Windows 10 now a 'recommended update' in Windows Update

[crossy]

I can understand Win 7 users not shifting: Win 10 is very different. But Win 8/8.1 users not shifting makes little sense to me...

Some folks I've talked to want to stay on '8 because they prefer the MUI desktop to the "classic" one that got put back in 10. Main justification for this is that the large tiles in MUI/Metro are "better" for those with impaired eyesight compared with the teeny-tiny icons etc in 10.

In this household though, the state of play is:
1 laptop that did an in-place upgrade from 7 to 10, which was 100% trouble free. User is a bit of a technophobe but likes 10 because "it just does what I need and I don't have to go hunting for stuff"
1 laptop that I'd intended to do as a clean install, but I had so many problems trying to get the (insert vile expletive here) thing to boot after doing the initial install that I gave up, cloned the disk and did an in place from 8.1 to 10.
1 desktop that running 8.1 at the moment which, given the issues with the laptop, I'm planning to do a clone-and-then-in-place-upgrade.
1 desktop running 7 that's due for a total overhaul (been running 7 for five years) so it's a clean install for it. Just hope that it's less painful than the laptop one turned out to be,

I dislike being forced to move to 10 but I can see that some of the software I want to run will be stating that it's "Window 8/10 only". Anyone care to bet against the appearance of a "Windows 365" at some point within the next twelve months where you can receive upgrades/patches only if you pay $x/year?

[iranu]

The prompt, Get Windows 10 App, in the notification area is KB 3035583

That one has crept in again even though I've hidden it twice now.

[scaryjim]

Some folks I've talked to want to stay on '8 because they prefer the MUI desktop to the "classic" one that got put back in 10.

Educate them about Win 10 tablet mode. I imagine (although I've not looked into it) you can set Win 10 to boot into tablet mode, then you automatically get everything running in MUI-style windows. It works just as well with mouse/keyboard as it does with touch.

Anyone care to bet against the appearance of a "Windows 365" at some point within the next twelve months where you can receive upgrades/patches only if you pay $x/year?

I understand the sentiment that expects that, but I can't see it happening. Office 365 is a different beast as you can access Office Online from any PC (and it's a pretty full featured office suite now). They're more likely to go to a stripped back OEM version with basically nothing but Edge and Windows Store, and some form of Store registration of activation scheme. I'm pretty sure that's their ultimate goal: all Windows software purchases go through Windows Store, at least to some extent. Even if they don't make actual hard cash from it, the data they could aggregate would be pretty valuable....

[Corky34]

Anyone care to bet against the appearance of a "Windows 365" at some point within the next twelve months where you can receive upgrades/patches only if you pay $x/year?

Can't guess if there will be a Windows 365 but Microsoft have trademarked the name, maybe their just playing safe.

[scaryjim]

Can't guess if there will be a Windows 365 but Microsoft have trademarked the name, maybe their just playing safe.

If I owned several major brands, and launched a variation on one with a number after the name, I was absolutely trademark that variation on all the others - if nothing else it prevents trademark hijacking.

Anyway, MS are going to need Windows 365 in around 500 years time....

[Sunderas]

This has been as recommended in mine for weeks...

[Ironbuket]

Why I wont do the free upgrade:
1. No media centre (yes i know about kodi, but media centre works perfectly for my needs)
2. If you have 7Pro you get 10basic, you only get 10pro if you have 7ultimate

I will very likly buy the retail 10pro when i next upgrade my main system, but i want to leave my htpc on 7

[excalibur2]

Well unless microsoft solve all problems upgrading then I'll stay with win 7 on one drive...as after numerous attempts inc seperate DVD this hard drive will not update.

[azrael-]

It depends what it broke.

As a developer it's infuriating that so many people stay on old OS's then complain that your software isn't supported. What's that, you want to host websockets haha no. Trying to explain these things to a lay person is hard. Many users made up their mind they didn't like a new OS because a start menu was full screen, these same people will get upset they can't get the same experience as users on modern OS.

I'm a developer as well, working for a midsized company in the transportation sector. While "we" don't want to support old OSes forever we also are not too keen on supporting the cutting edge. The reason? Any new piece of software, including an OS, is an unknown quantity. Some things might not work as expected or perhaps not at all. Right now, we're explicitly supporting Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and their respective server derivates. Our software may (and does) work on Windows 10, but we're not giving any guarantees.

