Another consumer fights back against Windows 10 pushiness and wins
He got $650 and an apology, which is more than most people have gotten.

Jesse Worley, an independent IT contractor, had set up a Windows 7 machine to look like Windows XP for his grandfather, who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. One of the palliative ways of treating the condition is to surround the sufferer with the familiar, so Worley wanted to make the Windows 7 PC look like XP, which his grandfather knew well before the condition struck.

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In a lengthy post on his personal website (he eschews all social media, so it took a while for his story to get around), Worley documents the process. Like every other Windows 7 user, Worley's grandfather was bombarded with the Get Windows X (GWX) app.

"My grandfather knows better than to say 'yes' to things that randomly pop up on his screen, so we had absolutely no problem explaining to him that Windows 10 wasn’t something we needed, and that when it came up he just needed to say no. He did so successfully for more than 6 months while Microsoft bothered him with the same pop-up over and over and over again, and would have continued to do so if Microsoft hadn’t gone out of their way to trick him," he wrote.

As I had mentioned previously. I had setup a Windows 7 VM and let it sit. When I checked on it sometime later I found I had a Windows 10 VM. Since the "free upgrade" period is over. I was thinking about trying that again to see what would happen.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

As I had mentioned previously. I had setup a Windows 7 VM and let it sit. When I checked on it sometime later I found I had a Windows 10 VM. Since the "free upgrade" period is over. I was thinking about trying that again to see what would happen.

At this point, it will stay Win 7 if you recreate it as such.

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. . . and it gets even more Orwellian.

Allow Experimentation on Windows 10

With the December 2016 rollup for Win 7 64bit installed, i got 1-2 bsods per day with KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED in ntoskrnl.exe. I first had the new nvidia driver in mind, but going back to an older driver did not fix the issue. Uninstalling the last December rollup fixed that issue for more than 3 days now. Interestingly uninstalling the rollup and disabling it in windows update triggered to offer the security updates on their own, one by one, not in a big package with tons of unwanted stuff. :O

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Aloha, Uli

Who would of ever thunk it????

Microsoft Became Too Pushy With Windows 10 Updates, Agrees Chris Capossela

In case you don’t know or have forgotten, Microsoft was very aggressive with its free Windows 10 upgrade offer. The company received a lot of criticism for being too pushy with the customers and technically forcing them to update to the new version of Windows. Many users went on to complain that the Windows 10 update was installed on their computers even after they refused the update.

Well, Microsoft has finally acknowledged that it wasn’t a very smart move on the company’s part. In the latest Windows Weekly edition, Microsoft’s CMO Chris Capossela said that Microsoft went too far when it changed the behaviour of the X button. The two weeks, between the moment when the complaints started pouring in and when the company released a patch to resolve it, were “very painful”, said Capossela.

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I'm running 7 on my cruncher. And I have zero problems with 10 trying to update. I have something giving 10 a problem when trying to update and it fails. I have no problems with my cruncher giving M$ the finger for the time being.

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I'm running 7 on my cruncher. And I have zero problems with 10 trying to update. I have something giving 10 a problem when trying to update and it fails. I have no problems with my cruncher giving M$ the finger for the time being.

The free and forced upgrades to Win10 finished back on the 29th July this year (yes almost 5 months ago now) and those with older windows OS's who went to Windows Update after that date would've received KB3184143 that removed all the "Get Windows 10" garbage from their systems if they had been infected with it.

Cheers.

I have a HP PC which started in Windows 8, then 8.1, then 10. I am getting Windows 10 updates every month, which happen by night, so I cannot suspend my BOINC projects before a reboot. This disturbs CERN projects using VirtualBox.
Tullio

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I have a HP PC which started in Windows 8, then 8.1, then 10. I am getting Windows 10 updates every month, which happen by night, so I cannot suspend my BOINC projects before a reboot. This disturbs CERN projects using VirtualBox.
Tullio

You can use task scheduler and schedule BOINC to stop before the update starts.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Microsoft is testing a Green Screen of Death for Windows 10, with even less information about the problem, just that they are collecting information and that you can reboot.

Gotta wonder what information is being collected, how and where that's sent to and for how long it's being kept there. Does that include personal information as who was on the computer, what site(s) were they on, screenshots of the site(s), login information, etc. etc.?

And the other question is when a malware developer will use the new screen to make it their own restart message so the nasty (ransom-)malware can do their job?

