Any updates to avoid in the recent batch from yester(patch)day? ;)

As far as I can tell (I just forced my laptop to check for updates instead of waiting until 0530 to check), 2952664 has re-appeared, and that's all that I can see, other than security updates.

Looks like this was a relatively harmless Patch Tuesday....this time.

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

Thank you very much!

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Aloha, Uli

I was just presented with a software install permission from Microsoft for the security updates for the standard monthly malicious software removal tool along with security updates for Internet Explorer. You get a Accept/Decline toggle. Any lawyers want to chime in on what rights you are signing away to install the 10 important updates?

MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
MICROSOFT WINDOWS MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL
These license terms are an agreement between Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) and you. Please read them. They apply to the software named above, which includes the media on which you received it, if any. The terms also apply to any Microsoft
* updates,
* supplements,
* Internet-based services, and
* support services
for this software, unless other terms accompany those items. If so, those terms apply.
By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software.
As described below, using some features also operates as your consent to the transmission of certain standard computer information for Internet-based services.
If you comply with these license terms, you have the rights below.
1. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. You may execute any number of copies of the software on your devices running validly licensed copies of Microsoft operating system software (editions and versions specified at www.support.microsoft.com/?kbid=890830).
2. INTERNET-BASED SERVICES. Microsoft provides Internet-based services with the software. It may change or cancel them at any time.
Consent for Internet-Based Services. The software feature described below connects to Microsoft or service provider computer systems over the Internet. In some cases, you will not receive a separate notice when they connect. You may switch off this feature or not use it. For more information about this feature, see www.support.microsoft.com/?kbid=890830. By using this feature, you consent to the transmission of this information. Microsoft does not use the information to identify or contact you.
Computer Information. The following feature uses Internet protocols, which send to the appropriate systems computer information, such as your Internet protocol address, the type of operating system, browser and name and version of the software you are using, and the language code of the device where you installed the software. Microsoft uses this information to make the Internet-based service available to you.
* Malicious Software Removal. Before execution of the software, the software will check for and remove certain malicious software (“Malware”) from your device, which is listed and periodically updated by family at www.support.microsoft.com/?kbid=890830. When the software checks your device for Malware, a report will be sent to Microsoft about any Malware detected, specific information relating to the detection, errors that occurred while the software was checking for Malware, and other information about your device that will help us improve this and other Microsoft products and services. No information included in these reports will be used to identify or contact you. You may disable the software’s reporting functionality by following the instructions found at www.support.microsoft.com/?kbid=890830. For more information, read the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool privacy statement at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=113995.

3. SCOPE OF LICENSE. The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You may not
* work around any technical limitations in the software;
* reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
* make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation;
* publish the software for others to copy;
* rent, lease or lend the software;
* transfer the software or this agreement to any third party; or
* use the software for commercial software hosting services.
4. BACKUP COPY. You may make one backup copy of the software. You may use it only to reinstall the software.
5. DOCUMENTATION. Any person that has valid access to your computer or internal network may copy and use the documentation for your internal, reference purposes.
6. EXPORT RESTRICTIONS. The software is subject to United States export laws and regulations. You must comply with all domestic and international export laws and regulations that apply to the software. These laws include restrictions on destinations, end users and end use. For additional information, see www.microsoft.com/exporting.
7. SUPPORT SERVICES. Because this software is “as is,” we may not provide support services for it.
8. ENTIRE AGREEMENT. This agreement, and the terms for supplements, updates, Internet-based services and support services that you use, are the entire agreement for the software and support services.
9. APPLICABLE LAW.
a. United States. If you acquired the software in the United States, Washington state law governs the interpretation of this agreement and applies to claims for breach of it, regardless of conflict of laws principles. The laws of the state where you live govern all other claims, including claims under state consumer protection laws, unfair competition laws, and in tort.
b. Outside the United States. If you acquired the software in any other country, the laws of that country apply.
10. LEGAL EFFECT. This agreement describes certain legal rights. You may have other rights under the laws of your country. You may also have rights with respect to the party from whom you acquired the software. This agreement does not change your rights under the laws of your country if the laws of your country do not permit it to do so.
11. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY. The software is licensed “as-is.” You bear the risk of using it. Microsoft gives no express warranties, guarantees or conditions. You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws which this agreement cannot change. To the extent permitted under your local laws, Microsoft excludes the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
12. LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF REMEDIES AND DAMAGES. You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to U.S. $5.00. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.
This limitation applies to
* anything related to the software, services, content (including code) on third party Internet sites, or third party programs; and
* claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to the extent permitted by applicable law.
It also applies even if Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages. The above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you because your country may not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental, consequential or other damages.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Any updates to avoid in the recent batch from yester(patch)day? ;)

As far as I can tell (I just forced my laptop to check for updates instead of waiting until 0530 to check), 2952664 has re-appeared, and that's all that I can see, other than security updates.