That one has crept in again even though I've hidden it twice now.

You can only block a specific version of a given update. Once it is re-released in a new revision it will show up again and also has to be blocked.

Why I wont do the free upgrade:
1. No media centre (yes i know about kodi, but media centre works perfectly for my needs)
2. If you have 7Pro you get 10basic, you only get 10pro if you have 7ultimate

I will very likly buy the retail 10pro when i next upgrade my main system, but i want to leave my htpc on 7

Windows 7 Pro and Windows 7 Ultimate will both give you Windows 10 Professional. Windows 7 Home and below will give you Windows 10 Core.

[WritersBlock]

Microsoft has been observed to have been fairly aggressively promoting Windows 10 upgrades.

Fairly?

[Hoonigan]

Windows 10 > Windows 7/8.1

It should be a recommended upgrade in my opinion, I think it's fantastic.

[AGTDenton]

That one has crept in again even though I've hidden it twice now.

You're better off modifying the registry that way you don't need to keep hiding new or updated kb's. It's easier to just let the kb in and block it environmentally.

[Saracen]

It depends what it broke.

As a developer it's infuriating that so many people stay on old OS's then complain that your software isn't supported. What's that, you want to host websockets haha no. Trying to explain these things to a lay person is hard. Many users made up their mind they didn't like a new OS because a start menu was full screen, these same people will get upset they can't get the same experience as users on modern OS.

I understand why developers like it. I also understand that there are many advantages for many users.

But frankly, I don't give a left-handed flying fig if it's more convenient for developers, especially when we're talking about significant OS upgrades, on MY machines, without my permission.

Why?

Here's a couple of reasons, both informed by past experience.

1) I have some expensive but elderly hardware, that still work perfectly, but aren't supported by later OS versions. For instance, a multi-thousand pound film scanner.

2) I have some software that won't run on OS later than Win98. One such package is a database under which I have about a dozen customised databases, written by me over the years, that control some substantial parts of my business.

In the case of 1), while that hardware still works, I'm not about to go out and spend another fortune replacing it just so MS can run Win10 on my machines, for their convenience.

Oh, hell, no. Nuts to that.

But that's relatively trivial compared to 2).

I started those databases under dBase II, somewhere about the start of the Paleolithic era. I revised my needs and methods, and rebuilt them on a different platform about the time IBM issued OS2, and have tweaked and revised them ever since. I have a LOT of historical data, some of which is date-redundant, but some of which is essential. If I can no longer use that software, then I have to :-

- identify, source (inc pay for) and confirm an alternate database product, and
- spend probably months rebuilding over a dozen relational database systems, and
- port, and then 100% verify, about 20 years of data conversion to repopulate the databases.

And for what? To get me back to where I functionally am, right now.

So no, convenient for developers or not, I'm sticking with existing platforms. In the case of some of my essential systems, by taking them off the internet altogether. I already have some systems air-gapped, and have now added to that, to keep Microsoft's upgrades out.

I take the point about developers not supporting software indefinitely. But, where have I asked them to?

If one reason for shifting machines behind an air-gap is to protect me from MS, another is to protect my machines from being infected and perhaps abused due to out of date or unsupported drivers.

But that's MY responsibility, my option and my choice, on MY machines, and not for MS to decide that it knows better than me what I want on my machines.

Had MS installed a 'nag' that prompted me to upgrade, but gave options like :-

1 - Yes, do it
2 - Remind me later (options maybe 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year)
3 - No, and don't ask again ....

.... then I wouldn't be objecting. On some machines, I might have said 6 months, but on others it certainly would have been "No, and don't ask again".

The point is that my machines are MINE, for me to decide what's best to do, upgrade or not. Not for ANY developer to override and upgrade, install or download because it thinks "Pappy knows best". The hell Pappy does. He's got no idea what I do with my machines, what is or isn't best, or acceptable OR what damage and/or harm such an upgrade may do. What it may break. What the economic or business consequences might be.

So, I have my own procedures and methods. They may be clunky but they work for me. I have some hardware here that is explicitly sacrificial goat. Some testing takes place on that. I have disk images for a variety of configurations that can be installed as virgin setups, and one use is testing hardware and software for reviews. I then know that such hardware/software is running in a controlled environment. Another use is testing the above-mentioned elderly hardware and my databases BEFORE going anywhere near actual live systems.

