Category Archives: Windows

Windows 10 update breaks many webcams

Microsoft wants us to let them update our Windows computers whenever they choose. Anyone using the Windows 10 Home edition is already living with this new reality, and — short of upgrading to Windows 10 Professional — can do nothing about it.

Of course, Windows 10 Professional is only slightly less invasive, as it only lets users delay updates for a few weeks. The only way to regain complete control over updates is to use one of the extremely pricey Enterprise or Education editions.

If you wanted to demonstrate just how awful this all is, you couldn’t ask for a better example than the recent anniversary update, which caused huge numbers of webcams to stop working.

Nothing in the release notes for the anniversary update provided any clues that this might happen. I imagine plenty of people simply assumed that their webcams had failed. Some may even have purchased new webcams.

Microsoft is apparently working on a fix, but there’s no indication of when it will be available. In the meantime, there are a lot of angry webcam users out there.

But wait a second: why wasn’t this problem reported by people with affected webcams who are on the Windows 10 Insider Preview program? The problematic changes were available to those users well in advance of the anniversary update’s release. If it was reported, Microsoft apparently failed to grasp the scope of the problem. A more likely explanation is that Insider Preview participants either don’t have webcam hardware (e.g. they test Windows 10 on a virtual machine), or simply never thought to test their webcam. Either way, Microsoft failed to perform adequate internal testing, and this doesn’t bode well for Microsoft’s reliance on the new Feedback mechanism.

Microsoft: “Upgrade to Windows 10 or we’ll make Windows 7 and 8.1 just as bad.”

Microsoft just announced the next move in their fight to push their advertising platform into our faces, and it’s very bad.

Let’s review, shall we? Microsoft really wants you to use Windows 10. Their official explanation for this includes vague language about reliability, security, productivity, and a consistent interface across platforms. Their claims may be true, but they hide the real reason, which is that Microsoft saw how much money Google makes from advertising, realized that they had a captive audience in Windows users, and added advertising infrastructure to Windows 10 to capitalize on that. The privacy-annihiliating features are easily explained: the more Microsoft knows about its users, the higher the value of the advertising platform, since ads can be better targeted.

A short history of Microsoft’s sneakiest Windows 10 moves

Move #1: Offer free Windows 10 upgrades for Windows 7 and 8.1 users. Who doesn’t like free stuff? Many people jumped at this opportunity, assuming that newer is better.

Move #2: Dismayed by the poor reception of Windows 10, and upset by all the recommendations to avoid it, Microsoft creates updates for Windows 7 and 8.1 that continually pester users into upgrading, in some cases actually upgrading against their wishes or by tricking them. Angry users fight back by identifying and avoiding the problematic updates.

Move #3: Still not happy with people hanging on to Windows 7 and 8.1, Microsoft creates updates that add Windows 10 features to Windows 7 and 8.1, including instrumentation related to advertising. Again, users fight back by identifying and avoiding these updates.

Move #4: Microsoft announces that business and education customers can avoid all of the privacy-compromising and advertising-related features of Windows 10 through the use of Group Policy. This is good news for bus/edu customers, but then again, those customers pay a high premium for Enterprise versions of Windows already. At least now Windows 10 is a viable option for those customers.

Move #5: Microsoft realizes that the Group Policy tweaks provided for bus/edu customers can also be applied to Pro versions of Windows, Microsoft disables those settings in the Pro version. Windows 10 Home users never had access to those settings. Angry users are running out of options.

Move #6: Which brings us to today. Since the only way to avoid privacy and advertising issues (borrowed from Windows 10) in Windows 7/8.1 will be to stop using Windows Update entirely, angry users are now looking at alternative operating systems.

We know business and education customers won’t be affected by this latest change. The rest of us will have to suffer – or switch.

