NoelC

It's possible that XP may be the last OS that truly could be used more or less indefinitely, though there are certainly already newer software packages that won't run on it now. Need the latest Photoshop (e.g., to be able to open raw files from your new camera)? You're out of luck with XP. Trouble is, Windows 7 and 8+ are already cloud-oriented. It's not just Windows 10 that needs to be online. Even Windows 7 DOES need to regularly communicate with servers to do things. Load a new software package or driver? The certificate gets checked online. Run Defender? The database gets loaded from servers online. Use Skype? Everything's online. The OS itself checks the network status by going online (dns.msftncsi.com, ipv6.msftncsi.com, www .msftncsi.com). Windows checks in with mscrl.microsoft.com all the time for security info. An updated Windows system that hasn't hidden a particular old update regularly checks with Microsoft to see if it's allowed to remain activated. These are just the tip of the iceberg. What happens if SOME of the communications are blocked but one tries to use the system online? Very weird things sometimes, such as a 15 second delay before making an https: connection, or a flat refusal to allow software to run because a security server wasn't able to confirm a certificate. You might be able to pull out the Ethernet cable and run Windows 7 and newer completely offline (for a while at least), not ever doing anything that needs the internet, but that's not what most of us need or want. We want it to work the way it did in its heyday. What we need/want is some kind of hybrid setup that shuns the cloud just enough to allow us to continue to work with the old OS, but stays current enough to allow us to do and run the things we want going forward. There is nothing that says it has to be possible indefinitely to do this. Think about what "end of support" means in this context. It's unpleasant to think about but really not hard to imagine that it's going to get harder and harder to run older systems as the online support infrastructure moves on. Just as a loosely related example, Microsoft instituted new SHA-2 signing requirements for Kernel mode drivers, yet there is no patch for Vista to load a driver signed using that encryption. So... Either a software publisher has to go out of his way to make a special Vista version, or just not make one. From what I can see it won't be possible to get certificates to sign with SHA-1 encryption after a time. And we haven't even touched legality... For example, did you know that if you continue to run Skype on an older OS then you will have tacitly agreed to Microsoft's latest services agreement? Looking into the future, Microsoft could adopt a more aggressive stance and just stop your older OS license from working because you've violated that agreement. Ever hide an update? Block telemetry? Tweak something via a setting not overtly provided? It's a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but we do need external infrastructure support and we're only allowed to run the OS by the good graces of Microsoft. -Noel

Right! Kudos to you; VERY few folks take the time to clean things up so that life can actually get better moving forward. Most folks seem to follow a philosophy of "It's someone else's mess, right, so why should *I* have to clean it up?" -Noel

Not asked of me, but I'll give my insight. As an engineer I figured out how to make Word sing a long time ago. I do decently structured documents (even ones with section breaks, which convert to PDF really well, and even have useful hyperlinks). I was the one tasked with creating templates back when I did a lot of documentation in the corporate world. But if they didn't start with my templates (and sometimes even if they did) almost no one else saw fit to actually use anything more than the very most basic WSIWYG features. People in general apparently don't like to think first then work. Result? Documents that are one-off - i.e., only good one time on one system and which are un-maintainable. Why? Because they're double-spaced by hitting return twice, formatted by hitting tab or the spacebar enough times, have no font consistency, use only one style throughout, aren't organized by an outline hierarchy, etc. I was helping someone just a week ago who put new lines in their resume by typing sufficient blanks after the last word they wanted on the previous line. A simple font change destroyed the document. I guess if I had to sum it up: It's actually easy and elegant to do things "right" once you know how, but it's hard to learn how so people just avoid it. They do as little as possible THIS time to get THIS job "done". I figured, many years ago, that we'd have AI by now that would be like a secretary behind the scenes. Sure, there's some of that in the later versions, but it's not really foolproof because fools are so ingenious. -Noel

It's that way for the non-legal profession too. I'm on Office 2010, which doesn't seem one iota better to me than Office 2003 (the last one I used for a long time) to be brutally honest. It has 64 bit applications, and actually runs properly in Win 8.1, but that's it. No new value to be found, but some new quirks. I tried to be a subscriber - I did a stint with Office 365 in 2014 and 2015. Lifeless polar bear in a snowstorm themes for everything? Expiring scroll bars? Seriously? I ditched that subscription when I was able to find a legitimate new old stock license for Office 2010. What a right move and happy improvement! Computers are thousands of times more powerful now than in the 1980s, yet the state of the art in document processing hasn't advanced in any substantial way beyond the first shots at WSIWYG. There are a LOT of things that can be done to bring back the usability of XP to Win 7. Start a thread some time to discuss just that; a lot of us will contribute I'm sure. It's even true of Windows 8.1 - the last perpetually licensable version of Windows, which is still (barely) capable of being molded into a lean, mean workhorse - and the version I've stopped on. -Noel

