Microsoft Reconsiders: No More Forced Updates in Windows 10

[lexluthermiester]

The amount of you still crying and favoring Windows 7 still astounds me.

Some of us just like it better. The way it works, feels and looks. Personally, Windows 10 still looks like a throwback from the Windows 2.0 days or something intended for children. The look and the feel are just lacking. The privacy invasion BS is another deal breaking problem.

 

[SoNic67]

10 is broken every build.

Works fine on millions of PC's. Including my 2 PC's and 2 laptops.

DX12 games are coming to 7 so that was moot point

Really, they are coming? All the games?
"Blizzard asked DirectX 12 to be ported to Windows 7, which presumably many of its players were still running. Microsoft agreed, and ported the D3D12 runtime to Windows 7. It's now available as a patch to the game. Microsoft said it will patch existing games with Windows 7 support, and that it's working with a few other game developers to port their DirectX 12 games to Windows 7."

 

[trparky]

Firefox only auto-uploads dumps if the option is set in the browser's settings, a cool checkbox with the description "Allow Firefox to send backlogged crash reports on your behalf" in Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Firefox Data Collection and Use.
Mozilla explicitly emphasizes on the users' choice to decline this.

Well if you don't submit the data to have the bug fixed, don't whine, piss, and moan when things do go wrong. If you didn't submit any relevant data regarding the crash you have no say in the matter. Want to make software better? Submit crash data and contribute to what I consider a very important part of the software development cycle.

It's like whining about your government but you didn't vote.

 

[AsRock]

So no forced updates unless a good amount of time has passed ?, there for pissing me off even more as the update will be completely out of no were, and to top it of it be many updates.

 

[TheOne]

The biggest problem I've had with 10 is Live Tiles.

 

[eidairaman1]

The os is a potato

 

[Shihab]

Well if you don't submit the data to have the bug fixed, don't whine, piss, and moan when things do go wrong. If you didn't submit any relevant data regarding the crash you have no say in the matter. Want to make software better? Submit crash data and contribute to what I consider a very important part of the software development cycle.

I don't like this generalization. Equating easily reproducable issues with rare ones occuring under very specific variables is too much of a stretch. But in the case of the latter, I'm personally ok with that deal, and I dare say many would, given the option.

 

[trparky]

Not me. If I can contribute to making software better (even a little bit) by submitting crash data when and if a crash occurs, I'm going to do so.

 

[R-T-B]

The os is a potato

Technically speaking, 7 is far more a potato than 10. That being said the privacy policy is a legit concern, but then there is linux and other options.

I don't like this generalization.

As a developer I don't either. A paid product should never depend on telemetry to have things fixed (and there is no real reason they should need that over a well written issue report), and telemetry should ALWAYS be opt-out. Of course if the product is free, the ability to whine is signifigantly weakened in general...

Not me. If I can contribute to making software better (even a little bit) by submitting crash data when and if a crash occurs, I'm going to do so.

So opt-in. You don't qualify as everyone. That's the whole point of opting in or out. Options.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Technically speaking, 7 is far more a potato than 10. That being said the privacy policy is a legit concern, but then there is linux and other options.



As a developer I don't either. A paid product should never depend on telemetry to have things fixed (and there is no real reason they should need that over a well written issue report), and telemetry should ALWAYS be opt-out. Of course if the product is free, the ability to whine is signifigantly weakened in general...



So opt-in. You don't qualify as everyone. That's the whole point of opting in or out. Options.

I agree with all these points.
I havent updated Win10 in 6 months. Its not that I turned off WU, I blocked it so all checks return "there is not update available at this time". Same with telemetry.

 

[rtwjunkie]

10 is broken every build.

DX12 games are coming to 7 so that was moot point

To be fair, even tho my main rig on W10 Pro has always had trouble upgrading and needs fresh installs (it’s why I delay the feature updates a year), two other W10 computers in the house, one Pro and one Home have never had any trouble.

Now DX12 is a split benefit/con. For W7 users, dont hang your hopes on it too much. It’s one game so far, and honestly, with a game by game approach, dont expect many at all.

For W10 users, unless you are a blatant 100% MS fan, you have to admit, DX12 has mostly been absent and less than impressive when present. Its been largely a non-factor.

Bottom line, W10 is mostly pretty good and runs smoothly and fast, Pro users have been able to delay updates as well as feature upgrades. I have yet to see forced driver updates either.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I don’t care much for the Windows 10 UI. In an effort to make touch easier, everything is oversized and very flat feeling. Windows 10 drove me back to MacOS, which stays relatively similar in appearance and functionality over major updates. Being designed for mouse and keyboard, the UI elements are small and don’t take up unnecessary space. I know you can’t really game on a Mac without dual booting, but that isn’t really an issue for me as that’s what my PS4 pro is for. Windows 10 is sadly half-baked good intentions, but when Windows Phone died, the whole App Store and UWP concept basically have no purpose.