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I have a HP PC which started in Windows 8, then 8.1, then 10. I am getting Windows 10 updates every month, which happen by night, so I cannot suspend my BOINC projects before a reboot. This disturbs CERN projects using VirtualBox.
Tullio

Microsoft finally lets users pause updates in Windows 10

Pro users can defer updates, but Home users don’t have this luxury. There are numerous third-party tools available that give users greater control, but the forthcoming Creators Update will allow users to easily pause updates as and when required.

If you don’t want automatic updates for some reason, you’ll be able to pause them for up to 35 days.

Of course the Pause Updates functionality might change between now and when the full version of the Creators Update is released next spring, but it's great to see Microsoft restoring some control back to users.

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What a mess!

I really do not understand why people pay money to suffer this!....

Really folks: Find freedom from such silliness and check out a Linux distro. The Big Boys make Billions running Linux. You can run Linux for yourself for just the cost of your time to install. Or you can pay a company for Linux.

Easiest is to look up Ubuntu (Mac-like), Kubuntu (Windows desktop similar), or Zorin (for Windows users). Sorry no links, on an Android Linux mobile!


What is your New Year Resolution for Computer Freedom?

Keep searchin,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I really do not understand why people pay money to suffer this!....

You install the OS, and drivers. You update the OS and drivers. You install your software, update it, configure it the way you want, and off you go.

Many of us have seen what is required to get Seti working under Linux just from looking at the threads here. If it were as straight forward as Windows then people would use it. It's not, so they don't.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Time for "cold box of bits" to working Windows 10 machine - over four hours, and still it is looking for updates so the user can start typing or browsing.
Time for "cold box of bits" to working Linux Mint machine - inside an hour, user is merrily typing away and browsing.
The same very basic "box of bits", an i3, 4GB RAM, Asrock mother board, GTX1050 GPU, 500GB hard disk, so I discounted the build time as that was done over long period of time due to going shopping etc.
As this couple don't want to run any distributed computing work I can't comment on the length of time to install or get that running in a comparative manner, but from my own experience that can be very straightforward under both Windows and Linux, or it can be a grade one P.I.A. and it all depends on the first couple of minutes of the install....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Unfortunately so many 'productive' programs are not issued and will not run on Linux.

Example: Quicken. I have 20+ years of financial data I would have to abandon or retain a Windows machine to access it. I have found no program in Ubuntu that will import that data in a usable form, I've tried many times in the last two years(I'm sure there are those who could do so using a 'flat file' scenario and fiddling with it for several weeks, I'm not one).

Browsing and typing away are fine for those who don't actually use their computer as a production tool. Those who do are for now stuck with Windows or Mac.

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

You might install a Virtual Windows Machine on your Linux host using Virtual Box. It is free.
Tullio

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You might install a Virtual Windows Machine on your Linux host using Virtual Box. It is free.

Though it is a (even good) solution, it would still be Windows in one of its flavours, with its pains, where applicable.

Again, I possess just enough programming knowledge to totally screw up a machine. My experience with VM software is basically 0. Any links to installation guidance or sources would be greatly appreciated.

Heck, why not start my 70th year on this world learning something new? Gives a reason to go for another 70........... " : >

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

I agree with you, the current Linux CAD offerings are "pretty weak" when compared to Autocad or SolidWorks, so, for the foreseeable future I will have at least one (dual boot?) machine running Windows 7. The only reason the Windows PC I recently built was Windows 10 was that they bought the bits as a bundle, and the vendor wouldn't a swap from Win10 to Win7, but did give them a rebate on going to Linux!
Given that 90% of folks don't use more than a word processor, a browser and an email client I can see no reason for that 90% to be lumbered with a very expensive thing they don't actually use.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I am using VirtualBox in the CERN projects, now grouped in LHC@home. I install Virtual Box on my SuSE Linux hosts by getting the generic version for all Linux distros, then compiling the kernel modules using gcc, make and the Linux kernel source code of my distro. Otherwise go to Oracle Virtual Box and download the version compiled for your distro, 32 or 64 bit, and the Extension pack. Once you start Virtual Box you start a Virtual Machine by the New header and follow the instructions. Of course you must provide it with sufficient disk space and RAM. I used to have a Solaris 11 Virtual Machine on a 64-bit Linux host, but Solaris has no BOINC clients and manager so I canceled it.
Tullio

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