It's not hard to imagine that Microsoft just built an expiration date into the database entry for KB3035583. There are some, though, (e.g., ch100 over on AskWoody.com) who say that this sets up for future trouble (to have hidden an update that expires while hidden). Never a dull moment in Windows land any more, eh? What else might have an expiration date? Stability? Performance? Microsoft knows that there are things they can do to our systems that are very subtle (remember those hours/days long updates for Windows 7?). And they've known for a long time. But they really need to watch out - there are a LOT of smart people in the world, many quite a bit smarter than anyone at Microsoft, who are capable of proving that Microsoft has done wrong on purpose. And we all communicate with one another out here in the wild blue Internet! They have even tested the waters already - reference the pushing of ethical boundaries with GWX, reference the computers destroyed by overheating during Windows Updates... And they haven't yet been put out of business. And while they are trying to numb us to additional anal probing all the time, there's very little love left in the world for the minions and supervillains at Redmond. Sooner or later the fit is going to hit the shan. -Noel

See also this: -Noel

For what it's worth, in hindsight... I hid these and only these on my Win 7 system (note that I stopped updating it in May): KB971033 - checks whether Microsoft wants to deactivate your system (what could go wrong with that?) KB2952664 - diagnostics for Win 10 compatibility KB3021917 - diagnostics for Win 10 performance compatibility KB3035583 - GWX KB3068708 - adds capabilities to easily upgrade to Win 10 And on my Win 8.1 system these are hidden: KB2976978 - Win 10 Compatibility update for Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 KB3035583 - GWX KB3046480 - Update helps to determine whether to migrate the .NET Framework 1.1 when you upgrade Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 KB3068708 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry KB3080149 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry KB3123862 - Updated capabilities to upgrade Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 KB3173040 - Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 end of free upgrade offer notification Important points: I was never bothered by GWX. My systems do NOT attempt to make contacts online except for those I have sanctioned. I don't plan to unhide any of them, and I may just stop updating my Win 8.1 system as well. Microsoft is no longer making software changes that I want. In all the decades I've been doing updates and regular benchmarks, I can tell you with authority that no updates have improved my performance, EVER. I recommend that if you have chosen to hold back on an older system to think carefully about allowing Microsoft to push any further updates onto your systems. Vet each and every one. There is a lot of FUD out there that's a bunch of malarkey about how you really, really, really need to take security updates. There are things you can do that will VASTLY increase your security, far far more than taking their stupid updates that are now often (usually? always?) packaged along with things we don't want. Because of decades of positive history not taking updates feels kind of funny, but if you're happy with what you've got at least set updates so you can deal with them only when YOU are ready, and think hard about whether you want them. The programmers today at Microsoft simply aren't the software engineers of yesteryear. A good site to keep yourself informed about the latest updates (besides this one) is: https://www.askwoody.com/ -Noel

The Win 10 Anniversary story for me so far, on my test VM... It was not delivered in a timely way by Windows Update, so I had to go get it with the Media Creation tool. It has lost the ability (for now) to support Aero Glass. An update would be required from Big Muscle to fix that. After re-tweaking it to be more to my liking - lean, private, useful - with the monstrous script I developed, it's still running 6 more processes on an idle desktop than 10586 and there are clearly new things that need to be trimmed. Now Application Frame Host tries from time to time to talk to msdl.microsoft.com. It didn't before. I've not found one thing improved in the parts I actually do use - e.g., the desktop, File Explorer, etc. So in summary... It's uglier, not one iota better than its predecessors in any meaningful way, yet more bloated and more likely to spill the beans online, and worst of all more likely to try to advertise to me. Finally, let's not forget that there's a new, more restrictive Services Agreement coming up. It's like everyone at Microsoft has decided that it's time to milk the customer base and that no one can be allowed to touch the important parts of the OS because it might jeopardize the stability of all the new garbage being hung all over it. Honestly, why should I want to continue using anything made by Microsoft? I've been getting a bit more familiar with OS X. Man, it's dumbed down, quirkier than Windows (if you can believe it) - though there's always the fact that it's got a real Unix system underneath. But Apple's not really any better than Microsoft about trying to monetize me. I guess I'll look into Linux next, but somehow I imagine it'll just be a mess. Seems like there's room for a new OS vendor to emerge. -Noel

