JorgeA

It'll be interesting to see if these get added back without the user's knowledge or input, the way that certain Windows Updates reappear even after you hide them. --JorgeA

And while we're on that subject... Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do – here’s how to opt out Ahh, that's where I read about the length of the Windows EULA (technically, the "services agreement"). --JorgeA

The real price of Windows 10 is your privacy I read recently (can't remember where) that the Windows 10 EULA is something like 12,000 words long -- not counting supplemental documents such as the Privacy Statement. Yes, Microsoft is doing everything in its power to rig the game in its favor, while retaining the excuse that "you agreed to it, you should have read the license terms." --JorgeA

They're complaining even over at NeoWin. --JorgeA

Beautiful, very nice! --JorgeA

Maybe you can publish what you did as a tutorial! --JorgeA

^^ Totally with you on dumping "smart" devices. For the longest time, we used the "dumbest" cell phones we could find. Even today we turn on the smartphone only to make a call or receive an expected call. All right, also when negotiating tricky directions to an unfamiliar place, I do turn on the GPS navigation function. But once there I turn both it and the phone back off. And we don't have Google accounts that can be associated with any of this. In our household, there is no interest in TVs or DVD/BD players that connect to the Internet. --JorgeA

Facebook is in my hosts file, that's for sure. --JorgeA

OTOH... The Windows 10 upgrade is already giving some users headaches --JorgeA

Day 1, and the articles to improve Windows 10 are already coming out: How to disable Bing Search from Windows 10's Start menu --JorgeA

--J

Do we believe everything we read by the company that's turned evil and devious? I'd certainly pay to license 1 or 2 copies of Enterprise if that were possible. -Noel I'll have to go back into the KB article to see what exactly it says about being temporary, but even if it isn't a temporary measure, consider the following: By making the Hide Updates tool a separate thingie that users have to deliberately choose to install and launch, Microsoft is setting up a situation where a year or two from now they can say, "Well, only X percent of users ever opened this Troubleshooter, so we're discontinuing it for lack of demand." Lack of awareness of it would be the real reason, of course. Since it's not integrated into the settings or even part of the OS as installed, only the techiest users would know this tool is even available. --JorgeA

And yet another reason the Internet of Things is not such a hot idea: --JorgeA

Nice find, Formfiller! I wonder whether Brad Sams (1) doesn't remember what he wrote back then, or (2) doesn't care. --JorgeA

If you want to play it safe, run Win10 in a VM and try removing that .exe file, see what happens. Or if it's installed on a disk, then image it first and delete the file. Or if it doesn't matter much what could happen to your Win10 installation, then just go ahead and delete it. It might be interesting to see what warnings and alerts you get from Microsoft now or in coming days. --JorgeA

Microsoft explains Windows 10 -- try to stay awake Maybe the idea of the video is to match the drabness of the Win10 interface, with its flat buttons, dingy Explorer scroll bars, and colorless window title bars... --JorgeA

Great point! IMO that bit about Windows 8 booting up fast is anyway one of the more dubious arguments for it. If you want to get back into the system really fast, just put your Vista or 7 PC to Sleep or Hibernate; Fast Startup or whatever they call it is little more than some hybrid of that. Is there any technical reason why this kind of hybrid (even if it were deemed worthwhile) could not be incorporated into Win7 via a Windows Update? --JorgeA

Love the writer's conclusion: Yup. --JorgeA

Wayne Williams of Betanews follows up on a pro-Win10 post with a new one giving the other side: 10 reasons NOT to upgrade to Windows 10 --JorgeA

Paul Thurrott weighs in, schizophrenically, on forced Windows Updates: Windows 10 and Automatic Updates After lecturing his audience patronizingly about the need to submit to Microsoft's will -- -- he then turns around and informs the reader that, not to worry, Microsoft has made available a tool to hide Updates, with which So, which is it, Paul? Hmm?? Incidentally, reading about Windows security patches over the years, it strikes me that a lot of them (I don't have statistics) address problems that were used in literally one or two instances where the perpetrators were going after highly targeted individuals or organizations, whereas the problems caused by patches can affect hundreds of thousands or even millions of users. In any case, many vulnerabilities are plugged up by AV vendors well before Microsoft gets around to issuing the patch; AV companies eagerly tell you how they're protecting you from the latest flaw in Windows. So, bottom line, the philosophy Thurrott advocates puts millions at risk in order to protect a limited set of victims, most of whom will be potected by their security software anyway. How is that a reasonable tradeoff? --JorgeA

Maybe what finally pushed them into (maybe) doing the right thing, is the fact that Updates were now affecting even one of Windows's own core functions, Explorer: Betanews gives a few more details about this move by Microsoft. Reading the post and the comments at the bottom, there seems to be less to it than you would think, but at least now maybe there is something, whereas before we definitely had nothing. --JorgeA The tool worked. I downloaded and then launched it in Windows 10, and it told me there was a Windows Defender update available, which I was given the choice to hide. --JorgeA

^^ Nice find, thanks! The views expressed by that "audacity" guy/gal amount to saying that if you're in a jail cell inside a locked fortress, then you have "more control" because you won't get mugged. --JorgeA

I'll have to check this out on my Win10 test machine, but Neowin reports that Microsoft has relented on the issue of forced Windows Updates: Microsoft releases tool to allow you to block automatic Windows 10 updates Maybe what finally pushed them into (maybe) doing the right thing, is the fact that Updates were now affecting even one of Windows's own core functions, Explorer: Betanews gives a few more details about this move by Microsoft. Reading the post and the comments at the bottom, there seems to be less to it than you would think, but at least now maybe there is something, whereas before we definitely had nothing. --JorgeA

Wow, that's an intriguing possibility. If there is truth to it, then it must be mainly from the M side of S&M, as there can't possibly be all that many high-powered Windows users to make a viable business model out of abusing your users. [emphasis added] Looks like there's still a chance for me to enter this lucrative line of work... --JorgeA

Norton/Symantec is going all-in for the NuMicrosoft model of removed features, hideous interfaces, and keeping customers in the dark as to product updates: http://community.norton.com/en/forums/block-all-traffic-removed-newest-norton-360-firewall https://community.norton.com/en/forums/please-bring-back-network-security-map-feature#comments http://community.norton.com/en/forums/new-ui-joke http://community.norton.com/en/forums/thank-you-choosing-norton-360-im-already-using-it The process of introducing the new product version was so vague and opaque, I did think my computer had been attacked by fake AV malware. --JorgeA