Looks like this was a relatively harmless Patch Tuesday....this time.

I just checked WSUS.. I see 2977759 there, as well, but my laptop didn't see it. DECLINED!

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

I highly suspect that M$ is installing updates or other patches without consent on Win 8.1 machines. I noticed this morning when booting my 8.1 rigs that they went into the 'reboot after update' routine before loading the desktop. I ran the uninstall batch file on both and noticed several pauses during execution(usually meaning something was found and is being removed).

Anyone else noticing unauthorized update routines on cold boots?

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"Sour Grapes make a bitter Whine." <(0)>

I've had no problems eluding M$'s wanting to upgrade either of my Win7 machines (or those of my customers) once I blocked and hid the KB3035583 update, but then I've always had Windows update set to notify me/them first of updates before any are actually downloaded.

If you leave Windows update to do its own thing then you're just asking for trouble. ;-)

Cheers.

The other thing that I would like to say is that I don't have any 8.1 machines, so I'm rather "in the dark" about the status of available updates for that. I know 7's situation because that's what I use daily. The only time I find out about updates for 8.1 are either when I find them in my research via Google, or, like a few weeks ago, when I do a clean install of someone's 8.1 laptop--which isn't/won't be often, nor as in-depth anyway.



It would not surprise me if they're trying harder with 8.1 than 7, mostly because a lot of people still don't like 8.1. But 7 on the other hand, is kind of the benchmark/baseline to live up to now, and a lot of corporate/enterprise/schools have finally moved up to 7 from XP, and they're not quite willing to move up to something else again so soon.

7 is going to be around for quite some time. I figure it will drag on and on and on like XP did, if only because so many enterprise environments are using it now and A) they don't want to do another upgrade, and B) considering that there isn't a single government of the world who will touch 10 yet over security concerns, I don't see enterprise environments willing to use it, either.

And that's my baseline that I'm using. When governments of the world feel like they can trust 10, then I might be willing to trust it. Yes, you can turn most of the spying/data-mining things off, but not all of them, and not completely off. Some of them turn themselves back on, or when a new update (that you can't control--another reason I don't want it) comes along, it can turn everything back on, and even add new stuff. And you can only turn off stuff that has been found by others....there may be more deeply-rooted things that haven't been found yet--you can't turn it off if you don't know it exists.

So that's what it's going to take for me to move up to 10. Guarantee that it isn't spying on me and sifting through all of my data and archiving it to "The Cloud", and give me back control of my computer and let me choose what updates to install and when they will be installed.

//rant

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

Now you'll be finding that your work computer will also start trying to get Windows 10, as Microsoft shifts its attention to small businesses and other small organizations that need to be bullied into using Windows 10.

Good luck out there.
No, MS don't care that you run software that isn't Windows 10 compatible. Get Windows 10 anyway. Is good for you.

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Now you'll be finding that your work computer will also start trying to get Windows 10, as Microsoft shifts its attention to small businesses and other small organizations that need to be bullied into using Windows 10.

Good luck out there.
No, MS don't care that you run software that isn't Windows 10 compatible. Get Windows 10 anyway. Is good for you.

I actually did some computer work for a local Harley Davidson dealer a few years back and I was almost mortified at how absolutely ancient their computer/database system was.

The database back-end was so old that it had to be run in a very-outdated VM (vmware workstation 2.0) so that it would support an ancient build of SCO, and that's what provided the back-end for invoicing and inventory. And there was some very-custom front-end that was built for 98SE. In 2008, they got the lead programmer from the software firm that had gone defunct 10 years earlier to re-write the front-end to work in XP.

I asked if they had looked into more... modern options, and they said that they had, but there were two things holding them back: licensing and support cost for a database, and then the cost of exporting the SCO database that goes back to like.. 1989 into a newer format was quoted to be more than their entire sales for a quarter.



But let's face it: really small businesses probably don't use it, but mid-range ones to large enterprises use WSUS and domains. You can totally bypass and avoid all the upgrade crap using WSUS alone.

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

I had a conversation yesterday with the IT manager of the company from which I retired. He said they were ordering a new desktop for the store manager in St Louis. When I told him to avoid Win 10 due to the privacy issue he said the word among businesses he knew was that 10 won't be released for commercial clients for some time. They can still purchase Win 7 rigs through CDW who supplies the majority of the equipment they use which they are doing.

