Windows is getting disgusting

[RoGeorge]

I have not played with windows 10 much myself but I presume one way to block this stuff is to block all the outgoing connections to their servers right at your firewall.  They probably use the same IPs for updates too though so you'd lose ability to update.

That is the biggest danger/offense/problem that people is complaining about. You are no longer in control of your machine.

You set something, then your setting is ignored without warning. If you notice it doesn't work as you set it, then you spend hours debugging what is wrong, just to find out it's a new "feature", and it's in the EULA too. You agreed with EULA, so have a nice life.

E.g. https://www.petri.com/windows-10-ignoring-hosts-file-specific-name-resolution

[ovnr]

E.g. https://www.petri.com/windows-10-ignoring-hosts-file-specific-name-resolution

Haha. Oh, MS, you never cease to amaze me in how user-hostile you can get.

My policy is that I'll stick with Win7 until it becomes nonviable, then move to Linux. Unless MS does a complete 180 and launches Win11 with all the fucking nonsense stripped out, which is about as likely as me winning every lottery in the world at once.

What annoys me the most isn't that MS has completely fucked up everything they've touched the last 5 or so years, it's the apologists. "Oh, but the lusers can't be trusted with that", "I'm sure they would never abuse any collected data", "But this is the future, just accept it", "Once you get used to it you'll love it", and so on. Really? Did you get Stockholm syndrome from a fucking OS upgrade, or are you just stupid?

I have no issue accepting that certain changes were needed due to your average luser fucking up their machine, but things like intentionally reverting settings and that sort of shit isn't fine. If MS made power users jump through hoops to set things (group policies, registry tweaks, etc), that'd be fine. Just respect that people don't want all your new shit and let them use their own damn computer the way they want to.

[nctnico]

E.g. https://www.petri.com/windows-10-ignoring-hosts-file-specific-name-resolution

Haha. Oh, MS, you never cease to amaze me in how user-hostile you can get.

My policy is that I'll stick with Win7 until it becomes nonviable, then move to Linux.

You are too kind; I moved to Linux when XP started to misbehave too much.
Recently it took 3 days to re-install Windows7 on my wife's laptop from a recovery partition on the harddrive. First 2 days to install, then 1 day to work on the updates and then over an hour to install the printer (HP office network printer) and USB scanner (the latter take 3 and 0 mouse clicks on Linux).

[Howardlong]

E.g. https://www.petri.com/windows-10-ignoring-hosts-file-specific-name-resolution

Haha. Oh, MS, you never cease to amaze me in how user-hostile you can get.

My policy is that I'll stick with Win7 until it becomes nonviable, then move to Linux.

You are too kind; I moved to Linux when XP started to misbehave too much.
Recently it took 3 days to re-install Windows7 on my wife's laptop from a recovery partition on the harddrive. First 2 days to install, then 1 day to work on the updates and then over an hour to install the printer (HP office network printer) and USB scanner (the latter take 3 and 0 mouse clicks on Linux).

MS pretty much broke Windows updates on Windows 7, so they now provide monthly (in)convenience rollup packages that you have to know about which do dramatically speed up the process. If you don't know about them, it'll take of the oreder of days to install as you discovered. Just like Linux, if you have the benefit of the right experience, many tasks can be expedited. But no OS is turnkey nowadays, they all have shitty bugs, mostly self induced by cramming in useless bloat features needlessly, unnecessarily deprecating stuff, and, particuarly for Microsoft nowadays, too little attention paid to regression testing. Apparently that's progress.

[ovnr]

Windows updates on a fresh install: WSUS offline to the rescue. Though, it's started needing a swift kick to the arse first to get going.

[rdl]

The last time I re-installed Windows 7, I couldn't get the updates to work because they'd changed how it works. I screwed around for a day or so and finally gave up. I meant to fix it for good at some point, but it's been like 3 months now and all is fine. Most of those updates are to fix security problems with internet explorer which I never use. That computer is only used for games and a bit of youtube anyway.

[amspire]

The last time I re-installed Windows 7, I couldn't get the updates to work because they'd changed how it works. I screwed around for a day or so and finally gave up. I meant to fix it for good at some point, but it's been like 3 months now and all is fine. Most of those updates are to fix security problems with internet explorer which I never use. That computer is only used for games and a bit of youtube anyway.

