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About LinkBacksWas just helping one of the other devs disable updates as MS have removed the defer checkbox on the creators update. There's no way i should have to do a registry "hack" just to stop them from updating a machine.
Was just helping one of the other devs disable updates as MS have removed the defer checkbox on the creators update. There's no way i should have to do a registry "hack" just to stop them from updating a machine.
Saracen (16-09-2017)
If platform/OS stability is business critical opt for the LTSB version within Windows 10 Enterprise. It doesn't get feature updates at all.Originally Posted by Mason.Lyons
There's options out there for most people's use cases. The only real change MS have made is which approach is the default, and what hoops you have to jump through if you want something different...
You managed to circumvent Microsofts update by hacking the registry? I'm sure that bug will be fixed in a future release!
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Saracen (16-09-2017)
So those of us that have bought, oh, a laptop with Win10 Home on it are now supposed to pay MS again to switch to Enterprise, in order to stop MS beggaring about with our PC setup?If platform/OS stability is business critical opt for the LTSB version within Windows 10 Enterprise. It doesn't get feature updates at all.
There's options out there for most people's use cases. The only real change MS have made is which approach is the default, and what hoops you have to jump through if you want something different...
The whole point is that is isn't just a cyange of default, If it were, I wouldn't have a problem with it. The problem is that they removed the choice. Presumably, MS have what they consider good business reasons for forcing upgrades, and having a more consistent and coherent installed codebase out there, making bug fixing and feature changing easier is probably part of it. But by putting their business reasons over the ability of paying customers ability to set their machines up,how they want andchave them stay that way without having MS come along at some unpredictable time and decide to change it demonstrates an overweening arrogance by MS, and illustrates the contempt they have for their users.
And that's (partly) why I refused to upgrade to Win10, even when it was "free". Even free, the price is too high.
I'm old enough to remember the arrogance of IBM mainframe salesmen back in the day when they were dominant ... and to a FAR greater extent than MS ever has been. And look where there arrogance got them. You'd think MS executives would have taken that lesson to heart, it being MS that stuck the knife into IBM! but apparently corporate memories are short.
Whilst (and don't think I'm having a go) I was waiting for you to say something Saracen some points are valid. However in this security led world MS probably feel its' best to force the updates on us and will use that stance. Also as they appear to be saying without actually stating that this is probably the last version of Windows then they must really adopt a strategy of pushing it on us
Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!
I have anniversary update and don't want to update until Fall Creators. How do I disable the automatic update?
My last update caused me to have to reinstall windows :/
thanks
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If they were only pushing security related updates then I'd be in total agreement, however since they decided to combine security and non-security related updates an argument could probably be made that they're putting customers at greater risk than before, I'm not a ne'er-do-well but i would imagine reverse engineering or simply exploiting one of the vulnerabilities that Microsoft patches each month but some of their customers can't install or have to uninstall because its been causing system problems would be a fairly simple.
I'm curious to see how they make Windows GDPR compliant without giving an option to turn off data collection.
If it's business critical you shouldn't be running it on a laptop with a Home version of Windows. And whether an individual chooses to pay to avoid those updates is up to them.
I happen to know - because you're not shy about telling people - that you've chosen not to. Good for you. Other people might decide it's worth the extra money to get the OS they want with the update schedule that suits them. Good for them too, if they're getting what they want at a price they're happy to pay. Others might decide that while it's not exactly what they want, they're willing to put up with the regular updates as the price of just running normal Windows. And there might be other people who are very happy with the regular updates and upgrades.
There's options for everyone. There may not be a perfect option for everyone, or even for anyone, but that doesn't stop there being options.
Where in the licence does it say a full Home version cannot be used for business purposes? I'm curious, because having just read the licence, I can't see that restriction, either in the usage section, or in the restricted (such as academic licence) section, where business use is precluded in Home.
Is your comment that users "shouldn't" use Home version on a laptop for business use officisl MS policy, or a personal opinion?
And if business use is, at it appears, legal, then are you really trying to suggest that MS knows better than a user, say me, as to what is or is not "business critical" to my business?
As for what people are, or aren't willing to pay, you are completely missing the point. Your response to the complaint about forced upgrades was to use Enterprise. So anybody that already has, say, Home, has to pay TWICE, to buy two versions of OS, just to avoid forced updates?
