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Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

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Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#231

Post by simonh »

snsr wrote: post #195
simonh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes another good reason to switch to Mac. None of my current Macs have DVD drives, so I simply don't have to deal with this problem ;)

I know you're joking, but your Mac, even without an optical drive, will still play a DVD if you connect a drive (networked, USB etc).

Indeed. My first draft of the post was along the lines that my Macs can all play DVDs just fine, er, except none of them have DVD drives anyway so....

It's the times we live in. All* the PCs have DVD drives they can't use, and all the Macs can play DVDs just fine except they don't have drives.

* Warning. No actual All intended.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#232

Post by Someone1234 »

foiboitoi wrote: post #200
LocalPCGuy wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is a choice. You absolutely need the DVD player...don't upgrade now. Maybe by the time you need it, the functionality will be restored. Regardless, it is a choice you can make. Don't be entitled.

"Don't be entitled." entitled -- to give (a person or thing) a title, right, or claim to something I spent my money, I can be entitled. Besides this isn't just about libdvdcss. There are many withdrawn features and anti-features included.

> I spent my money, I can be entitled.

No, you didn't. You spend $0 on Windows 10.

You spent money on Windows 7 and you can continue to use that without restriction.

You absolutely are acting entitled for something which is free.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#233

Post by deciplex »

wfunction wrote: post #14
deciplex wrote: post #3

Reminder that Microsoft installed adware on Windows 7/8 machines to encourage users to upgrade to Windows 10. Even if you hid the update from Windows Update, they un-hid it and reinstalled at least once that I know of. Don't reward this behavior by buying Windows 10. Or at least delay the purchase as long as possible.

> Reminder that Microsoft installed adware on Windows 7/8 machines to encourage users to upgrade to Windows 10. Because Linux distributions like Ubuntu never ever encourage you to upgrade your system to the newest and shiniest version, right?

They stop doing it when I tell them to knock it off, and they don't creep back in and do it again after a few months, either. The update responsible for the notification, even after I removed it and hid the update within WU, found its way back after MS released an 'update' to the package with the totally unintended, honest! side effect of unhiding the package and reinstalling it.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#234

Post by Someone1234 »

acqq wrote: post #57
waterlesscloud wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't someone complain about a reduction in functionality in software they paid for? Do you somehow feel that's out of line?

It's not only that Microsoft removes the features, they also don't tell you clearly they'll remove them but they put almost "malware-like" request on your system for which you already paid to them to "just upgrade it's safe."

> they also don't tell you clearly they'll remove them

Yes they do. The upgrade assistant warns you during the upgrade process[0] and specifically has you confirm it.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/ekSbGOL.jpg

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#235

Post by deciplex »

0xffffabcd wrote: post #30
deciplex wrote: post #3

Reminder that Microsoft installed adware on Windows 7/8 machines to encourage users to upgrade to Windows 10. Even if you hid the update from Windows Update, they un-hid it and reinstalled at least once that I know of. Don't reward this behavior by buying Windows 10. Or at least delay the purchase as long as possible.

Upgrade notification is now adware? are you serious? You don't even have to pay for the upgrade and you'll have a lot to gain from it and for us developers, it's a good thing aswell since it might reduce the number of old IEs/plateforms we have to support. I expected more from an HN user..

I consider it adware because there is no way to get the notification to go away. No obvious way, anyhow, and rather than search around for the "correct" way of doing it, I uninstalled the update and hid it in WU.

(Actually I did a brief search, and didn't find anything.)

So at this point, maybe you're right and it's not adware. I'd consider it borderline at least, but fine. Whatever.

However I got a second notification some weeks later, from the same package which I had already uninstalled and hidden remember, after it apparently reinstalled itself because MS released an 'update' to this package. So despite uninstalling it and following all the steps required to clearly communicate that no, I do not want this fucking thing on my PC, MS decided they'd push the update to my system anyway.

At this point it's no longer borderline. It is harassing behavior from something that is very obviously adware.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#236

Post by leviathant »

thescrewdriver wrote: post #80
skrebbel wrote: post #48

I've been on the "insider preview" for a few weeks now, and I must say that I think Windows 10 is an absolutely amazing OS. Definitely the best Windows I've ever used. Also the best desktop OS I've ever used, but I hope you'll believe me about the "best Windows" even if you can't imagine why a developer would possible want to run something other than $YOUR_FAVOURITE_UNIX. If Windows 10 is as well-received as I expect…

> Windows 10 is an absolutely amazing OS > the best Windows I've ever used > the best desktop OS I've ever used I'm not doubting your enthusiasm, but could you elaborate on which features you believe make it superior to every other desktop OS you've ever used?

