NoelC

Which is still an orthographic projection (i.e. no actual perspective). Seems to be a game to them - how much can we make it suck without the users going apeshit. -Noel

You can't imagine that IE is in collusion with Windows Update to get your Windows 7 obliterated once and for all? For what it's worth, I always do my interaction with the Insider program from inside a virtual machine. I actually anticipated this. I'm sure there are stated policies inside Microsoft all about how to survive the success that was Windows 7 (i.e., get anyone to abandon it for something else). The direct path is to make a new OS that's even better. But that's so HARD... So... How could they possibly be criticized for preparing you for a free update? They're just striving to give you the "best Windows ever!" What great folks they are! Apologists are already seizing on that. The old adage, "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence" does not apply to a multi-billion dollar company. They're very crafty. And in this reality it doesn't matter how many children point out that the Emperor has no clothes. If you ever wonder why Microsoft would want to accelerate the release schedule, think about this: The more time that goes by, the more the word will get out and the more folks will change Windows Update to ask before installing. When I started, some years ago, eyeing every Windows Update with suspicion, people considered me paranoid. It's long been time to watch out who has a foot in your software door, INCLUDING Microsoft. The advice to change Windows Update to always ask you before installing anything has been in my books forever. We all partnered with Microsoft when we allowed them a permanent foot in the door (Windows Update) doing exactly what we adamantly block every other source from doing (downloading and installing software on our computers). We essentially said, "we trust you to do right by us". What's sad is that they actually WOULD be doing right by us IF ONLY Windows 10 actually did bring good things to the party. Metro/Modern is a fine idea - universal apps that can be easily programmed and marketed - but the devil is in the details: Nothing useful or even reasonable has been implemented in that environment. NOTHING. Not even by Microsoft. Is it time to stop accepting ANY Windows Updates, assuming you have a system that does what you need and want and you either don't want to upgrade or want to wait until the value proposition becomes decidedly positive for YOU. I'd wager that a grand majority of people still have Windows Update on full auto, and will wake up one day to find their system has been changed to Windows 10. -Noel

If one of you wants to extract the .png file from aero.msstyles (I only need resource 1204) and posts it here I can take a look at what's needed to update it. One way to do it: 1. Copy Aero.msstyles to TEMP and rename it Aero.dll 2. Open it in Visual Studio and expand the resource tree for "STREAM" 3. Right-click to export these resources: 1204 as ThemeAtlas.png 1205 as CircularAnimations.png 1206 as Icons.png -Noel

Bizarre is often fun. -Noel

That means they're still changing elements of the Win 10 theme... I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. My gut tells me bad... I don't really care to work with leaked builds, but I'll be sure and update my RoundedCorners theme atlas when the next official pre-release comes out. I've got the buttons looking pretty nice now. Originally I resisted the idea of giving them that "gel" appearance, but I've warmed up to it. -Noel

Heh, one or two guys clapped, and one whistled. Microsoft is the embodiment of SO many clichés... "You Get What You Pay For" comes to mind. -Noel

I resemble that remark! I'm certainly not going to let them "upgrade" my Win 8.1 setup. If I do upgrade it'll be a full paid license (much as it will pain me to pay them for Win 10), just so at some future time when the suck factor grows untenable I will still have a license that works. I'll have to archive a MyBook drive so I can directly restore my Win 8.1 system. I've got Win 8.1 to where it just works now... Doesn't even log so much as a warning regularly. With Big Muscle's Aero Glass, it's even halfway pretty to use. -Noel

"Suicidal decisions" - on that we agree. And yes, the IBM M keyboard was very good. Perhaps approaching excellent. Very nearly as good as a Digital LK250. By the way, I have a Cherry keyboard on my Sol-20. -Noel

