NoelC

8.1 seems fine... As long as you remove all the version 8 stuff and reduce it to essentially 7.1. Honestly, I believe that's because Microsoft simply didn't have time to carve out all the good parts yet for the Windows 8 releases. But don't worry, they kept at it, and now we have... -Noel

Speaking of multiple lines of defense... Yesterday evening my firewall caught and blocked my Win 8.1 workstation from contacting update servers. Yes, it appears something, almost 2 full days before, had changed the Windows Update service from "Disabled" to "Manual", then later something started the Windows Update service, which tried to contact sls.update.microsoft.com, fe2.update.microsoft.com, and statsfe2.update.microsoft.com. (it says Windows 10 Firewall Control, but it runs on all systems) It did the above enable/check despite: The Windows Update service being left Disabled. The Windows Update settings being set to "Never Download". The firewall being set to block attempts to update unless I reconfigure it. Various tweakers having been run to inform the system I don't want a Win 10 upgrade. All GWX-related optional updates having been hidden (though they reappear every time I check). Last time I reconfigured and actually checked for updates was on July 4. I don't know whether it would have tried to install Win 10, but I can't think of any other reason in modern times that Microsoft would be pushing Windows Update back on after it had been specifically turned off, can you? -Noel

Now you're starting to understand why I wrote a 1,000+ line re-tweaker script that will take out tons of garbage in mere seconds. I haven't tested it against the latest Win 10 pre-releases though. I'm sure they'll have changed some things. You'd think with an automated way to deal with files and registry keys that it would be possible to do everything, but no, there are things even the script can't do. For example, I've found no way to instruct the system to ignore things the "Security Center" thinks are a bad idea. Some of that stuff is stored in an encrypted way... I suppose that's understandable, given the nature of malware in the past, but to use that facility against user wishes... Way beyond warranted. -Noel

Sadly, it's already here. -Noel

I have to say, that looks really polished. -Noel

Right, multiple lines of defense are good to have. I even have some fairly uncommon ones. As an example, one thing I normally do besides making the various settings tweaks is to leave the Windows Update service set to Disabled all the time (via Services.msc), except for when I want to check for updates. To do that I change the Windows Update service to Manual, start it, then change it back to Disabled. And I also have to reconfigure my firewall before Windows Update has a prayer of working. Yes, I trust Microsoft that little. Thing is, I am starting to realize that I really don't even want to do updates at all any more. The Microsoft presently releasing updates isn't the same Microsoft that was around when we all first decided Windows Update was a good idea. It's no longer a given that you can trust updates implicitly. At some point the service will just stay off. It may just be that the Windows we already have is as good as it's ever going to get. -Noel

OptOut10 is actually even better researched and implemented. -Noel

Paraphrasing in my best K accent: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes before the upgrade the Windows user couldn't imagine Microsoft could just fail like this. -Noel

Microseconds are generally abbreviated µSEC or uSec. The mu character implies micro (one millionth). -Noel

You can figure that kind of thing out yourself... 4294967295 milliseconds / 1000 milliseconds per second / 60 seconds per minute / 60 minutes per hour / 24 hours per day... -Noel

I just downloaded (for Win 8.1) the dumbed-down ATI 16.7.2 display driver I'll need to be using if I choose to move to Win 10. They've completely removed my ability to calibrate my multiple displays via direct tweaks to the graphics card outputs. As a result I've had to try to calibrate my monitors using only the on-monitor controls and the few remaining controls the driver offers. What is this BS of removing features in new releases and just telling customers, "tough, get over it"?!? (see this thread) I've got it reasonably close, but it's not as good as before, and if I can't tolerate the remaining miscalibration I will have to revert to one of the past ATI driver releases that supports the calibration I need, which would completely cinch the decision whether to stay on Win 8.1, as using old drivers on Win 10 proabably won't be viable. Certainly I've found no offsetting, value-adding reasons FOR "up"grading to Win 10. It's like a constant "choose the lesser of evils" battle any more. -Noel Edit: I reverted to 16.3.2 after my system crashed overnight. This system never crashes. Not only are there fewer features in the latest display driver - making perfect calibration impossible - but also there is less stability. It figures. That pretty much says this computer is staying on Win 8.1 with the current software set, and probably no more Windows Updates either.

From that article: -Noel

Right on point, jaclaz. You picked up on the subtlety of my sarcasm. Is it a coincidence that we haven't sent any more men to the moon? That we crashed Mars probes? >likely it will involve installing ... each several tens or hundred of megabytes An anecdote: Recently we had a problem with a library we buy from another company for managing licenses and activation. It turned out the problem was in an open source library THEY use: OpenSSL. Not having used OpenSSL before ourselves, we downloaded and built the thing for the purposes of investigation and debugging. What a piece of moldy swiss cheese! I was very disappointed in the quality of the code. It's no wonder it's had major security probems in the recent past (e.g., "Heartbleed"). As an engineer who values rigor, it seems to me that if a moon landing system were based on such code we might lose a lot of astronauts. Yet this is the stuff that makes the world go 'round today. So yes - it's high time to slow down and get things right, and stop treating technology as "throw away". No one NEEDS an operating system that changes profoundly and frequently. With such a thing no one can get anything DONE, and lord knows Microsoft themselves don't have the talent to take over for what the world could produce if only given a little time. -Noel

Warranty expired?!? Why wouldn't you want to just get a new one? Sync'ing settings and having all your information pulled into the cloud makes it SOOOO easy to just throw away yesterday's hardware and get faster, shinier, better hardware. Made by Microsoft of course. You could show off the new hot new goodness to all your facebook friends via selfies. -Noel