Assuming Microsoft doesn’t back way from this decision, I imagine my future computing setup to consist primarily of my existing Linux server, and one or two Linux machines for everyday use, development, blogging, media, etc. I’ll keep a single Windows XP machine for running older games and nothing else. In this scenario, I won’t run newer games if they don’t have a console version. Aside: if I’m not the only person doing this, we might see a distinct decline in PC gaming.

Dear Microsoft: I only kind of disliked you before. Now…

Computerworld has more. Thanks for the tip, Pat.

Opera update for Windows XP and Vista

Opera is now the only major web browser that still supports Windows XP and Vista. If you’re still using either of those operating systems and browse the web, you should definitely stop using Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome, and switch to Opera. Browsing the web is dangerous enough without the added risk of using a browser that has known security vulnerabilities that will never be fixed.

Note that the most recent Opera version that supports Windows XP and Vista is 36. It wasn’t easy to find older versions on the Opera web site, but I eventually found a page that allows you to download any version by platform.

A recent update to Opera 36 addresses security issues that are specific to XP and Vista. The announcement doesn’t mention the actual new version number, but based on my research, it seems to be 36.0.2130.65.

If you’re using Opera on XP or Vista, make sure you install the new version. It should update itself automatically, but you can also download Opera 36.0.2130.65 directly.

I’ve tried to locate release notes for the new version, with no luck. According to the announcement, several security fixes previously applied to later versions were back-ported to Opera 36.

Silverlight 5.1.50428.0

Silverlight 5.1.50428.0 was released on June 21. Windows systems configured for auto-update should have received the update as soon as it became available. Without auto-update enabled, the new version should have been installed the first time Windows Update was run after June 21. The update is designated KB3162593.

Fortunately, the new version doesn’t fix any security issues. According to the release notes, it “Fixes the DateTime parsing for Norwegian and Serbian cultures.” So, not all that interesting, and certainly not an urgent update.

Patch Tuesday for August 2016

It’s update time again. This month Microsoft is making available nine updates, affecting Windows, Internet Explorer, Edge, and Office. Five of the updates are flagged as Critical. A total 38 vulnerabilities are addressed with these updates.

The associated bulletin from Microsoft has additional details.

There’s also one new security advisory: Update for Kernel Mode Blacklist.

Windows 10 anniversary edition

Despite my extreme disappointment with Microsoft’s decision to prevent disabling advertising and privacy-compromising features in the Pro version of Windows 10, I am still running it on my test PC – for now. I don’t need to be running Windows 10 to talk about it, so I’ll be switching my test PC back to Windows 7 or 8.1 in the near future.

The anniversary update, which could fairly be described as Windows 10 Service Pack 1, has arrived. If you’re in the Windows 10 Insider Preview program, you’ve already seen all the changes that come with this update. For those of you not in the Insider program, here’s what the anniversary update includes: Windows Ink, a doodling program for tablets; improvements to the Start page, Start menu, notification center, taskbar, and other user interface elements; Cortana improvements; plus extensions and other improvements for Edge.

If you’re running Windows 10, you can get the anniversary update from Windows Update. You can also clean install it from an ISO image available from Microsoft.

Once the anniversary update is installed, Windows 10 will identify its version as Version 1607; OS Build 14393.10.

I haven’t encountered any new problems since my test PC upgraded itself to the anniversary version.

Before I remove Windows 10 forever from my test PC, I’m going to spend a bit of time looking into the new Pro version restrictions. There’s a small chance that some smart person will find a way around them; if so, I’ll post about it on this site.

Information from Microsoft:

New restrictions for Windows 10 Pro version

When it became clear that Microsoft intended Windows 10 to be an advertising platform, I wondered how they would sell it to business and education customers (see my Windows 10 review). I doubted that anyone would allow Windows 10 into the workplace unless the advertising and related privacy-compromising instrumentation could be disabled.

It wasn’t long before we started seeing tools and techniques for turning off these undesirable features, and Microsoft even provided some of their own, in the form of Group Policy settings.