I can't really go along with the first part of that. We could have been a LOT further along (regarding computing maturity) if the likes of Digital Equipment Corporation could have continued developing THEIR ideals. I'm still using a Digital keyboard to type this because it is the best that was ever invented. The only reason Microsoft exists today is that Digital's architect re-implemented their OS design for the PC (as Win NT). But, being Microsoft, the first thing they did was corrupt the design, and we've suffered with the consequences ever since. I have never had so much hope for the future of my chosen profession as when I was working with Digital Equipment Corporation systems before about 1985. The state of the art really seemed to be advancing. The only thing Microsoft has ever had to compete with was Unix or its derivatives. Who couldn't win such battles? -Noel

Microsoft hinted that they'd bring back Aero Glass if enough people wanted it. http://www.winbeta.org/news/windows-10-aero-glass-theme-could-make-comeback-if-enough-vote-it Well, a helluva lot of folks sent feedback, and just grab a gander at the comments on that article. Resoundingly positive. Either 1) Windows Aero fans are the most (or only) vocal ones or 2) People really want it. If a new Aero Glass-based theme isn't part of Win 10 by now, given a summer release time frame they're really not likely to bring one back. And you can be SURE that even if they DO bring it back, they will of course NOT bring back 90% of what made the Aero Glass theme good - stuff like being able to differentiate controls from surroundings, rounded corners... It must really suck to work at Microsoft. -Noel

Everything about that privacy-intrusive program is disabled on my systems. But they push the update anyway. What makes sense to we mere mortals and what Microsoft chooses to do don't seem to overlap much. I guess we're supposed to believe that they're the true superheroes of the high tech future and we should accept that we need to be herded in order to get there. Or they're just greedy and stupid. -Noel

Some of the files in KB2976978 are old and some are new. So I guess the $64 question is this: Assuming one has a system they don't want Microsoft trying to "upgrade" to WIndows 10 via Windows Update... What KBs should we hide? I've already hidden KB3035583 - the GWX update. Should I also hide KB2976978? "This update performs diagnostics on the Windows systems that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program in order to determine whether compatibility issues may be encountered when the latest Windows operating system is installed." Will hiding the latter just break Windows Update? Even if neither were hidden, since I ONLY allow updates I've manually initiated would there be a danger that Microsoft would try to update my workstation to Win 10 when THEY want to? When a company you've chosen to partner with becomes predatory, when does it become time to revisit the original decision? -Noel

Perhaps I should have said, "the majority of people". Since Win 7 is much more complex than Win XP, it won't be as convenient / possible for folks to continue to run it. Today's hardware will burn out after a time, and new hardware will become more and more likely NOT to have Win 7 drivers developed for it. The conflict seems to boil down to a single small word. Imagine being in the mind of Microsoft leadership thinking the thought: "What can we do for a billion plus users?" vs. "What can we do to a billion plus users?" -Noel

Somewhat related, another new update has shown up for me: KB2976978 At the overview level it says: "Install this update to resolve issues in Windows" Just about as little as possibly could be said in 8 words. And not particularly accurate unless you read "issues" as "things Microsoft needs to know about your system before pushing a Windows 10 upgrade". In the Introduction section, it says: "This update performs diagnostics on the Windows systems that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program in order to determine whether compatibility issues may be encountered when the latest Windows operating system is installed. This update will help Microsoft and its partners ensure compatibility for customers who are seeking to install the latest Windows operating system." (emphasis mine) So the question remains... Is this an update we want/need? What changes in function will there be from installing it? Implications to not installing it? This is not a tiny update - 36 files are involved! Perhaps I'm getting paranoid in my old age, but when the company we've partnered with to deliver improvements to our computers starts becoming predatory, it CANNOT be perceived as good. -Noel

They are coded with different fallback strategies. You could say that the choice of such strategy is a shortcoming of IE. But the reason that some files download just fine with IE is that their servers provide a more accurate and proper description of the file. A browser that takes up for sloppy web design is not necessarily more proper than one that adheres to the rules. The latter may actually be a more secure way to work. -Noel

Well, maybe (courtesy our own Big Muscle) we can do a little more than s*** about it. But not using Microsoft-only software. -Noel

