JorgeA
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Posts posted by JorgeA
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I wait a few days to do anything, until Susan Bradley and/or Woody Leonhard weigh in on the updates.
--JorgeA
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In the new forum software, how do you check when your MSFN subscription is due for renewal?
I'm on a yearly schedule and I know my renewal is up in June, but I can no longer find what the date is.
--JorgeA
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10 hours ago, PRB said:
To play devil's advocate - once those people on the other side of the table discover they can't know much about you, they may very well decide you have something to hide and go do business elsewhere.
Frankly, it seems to me we are on a very slippery slope and gaining velocity.
I tinkered with 10 for a week after its rollout last year and was horrified by the reports of its snooping, and how tricky it is to completely disable it (all hail NoelC's tenacity in this area) - I haven't booted that partition since (although I'm tempted to ocassionally, just to see what the update does to my multiboot system...).
The scenario I had in mind was one where I am the prospective customer and they're trying to sell me something. The less they know about me, the more flexibility I have.
And I agree that we're on a slippery slope and gaining velocity... and not just with respect to Microsoft. Check this out:
Mark Zuckerberg says we’ll be plugged into ‘The Matrix’ within 50 YEARSQuoteZuck has hinted that social networks of the future will be powered by telepathy, allowing ordinary people to beam their brainwaves and emotions directly onto the internet.
Many of us might think there’s something nightmarish about a world where we’re all plugged into the matrix.
But the billionaire has made his money from persuading huge numbers of people to drop their privacy shields and share every tiny aspect of their lives with friends, strangers and advertisers on Facebook.
--JorgeA
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Here's another item to warm @Formfiller's heart:
Reader reports missing “Never check for updates” in Win7
QuoteMy Win 7 SP1 Windows Update settings have changed, just this morning as far as I can tell, and I suspect Microsoft because I’ve not installed any new software or made any sort of changes to the system.
For years I’ve had Windows Update set to “don’t check”, but today that’s not even an option.
After turning the computer on this morning it booted as normal, but after that there was a lot of download activity for quite a while and then I got an “updates are ready to install” message in the taskbar.
I opened Windows Update and sure enough the June 2016 Windows and Office security updates were there to greet me.
Surprised, and more than a bit annoyed, I checked my update settings.
Guess what? “Don’t check” is no longer an option.
Have they really sunk that low? After all the tricks and shenanigans I've seem them pull over the last year, I wouldn't put it past them. Still, I would like to see an actual screenshot of this.
--JorgeA
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11 hours ago, jaclaz said:
... and do not forget how those using bitlocker to protect their private data managed to give the key to the good MS guys (they do have it, even if you quickly "deleted" it form the cloud), how many will know how to change it?
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/01/windows_10_whol.html
jaclaz
That's correct. A lot of people have given MSFT the keys to their kingdom, so to speak.
Meanwhile, and speaking of Microsoft knowing ever more about its customers, check this out:
LinkedIn integrates with Cortana in Windows 10
QuoteIf you're already using Cortana and have your calendar connected, you’re probably used to getting meeting reminders from Cortana. Now with the LinkedIn integration, when Cortana reminds you of your next meeting, you will see a richer set of information about the people you’re meeting, including their LinkedIn profile photo, job title, and company. If you want to dig in more, with one click you can see their full LinkedIn profile to find who you know in common or where they went to school, so you can start the meeting with something other than the weather.
Another reason NOT to join LinkedIn, and to disable Cortana if that's still possible. If I go into a business meeting, I most likely do NOT want the people on the other side of the table to know very much about me at all. I have more flexibility that way.
--JorgeA
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Here's the most worrisome aspect of MSFT's acquisition of LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been working on what they call an "Economic Graph," which is described here as
Quote...LinkedIn's lofty goal to digitally map the global workforce. This includes creating profile for every member of the global workforce, a profile for every company in the world, and a digital representation of every job and every skill set required to obtain those jobs.
And now Microsoft can add to this whatever information they can gather from the hundreds of millions who -- not knowing any better -- created a Microsoft Account the first time they booted into Windows 10 and never signed out.
--JorgeA
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3 hours ago, BudwS said:
Clandestine Impression: Made a post to MS Insider forum a day ago. Got one of the scam phone calls saying that my laptop sent an error message and MS Support was responding to fix the laptop.
Is it possible or probable that the MS insider Forum is being data mined or hacked by the alleged scammers to gather personal information? Yup, probably just being ultra cautious and a little off the deep end. However, has anyone heard of anything like this?
That's a weird coincidence. I wouldn't put it beyond the realm of possibility.
