rn10950

I also have been experiencing 404s on many MS pages lately, on both 7 and XP/2003, usually on stuff related to downloads and old versions of VS. Maybe Microsoft re-did their download manager recently?

Microsoft is giving away Windows 10 to anyone who tests it Anybody want a free copy of Windows 10? I sure don't...

Like Windows 10 itself isn't a virus...

Version 3.0 is here! Here are the changes in this release: Fixes the MessageBox problem - I had to move the code around a little bit.Kills GWX.EXE after update removal - logical decision.Has command-line support - read the readme file on the GitHub project homepage for more information.Major code re-writes - see bullet one.As usual, Thank You to anyone here that helped me with this release. The next one will be a tough one.

In a situation like this, I would normally bring up In Win95 this and in Win 3.1 that, but at this point I feel like I'm talking to a wall. I will bring it up though. It's sad when your 20-year-old operating system can manage to provide some feedback for your actions on computers with exponentially less processing power. I really don't know what to say beyond that.

An update on the Windows Update banner shown on the Control Panel... KB3035583 is the culprit. Uninstalled and rebooted on the PC that had it and banner is no more.

I agree with you to an extent but with XP/2003 instead of 2000 (as long as you disable the Fisher-Price theme) There is a way to use 2000 on newer hardware as well as newer programs such as the latest versions of Firefox. Take a look at this thread to see for yourself.

I figured out the issue, and it compiles now, all I need to do is get it to work... Basically I was using 1997 ANSI code in a Unicode compiler, I set the compiler to ANSI and changed some of the Unicode functions to their ANSI equivalents and it compiles now. It should take me about a day to get all the features I planned working and the code cleaned up for a v3.0 release.

Sorry it's taking so long for v3.0, but I just can't get command line flags in MFC. I tried using many different code snippets dating all the way back to 1997 but every one I try either doesn't compile or doesn't work. If anyone has any ideas to put me in the right direction that would be amazing. This method is what I'm trying to get working now, and this is my implementation, but I keep getting a "error C2664: 'atoi' : cannot convert parameter 1 from 'CString' to 'const char *' " error at line 26.

The sad thing is that Dogbert would probably be a better CEO than Nadella is...

Build 10130 just finished installing on my test system, and I see no way to do that. Anybody have an insight into how he did it? He provides no details, and I haven't found any settings to change that would affect that. --JorgeA That looks like a less-functional version of the Win9x Start menu: I don't know how he did it, but I am curious to why you can't just pin shortcuts to the top of the Start Menu like you can do in all versions of Windows from Windows 95 to Windows 7. I personally don't care for the whole taskbar pinning thing and just use the Start menu and Desktop for everything, so this will force me to Classic Shell or to stay on 2003/XP/7 (more probable).

What update is that new notification in the WU window apart of anyway, is it KB3035583?

So now you're telling me that WSUS users can't determine which updates to install? This is just getting sadder and sadder. And now there are going to be PCs without the ability to disable secure boot? What was U.S. vs Microsoft about again?

Does anyone know the User Account name that Windows Update uses in 7 and 8.1 so I can deny it write permissions to \WINDOWS\System32\GWX?

By the way, Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition RC is available, and it's free. -Noel I can't use VS2015 because I am running Win2k3 on my main machine, and just have Win7 and 10 VMs. Plus, I need 98SE compatability, and VS2005 is the last version to support 98SE and the only to support both 98SE and x64. There are articles from 2004 talking about Wuapi.h so it's probably an issue on my end.

I agree with dencorso and JorgeA, I wrote this utility specifically for the Windows 10 updates. Coming in the next few days, however is a big update with new features and some major code changes. I will add an "Advanced Mode" (see the GitHub page for more on that) and possibly command-line switches (requested by Kelsenellenelvian) Coming in the update after that will be a "kill two birds with one stone" update that will wipe out all the possible Win10 updates noted in the thread posted previously, as well as the ability to hide the updates once removed. (I have to figure out how to use the WUA API, I keep getting VS2005 build time errors in Wuapi.h) Once that update is released, I think it will be ready for the non-techical users. Speaking of the regular users, when I released the utility last week, I posted on Reddit's /r/Windows. They seemed to hate it and asked me "why didn't you just write a batch file", simple, there are users that see a CMD window and think it's hacking. (and no unfortunatley, I'm not making this up) What are your opinions on that?

Something that presents a menu of installed updates and allows you to select the one you want to uninstall. In case you mean the updates in the menu ought to be limited to those listed in the thread about avoiding Win 10, I do fully agree. I like this idea, but it may take a while for me to implement it. But a somewhat-related question, does anyone know a way to hide updates via C++ or the command line?