Doesn't Software As A Service actually have to provide some valuable service in order for business people to want it? Admittedly, $7 a month isn't a bad number (not terribly much more, accounting for inflation, than spending a few hundred dollars every few years to have the latest NT, XP, Vista, 7, 8.1), and if Windows 10 ever DOES actually become interesting by adding that aforementioned value, I would probably consider paying it. That being said, it takes a little effort but it is still possible for a geek to technically turn Windows 10 via tweaking and adding 3rd party software into something that: Doesn't spill the beans online. Has no Apps. Delivers no advertising. Delays updates until such time as you want them. I really don't think that until their App Store is chock full of Must-Have Software, Microsoft can succeed at differentiating pay-for vs. free versions just by having the more expensive software NOT do unwanted things. It kind of needs to DO wanted things too. Is anyone seeing a lot of new Must-Have Software showing up in the App Store? Any? ?? Their strategy is pretty sound, and it's clear it's a multi-year plan, but their poor execution is just keeping it from happening. Engineering excellence is quite simply the key to high tech success, no matter what! Time doesn't always fix a lack of intelligence. The world has a way of competing... -Noel

Heh heh heh, I sense some impatience amongst the masses here. It's not a surprise; who can stand Windows 10's crappy out-of-box UI? With every new Windows release we're once again reminded how bad Microsoft is making it. Thing is, guys/gals, the Aero Glass for Win 8+ software uses undocumented things in Windows. Thus, if the stability of your computer is important to you, then you really need to wait until the author issues an update! Until he does, I suggest not trying to run Aero Glass at all. Seriously! As much as Big Muscle has tried to program it to be flexible and try to find the right things in new Windows versions, the old code really can't possibly be aware of all the ways Windows build 14393 has been changed, and running it anyway might well cause you crashes, failures, corrupted data, black screens, sunspots, or zits. There are these things to consider while we wait for the update: 1. Aerohost is started by the Task Scheduler. You can just Disable that, and it will not try to start Aero Glass. 2. Some have added additional features (such as title coloration of ribbon-enabled windows and skinning of Modern App chrome) via the registry. Though I'm personally not seeing instability from leaving them in, you might want to rename these registry values so that they are not run until Big Muscle has released new software... Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows] Value: AppInit_DLLs Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows] Value: AppInit_DLLs I am very much hoping that Big Muscle has the desire to update Aero Glass for Win 8+ for the newest Windows release and comes out with a new set of software that all works together and will: Provide glass effects reliably and cleanly again, as with past versions. Color titles in ribbon-enabled windows such as File Explorer and WordPad. Skin the title chrome and borders of Modern Apps. Provide an updated AeroGlass GUI configuration tool for setting up colors. Provide some guidance with regard to needed changes to existing .png.layout files in order to make existing theme atlases work. As in the past, Big Muscle, please feel free to contact me if you need testing or other input from another developer. I have a Windows 10 VM all set up as a software test environment, but which looks like a steaming pile without your software to fix Microsoft's desktop uglifying. -Noel

I have written and published a re-tweaker script which makes a valiant attempt to return a Win 10 system to be a lean, desktop-only, private, non-cloud, secure, local-account-based system. It shuns ALL the new stuff, deinstalling as many Apps as it can get away with and even removing the App Store in an irreversible way. I developed this for me, so that each new release of Windows 10 would not cost me another week or more of time to bring it up to my standards owing to Microsoft's having reverted all their settings to their preferences and having reinstalled all the stuff I removed. It embodies MY goals for running Windows 10 - no one else's, though I do ask some questions. But to be clear, I have really only tested it with all questions answered Y (yes). I simply haven't had time to turn it into a general purpose re-tweaker. It contains the mechanics for removing things that are difficult otherwise to remove, so conceivably it could be useful to others as a template for THEIR needs. I caution you to be VERY SURE you don't want Apps, OneDrive, Settings Sync, a Microsoft Account, or anything that Microsoft has added since Windows 8 before running it. And to be able to restore your system if something goes wrong! With all that said, you can learn more about it here: http://win10epicfail.proboards.com/thread/100/interested-participating-tweaker-development-test -Noel P.S., I probably need to do more to it if I can EVER find more time, because the system settles to 6 more processes running than in version 10586, without having added any substantial new functionality that makes a desktop-only system more capable. -Noel