If you were to go back in time about 5 or so years, you would be hearing a starkly different tune from Darmok. I was an all-in MS guy. Windows Phone, Xbox, even a Surface RT device. I just don’t feel like MS is committed to anything but Office and services at this point. I wonder where they’d be without the corporate support.

 

[Bones]

This is absolutely true, but really, consider the real world for once: we're looking at people using PCs. If MS annoys them too much, they will hop over. They have alternatives, too, that they even already use such as smartphone and tablet. ARM is right there. Chromebooks exist. Linux exists.

I've chosen the alternative for the reasons I gave and I'll be honest - That choice is present for everyone, if it's not used then the fault lies directly on the user. Earlier a reference to voting was made, I cast my vote by saying "No" and that's fair enough.

So far the market has clearly vouched for MS and its OS at large. And it still does, despite the alternatives. For business, that is even more strongly the case. Thát is MS's core business. It is not cloud! Cloud is just a means to better serve that core business, and hopefully get some more money out of it. But it is also the very thing that keeps people away from mass adopting (and only adopting) the alternatives. Adoption rate/marketshare is everything - MS missed the boat on that one with a lot of things (mobile for example, but also digital software distribution, search, browser), and they are going to be very careful about their one major bastion: Windows. They didn't give us a free upgrade because it was the right thing to do...

As far as I'm concerned MS gave it away free as a hook.

They know for example gaming is BIG business and Windows is king, the threat was for another platform to come along and begin siphoning off gamers to something newer, better than before. Even if you don't call yourself a gamer, if you play games at all chances are you have a Steam account and use it, many PC's out there aren't hard-core machines for gaming with hard-core gamers using them. The ones that do it on occasion makes up a fairly large chunk of the gaming market/PC percentage too because in reality not everyone has a machine for gaming first with all else as a secondary useage. Since I'm not a gamer nor have a Steam account things about DX12 and such makes 0 difference to me.


I do agree they missed out on alot of the things you mentioned and took steps to regain what was lost but as you said it wasn't done because it was the right thing to do.

Look at Windows 8 reception. It was horrible enough for MS to push 8.1 with major UI changes. This company listens to 'us'. It won't always be perfect for everyone, but its quite a long way in the right direction. I'd say much more so than for example Google. Another example: security breaches. MS has a pretty damn strong track record in that sense if you consider the scale and number of attack vectors possible. They have a mastery of things x86 very few companies have and in my opinion are pretty good caretakers of it. The company's been accused of many things, but its certainly not pushing a scary new reality on us. There are other tech companies doing that push. MS just follows along, but it does that with services that are actually useful, and not some silly social media or in-home speakers. Even Cortana hasn't had the slightest privacy issue yet. MS is very careful with that.

The difference is Win 8 was just horrid right out of the box.
It did work but the look was almost alien and the menus weren't exactly easy to figure out until you messed around with it, some obvious things it needed as it was just wasn't there. I actually had a time just trying to find the shut down button at first to power down the machine and like yourself I know my way around a machine well enough - Imagine what the average user was thinking as they tried to navigate through all the tiles trying to find it.

And all the "In-Your-Face" crap was a big turnoff too.
I mean between all the stuff it threw up once in the OS it reminded me of a blindingly bright blingy flashing neon Vegas sign with epilectic-inducing properties done in Mega-Crayola-Vision, sprinkled with ads along the same lines imbedded and other useless crap.

They did a good job scaling it back with Win 10, at least that was obvious with the release of it. TBH I tried Win 10 and it was "Ok" on the surface but that damned Cortana just woudn't go away, was described elsewhere as an AI included in the OS and to a point that's accurate.
Didn't really like the feel of it either, Linux Mint is way friendlier in my opinion but that's just me.

However the thing that sealed the deal were the forced updates with telemetry, after noting it would force these on you and then change settings on it's own to continue it was the final nail in the coffin for me.
As one may say if you don't like it, just dont use it - I don't.
No need to justify my choice to anyone because it is my choice and I've made it like all the rest here have either for or against.
To each his own.

 

[Caring1]

Linux FTW ...

There's always that one Linux troll in a Microsoft thread.

 

[eidairaman1]

There's always that one Linux troll in a Microsoft thread.

