If Windows Updates IsTurned Off, Can We Be Sure MS Can't Force Win 10 on us?

In "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

And better yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party
utility like Start10.

What Windows 10 problems does "Start10" solve?

Why would the ne plus ultra of personal operating systems need a
$5 third-party utility anyway?

--
St. Paul, MN

Per Stan Brown:
I am borderline-obsessive about setting Windows Updates to
Notification-Only but I have gotten blindsided by forced updates at
least a half-dozen times. Somehow it gets flipped to allowing
automatic updates without the user doing anything.


I believe certain updates do that.

After applying updates, I recommend checking the settings and of
course running GWX Control Panel.

I did that for awhile - still got blind sided, whether by my own
incompetence in keeping on top of it or something else.

Couple months ago, I disabled two Services:

- Windows Update

- Background Intelligent Transfer


No problems so far.... and that scary "Let's 'Upgrade you to Windows 10"
dialog has stopped popping.


My plan is to, every so often:

- Get my latest "Good" image up-to-date,

- Turn those 2 services back on

- Take what comes - being prepared to re-image
if necessary.
--
Pete Cresswell

Per Ken Blake, MVP:

Your choice entirely, of course, but in my experience those who think
Window 10 is "yuck" are those who haven't taken the trouble to learn
it and learn how to organize its settings to their liking. And better
yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party utility
like Start10.

Now extrapolate that to a company with 20,000 or 30,000 employees who
use Windows all day, every day - and don't have a lot of time to spend
fooling around "learning it", "learning how to organize it's settings",
and so-forth.

I *still* can't figure out why MS keeps moving the furniture around.

You would think they would have a committee - and if something about a
new OS's UI departs from the previous OS's, they have to go before the
committee and justify that particular moving around of the furniture.

But it seems like there is no such committee and a lot of changes seem
just plain gratuitous. "Add/Remove Programs" == "Programs and
Features".... Multiply that little WTF moment by 30,000 employees and
you have some significant lost man hours.
--
Pete Cresswell

On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 08:40:47 -0700, Tom Hall wrote:
On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 04:47:07 -0500, Stan Brown
wrote:

After applying updates, I recommend checking the settings and of
course running GWX Control Panel.

GWX doesn't work for me. The very first time I installed it, it worked -
but after that all I get is the process in Task Manager and nothing else. I
finally uninstalled it.

GWX is not the same thing as GWX Control Panel. There is no install
for GWX Control Panel.


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

John Q. Public wrote:
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 14:34:57 +0100, "John Q. Public"
wrote:


I tried Windows 10. Yuck. I am learning Linux.



Your choice entirely, of course, but in my experience those who think
Window 10 is "yuck" are those who haven't taken the trouble to learn
it and learn how to organize its settings to their liking. And better
yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party utility
like Start10.

If you were to look at and use my computer, which runs Windows 10 and
Start10, you would likely have a hard time realizing that it wasn't
Windows 7.


Until I went to the MS store. Looks aren't the problem. Windows 10 isn't
for all computers and the MS published minimum hardware is only if you
like 3 minute boot ups and a very slow machine. My Acer Aspire 7741G
can't handle it but updates said it would.

Out of curiosity, in what way do you think 10 is better than 7?


Intel Core i5 480M / 2.66 GHz , Dual-Core , L3 - 3 MB
Max Turbo Speed 2.93 GHz

Chipset - Mobile Intel HM55 Express
(It's SATA2 https://web.archive.org/web/20150226...pset-hm55.html )

Graphics Processor
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6550 - 1 GB DDR3 VRAM

RAM Configuration - 2 x 2 GB

That setup should be good for any conventional OS.

I would think the provided hard drive, at 5400RPM, would
be slow, and slapping in an SSD would help. A SATA III
SSD should work with the SATA II chips. It's the seek time
assistance that helps, dropping from 19ms to 0.1ms. And the
SSD only has to be big enough to contain the OS partition - the
SSD doesn't have to be a monster to fix this.