Or for beating us about the heads and wallets. -Noel

Easy. Turn it into something no more useful than a lump of melted sand if payment is not made. It is the new normal. Get used to it. Owning things is "last century". Now it's about leasing and subscribing. As stated, it's really no surprise. We've been herded, as consumers, into this corral for a long time. If you're "of a certain age", do you remember when leasing cars first became a thing? Remember thinking, "who'd do that? They'd end up with no car at the end of 4 or 5 years and be locked into leasing another one." Think about it. Now, is any price quoted in any ad anything BUT the minimum lease price? Bottom line business model: Upgrade for "free" to Windows 10 today. Become reliant on it. Then when your current computer breaks, you're locked in to having to pay for Windows every month instead of, say, your mortgage. Or food. Or saving for the future. There is no better thing than to have the entire world pay you all they can spare every month, forever. And no worse thing for the world. -Noel

Finally. But hasn't EVERYONE suffered "in some way"? Seems to me the productivity of the entire world has suffered! How many man-hours have YOU put in to thwart GWX and Microsoft's intrusiveness? Now multiply that by a billion. What could have been done with tens of billions of man-hours? What could you personally have done with that time if not be distracted by Microsoft's aggressive pushing in your door. So now what happens? They stop and say, "oops, sorry"? It's kind of too late, no? Whatever happened to "swift justice"? Where is the federal Justice Department? Someone directed the Microsoft Minions to put all that GWX BS in. Oh darn, was it the guy on the sailboat in international waters? -Noel

Even with virtual guns to their heads many folks are not leaving Windows 7 behind. There will be some reluctant additional upgrading this month, owing to the end of the "free" "up"grade period, but don't kid yourself, there will still be hundreds of millions of folks who will continue to use Win 7. Microsoft will ultimately realize they'll have to add VALUE to get them to upgrade (without quotes). -Noel

It has been my observation that all the really common-sense-oriented people work on maintaining older systems. Mostly it's because they CAN and their management knows that ultimately a complete failure to maintain the older system is going to get them in serious hot water. On more than one occasion in my career I was told "we need you to hold the fort, since you're good at it". Usually those that were assigned to "the new thing" were the least capable of turning that new project into something good. Then it became doubly important to maintain the now really old system well so that the company wouldn't lose ALL its sales. -Noel

That's my plan. I'm holding out for legitimate value, and passing on fashion. It's not like I'm "missing out on all the wonder and fun"... I run Win 10 today - in a VM. And that's where it's going to stay until it does more for me than the host's Win 8.1 system does for me. -Noel

Have to? I'm not sure I agree that it is inevitable. But as I'm not ready to just stop using computers I agree that I will ultimately use another OS than the one I have, yes. I'm always looking out for how to make the latest releases adequately functional - more than you know - but if it's going to involve hardware change then maybe I'll just wait until I set up an entirely new machine. The "up"grade is anything but free if it causes new insoluble problems. -Noel

Yes, just what I want to have to do to use the amazing new Windows 10 - write my own display driver software. Have you noticed that the ATI display driver package is 300 megabytes+ in size? Heck, that's just a few nights work to replace, right? -Noel

Yet another reason that I cannot / will not "up"grade to Windows 10: Loss of essential display functionality. Indirectly in this case. Details: I have a good, powerful graphics card, an ATI Radeon HD 7850. It's not new tech any more, but it supports my 3 monitors very nicely. Presently, using ATI Crimson 16.3.2 drivers on Win 8.1, I have set my system up to be an sRGB reference system, which I need to do to support my development work. In a nutshell, what this means is that all my monitors are set to output in the standard sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile, I have set tha profile to be associated with each in Windows, and I have fine tuned the output of the various graphics card ports so that the monitors are all well-calibrated and match one another, color-wise. The perfection of this match cannot be set entirely with the on-monitor controls. Not long ago ATI decided they would just drop a feature I rely upon: The ability to manually calibrate the output at the various ports. As of Crimson 16.5, the per-desktop, per-channel calibration I rely upon, shown below, is simply no longer available. Thus I can no longer keep current with ATI drivers. If I were to adopt Win 10 I would, before long, be unable to hold back and run the older ATI display driver I need that provides this feature. It may even be that right now I would not be able to specifically run version 16.3 of the Crimson drivers. After all, that release is already 4 months old. Put another way, "up"grading to Windows 10 would ensure that ultimately I would lose a function I need and already have, without any viable workaround. No thanks. I require function over fluff. It's not just theory. The progressive loss of functionality with Windows 10 is real, planned, and sooner or later it WILL be a function we actually rely upon. I've already identified that function in my case. -Noel

I guess XP SP3 is kind of proven to be OK at this point. You're lucky it even came close, though. In all the years I had Canon scanners, pretty much the VERY NEXT OS released after I bought the scanner brought complete incompabibility. Canon isn't known for caring much about compatibility. You're touching on why it isn't viable to run an old OS forever: Modern equipment compatibility. -Noel

Many decades ago the pundits predicted Unix would ultimately be The One that would take over.. Personally I think the ex-DEC basis for Windows NT is better, architecturally. I can only imagine another derivative of Mr. Cutler's kernel might ultimately rise again after Microsoft drives theirs into the ground (and that's pretty much a foregone conclusion given what they're doing with Win 10 ). I can't be the only one to think this. -Noel