If users want to pay more a version of Windows with more or enhanced features, like Domain Joining, GPE, encryption, or whatever, then I agree that is entirely their choice. I can hardly argue it as I opted for Win 7 Ultimate, and versions of Office that included Access, etc, for many years on machines that needed it
Yet now, MS seem to have arrogantly decided that standard users of 'lesser' versions don't get the right to decide if an upgrade is to be applied, and depending on version, perhaps not even when.
And it's not the first time MS has shoved it's priorities down user's throats. In fact, it's been such a growing trend that there's a thriving little group of companies writing tools and utilities to reverse such decisions, be it Office UI (which, personally, I'm happy with), Win8 Start menu (I won't go there) or the far, FAR more important issue of forced updates.
You're certainly right about one thing - I'm not shy about telling people what I think about such strategy decisions by MS? Why? Because such decisions, and the forced updates one in particular, forced me to spend a very large amount of time and effort finding, testing and evaluating alternatives and then completely redesigning my IT because installing an OS that lets some company, ANY company, change, modify, and alter the setup of my machines with or without my permission and even against my express wishes, whenever it chooses, is utterly unacceptable.
All MS had to do was include a switch. And that applies by the way, to the Office UI changes, the Win8 Start bar, and forced updates, too. So very much bad publicity, ill will and user anger could have been avoided if MS had just changed the default behaviour but left an option for users to revert back. Odds are, those users that don't care would just have accepted the change, and those that object would just have changed it back. Bad press and ill will avoided.
But no, MS had to ram it down our throats, necessitating all that messing about with 3rd-party utilities. The end result was the same - unhappy users found a 3rd-party way to get what they wanted anyway, and MS wound up with bad press and angry users.
The forced update issue, though, is just too much for me. I would never know, when I turned my machine on, what MS had decided to change on MY machine this time, like .... oh, blocking MY choice of AV vendor, or updates.
MS executives seem to have trouble grasping the concept that they do not own user's machines. And that's why I ditched any future MS products, and will continue with a mix of XP and Win7 ... un-updated. Not that I recommend anyone reading this to do that - there are security issues with it and I know what I'm doing.
It's a professional recommendation. And if I had a client who chose to ignore that and run business critical systems on a Home version of Windows, that's entirely their choice, and they'd no longer be a client of mine. Use the right tool for the job.
Playing devils advocate, it could be argued that the average home user isn't interested or doesnt have the know how to apply updates and that by building that capability into the software is improving the security of the computer user population as a whole.
At least it could be argued if the forced updates only applied to security updates. You could also argue that the automatic update of security fixes should be applied to business editions, where a security breach of a mission critical system is potentially more serious. Enterprise editions are another matter, where automatic updates could break bespoke applications, and configuration management becomes a far more important issue.
I'm convinced that Microsoft are slowly moving to a subscription model for their OS, the infrastructure is pretty much there.
However as I have pretty much frozen my personal use of Windows at Win7 for a couple of legacy applications, they can go where they like.
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Problem being, their efforts to standardise the operating system means that every feature is in every OS version, to a more or less accessible extent. If someone could come along and use the inbuilt controls to turn on and off things they do and don't want on the cheapest version of Windows, what would be the point in upgrading to another version or paying more? And, thus, MS begins artificially locking down features for the lower rung versions of Windows, disabling those switches and giving users no option. In a narrow field of view it looks like bad practice (and it feels like it too) but the reality is that if it weren't for maintaining some degree of managability on the development side, these extra features wouldn't be in the cheaper OSes at all, right? Including a switch to disable automatic updating (or even defer upgrades).
Sadly, it doesn't feel like Microsoft is even close to being the only software vendor using this method to make their lives (and profit margin) easier to manage, it's just never been done with an OS. {Edit: in the timespan I have been old enough to notice}I suppose it's almost inevitable that at some point an OS developer would try it. Perhaps if enough people were to be frustrated about their practices (and talk with their wallets, or lack of) to get MS to see that removing options like update management just because they want to, isn't going to work out; they might reconsider. An operating system is designed to be a configurable platform that helps us make software work, and removing our ability to configure and forcefully directing us towards MS created software at the expense of every other software is the direct opposite of helpful. I don't see this ship turning around though.
Last edited by Ozaron; 18-09-2017 at 03:55 PM.
And I wouldn't argue with that. As I said, all MS had to do to defuse a lot of anger, including mine, would be :-Playing devils advocate, it could be argued that the average home user isn't interested or doesnt have the know how to apply updates and that by building that capability into the software is improving the security of the computer user population as a whole.