There isn't a strong reason to be upgrading a Win7 machine
to Win10, and evaluating the preview versions would have
given a heads-up on what to expect. Win10 is a SmartPhone
OS, with SmartPhone sliders for privacy settings.

Paul

Paul wrote:
John Q. Public wrote:
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 14:34:57 +0100, "John Q. Public"
wrote:


I tried Windows 10. Yuck. I am learning Linux.



Your choice entirely, of course, but in my experience those who think
Window 10 is "yuck" are those who haven't taken the trouble to learn
it and learn how to organize its settings to their liking. And better
yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party utility
like Start10.

If you were to look at and use my computer, which runs Windows 10 and
Start10, you would likely have a hard time realizing that it wasn't
Windows 7.


Until I went to the MS store. Looks aren't the problem. Windows 10
isn't for all computers and the MS published minimum hardware is only
if you like 3 minute boot ups and a very slow machine. My Acer Aspire
7741G can't handle it but updates said it would.

Out of curiosity, in what way do you think 10 is better than 7?


Intel Core i5 480M / 2.66 GHz , Dual-Core , L3 - 3 MB
Max Turbo Speed 2.93 GHz

Chipset - Mobile Intel HM55 Express
(It's SATA2
https://web.archive.org/web/20150226...pset-hm55.html
)

Graphics Processor
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6550 - 1 GB DDR3 VRAM

RAM Configuration - 2 x 2 GB

That setup should be good for any conventional OS.

I would think the provided hard drive, at 5400RPM, would
be slow, and slapping in an SSD would help. A SATA III
SSD should work with the SATA II chips. It's the seek time
assistance that helps, dropping from 19ms to 0.1ms. And the
SSD only has to be big enough to contain the OS partition - the
SSD doesn't have to be a monster to fix this.

There isn't a strong reason to be upgrading a Win7 machine
to Win10, and evaluating the preview versions would have
given a heads-up on what to expect. Win10 is a SmartPhone
OS, with SmartPhone sliders for privacy settings.

Paul

The above is not my machine. My machine has an i3 at 2.13 Ghz and only
512 MB ATI video card.

--
John Q. Public

John Q. Public wrote:
Paul wrote:
John Q. Public wrote:
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 14:34:57 +0100, "John Q. Public"
wrote:


I tried Windows 10. Yuck. I am learning Linux.



Your choice entirely, of course, but in my experience those who think
Window 10 is "yuck" are those who haven't taken the trouble to learn
it and learn how to organize its settings to their liking. And better
yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party utility
like Start10.

If you were to look at and use my computer, which runs Windows 10 and
Start10, you would likely have a hard time realizing that it wasn't
Windows 7.


Until I went to the MS store. Looks aren't the problem. Windows 10
isn't for all computers and the MS published minimum hardware is only
if you like 3 minute boot ups and a very slow machine. My Acer Aspire
7741G can't handle it but updates said it would.

Out of curiosity, in what way do you think 10 is better than 7?


Intel Core i5 480M / 2.66 GHz , Dual-Core , L3 - 3 MB
Max Turbo Speed 2.93 GHz

Chipset - Mobile Intel HM55 Express
(It's SATA2
https://web.archive.org/web/20150226...pset-hm55.html

)

Graphics Processor
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6550 - 1 GB DDR3 VRAM

RAM Configuration - 2 x 2 GB

That setup should be good for any conventional OS.

I would think the provided hard drive, at 5400RPM, would
be slow, and slapping in an SSD would help. A SATA III
SSD should work with the SATA II chips. It's the seek time
assistance that helps, dropping from 19ms to 0.1ms. And the
SSD only has to be big enough to contain the OS partition - the
SSD doesn't have to be a monster to fix this.

There isn't a strong reason to be upgrading a Win7 machine
to Win10, and evaluating the preview versions would have
given a heads-up on what to expect. Win10 is a SmartPhone
OS, with SmartPhone sliders for privacy settings.

Paul

The above is not my machine. My machine has an i3 at 2.13 Ghz and only
512 MB ATI video card.


It should still be enough, but it's getting
close to my 2GHz limit. You have dual cores,
which is one more core than some of us have
on the laptop.

