How to avoid being "upgraded to Win 10" against your will:

[Odos270]

@Odos270

 

Do you have a System Restore point available from before this all happened?

I used that on a friend's computer to reset Windows Update to working normally again.

No, not one that old. I was able to get back to 8.1 because I have Reflect in. I booted from it and had it overwrite 10. My earliest restore point is from 8/31. That's when I added a registry value to disable getting 10. Obviously, it didn't work.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Odos270

[dencorso]

That's when I added a registry value to disable getting 10. Obviously, it didn't work.

 

Told y'all, didn't I?

 

 

[Odos270]

 

That's when I added a registry value to disable getting 10. Obviously, it didn't work.

 

Told y'all, didn't I?

 

 

 

I guess so. Ah for the days of XP. I'd just move stuff and reformat.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Odos270

[Dave-H]

You could try the Windows Update Troubleshooter.

That does a lot of resetting of Windows Update, and might fix things for you.

You will lose your update history.

[jaclaz]

I guess so. Ah for the days of XP. I'd just move stuff and reformat.

 

Ah, the good days of NT 4.00, no need to move stuff nor to reformat...

 

jaclaz

[Odos270]

Well, it's going to do it. All that I've done is to no avail. I just got a popup notice that it was ready to install. *&%# you Microsoft.

[dencorso]

Remove all the updates indicated in post #1, and remove, if present, the folder Dave-H indicated, then reboot and hide those selfsame updates.

[Dave-H]

From my first hand experience with actually doing the update (which I quickly undid!) "ready to install" actually means ready to download and install.

I doubt if the files are already on the machine, especially if the C:\$WINDOWS.~BT isn't present.

It's around a 2GB download for the upgrade from Windows 8.1, probably more if it's a Windows 7 machine.

It's certainly not going to happen suddenly, it took ages when i did it.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Dave-H

[Odos270]

Well, now there is a BT folder. I took ownership of the folder and all sub-folders and files. Even so, there are multiple files that I can't delete. My account is administrator. I don't see the WS folder.

[jaclaz]

Well, now there is a BT folder. I took ownership of the folder and all sub-folders and files. Even so, there are multiple files that I can't delete. My account is administrator. I don't see the WS folder.

Does this happen because of lack of permission or because any file is "in use"?

Maybe you need to further elevate to "TrustedInstaller" to get rid of some of them from the "online" system :

 http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/155910-taking-back-the-registry-from-trustedinstaller/

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/162571-running-explorer-as-trustedinstaller/

http://vorck.com/windows/ntauth.html

 

or boot to a PE and see if you can delete the whole stuff when "offline" (and as "System").

 

jaclaz

[Dave-H]

When I deleted that folder on my friend's machine, I seem to remember that I had to do some of the folders separately, taking ownership of them and their contents and then giving myself full control over them.

It was a very tedious process, but I got them all eventually!

[Odos270]

When I deleted that folder on my friend's machine, I seem to remember that I had to do some of the folders separately, taking ownership of them and their contents and then giving myself full control over them.

It was a very tedious process, but I got them all eventually!

I've started that. But, I have to take ownership of each file. Then folder. That's going to take hours upon hours. Isn't there a simpler way?  Other than beating my hard drive flat with a hammer?

[NoelC]

 

I've started that. But, I have to take ownership of each file. Then folder. That's going to take hours upon hours. Isn't there a simpler way?  Other than beating my hard drive flat with a hammer?

 

 

Take ownership of the parent folder and look for the checkboxes to include subfolders and files.  Then set the permissions so that your username has full control.

 

-Noel

[Odos270]

Already tried that. It doesn't work. This is what I get.

 

[Dave-H]

I certainly didn't have to do it one file at a time, but I did have to start with the sub-folders and work my way up to the top.

If you get the error message, just go one more level down and try deleting the individual folders at that level.

As Noel says, make sure that you have the checkmarks ticked to inherit permissions down the chain.