If you go to Programs and Features, and then go into the "Turn Windows Features On or Off" (or whatever they call it in Win7), you can disable Internet Explorer.

On some dual graphics notebooks, IE10 will not install after a clean Windows7 installation and it stops all following Windows 7 updates. Disabling IE allows the Windows updates to work.

[suicidaleggroll]

Ugh...IE

I remember back in 2001 or so I was cleaning up my computer and decided to uninstall IE because A: I never used it, and B: it was a piece of crap.  Windows happily removed it, and as a result basically bricked the entire OS.  Not even reinstalling it fixed the problem, I ended up having to wipe and reinstall the entire OS.  That was the moment I started seriously considering Linux.  If MS could be so arrogant that they would knowingly integrate their shitty web browser into the core of the OS to the point that removing it would brick the entire system, then that's a company I want nothing to do with.  It's only gotten worse since then...much, much worse.

[Halcyon]

E.g. https://www.petri.com/windows-10-ignoring-hosts-file-specific-name-resolution

Haha. Oh, MS, you never cease to amaze me in how user-hostile you can get.

My policy is that I'll stick with Win7 until it becomes nonviable, then move to Linux. Unless MS does a complete 180 and launches Win11 with all the fucking nonsense stripped out, which is about as likely as me winning every lottery in the world at once.

100% agree. I'm a firm believer of "why fix something that isn't broken?".

I still run Windows XP on my laptop (not my primary machine but one I use several times a week). Why? Because it's reasonably quick and does exactly what I need it to do.  My main machine is running Windows 7 and I'll continue to do so until at least the extended support period ends in 2020.

[nctnico]

The last time I re-installed Windows 7, I couldn't get the updates to work because they'd changed how it works.

Now you mentioned it I recall needing to install some hotfix before the updates would work. I already purged that from my memory!

[ECEdesign]

@nctnico what flavor of Linux are you running?  I am trying to switch to debian but there are a lot of programs I need in windows and getting things to work in linux tends to be fairly finicky.

[james_s]

I've tried a bunch of different distros but I always seem to come back to Debian.

[rdl]

The last time I re-installed Windows 7, I couldn't get the updates to work because they'd changed how it works.

Now you mentioned it I recall needing to install some hotfix before the updates would work. I already purged that from my memory!

Best I remember, you have to turn the automatic updates off, then manually download and install one specific update. After that it will work normally. You have to inspect every update's KB number though, because there's a bunch that add a lot of the same "telemetry" as Windows 10 and need to be blocked.

[Howardlong]

As I mentioned earlier, you need to run the current "Convenience Rollup" for Windows 7.

MS really need to do some soul searching, the practical benefits of using Windows as opposed to other options are diminishing rapidly.

[BradC]

@nctnico what flavor of Linux are you running?  I am trying to switch to debian but there are a lot of programs I need in windows and getting things to work in linux tends to be fairly finicky.

I've been using Linux on the desktop since about 96, but I've always had at least one Windows vm for software I had no choice to use. Windows runs better under Linux than it does on the bare metal and unless you need native 3D I highly recommend it. Easy to keep firewalled, can snapshot and roll back to make cleaning up easy.. What's not to like?

I have used Debian since 96, but after the systemd fiasco during the Jessie beta leaving a number of my machines unbootable I've gravitated elsewhere. Not getting into that debate.

[nctnico]

@nctnico what flavor of Linux are you running?  I am trying to switch to debian but there are a lot of programs I need in windows and getting things to work in linux tends to be fairly finicky.

I've been using Debian exclusively for about 20 years (but until a couple of years ago mainly as a server OS). I run Windows in virtual machines using Virtualbox which works excellent. It took me a couple of years though to switch over completely and I did buy a new PC which has compatible hardware (IIRC especially an Nvidia graphics card).

[amspire]

The last time I re-installed Windows 7, I couldn't get the updates to work because they'd changed how it works.

Now you mentioned it I recall needing to install some hotfix before the updates would work. I already purged that from my memory!

Best I remember, you have to turn the automatic updates off, then manually download and install one specific update. After that it will work normally. You have to inspect every update's KB number though, because there's a bunch that add a lot of the same "telemetry" as Windows 10 and need to be blocked.