Win10 probably doesn't use compositing, and
that used 128MB of video RAM. The 512MB is only
an issue for gaming (for some games, more is
better). For a basic frame buffer, even
smaller amounts are sufficient.

Paul

Paul wrote:
John Q. Public wrote:
Paul wrote:
John Q. Public wrote:
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 14:34:57 +0100, "John Q. Public"
wrote:


I tried Windows 10. Yuck. I am learning Linux.



Your choice entirely, of course, but in my experience those who think
Window 10 is "yuck" are those who haven't taken the trouble to learn
it and learn how to organize its settings to their liking. And better
yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party utility
like Start10.

If you were to look at and use my computer, which runs Windows 10 and
Start10, you would likely have a hard time realizing that it wasn't
Windows 7.


Until I went to the MS store. Looks aren't the problem. Windows 10
isn't for all computers and the MS published minimum hardware is only
if you like 3 minute boot ups and a very slow machine. My Acer Aspire
7741G can't handle it but updates said it would.

Out of curiosity, in what way do you think 10 is better than 7?


Intel Core i5 480M / 2.66 GHz , Dual-Core , L3 - 3 MB
Max Turbo Speed 2.93 GHz

Chipset - Mobile Intel HM55 Express
(It's SATA2
https://web.archive.org/web/20150226...pset-hm55.html

)

Graphics Processor
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6550 - 1 GB DDR3 VRAM

RAM Configuration - 2 x 2 GB

That setup should be good for any conventional OS.

I would think the provided hard drive, at 5400RPM, would
be slow, and slapping in an SSD would help. A SATA III
SSD should work with the SATA II chips. It's the seek time
assistance that helps, dropping from 19ms to 0.1ms. And the
SSD only has to be big enough to contain the OS partition - the
SSD doesn't have to be a monster to fix this.

There isn't a strong reason to be upgrading a Win7 machine
to Win10, and evaluating the preview versions would have
given a heads-up on what to expect. Win10 is a SmartPhone
OS, with SmartPhone sliders for privacy settings.

Paul

The above is not my machine. My machine has an i3 at 2.13 Ghz and only
512 MB ATI video card.


It should still be enough, but it's getting
close to my 2GHz limit. You have dual cores,
which is one more core than some of us have
on the laptop.

Win10 probably doesn't use compositing, and
that used 128MB of video RAM. The 512MB is only
an issue for gaming (for some games, more is
better). For a basic frame buffer, even
smaller amounts are sufficient.

Paul

I'm happy with 7, know it, may not be around when support ends so I'll
stick with it. I am playing around with Linux Mint on a desktop. So far,
it's pretty easy to use.

--
John Q. Public

On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 17:30:11 +0100, "John Q. Public"
wrote:

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 14:34:57 +0100, "John Q. Public"
wrote:


I tried Windows 10. Yuck. I am learning Linux.



Your choice entirely, of course, but in my experience those who think
Window 10 is "yuck" are those who haven't taken the trouble to learn
it and learn how to organize its settings to their liking. And better
yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party utility
like Start10.

If you were to look at and use my computer, which runs Windows 10 and
Start10, you would likely have a hard time realizing that it wasn't
Windows 7.


Until I went to the MS store. Looks aren't the problem. Windows 10 isn't
for all computers and the MS published minimum hardware is only if you
like 3 minute boot ups and a very slow machine.


Not my experience at all.


My Acer Aspire 7741G
can't handle it but updates said it would.


No comment. I don't anything about your Acer.


Out of curiosity, in what way do you think 10 is better than 7?


Better, more current, security. It's also the platform at which newer
hardware and software will be aimed.

On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 16:46:41 -0000 (UTC), Bert
wrote:

In "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

And better yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party
utility like Start10.

What Windows 10 problems does "Start10" solve?


It's not an issue of problems. It makes it much easier to use.


Why would the ne plus ultra of personal operating systems need a
$5 third-party utility anyway?


I completely agree with you. No third-party utility should be needed,
regardless of price. Microsoft is at fault here, but that doesn't make
Windows 10 "yuck."