As an aside and addendum to the comment regarding the Harley Davidson dealership, my former company was still running Server 2003 until last summer due to licensing costs to support approximately 300 users on top of the licensing costs of M$ Office. And Win 8.1 and 10 does not play well with the VM and network structure of their business. When you add the cost of the upgrade of the POS, Financial and Inventory software provided by INFOR(a business software provider), it approaches $500,000 to stay on the 'bleeding edge' of business.

It's never been cheap to be in bed with M$ and it's gonna get worse.

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"Sour Grapes make a bitter Whine." <(0)>

Oh, and a clarification to the details of the Harley Davidson story. It was in 2011 when I was there for a service call. And the host machine that the ancient VM was running in was a 4U dual Pentium II machine running 2000 Server. Yeah. I mean, it works, and there's still like... two people that know how to do admin tasks in that setup, but it is pretty much totally stable and reliable, so... why change things if it still works?

I was there for an issue on a single workstation, not anything server or back-end related. I just happened to be there when one of those two people that know how it works was upgrading to SCO 3.2.0 in the VM. Yeah. Watch out, guys... we've got some bleeding-edge stuff going on here.

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

I actually did some computer work for a local Harley Davidson dealer a few years back and I was almost mortified at how absolutely ancient their computer/database system was.

Reminds me of a car parts storage I worked at a couple years back, where they had a Commodore 64 do the printing of the orders. Asking why, they said they didn't see why they needed a PC with new software etc. when this old C64 could do as well. Aside from that, it wouldn't so easily be infected with any of today's viruses. :-)

Flipping the on switch in the morning, it would auto-load the required software from the floppy drive and be printing away within a minute. Try that with a PC. :)

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WOW. Apple users brag about how hackers concentrate on MS over apple and they are safe. I owned a couple C64 and I gotta admit, Never once did I worry about a virus, adware or Trojan. Did they ever sell anti-virus for C64? Your HD dealer is probably correct, It working and aint broke, why fix it.

Bob

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Sometimes I wonder, what happened to all the people I gave directions to?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SETI@home classic workunits 4,321
SETI@home classic CPU time 22,169 hours

It's HARD to download a virus at 56k baud on a plugin phone modem.....":D)

I miss my C64, still got the monitor, keyboard/cpu and the floppy drive.....I may try to boot it tomorrow, if I can find a disk. That was my first exposure to a GUI interface, had an office program called 'Magicdesk' or 'Superdesk' really primitive but yes you could print invoices with it.

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"Sour Grapes make a bitter Whine." <(0)>

It's HARD to download a virus at 56k baud on a plugin phone modem.....":D)

56k...WOW! That would've been pretty fast for a C64. The speediest I ever had was a VOLKS 6480 that topped out at 1200bps.



Sold it on eBay about 15 years ago for $5!

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Good old times.

That reminds me we had to write a virus for the C64 in university.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

I stand corrected Jeff, it WAS a lot slower. I now recall baud rates of 300/600/1200. It's just been SO LONG ago. And I also had a volksmodem.....":D)

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"Sour Grapes make a bitter Whine." <(0)>

Greetings,

Did the Commodore have to use peripherals made for it?

Back in the day, when I was learning computing, it was on a Tandy Color Computer 3 and I was using peripherals not specific to it including a 2400 Baud modem. The OS used was OS-9 from Microware Systems Corporation. It was a derivative of Unix.

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

It's never been cheap to be in bed with M$ and it's gonna get worse.

Whores always overcharge and you never get what you pay up front for.

x1
......":D)........":D)

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"Sour Grapes make a bitter Whine." <(0)>

More news you didn't want. People buying new hardware, more precisely the new CPUs from Intel, AMD and Qualcomm, but also GPUs from Intel, AMD and Nvidia, should know that soon their hardware is only fully supported under Windows 10.

The Intel Skylake processors will have support until 17 July 2017 for some of this processor's classes on Windows 7 and 8.1, the newer ones will only be supported by Windows 10. The newer Intel Kaby Lake processor, the QualComm 8996 processor and the Bristol Ridge processor by AMD will all only have Windows 10 support.

This does not mean they don't work with older OSes, just that when you have problems that you're required to update to Windows 10 before you're eligible for support.

Apropos, for those of you thinking, "heck it, I'll go to Linux then", these also require newer kernel versions to fully support the new hardware, but at least updating here is free.

Two significant improvements have been integrated in what Larabel described as "a calm release cycle": a reworked open source support platform for Nvidia graphics cards and support for Intel's latest 6th Generation Skylake processors.

The vast majority of the changes, around 70 percent, are to drivers, while just 10 percent are architectural. There's also initial support for AMD R9 Fury graphics chips, SMP scheduler optimisations and fixes to the file system.

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