Leaderboard

I can hardly believe it -- not even a registry tweak will work anymore?? This is going to annoy professionals and businesspeople who bought Pro precisely because they expect it to give them greater control over the OS. Now they have to put up with all sorts of bloatware, just because the Lords of Microsoft decreed that it must be so. The basic agreement between Microsoft and its customers used to be, "You pay us for the product and you can do what you want with it." Now it's changing over to, "You pay us for the product and we tell you what you can do with it." Microsoft's increasingly imperious attitude is offensive and outrageous. --JorgeA

Malware alert: Bob 10 Anniversary Downgrade Pro edition is now behaving like malware and AUTO downloading and auto installing random promoted apps from the Store because they SECRETLY changed some policy settings to make them exclusive to Enterprise and Education editions: http://winaero.com/blog/microsoft-locks-some-group-policy-options-to-enterprise-editions-in-windows-10-anniversary-update/ Oh well, I only test this crap because it can be forced some day and I want to be prepared. Back to 8.1 with Classic Shell.

LOL. You opt-in to the insider program, it installs updates like its supposed to and then you want it to ask you permission to do it??? It's doing its job. It's doing what you already gave it permission to do when you clicked the button to join the insider program and selected the fast ring. Also, cumulative updates require a restart. Your PC restarted at some point after 14393.5 was installed. Oh, and 14393.31 is going to possibly be the next version we get later this week or even on 8/2.

The agreement is now "You pay us for the product and we will change the terms any time we want to include whatever the hell we want with the product and with your PC."

its so funny and sad at same time for me to read all this after longhorn/vista fiasco, MS's goal (well one of main goals) was to de-componentise the OS hence why tools like vlite, rt7 exist... heck it was more clear when win7 introduced "removal" of .net and IE components but with winblows 10, they are glueing it all back together so nothing can unstick it total reversal of policy...

Just imagine for one second if Steam managed to develop their own OS instead of a shell- gamers could finally leave the strangle hold of Microsoft. M$ did the reverse, they created the Xbox, originally based on PC hardware, to lock in a hardware platform you could know everyone had. A custom P3 laptop cpu and fast Nvidia graphics. But later once PCs surpassed that base line- that is when the much hyped but luke warm 'Games for Windows' idea seemed to surface, That should have been a Xbox game loader. Pop in the original game into your PC, and Windows would play it. Like an extension even for the Media Centre Edition. The Xbox OS was a modified Win2000 anyway IIRC. But No. As usual their myopic attitude means they never considered my idea. And this Xbox app for Windows 10 still isn't the same thing. Tell me when I can load an Xbox 360/One, etc game disc into my Windows 10 machine. Decent i7 something should be fine. They couldn't even do a Media Centre for Xbox either properly, if at all?...So 3rd parties had to do it..... Like XMBC for Xbox. And the hacking community in general. Blah, Always fun to bash M$ over a cold beer.

Tim Sweeney: Microsoft is trying to kill Steam with Windows 10 --JorgeA

Microsoft makes Cortana unkillable in Windows 10 Anniversary Update -- but you can disable her The distinction seems to be that the UI for disabling Cortana is being removed even as it remains possible to get rid of it via Group Policy or in the Registry. Bottom line: the less-technically inclined will get sucked into the Cortana matrix, with no evident way out; staying free of it requires increasing amounts of expertise. --JorgeA

See? It says important.

Just an epic quote I found elsewhere: http://www.overclock.net/t/1606538/techspot-france-gives-microsoft-three-months-to-stop-windows-10-from-collecting-excessive-user-data/90#post_25375058

Good for you! It's like @NoelC never tires to point out: it just ain't good for getting any real work done, whereas it excels at telling MS what one ate yesterday!

I had to replace the motherboard on my laptop, Tuesday I think. The replacement part is second hand. The system fired up, and it for all intents looked to be fixed. Enter the random and sudden black screens that started to occur, could run for any amount of time. Seemed to crash worst when closing the browser.... but this is just an observation. It had been some time since I last used the laptop, so I casually checked to check it was activated- since I was seriously considering securing my free Win10 key for this machine... it had been a preview machine, but not since about build 9860. Thats' when they broke audio. It showed it was still activated, and still begging for updates- but they've been off for a long time. During one of the random crashes, I was presented with a 'missing operating system' prompt. I tried a few tricks to recover the boot, but it wasn't in the mood- and neither was I. A fresh installation sounded like a good idea, this machine is at risk of theft since I use it out and about & in the car, so I keep it almost empty. Here's the kicker- I have a boxed retail Windows 8.0 disc and key. Its no longer accepted. I am blocked!.. I phoned M$ support, and they repeated that fact. They tell me the key has been abused, and has been used- according to their records, 31 times!!!!! Interestingly, I have only ever used this key on the one machine. Perhaps more than once, but only the one computer except for the recent motherboard swap. He even acknowledged this appeared to be true. (The telemetry must work well then ) I am told the solution is to buy a new key, they offered to sell me one for $40. I declined, telling them to sort it out on their end... its a legit key and I'm sick of buying them. The same number tried to call back this morning.. both times the call dropped out before anyone spoke. (I gave my number since they offered to call if the connection was bad.. and it was bad, so they rang back).. I have a case number too. So be warey I guess of trying to activate an earlier Windows.. it could backfire on account of YOUR key being 'abused',but regardless of explanation.. the M$ gods won't let me use it. Thanks M$. (Oh, and just for giggles, I cut a Windows 10586 dvd and installed it to the laptop... and audio is still not working out of the box... the old vista drivers don't help either) So I have two useless versions of Windows... one can no longer activate, but operates my hardware perfectly. The newest one is still incompatible, and also can't activate. I'll have to run the thing on something to confirm the crashes are cured.. the replacement mainboard has a warranty, finding the cause is the game. Software or Hardware. Minor edit.. the replacement board seems to be flakey... bummer. It'll crash running anything. WinPE (Macrium), Win10, and a recovered image of 8.0 (which was imaged whilst activated.. and even without/denied an internet connection- insists it isn't activated anymore either! Wow, just wow. Cheers