And by the way, there is also Classic Shell, which is free. As far as
I'm concerned, it's not quite as good as Start10, but it too is very
good.

On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 12:31:40 -0500, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per Ken Blake, MVP:

Your choice entirely, of course, but in my experience those who think
Window 10 is "yuck" are those who haven't taken the trouble to learn
it and learn how to organize its settings to their liking. And better
yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party utility
like Start10.

Now extrapolate that to a company with 20,000 or 30,000 employees who
use Windows all day, every day - and don't have a lot of time to spend
fooling around "learning it", "learning how to organize it's settings",
and so-forth.

I *still* can't figure out why MS keeps moving the furniture around.

You would think they would have a committee - and if something about a
new OS's UI departs from the previous OS's, they have to go before the
committee and justify that particular moving around of the furniture.

But it seems like there is no such committee and a lot of changes seem
just plain gratuitous. "Add/Remove Programs" == "Programs and
Features".... Multiply that little WTF moment by 30,000 employees and
you have some significant lost man hours.


I largely agree with the points you make. Microsoft is terrible when
it comes to nomenclature. They needlessly change the names of things,
and they use very similar names for very dissimilar products. They
have confused many people with this over the years.

In article , "Ken Blake,
MVP" writes
On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 14:34:57 +0100, "John Q. Public"
wrote:


I tried Windows 10. Yuck. I am learning Linux.



Your choice entirely, of course, but in my experience those who think
Window 10 is "yuck" are those who haven't taken the trouble to learn
it and learn how to organize its settings to their liking. And better
yet, who haven't taken the trouble to install a third-party utility
like Start10.

If you were to look at and use my computer, which runs Windows 10 and
Start10, you would likely have a hard time realizing that it wasn't
Windows 7.

I've ditched it because it was noticeably slower than 8.1 despite the
claims that it loads more quickly.
--
bert

In article , Char Jackson
writes
On Fri, 18 Dec 2015 12:34:53 +0000, bert wrote:

In article , Paul writes
wrote:
All this crap MS is pulling is raising my level of Paranoia and
Anxiety.
DC

Mine is switched off. I have no complaints.

I'm not actively engaged in warfare with the
Windows 10 install. It's an attempt to turn
a desktop into a SmartPhone, and as long
as you're comfortable with the privacy compromises
in your SmartPhone, this is no different.

On several occasions, the Win10 maintenance activities
have prevented me from using the machine as I wanted,
costing me lost time. So that does mean, for
demanding work, the Win10 boot drive just sits
on the shelf. While I can put extra effort into
"feeding and burping" Windows 10 before using it,
I don't intend on doing that as regular procedure.
I will reach for something that "just works" instead.

Paul
Tried W10 on a laptop and immediately noticed how much slower it was.
Just rolled back to 8.1 and am now slowly sorting out the resultant
glitches which weren't there before.

Instead of rolling back, it'd probably be faster and easier to just restore
the system image that you created before you rolled forward.

Isn't that what the roll-back does? (I did have an image just in case)
--
bert

On 12/19/2015 07:34 AM, John Q. Public wrote:
Good Guy wrote:
The fact of the matter is Windows 10 is the future of computing and if
you want to continue using Windows then sooner or later you will need to
upgrade or buy a new computer.

I tried Windows 10. Yuck. I am learning Linux.


It was XP that got me to start using Linux. 8.1 and 10 appear to be much
worse than that.

--
6 days until the winter celebration (Friday December 25, 2015 12:00:00
AM for 1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but
must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting
fairy tales" -- Bertrand Russell

On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 15:28:27 -0600, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 12/19/2015 07:34 AM, John Q. Public wrote:
Good Guy wrote:
The fact of the matter is Windows 10 is the future of computing and if
you want to continue using Windows then sooner or later you will need
to upgrade or buy a new computer.

I tried Windows 10. Yuck. I am learning Linux.

It was XP that got me to start using Linux. 8.1 and 10 appear to be much
worse than that.

It was all the viruses and trojans that got me to start using Linux, a
decade ago.

--
Sam :-)