One thing is for sure, though: the very fact that Microsoft is known to be tracking people's computers, can only make these scams sound more credible:
"Yes, when you clicked OK on the Windows 10 license agreement, you agreed to let Microsoft monitor how your PC was doing. We're just doing our jobs here to help keep your computer safe."
--JorgeA
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4 hours ago, NoelC said:
Thank you for passing that on, Jorge.
You're welcome, Noel. I'm glad I was able to make a positive contribution to your work.
--JorgeA
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And speaking of telemetry...
QuoteCoders have expressed concerns that Microsoft appears to be inserting calls to its telemetry service into binaries as they are compiled. Calls to telemetry_main_invoke_trigger and telemetry_main_return_trigger raised a few eyebrows having been found in both debug and release versions of the software. The good news -- maybe -- is that telemetry can be disabled.
[...]
Innocent or not, users were spooked by the fact that the existence of the functions was not referenced in any documentation.
--JorgeA
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Check out this comment from Woody's blog. Byron might be on to something:
QuoteMS let everyone get all worked up over telemetry and eventually let their mouthpieces in the tech press debunk the idea that telemetry was spying on everyone. This was all a ruse to divert attention from the real virus: CORTANA.
They are really pushing Cortana and encouraging people to use it. That’s the one doing the spying and loading of all your personal data back to the mothership. They made it “built-in” to the OS and nearly impossible to stop unless you have system admin or programmer level skills. Even if you turn off the slider to disable it, it’s still running in the background. If you try to end the task, it will regenerate itself like a good virus should.
No way do I allow this thing to run on my laptop. If a future update makes it impossible to stop Cortana, then it will be impossible for me to allow Windows to remain. It’s already a dual-boot system with Linux Mint. It would only take about an hour for me to backup data files and wipe a partition clean.
--JorgeA
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On Sunday, June 12, 2016 at 0:02 AM, dhjohns said:
I am running build 14361 as my main drive, on bare metal. When I decide it is better to clean install rather than upgrade, I run a batch file in a portable folder which installs every program I run. Some are portable, some are silent install, and some are not silent install. Keys I need are copied to the desktop. All my registry edits, registry ownerships, file ownerships, themes, and customizations are automatically taken care of. I integrate all my up-to-date drivers into the ISO before I clean install, and create a bootable USB drive using diskpart. So after the 15 minutes it takes for installation, I just right-click and run the batch file as administrator. Then I sit back and watch. When all is done, and my system has rebooted, I install Windows Media Center with a special theme, and the ability to mount DVD ISOs, and play MKVs. Then I clean out windows.old, and run a few registry cleanup programs, and I am done.
That's very impressive!
What criteria do you use in deciding whether to upgrade to a new build or to do a clean install?
--JorgeA
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8 hours ago, xpclient said:
I am not particularly concerned if Linux looks like Windows (although it certainly doesn't hurt) as long as it works like Windows. Windows made everything easier and productive before they started making it too dumb and oversimplified. I am not in favor of too much and unnecessary complexity which Linux has at the moment vs Windows which now has too much simplicity (and mediocrity). I could send you a big long never ending list of usability issues with Linux GUIs but what good would that be if they can't be fixed by anyone? I would rather tell them to Ivo to make Windows work better since he can develop software to address the awful limitations that Microsoft is intentionally building into Windows. Linux might be better than Windows since it gives more control but I am not sure I need that level of complexity.
+1
IMHO Linux usability would improve if someone expert enough were to create an application launcher that was organized like the Vista/7 Start Menu. I've never warmed to the category structure that's featured in the various Linux "start menus" out there.
--JorgeA
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Anybody have insight into what may be going on here with the Edge browser:
QuoteKeystroke Encryption is currently no longer supported in Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 Redstone 1 (build 14291 or newer). We have no idea what MS has done but no other keystroke scrambling software is not working in Edge on 14291+ either.
Edge was already struggling to maintain a foothold in the browser market. This news can only help to push it closer to the, umm, edge of failure.
--JorgeA
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10 minutes ago, BudwS said:
How about 10 year old computers are really 100 years old in human years?
Cool -- my Sanyo MBC-550 is 320 years old in human years, and still going strong!!
BTW it's remarkable that your Apple hardware has done so well with Microsoft software. Steve Jobs must be rolling over in his grave...
--JorgeA
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Meanwhile, over in Menlo Park...
Facebook threatens to delete users' photos if they don’t install the Moments app
QuoteNot content with forcing people into using its Messenger app, Facebook is continuing its aggressive tactics and driving users to install its photo-sharing app, Moments. The social network has warned users that their photos face deletion if they fail to use the Moments app.