I haven't installed the original SP0 Windows 7 for years. You should slipstream at least Service Pack 1 into the install disk, but it is possible to add more updates. Just do a search for "Windows 7 Slipstream" and you will find a number of different methods ranging from the built-in slip streaming commands to utilities that make it easier.

Better still, nowadays, I make a Windows 7 VM in Virtualbox (or whatever you use) - make sure you do not install guest extensions (drivers) for Virtualbox, do all the updates and then make a sysprep image set to the OOBE (Out Of Box Experience). Make sure you do not reboot. Get a disk image and copy it to hard drives and boot computers from the image. It takes 10 minutes imaging to a harddrive and you end up with a fully updated Windows 7 running on the new PC/notebook. You will have to install drivers.

[madires]

Users love Win10: https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-windows-10-forced-updates-auto-restarts-are-the-worst/

Broken by design

[CraigHB]

MS decides how you will use your computer, MS puts MS first. 

I stayed on winXP as long as I could and finally moved to win7 recently.  I had a hell of a time whipping win7 into shape with third party tools and a good number of registry hacks.  It was pretty time consuming.  In reading this thread win10 sounds pretty ugly.  Don't know if I can stomach going through that again for win10.

I've been an on and off Linux user for quite a long time and I have my gripes with Linux.  If software developers would fully support Linux the decision would be easier.  It's really quite a bit of work to get a Linux system operating that way you want it to.  There are invariably programs that don't have Linux equivalents and there's no assurance of any quality.  Then there's the way in which settings are handled.  On one one hand there's the awful Windows registry and on the other you have configuration files crammed into nooks and crannies all over the system.  Two extremes and neither provides a very good solution.

[rdl]

I thought the "convenience roll up" was to be avoided because of added telemetry. I don't know, all I wanted to do was get it reasonably updated, in a way that I could pick and choose what I wanted, then make a back up that I'd use for all future re-installs. At this point it's not high on my list of important things to do. I only use it on the one computer because of games. My OEM install disk has SP1 and everything runs fine. I just wish I could give it a separate internet connection to keep it isolated from the rest of the network.

[Howardlong]

From W7 SP1 up to now there are many, many hundreds of individual underlying updates. If you want to pick and choose you're welcome to, but a convenience update won't let you do that as far as I know. As MS pretty much broke the update process to the extent where it would take days to update without the convenience updates, you're stuck.

Ironically, one of the updates in the convenience rollups includes the Customer Experience Improvement Program which is the main slurper which you can turn off, but it's not anything like the telemetry and key logging that Windows 10 takes.

[rdl]

If I remember right, there are only about 8 or 10 updates that need to be avoided because they add similar telemetry as Windows 10. I'm pretty sure that several are included with the convenience roll up and can't be separated out, so I would stop short of that. I thought they were fixing their web site so that individual updates could be downloaded manually (it used to only work with IE), but I haven't followed the whole mess in months so I don't know. I thought the old update system was still working, but maybe that's been shut off.

What I want next is a way to isolate the Windows computer from the local network, so I may look into pfSense or something similar. I already shut down my Windows Server media storage and replaced it with a FreeNAS system. If I can do that then I won't care if Windows 7 ever gets updated.

[NiHaoMike]

Users love Win10: https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-windows-10-forced-updates-auto-restarts-are-the-worst/

Broken by design

Encourage users to call Microsoft tech support every time it happens. If nothing else, that will increase their costs.

[Lightages]

I am on my last installations of Windows. I am on W7 and it won't go any further than that. If I need to do a complete reinstall in the future, it will be a flavor of Linux. No more MS for me once these machines die.

I have posted utilities earlier in this thread for those wanting to remove and avoid the W10 spying capabilities that are added to W7.

[CraigHB]

I could stay at win7 indefinitely as well.  Problem is MS forces you to migrate by making their products obsolete.  They seem to have a lifecycle about 6 years or so.  Actually it's the software developers that make you move ahead.  They stop supporting their products for a particular version of Windows when MS says so.  If developers would keep supporting those older versions of Windows there would be no necessity to migrate to a newer version.  The only reason I had to migrate to win7 is because some of my programs required it.  It's the software developers that can force Microsoft's hand but they don't do it.  It's also the reason Linux is an issue for me, software developers don't always support it.  Mac suffers from that to some extent as well.  Though moving to Mac is not a great option either.  They do the same thing MS does, but with an even shorter lifecycle.