Category Archives: Windows 10

In keeping with its traditionally senseless naming conventions, Microsoft decides to skip Windows 9 and call its next O/S Windows 10.

Microsoft, Patches and updates, Things that are bad, Windows 10

Microsoft’s latest tactic for keeping us in line

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I’m no longer in the Windows 10 Insider Preview program, but I still see Microsoft’s preview build announcements. The latest is for build 14926.

The announcement for build 14926 reveals yet another reminder that we are just pawns in Microsoft’s overall strategy. Anyone participating in the Preview program must allow Microsoft to update their Windows 10 computer, and if they don’t cooperate, the computer will stop working. Specifically, it will start rebooting itself every three hours, and if that doesn’t force your cooperation, eventually the computer will stop booting altogether.

My reaction to this news (click for animated version).
My reaction to this news (click for animated version).

Update 2016Sep22: The announcement for Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14931 confirms that this is Microsoft’s new policy. No explanation is provided, although if pressed, I’m sure Microsoft would bloviate about ‘user experience’, ‘reliability’ and other things that sound good but deflect attention away from what’s actually going on, which is that Microsoft really wants to control what happens on your computer.

Microsoft, Patches and updates, Windows 10

Windows 10 anniversary update will take months to complete

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It’s been a month since the anniversary update was released, which has some people wondering why their Windows 10 computers haven’t yet been updated.

It turns out that Microsoft is being extraordinarily cautious, and doesn’t expect the rollout to be complete until November. Thankfully, the update can be installed manually using the Windows 10 Upgrade Tool.

Microsoft’s caution makes sense when you consider what they are doing with Windows testing. It appears that Microsoft is doing a lot less testing in-house, and pinning its hopes on user feedback. The anniversary update is being rolled out first to computers that – based on their hardware and configuration – are least likely to experience problems. This only confirms Microsoft’s disdain for power users, because they are much more likely to encounter problems.

If Microsoft hates power users so much, why don’t they just come out and say it. Then we can all just move to Linux and forget about Windows, except as an object of ridicule.

Microsoft, Patches and updates, Things that are bad, Windows 10

Windows 10 update problems continue

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Recent updates to Windows 10 are causing headaches for Kindle and Powershell users.

Kindle users are reporting that simply plugging their Kindle into their Windows 10 PC is causing Windows 10 to crash. Two important Powershell features were rendered inoperable by the updates, making the jobs of system administrators more difficult.

Both problems are apparently the result of poorly-packaged cumulative updates. Microsoft is working on fixes, but seems to be in no hurry, since the fixes will not be available until August 30.

As with the webcam problems reported last week, these problems highlight what appear to be major holes in Microsoft’s new testing process, which relies on user feedback. Clearly, huge swaths of functionality are not being tested either by Microsoft or Insider users.

Privacy, Windows 10

The EFF scolds Microsoft for anti-consumer Windows 10 tactics

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is “the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world.” If you’re not familiar with their work, you should be.

In a recent post on their site, the EFF provides a scathing review of Microsoft’s troublesome decisions in relation to Windows 10, including: hitherto unheard-of free upgrades; insistent and entrenched upgrade prompts on Windows 7 and 8; pushing Windows 10 upgrades via Windows Update; categorizing privacy-compromising and advertising-related updates as important for security; user interface tricks that are common to malware; collecting and transmitting large amounts of potentially sensitive data from Windows computers to Microsoft; failing to provide either adequate explanations for — or methods for disabling — various unwanted features; obfuscating their intentions behind claims of improved security and enhanced functionality; and claims that Windows Update is somehow unable to function without privacy-violating functionality enabled.

It concludes with a stern warning:

Microsoft should come clean with its user community. The company needs to acknowledge its missteps and offer real, meaningful opt-outs to the users who want them, preferably in a single unified screen. It also needs to be straightforward in separating security updates from operating system upgrades going forward, and not try to bypass user choice and privacy expectations.

Otherwise it will face backlash in the form of individual lawsuits, state attorney general investigations, and government investigations.

We at EFF have heard from many users who have asked us to take action, and we urge Microsoft to listen to these concerns and incorporate this feedback into the next release of its operating system. Otherwise, Microsoft may find that it has inadvertently discovered just how far it can push its users before they abandon a once-trusted company for a better, more privacy-protective solution.

Windows users face a choice:

  • Option #1: Continue using Windows 7, 8 and 10. Trust that Microsoft’s intentions are good; that they are not really trying to control what we see, and track what we do, when we use Windows.
  • Option #2: Continue using Windows 7, 8 and 10. Assume that Microsoft will back down from its more aggressive moves, whether prompted by consumer backlash or legal action.
  • Option #3: Continue using Windows 7, 8 and 10. Disable what you can, block what you can, and stop using Windows Update, hoping that this will prevent Microsoft from compromising your privacy, but making your computer increasingly less secure.
  • Option #4: Continue using Windows 7, 8 and 10. Rely on the computing community to develop ways to block Microsoft’s attempts to control and monitor users (without compromising security), as we’ve already seen in the form of GWX Control Panel and other software.
  • Option #5: Stop using Windows 7, 8 and 10. Rather than wait for Microsoft’s plans to reach their probable conclusion (a Microsoft-controlled advertising platform on every desktop), switch to a less problematic operating system, such as Linux.

Recommendation: Option #5 if you can; otherwise Option #4. Option #3 should be viewed as a temporary solution only, and dangerous in the long run. Option #2 is probably overly optimistic. Option #1 is just sadly naive.

The Verge and Techdirt have their own take on the EFF’s post.

Microsoft, Patches and updates, Things that are bad, Windows 10

Windows 10 update breaks many webcams

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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.

Adware, Linux, Microsoft, Patches and updates, Privacy, Things that are bad, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8.x

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

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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.

Microsoft, Patches and updates, Windows 10

Windows 10 anniversary edition

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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:

Microsoft, Things that are bad, Windows 10

New restrictions for Windows 10 Pro version

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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.

Microsoft, Patches and updates, Windows 10

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14393

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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

Microsoft, Windows 10

Free Windows 10 upgrade offer ending soon

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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.