Looks like FB has joined the cyberfascist movement...
--JorgeA
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On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 5:37 PM, Shining Escuridao said:
anyone who slightly knows a little more than the average user is pretty much revered as a tech guru as they have more vision as to what they want the system to do rather than use it for facebook/twitter/social media and the occasional word document. Just my opinion on the matter though.
That's exactly what happened in my family! As known well by anyone who reads my stuff around this forum
, I'm no IT professional, but thanks to my interest in technology I've become the go-to guy whenever there's a question involving computers, peripherals and accessories, or even smartphones. (Yeah, yeah, I can hear some of you groaning "OMG, those poor folks!")
There's a Spanish saying that goes, "en el país de los ciegos, el tuerto es rey." Translated to English, it means "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." At home, I'm that one-eyed man.
--JorgeA
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On Thursday, June 09, 2016 at 7:07 AM, TELVM said:
Just add &t=XXmYYs to the video url, where XX is the minutes and YY the seconds you want the video to start at.
Or add #t=ZZZZ , where ZZZZ is the total amount of seconds to the point where you want the video to start at.
In this case,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwlQvjwYFEMwould become:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwlQvjwYFEM&t=53m10sor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwlQvjwYFEM#t=3190That's a nifty feature!! Thanks for the tip.
--JorgeA
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On Thursday, June 09, 2016 at 6:15 AM, MrGRiM said:
Latest build has broken all my custom context menus, they now result in a black screen and explorer restarts, I did manage to get some of them working again like this one for example.
Over time, this could become really tedious. How long before those of us who want a certain look, start feeling like Sisyphus?
Quote...being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action for eternity.
But FWIW, thank you for all the good work you've done on that front.
--JorgeA
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On Thursday, June 09, 2016 at 4:32 AM, greenhillmaniac said:
Windows Server 2012 Updates for Windows 8 (managed by JodyT and I. See forum post below) :
Did you find a way to provide new Patch Tuesday updates for Windows 8? I didn't see an actual forum post about it.
Those files that include "RT" in the name, I assume are for Windows RT and not for Win8? (In fact, they all seem to have the RT in the name.
)
--JorgeA
UPDATE: I found the thread.
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5 hours ago, TELVM said:
Epic moment from AMD Computex 2016: "How many of you like Windows 10?"
[youtube]
[/youtube]
Wow, that really says something. Too bad the decision-makers at Microsoft are dumb (in the original, "don't hear" meaning of the word).
The speaker sounded a bit rattled a couple of sentences after seeing the show of hands.
BTW how did you arrange it so that the video would start at the desired time? Pretty cool.
--JorgeA
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6 hours ago, helpdesk98 said:
Classic (Win 98 style with search bar enabled) it simple and straight to the point.
Ah, I see, thanks. Since you had excluded the start menus from XP, Vista, and 7, I was wondering which style you did like. I forgot that 98 was an option.
--JorgeA
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20 minutes ago, helpdesk98 said:
hopefully classic shell lives on for a long time I have tried using the W10 start menu and I just can't do it. in fact I have trouble using xp/vista/7 style start menus now!
Which flavor of Classic Shell's Start Menu are you using?
--JorgeA
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9 hours ago, xpclient said:
@JorgeA, keep an eye on Winaero's blog and you'll learn a lot about making Windows 10 like Windows 7. Sergey Tkachenko and I write the articles there. Btw, they broke the classic Date pane in Anniversary Update so it no longer works. Future of other keys bringing back classic functionality is uncertain.
Thanks for reminding me @xpclient, I do remember seeing good things there and should go back in.
That's terrible about no longer being able even to bring back the classic Date. Guess I shouldn't be surprised by any outrage they commit anymore.
What do you think are the chances they'll break Classic Shell completely? I remember about their stupid little trick that required renaming the installation file, but I'm talking here about removing enough code to make it impossible to run Classic Shell.
--JorgeA
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5 hours ago, Tripredacus said:
There are worse MS forums. I had received an email relating to a "new" Partner forum for me to check out. It wasn't new, threads went back 4 months. All the threads were posted and answered by the forum moderator. Pre-created threads with self-answered questions.
OMG, really?!?
That is just incredible.
Well, OK, no longer incredible, given what I've seen over there.
--JorgeA
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Windows 10 - Deeper Impressions
in Windows 10
Posted
Woody has posted the screenshot of his reader's Windows Update settings missing the "Never check" option:
--JorgeA