I'll jump in. I understand why the person you're replying to doesn't want to go into it, because the things that count seem small. The task manager, carried over from Win 8, is great. They took the window management updates in Windows 8 to the next level - now I can quickly snap not just left and right, but I can quickly snap to quadrants, which, on vertical monitors, is so minor but so helpful. There were some file management tricks it did that I can't specifically recall, but I thought 'Oh, that's new.'

I don't think there are any updates to the task bar from Windows 8, but the Windows 8 task bar is definitely my window manager of preference. I run uBar on my MBP, but on Win 8, being able to quickly preview windows in a group, close individual windows, drag up to create a new window... I miss that at work.

They've made a lot of progress updating the icons. There's still crufty Win95 ones in there if you dig deep enough, but the overall look is as unified as it's ever been.

I'm still astonished at how bad fullscreen and multi-display support is on OS X, compared to Windows. I don't know that 10 brings anything new to the table there compared to 8, but 8 greatly simplified things like hooking up a projector, or setting a screen to mirror. In fact, a lot of the things I really like about modern Windows involve WinKey shortcuts - Win+P in this particular case.

I just noticed that I can't have my network preferences open at the same time as my display preferences in OS X. Not a showstopper obviously, just really weird to me. Wonders never cease...

Nichey point: They've made notable improvements to their MIDI stack.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#237

Post by [deleted] »

Aleman360 wrote: post #224

I work on the Start menu. It's just a UWP XAML app with Models and ViewModels written in C++/Cx, as are most of the new Shell features and built-in apps--although some of the newer ones, like Maps and Xbox, are in XAML/C#/.Net Native. Even the UI frame of Edge is in XAML, and the new Office UWP apps are too. I encourage everyone here to give UWP apps a shot; we dogfooded the dev platform to ensure it was stable and f…

[deleted]

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#238

Post by ComputerGuru »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #184
kozukumi wrote: post #149

In case there are people wondering I am using Windows 10 Pro x64 and did the following - Downloaded ISO using the media creation tool at [1] then did an upgrade from 8.1 to 10 which complete just fine. I then booted from the USB drive I just made, did a diskpart clean on the only drive in the machine then did a clean install. When prompted for a product key I pressed skip then when asked again during the out-of-box e…

It may not be hardware hash-based. OEM Windows reads licensing info from the BIOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS#SLIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Locked_Pre-installation

We've released a free tool to extract and display that key, if present: https://neosmart.net/OemKey/

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#239

Post by currysausage »

ak217 wrote: post #93
skrebbel wrote: post #48

I've been on the "insider preview" for a few weeks now, and I must say that I think Windows 10 is an absolutely amazing OS. Definitely the best Windows I've ever used. Also the best desktop OS I've ever used, but I hope you'll believe me about the "best Windows" even if you can't imagine why a developer would possible want to run something other than $YOUR_FAVOURITE_UNIX. If Windows 10 is as well-received as I expect…

My experience has been the opposite. To me Windows 10 is the continuation of the 8/8.1 trainwreck, with the ridiculous Metro skins, a broken start menu, the half-assed fragmentation of the UIs into Metro/non-Metro, ham-handed app store/online services integrations, and various new features that do not work. I'll be going back to Windows 7, in which at least the UI works. And really, the only thing keeping me attached…

> a broken start menu

I love Windows 7, but do you honestly think the Windows 7 start menu is not broken? I believe we just got used to it over time.

In Windows 7, I can either have an unstructured list of "pinned" programs, or I can manually categorize the real ("All programs") start menu.

Option 1 doesn't scale beyond ~15 items (I have 22 pinned programs and it's a mess), and option 2 breaks whenever a program updates itself and puts new links into the top level. Also, option 2 is not an option at all for 99,9% of users, so it's quite obvious why MS wouldn't optimize for that use case.

The single thing that I like the most about Windows 8.1 machines is how I can group programs on the start page. Now that it isn't fullscreen any more with Windows 10, I am pretty much looking forward to it.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#240

Post by DanTheManPR »

tw04 wrote: post #214
acqq wrote: post #6

Note that the upgrade will remove your Windows built-in DVD player. The right to play DVDs must be paid for every computer. You paid it when you bought the Windows 7 or 8 that you'll maybe upgrade to 10. Now the upgrade to Windows 10 takes that feature away from you. They apparently (the twitter message isn't actually the company statement) plan to return it "sometime in the future" and "if it might be free or if it…

Honest question - who cares? Someone actually used the built-in media player? Step 1 for me on any new desktop/workstation install (regardless of OS) is to install VLC. I have to believe the number of people who actually use that can be counted in the tenths of a percent of their user base.

Among people I know, I can think of a few who rent DVDs from Redbox and watch them on their laptops (we're out in the country, so the internet isn't fast enough for streaming video). They're not technically adept enough to know that they would need something like VLC after this update.
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