At least it could be argued if the forced updates only applied to security updates. You could also argue that the automatic update of security fixes should be applied to business editions, where a security breach of a mission critical system is potentially more serious. Enterprise editions are another matter, where automatic updates could break bespoke applications, and configuration management becomes a far more important issue.
I'm convinced that Microsoft are slowly moving to a subscription model for their OS, the infrastructure is pretty much there.
However as I have pretty much frozen my personal use of Windows at Win7 for a couple of legacy applications, they can go where they like.
a) change default action to what they wanted the 'norm' to be, such as auto-updates .... AND
b) provide a switch to revert for those that have good reason to disagree.
I know a good few users that would benefit from forced updates, or rather, default to auto-updates. They'd be safer, and if that meant handing a degree of control over to MS, they wouldn't care. In fact, they're sufficiently unsophisticated in computing to probably not understand either the benefits or disadvantages, and there irrefutably are both.
Sadly, I don't see the ship turning either. Or rather, not yet.
But I refer you back to my earlier point about IBM's dominance, in the 60s and 70s. My economics thesis, back in those days, was an analysis of monopoly and oligopoly power, and abuse of power, in the computer industry worldwide. A significant part of it was about the impact on "goodwill" of their arrogant stance. They were so dominant that they couldn't conceive of circumstances that coukd take them down. Ironically, it was personal computers and, double-ironically, largely MS that did it.
Interestingly (I think), I bumped into a subsequent IBM CEO at a press event about 20 years later at Comdex, and told him of my thesis. It was a private, off-record conversation so I can't go into detail but suffice to say his reaction was interesting.
Anyway, I failed to predict what the exact point of catastrophe would be, but certainly got the psychology of it dead right, and part of it was that IBM was do dominant because many users felt forced, that there was no career-safe alternative. But when something unpredictable happened and all of a sudden tgere was an alternative, IBM found that their arrogant and high-handed attitude had made them very few friends and, given credible alternatives, many customrs delighted in dumping them.
Googke and MS have already put a big dent in MSs dominance. This mirrors IBM pretty closely, in that the lock they had on big iron and mini computers was undercut by some upstart mini manufacturers, and the evolution of PCs partnered with networking. Google abd Apple have already scared to proverbial outta MS with "the internet", net services and mobile devices.
But should something come out of left field, like PCs and networking did to IBM, and cause another seismiic shift, MS could well find that their arrogance has left them with large numbers of users using them, as with IBM, out if perceived lack of choice but with considerable resentment and little or no goodwill.
What might cause the seismic shift? I've no idea. An advance in AI? Quantum computing? Aliens visiting and giving us tech? Act of God? Or something completely .... 'other'?
But I tell you what .... MS might dominate the desktop market, but if the power of mobile devices continues unabated, and users increasingly migrate, MS certainly don't dominate that market. Maybe the seismic event is already underway, and just waiting a big shock. By the time IBM noticed what was happening and tried to regain control, offerings like OS2 and micro-channel architecture were too little, too late, and STILL made the psychological mistake of trying to dictate and control. There's more than a small parallel with MS.
The MS ship might not turn, but the time could come when MS notice that they're sailing alone, towards the rocks, and that most passengers have already manned the lifeboats and been picked up by the rest of the flotilla, and sailed off to calmer seas.
So .... you're really advocating that someone with a laptop, with Home installed, should buy and install Enterprise just to be able to turn off updates?
For many small businesses, including one man bands, "business critical" means writing documents, a bit of email, and doing their accounts. They do not need the high-end features of Enterprise, they aren't connecting to domains, encrypting, editing group policies, etc.
What they DO expect, though, is to be able to control when and if their PC is updated, given that every time they do, there's a risk of either a considerable wait while it installs, or something important being borked by the upgrade.
What is critical to me is that when I meet a client, software I need to run does, and I'm not playing Russian roulette with the machine booting because MS decided to upgrade. I want upgrades running when, and only when, I have to time and opportunity to know I can revert, restore or even reimage if I have to. That might be tomorrow, next week or next month.
And I don't expect to have to upgrade to Enterprise just because MS decided to remove a control I've had for years, when I neither need nor want Enterprise features. That's akin to my local fleet sales manager telling me to replace my company vans with Rolls Royces because they've redesigned the speedo and, oh by the way, removed the ability to change the tyres.
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