Perhaps we have a language barrier problem... Your post points to a SuperUser forum thread with several proposed solutions. They are not all the same. For what it's worth I no longer have the slow updates problem, and I'm not looking at installing a fresh Win 7 any time soon, so I don't really care personally about the answer. I was just trying to ask the question that might be in others' minds when they read your post. -Noel

Sounds like maybe you have somehow managed to accumulate an incomplete update. I have no idea how that could even be possible. What I'm seeing... -Noel

Can you not imagine that the P in ASAP might be slightly differently defined for YOU than for Microsoft? Did it ever occur to you that some folks might be on the insider program because they are looking to evaluate the latest technology for a use other then playing game Apps or fun social media experiences? And that they need to do it on THEIR schedule? I'm not saying you should HAVE to do manual updates, why are you saying I should HAVE to take automatic updates when Microsoft wants to push them? It's not like the technology can't support both! In fact it can and does, using documented control points. I encourage everyone to learn how to take control. I'm imagining feelings of suddenly desperately wanting to take control that would go through a human mind some day in the future when that mind is sitting in a self-driving car with a control system that suddenly fails. -Noel

Not to be picky, but there are multiple solutions proposed over there... Which one did you find effective? The highest upvoted one? -Noel

On my Pro system it removed all the Apps, leaving only the two expected (Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost and windows.immersivecontrolpanel). I'm happy. It will need a few updates. For example, I notice there's another new "Unistack Service Group" member not being removed, and something that was being disabled in the scheduled tasks list no longer exists. I imagine there will be a bunch of new scheduled tasks that will need removing as well. -Noel

I'm actually a bit behind you on this one. The update is at 87% for me in my VMware VM. Glad to hear my script hasn't been made toothless. Did it give any indication why the game wouldn't delete? -Noel

Woody's got his head screwed on straight, and he tries to be balanced. A memorable quotable quote: "the annoyances substantial". Am in the process of upgrading my Win 10 VM for testing. In a little while I'll see whether they've de-fanged my current re-tweaker script. -Noel

A "glass is half full" kind of guy eh? Good for you. Yes, the 14393 update is out there now (why does Microsoft insist on identifying things by SO many numbers?). -Noel

Let's not forget that, insider agreement notwithstanding, we're just talking about exercising a little bit of control over whether a system that's on the insider program gets updated when Microsoft wants it, or when the user wants it (perhaps a few days later, when it's convenient). What's the matter with you folks? Can you not even imagine a moment when it would be inconvenient if someone took over your system? Even if you only play with your hardware... Not too many months ago I saw a video where a guy was in a long video game session then had his system start an upgrade unexpectedly. Maybe it was staged for effect, who knows, but the player didn't sound happy. It illustrates the point. -Noel

It's probably not a bad idea to disable it before doing the upgrade. I would suggest just disabling the AeroHost entry in the Task Scheduler. You could also consider removing any AppInit_DLLs entries from the registry (e.g., rename the registry value so it's easy to resurrect). From past experience, we have seen Big Muscle make new versions of Aero Glass available not long after major Windows releases. But as he apparently does this as a hobby rather than main business, he has never made any promises about fast timing. And I personally would not bet that today's release will be 14393. The number 14400 seems a more "beautiful" number... -Noel

Build number 14400 would have been easy to remember. There is a certain beauty to that number. In the words of Maxwell Smart: "Missed it by 'that much'". Microsoft no longer does "beautiful". Here it is, August 2 and I'm downloading whatever Microsoft is delivering via the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool. Yep. Build 10586. Microsoft no longer does "on time" either, it seems. -Noel

I'd say any OS that doesn't bow down in complete humility to its user and respect its user's wishes is malware and needs to be flushed. But what do I know. -Noel

Edit: Are you meaning that the "More Info" links for events or updates don't provide useful info? I agree - the links for events have been useless Since Win 8 or maybe a little earlier. I've complained to just about everyone I could think of about that, and no one thinks it's important to document events any more. It's a clear sign that Microsoft has stopped taking the use of Windows for genuine, important computing seriously any more. Windows Updates links usually work, but Microsoft has stopped documenting what they do in any reasonable form, so they mostly are boilerplate that says "Resolves issues in Windows". Again, it says they don't care enough to document what the issues are. Apparently Marketing noticed and decided to take advantage of the fact, because they decided to co-opt Windows Update to deliver junk. Even today, even after seeing and getting to know both Windows 8 and 10 intimately, it's still hard to believe Microsoft has decided to throw away their dominance in the OS field. -Noel

You do it - WE do it - because of a desire to know. Because of a desire to make decisions based on fact, not hype. It's a rare trait. Never change! -Noel