The problem has less to do with IE and more that the page is not being served with a proper mime type. Something like application/octet-stream (I'm not sure on the specifics for 7-zip, but Google could probably turn up the right info) is needed. The web page maintainer (that may be Big Muscle; I'm not sure) would want to update the .htaccess file (assuming Apache server) to add an AddType line to define the mime type. -Noel

The $64 question is whether Windows Update in Win 8 (or 7) will remain viable with this update hidden. They don't have to make it so. -Noel

You probably know this already, given what you've written, but there's a separate download for that, and it is installed a different way than Aero Glass (it has to go in via the AppInit_DLLs registry key). http://www.glass8.eu/download.html One additional feature I like is that it causes the title bar text for ribbon-enabled windows to conform to the desktop theme. In fact, since I use the stock theme and a theme atlas replacement myself, it's the only reason I run it. With it installed you'll see a new event log entry at system startup that reads, "Custom dynamic link libraries are being loaded for every application. The system administrator should review the list of libraries to ensure they are related to trusted applications. Please visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/197571for more information. ". Once it's in and working, you can replace themes with those published by others; seems pretty simple. System integrity (e.g., via SFC) is maintained because it goes in at run-time, vs. making any changes to Windows DLLs / executables on disk. -Noel

...And forever will it consume their destinies. -Noel

Since the RST software/cache have to integrate closely with Windows' own RAM and file system cache, it's not terribly surprising that a new Windows build could break compatibility, though if it's just a message during install that's blocking you it's possible running the installer in compatibility mode might help. I'd go online (as you're doing here) and see if others have successfully gone down the path already. I'd suggest going to the Microsoft insider forum as well and asking there. I'd suggest waiting to hear whether others have had success with it before trying to push forward. Also, make sure you have backups, recovery skills, and a plan for restoring functionality if you try to push forward with the install. If it's telling you it's incompatible it might not actually work right after a coerced install. -Noel

No conclusions, no, except that the system is loaded up with fluff that needs to be trimmed out with some prejudice before it can begin to be considered a useful animal. There's an unprecedented amount of it so far. Brokers? Hosts? Wrappers? Only a very few of which seem to exit on their own when the system is idle. Of course I hope that Microsoft will optimize it before release, but they have a long tradition of leaving things *barely* completed. After all, it's not THEIR computers being slowed down by all the garbage. Manufacturers may even love them for it, since it means users have to buy more hardware - though frankly I thought maybe they'd get a little more careful once they started building their own hardware. Still, what harm is it to have users pining for 16 or 32 GB of RAM. Just sells bigger Surface models. -Noel

Thanks, though I was hoping to see all of it. I was just wanting to see the overall count and glance at the list to see if anything new has been added. On my test Win 10 system the number of processes just running in the background has been growing with each new build. Every build I return feedback asking Microsoft to trim the fat, and at least make the new "managers, brokers, hosts, etc." auto-exit when they're idle. Here's what Process Hacker shows me on my system with a freshly booted system that's been allowed to settle for 10 minutes. The list is a little bigger than a base Windows install because of some things I've installed, but take away the 7 or so processes running because of things I've installed or the way I'm running the system, and there are still almost 50 processes just to have a blank desktop - much more than with Win 8.1. Seems like all they're doing is loading up Windows with fluff that will ultimately have to be cleaned out to make the system reasonable to run. I've only just begun working out what doesn't actually need to run, but it's a moving target. -Noel

If you have a system where the update hasn't been hidden, you could try exporting the registry before and after hiding the update, then compare the results. A registry search turns up these keys on my system, which seem interesting... [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\ApplicabilityEvaluationCache\KB3035583-MappingPackage~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.3.1.15] "ApplicabilityState"=dword:00000000 "CurrentState"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\ApplicabilityEvaluationCache\Package_for_KB3035583~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.3.1.15] "ApplicabilityState"=dword:00000070 "CurrentState"=dword:00000000 I don't know more about these except that they're there. -Noel

See also: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173719-did-you-get-windows-update-kb3035583-recently/ -Noel