I may jump to reactOS at this rate

 

[R-T-B]

There's always that one Linux troll in a Microsoft thread.

It's not really trolling anymore. It's a viable alternative in it's own right.

I may jump to reactOS at this rate

Oh god. No. Please just let that thing die. They are struggling to get the NT API compliant with Windows 2000. You better kiss gaming bye bye.

 

[HTC]

There's always that one Linux troll in a Microsoft thread.

Microsoft drove me away: pissed me off enough for me to dive head 1st into Linux with ZERO experience using Linux prior to that.

And no: i don't regret doing it.

As for the topic, Microsoft: too little and too late, for me.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The biggest problem I've had with 10 is Live Tiles.

Live Tiles can be disabled with a tweak.

As for the topic, Microsoft: too little and too late, for me.

At least they're moving in the right direction. They've a long way to go still.

 

[HTC]

Live Tiles can be disabled with a tweak.

At least they're moving in the right direction. They've a long way to go still.

No: they just stopped moving backwards.

 

[lexluthermiester]

No: they just stopped moving backwards.

That's a fair perspective. Now if they could only get it through their heads that invading people's privacy is wrong and borderline illegal, do away with the waste of time activation nonsense, go back to OS as a stand-alone product(as this OS-as-a-service crap doesn't work very well for the general public), stop forcing people to use Windows Defender, Edge(IE allowing for the easy removal of such along with anything else the user doesn't like), take the UI back to Windows 7 and redevelop/redesign from there followed by releasing Windows 11. Yeah, those would be great things and Microsoft would show the world they actually give a damn about the future of Windows as a platform.

 

[newtekie1]

Live Tiles can be disabled with a tweak.

Or just don't add them to the Start menu. It takes me like 30 seconds to remove the default ones, and then I never add them again.

 

[Shihab]

but when Windows Phone died, the whole App Store and UWP concept basically have no purpose.

MS might have ditched Windows Phone, but that doesn't mean they're leaving Apple and Google in control of the the portable, touch devices market.
UWP has potential even without the phone ecosystem. Platform support-wise, MS does have multiple existing platforms: x86 and ARM desktops and laptops, Xbone, HoloLens, in addition to the IoT market they're trying to jump in to, and heck, even beyond MS-owned platforms as well (Xamarin?)!

For the Appstore, I don't think having many targeted platforms is required to give it a purpose. Look at Android's, it practically only targets tablets and smartphones (other implementations are left to their implementers, afaik) and it's doing well. It's less of "supporting phones," more of "let's have more control!"

And no: i don't regret doing it.

I have a feeling that the correlation between using linux and not regretting it stems from the fact that only masochists can consciously attempt to adopt linux as a main OS... </sarcasm>
Which reminds me, it's been a while since I shouted my lungs out at Nouveau...

 

[Ubersonic]

My thing is why do they need to force updates in the first place?

The basic reason is that these days (and since XP/Vista really) you don't need any knowledge/understanding of computers in order to operate them for basic use. This has resulted in a world where the vast vast majority of Windows "home" users are complete idiots who avoid installing security updates and service packs because they don't want to slow their computer or waste time downloading things when they have stuff to do. This was a major issue with XP (*cough* MSBlast, *cough* WannaCry) and as a result it was damaging Microsoft's reputation because stupid users refused to believe their problems were caused by their own stupidity, it must be Windows fault. It's kind of similar to the BSOD issues in the Win9x days, the vast majority of BSODs were the result of users buying cheap hardware with buggy drivers but try telling them that, nonono must be crappy Win98 lol.

Anyway with W10 Microsoft had enough of the PEBKAC and took the decisions out of the hands of people unsuitable for making them.

Enjoy broken DX12 games. Enjoy broken security.

In fairness, people complaining that W10 doesn't allow them to ignore security/functionality patches like W7 did aren't really going to be bothered by broken security

DX12 games are coming to 7 so that was moot point

No they're not.

This is just a wishful misunderstanding that hopeful W7 diehards have spread due to one specific DX11 game that uses a tiny bit of DX12 code being ported to W7 with Microsoft's help.

 

[Caring1]

I have a feeling that the correlation between using linux and not regretting it stems from the fact that only masochists can consciously attempt to adopt linux as a main OS...

You might say that sarcastically, but it's pretty close to the truth.
Most people feel butthurt by the lack of control they have in W10, despite it's ease of use, so they decide to make their life harder to prove a point.

 

[trparky]

The basic reason is that these days (and since XP/Vista really) you don't need any knowledge/understanding of computers in order to operate them for basic use. This has resulted in a world where the vast vast majority of Windows "home" users are complete idiots

Basically this.