So ... suppose I go to Win10, and hand the decision on when to "upgrade" my OS over to MS, and they then push out an "upgrade" that, as has happened in the past, breaks something either in software or hardware support. So I log on one morning, have a noon deadline, and find I can't do what I need because some automatic MS upgrade beggared something up, right royally .... are MS going to compensate me for losing the client by missing my deadline? Are they going to be sitting beside me in court if I get sued, or paying contract penalties?

Are they hell.

How my machines are configured, what OS they run, and if and when, and indeed how, they get upgraded, is MY choice because it's my business and livelihood depending on them.

It is NOT something that's ever going to get handed over to the whim of MS, no matter how well-intentioned they may be, or how convenient it may be for MS or some other developer.

It's also, by the way, precisely the same principle that forced me to abandon Photoshop upgrades after being a Photoshop user since V3. And I don't mean CS3.

It's a control issue. Both for Windows and Photoshop, I paid for a licence to use, and yes, some but not indefinite support was included. So when that support runs out, it's MY licence to carry on using if I wish, and when or IF to pay for an upgrade.

Once signed on to evolving platforms, be it Win10 or Photoshop, you by definition cede control of that platform, to MS or Adobe respectively, and they then control what's on my PC.

Well, it ain't happening on my PCs.

I have the same suspicion, as I've said before, that some here have expressed that this auto-upgrade version of Windows is leading, sooner or later, to a subscription model. I think it's coming. Others don't. Only time will tell. My bet would be within 12 months is very unlikely, but within 10 years is very likely indeed. Within that .... dunno, but 2 or 3 years is a maybe, and 5 to 7 a probably. We'll see.

But it's academic to me now, because my Windows usage going forward will be legacy versions only, and while I'm not there yet, my hardware will be running Win-whatever (XP, Win7, etc) according to MY criteria and decisions, air-gapped, or for online systems, Linux.

I'm not happy about it, not one little bit, but MS forced me off the Windows roadmap entirely.

For those for who a PC is a toy, or a games machine, or a convenience, they may not understand why some of us get so annoyed about MS, and sure, my situation is an exception not the rule.

I don't blame MS for moving down the path they have, if that's where their business needs take them. I most definitely DO blame them, and intensely resent, being forced to take fairly extensive measures to stop their damn nagging and attempts to shove Win10 onto my hardware like it or not.

No, no, no, ten billion time, no, MS.

All they had to do, Animus, was ASK, instead of trying to shove it on us, as if we're ignorant hicks that don't know our own .... rear ends .... from our elbows.

Ask, dammit, and accept that no means no, not assume, like some rapist in court, that no means yes just because we didn't kick, and scream, and try to bite their face off while they were raping us.

[Corky34]

Windows 10 > Windows 7/8.1

It should be a recommended upgrade in my opinion, I think it's fantastic.

While you and many others think living in a tentatorship is fantastic that doesn't make it right or moral for the governing body of that tentatorship to keep sending missionaries into the old world every day in an attempt to convert us savages, maybe we like living in a world with more freedoms, maybe we're happy to with our current homes, maybe we want to wait until there's no more services being provided in 4 years time, maybe we'll choose to go and live in a commune where everyone helps out with security and all those other jobs.

[Plasmastorm]

Windows 10 > Windows 7/8.1

It should be a recommended upgrade in my opinion, I think it's fantastic.

While you and many others think living in a tentatorship is fantastic that doesn't make it right or moral for the governing body of that tentatorship to keep sending missionaries into the old world every day in an attempt to convert us savages, maybe we like living in a world with more freedoms, maybe we're happy to with our current homes, maybe we want to wait until there's no more services being provided in 4 years time, maybe we'll choose to go and live in a commune where everyone helps out with security and all those other jobs.

And maybe some of us won't upgrade as when we have tried it before as a fresh intall OR update we got a BSOD due to an iastor.sys driver and windows 10 wiped out 4tb raid !

[azrael-]

You're better off modifying the registry that way you don't need to keep hiding new or updated kb's. It's easier to just let the kb in and block it environmentally.

You might want to uninstall KB3035583 before adding the registry keys you mentioned earlier. Also, I've heard somewhere that the "ReservationsAllowed" key may require Windows Professional and higher editions.