The Group Policy editor is included with all versions of Windows 10 except Home. It makes the job of managing Windows settings easier for system administrators, since the alternative is editing the Windows registry.

So the answer to my question about disabling unwanted Windows 10 features for business customers would be Group Policy. Which is okay, but doesn’t help anyone using the Home version. Which is one reason why I tell people to avoid Windows 10 Home. Unless you’re on a tight budget, and don’t mind seeing advertising in your O/S, Windows 10 Professional is highly recommended for personal use.

So: get Windows 10 Pro, disable all the unwanted advertising and privacy-related settings, and you’re good to go, right? Not so fast.

The folks over at GHacks recently confirmed that Microsoft will lock down Group Policy in the Pro version of Windows 10 with the upcoming anniversary update. Many of the more annoying features will still have visible settings in the Group Policy editor, but changing them will have no effect. Even changing the corresponding settings in the registry apparently won’t work.

Microsoft’s message to the world seems to be “Okay, you don’t want us to advertise and track your users in Windows 10 in the workplace, so we’ll give you some tools to turn those features off. But we’ll be damned if we’ll let anyone else (i.e. Home and Pro users) turn that stuff off.”

To which my response is: “Dear Microsoft: Screw you. I won’t buy Windows 10. I won’t use Windows 10. I will tell anyone who cares to listen that they should avoid Windows 10 like they would Ebola. I will use Windows 7 and 8.1 until you abandon them, and then switch to Linux.”

There’s more over at BetaNews.

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14393

According to the announcement, Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14393 consists of bug fixes and reliability improvements. Which is a good thing, because according to several sources, build 14393 is what Microsoft will use for the Windows 10 anniversary update.

The anniversary update will become available on August 2, and will be available for free for anyone already running Windows 10 or on the Insider Preview program. If you want it for free and you’re not yet running Windows 10, you have until tomorrow (July 29) to upgrade your Windows 7 or 8.1 computer.

Ars Technica: Windows 10 Anniversary Update is ready to go and free for just a few more days

The Verge: Windows 10 Anniversary Update: the 10 best new features

Free Windows 10 upgrade offer ending soon

If you want to take advantage of Microsoft’s free Windows 10 upgrade offer for Windows 7 and 8.1, time is running out. The offer will end on July 29.

Of course, there’s nothing particularly compelling about Windows 10. Unless you’re excited by the idea of seeing advertising in Windows. Or happy that (by default) Microsoft will track your Windows 10 activity.

Both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 are still excellent operating systems. Windows 7 will be supported by Microsoft until January 14, 2020. Windows 8.1 will be supported until January 10, 2023. That means Microsoft will continue to develop (and make publicly available) security updates until 2020 for Windows 7 and 2023 for Windows 8.1.

More Windows 10 Insider Preview Builds

The rapid pace of Windows 10 Preview builds being delivered to my test PC continues. I guess that’s what Microsoft meant when it described this release channel as ‘Fast’.

In the last week or so, my test PC has been updated four times, to Windows 10 preview builds 14383, 14385, 14388, and 14390.

Given that each of these new builds is effectively a new install of Windows 10, they are surprisingly non-intrusive. The downloads are of course large, so there’s a bandwidth consideration. But the downloads happen in the background, and the installs and subsequent restarts happen during off hours (at night). Often I don’t notice the change until I start copying files and notice that Explorer’s copy dialog has once again reverted to its default, simple view.

Note: the Windows 10 version number is no longer visible on the desktop. Microsoft says “the desktop watermark is now gone. This is because we’re beginning to check in final code in preparation for releasing the Windows 10 Anniversary Update”. I’m not sure I follow the logic there, but at least it’s somewhat consistent. The watermark stops appearing when a release is imminent.

Build 14383

Bug fixes and performance improvements.

Build 14385

Bug fixes and performance improvements.

Build 14388

Bug fixes; reliability and performance improvements.

Build 14390

Bug fixes.