Sure, I will add them in v3.0

Well the actual point is that EVEN IF such handy little button will be showcased in many situation it is VERY likely to fail to restore the previous OS properly, particularly, consider all the people that had originally 8 and that later upgraded to 8.1, a restore from (say) the OEM recovery partition (which surely was not updated) will bring back 8 (and not 8.1) a "system backup" whilst it may restore to a 8.1, will need a lot of space (that most people won't have), those with one of the small tablets with 8.1 and Wimboot have actually Wimboot systems because they have no storage, etc., etc. Add to this all the possible conflicts with user installed software or partially "botched" systems (imagine as an example that a "common user" has currently deactivated partially - unwantingly - the WMI subsystem though his/her system is running fine in day to day operation and the handy little button actually needs a particular WMI query to succeed...). So, personally I would not trust (as I never do) any such automagic tools (even IF they will be provided) and I would go for a "bare metal recovery" capable solution, imaging the current OS as is before starting the update (but his will require some storage space, some knowledge and also some patience, somwthing that many people do not have). I would like to re-state how: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/172826-windows-10-first-impressions/page-36#entry1100580 the numbers are so big that even a teeny-tiny unsuccessful rate of this hypothetical handy little button may bring down millions of machines (and Myrphy's Law is ALWAYS around to prove itself right once again). While I sincerely wish everyone to have a successful upgrade I would strongly suggest everyone to use the remaining days to prepare a "Plan B" of some kind. jaclaz You may not have to image the whole OS, just C:\WINDOWS, the registry and any system folders in the program files folder. (ex: C:\Program Files\Windows NT) MS should do this by default if there is enough space just in case something goes wrong or if the user wants (wishful thinking) to downgrade.

Works great now. Only thing that might be good to add is an existence check (put up a message) if the update is already present. That wouldn't be too hard though. Like I said earlier, it might be worth trying to rig something up that's more generic if there's enough demand. I may do that, I am (and I already have code written for) also going to kill the GWX.EXE process after install and I am also thinking about adding an "Advanced Mode" that makes the Administrator owner of C:\WINDOWS\GWX, deletes its contents, and makes it read-only. What do you mean by more generic though?

Version 2.0 is here! Here are the changes in this release: Improves compatibility with Windows 8.1, I just used the manifest and hoped for the best. I currently don't have access to a Windows 8.1 VM so anyone that does, can you please verify that it works?The x86 build works on both 32-bit and 64-bit WindowsMFC and VC++ classes are embedded in the application. I don't know if this works yet, so I still included the VC++ redistributable in the zip. Once I know that it works without the VC++ DLLs, I will stop including the installer.Special thanks to Glenn9999, NoelC, dencorso, and jaclaz for helping me with this update.

In my opinion, when Microsoft started working on Windows 8, they should have put all the new Metro stuff in it's own subfolder in %windir%. That way it can live in it's own space, while not messing up the system files, and then overlay it over the "legacy" Desktop when needed using DWM. This will allow them to develop their new "modern" software completely separate from the Registry and other features of "legacy" Windows. It can hook into the Desktop using shell extensions, just like a regular application. By doing this, they could have kept all of the real Windows intact, while adjusting the "Modern UI" for cell phones, tablets, and TVs. This will also make it easier to delete it... "del /f /q C:\WINDOWS\Modern\"

I would have used IsWindowsVersionOrGreater but the issue is that the update is only present on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, not Windows 8 RTM. Like NoelC said, versioning is going away, but there is still limited use cases where it is required, like this. I still don't know what MS was thinking when they made Windows 8.1 NT 6.3 while still reporting NT 6.2 to applications.

The VC++ error workaround is included in the readme files in the zip file with the binaries in it, as well as the runtime installers. The GWX update, as far as I know, doesn't affect Windows 8.0, only 8.1, which is NT 6.3 not NT 6.2. If you have the GWX installer in Windows 8.0, please let me know.

Introducing... rn10950's I Don't Want Windows 10 After I saw the GWX update showing up on my PCs, I immediately opened up Visual Studio and got to work on this. While any of us can just open up Control Panel (while it lasts) and uninstall the update, how many regular users can? So I created a GUI shell for the WUSA command to make it easy for anyone to uninstall this piece of adware. Download for x86/x64 Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 Source Code If anyone has any issues, let me know. I will try to fix it as soon as possible. EDIT: Version 2.0 is here! Here are the changes in this release: Improves compatibility with Windows 8.1The x86 build works on both 32-bit and 64-bit WindowsMFC and VC++ classes are embedded in the applicationEDIT 2: Version 3.0 is here! Here are the changes in this release: Fixes the MessageBox problemKills GWX.EXE after update removalHas command-line supportMajor code re-writesSpecial thanks to Glenn9999, NoelC, dencorso, and jaclaz for helping me with these updates.