Of course it's for the hundreds of millions of people who don't know yet that they can get an upgrade to Windows 10 for free! Stupid, basic observation, but am I the only one to imagine that if Microsoft had implemented one or two "killer features" in the Win 10 14400 release that it would have gotten a LOT more folks to upgrade than this nagware BS? I mean, a few things for the high-end users... Stuff like an iteration to the various controls (e.g., Device Manager) that would bring more actual functionality (or even restore some that was lost) to we geeks. It's like the stupid jocks running Microsoft can't acknowledge that geeks could have even one iota of power or influence... -Noel

Windows 10 gets one last, desperate nagware update "... this is an update to the previous full-screen nagware update. Now you get a countdown clock (the exclamation point is free) and a yellow exclamation point in the system tray, just in case you haven’t noticed the unusual Windows icon that’s been yammering for attention and trying to stealth-upgrade your system for the past 12 months ..." "... What’s disturbing about all this is that Microsoft can’t seem to stop. It’s like watching a meth-addicted rat punching levers in a Skinner box, except in this case the rat only gets its fix if it hits another download milestone. Someone, somewhere, only gets to eat today if Microsoft manages to convince another 5,000 people to install Windows 10 ..."

Name-based site blocking is certainly the way to gain control in today's complex world, where the same server name could resolve to different addresses even from minute to minute. And yes, I agree that wildcarding is important. I'd be a little wary, though, and make sure to test thoroughly... The one and only review was obviously written by the author/marketing people themselves. It sounds like it would need to install a driver on each system, and that will need to be solid and reliable. -Noel

Ahh, So to recap.. They added P2P to make upgrading PCs use less load on their servers, and removed it from Skype to make it 'better and more secure' It would save the world a lot of useless network traffic if they didn't sponge so much information from their 'clients', then again- we are the product to exploited and fleeced. Given what a can be done by an experienced user.. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/20/silver_tongue_hacker_shows_how_one_home_address_can_lead_to_ruin/ Sigh.

One final comment/observation just because it's so relevant it hurts...Re: StinkedIn as you all know has been bought by Microsoft. Over the past three years I've applied to just under 200 jobs on that site (the ones posted with a direct apply option, not just a link to the posting company's website). Whenever I wanted to review the list of past jobs I've applied for -- which I'd often want to do to make sure I haven't already applied to that company -- I'd click on the "jobs I've applied for" link which would give me a nice LIST of every job that I could scroll down very quickly to review. In a few page-downs I could see all jobs. Guess what they've done to that page...that list has turned into...TILES!!!!!!! And you only get SIX tiles per screen (of course, they're honking huge), and you have to click on the stupid little right arrow to see the next six. Do you know how many times I now have to click to see what I previously got in that old-but-not-kewl list? Grrrrrrrrr...we are doomed. Over and out.

FFS! So I’ve made an ISO, re-installed Windows 10 “clean” (whatever that means given this OS) and removed some of Windows 10’s own crapware (Get Office, Skype Video, some other built-in apps). Then I ran Windows Update. After Windows Update ran, those things which I have de-installed before (right-click on tile, de-install option) reappeared again! WHAT A CRAPWARE POS! I am really angry. Realplayer had more respect for the users than this. Now it seems some crapware icons are stuck as well somehow, because the entry for “Skype Video” won’t go away, despite de-installing it again. Microsoft was grilled in court over Netscape, yet they go scot free with this malware?! WTF? This isn’t an OS, it’s crapware disguising as one. I have a really bad feeling handing out that thing to my acquaintance. What a POS Windows 10 is. The Asus crapware was bad, but at least it won’t re-install itself after Windows Update ran. No amount of shill can excuse this s***. They should be brought to court over this “OS”. It’s worse than Android regarding respect by far, and it isn’t even truly free of cost despite being adware. Not to mention their malware-tactics to spread this garbage. The hate really enflames when you actually have to use it. EDIT: OK, the stuck crapware icons are gone now, I've also wanted to remove Cortana from the start menu completely, but there is no "delete" option in the all-apps menu when you right-click on something! What the hell?! I was able to delete everything in that sub-menu in W7. Again, what a CRAP POS. So Angry.