Our accounting team basically did no work for a week while they did a combo of trying to figure out which software to migrate to (went with Quickbooks Online), recover any missing data, and make sure the data migrated successfully to the new accounting package.

The nice part of this forced migration is that Quickbooks online does not require Windows, so three less Windows boxes to support at our shop as we have moved the acct dept to Linux boxes.

The rule of unintended consequences in full effect.

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

#198

Post by kahnpro »

cm2187 wrote: post #51
cmurf wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Exactly. If Microsoft cared about user security, they've had the last three decades to do something about it. This is all about monetization and tracking.

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

#199

Post by baatilo »

aaron695 wrote: post #189
userbinator wrote: post #21

The amount of churn in the computer industry is staggering and the upgrade treadmill is a huge waste of resources to many, but I suppose it's the only way for them to continue making a profit. Personally, I think Windows as an OS reached its pinnacle sometime around the XP timeframe; since then it has mostly been frustrating UI changes and feature removals, "security" features designed to lock down your PC against yo…

> I think Windows as an OS reached its pinnacle sometime around the XP timeframe; since then it has mostly been frustrating UI changes and feature removals, "security" features designed to lock down your PC against you and instead follow the commands of some corporate entity, and massive amounts of data collection. This is bullshit. There have been many huge behind the scenes efficiency improvements plus security imp…

Innocent bystander here just trying to learn, not trying to defy you, but could you inform me of these improvements? It feels like each iteration of Windows is just getting slower. I feel as though the software is getting worse than the hardware is getting better? Your thoughts?

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

#200

Post by TrevorJ »

Kronopath wrote: post #157
userbinator wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already are, as you can see from the numerous articles here and elsewhere on the Internet, as well as my personal experience. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11167964 http://betanews.com/2015/10/15/microsoft-now-uses-windows-10... http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-07/30/windows-10-pa...

You think that's bad? I only upgraded to Windows 10 last week, and within minutes of booting it up, it quietly started downloading "Candy Crush Soda Saga" without my permission. I only caught it because I noticed the download indicator in my Start menu, at which point I cancelled it. Apparently there's no simple user option to turn these auto-downloaded apps off either.

The thing that grinds my gears is that MS cleary does not think people use Windows to do real work any more. None of this shit flies in an environment where you are billing hourly and need to be in control of your own software/hardware.
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