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

[NoelC]

From my perspective that does not happen, as I have disabled UAC entirely (policy change or EnableLUA registry mod required) and my account is always a full-time Administrator.  I have never seen a "Change" ownership operation fail like that.

 

It never ceases to amaze me how Microsoft strives to take control of people's own computers away from them.

 

Can you at least start by renaming the $Windows.~BT folder to something else?

 

-Noel

[Odos270]

I pretty much had to start at the bottom and work my way up. What a royal PIA. I'm not fond of UAC either. OK, now that that's done, YAY. Even though it says to update and reboot, is it ok to do?

 

Also, thanks everyone for the help.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

I'm just waiting for whole countries to ban ten like they did with eight

[Dave-H]

I pretty much had to start at the bottom and work my way up. What a royal PIA. I'm not fond of UAC either. OK, now that that's done, YAY. Even though it says to update and reboot, is it ok to do?

 

Also, thanks everyone for the help.

Glad you got there!

There should be no danger of Windows 10 installing now as you've trashed its installation files.

If Windows Update is still prompting about it, try running the Windows Update Troubleshooter if you haven't already, that should reset everything.

You will lose your update history.

[NoelC]

*#&%$@!!!!

 

This "keep up with the updates" BS is starting to really cheese me off!!

 

Today we see another update to Windows Update:  

 

KB3083325

 

Windows Update Client for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2: September 2015

 

I *just* got my firewall setup straight to allow Windows Updates and block everything else.

 

I was thinking that keeping up with Microsoft's Windows Update patches might be a good thing, but by gosh since it's Optional I think I'm just going to hold off on this one.

 

-Noel

Edited September 3, 2015 by NoelC

[Odos270]

It worked! I hid all the aplicable updates for 10. I also set Update to notify and NOT install. The only updates that I installed were for NET Framework. I didn't install any of the optional updates.

[Dave-H]

Great to hear, glad it's all OK now.

Cheers, Dave.

[Odos270]

Thanks again everybody.

[dencorso]

*#&%$@!!!!

 

This "keep up with the updates" BS is starting to really cheese me off!!

 

Today we see another update to Windows Update:  

 

KB3083325

 

Windows Update Client for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2: September 2015

 

It's got a sister: KB3083324 - Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: September 2015

*#&%$@!!!!, indeed!

 

BTW, the 1st post has been updated, of course.

[Tripredacus]

I don't see the WS folder.

I believe the WS folder appears after you do the upgrade.

[azroach]

Hey guys,

 

So I have some of these updates installed on my PC, now is it necessary to uninstall these updates?

 

Also, is there a complete list with all these updates or maybe a .bat file that uninstalls these updates automatically?

 

I used these programs/scripts to uninstall windows spyware and windows spyware updates:

 

Script

W10 Privacy (the best one by far)

Windows 10 Privacy and S**t

Disable Win Tracking

Destroy Windows 10 Spying

 

but do I really need to uninstall the updates that are mentioned in this thread?  I don't have all the updates but some of the updates in this thread are installed on my PC.  I'm not getting any windows 10 update or anything though in windows update.

Edited September 5, 2015 by azroach

[NoelC]

More and more I'm becoming convinced that if one wants to continue to run one of the older systems then it may be best to switch to a "deny by default" strategy for Windows Updates...  Vet every one and if it doesn't fix a specific problem you know you have just hide it.  Or maybe just cut off updates entirely.

 

I'm not sure, for example, that it's actually possible to configure a system with ANY combination of settings, firewall, etc. to succeed a manually-initiated update but NOT do the stuff in the background they shouldn't be - such as secret, silent updates.  Today I checked my logs and I see it managed to contact ctldl.windowsupdate.com (a CDN run by Akamai) several times while nothing else was running.  This because I had specifically allowed those addresses as being needed during a manually-initiated Windows Update.

 

I mean, if Microsoft is no longer willing to document just what an update does, and is clearly working hard to do things behind our backs, then why should we trust them any longer to have our best interests at heart?

 

They've already proven that they're willing to co-opt the Windows Update process to "Improve Windows" - for them!

 

-Noel

[Radish]

Or maybe just cut off updates entirely.

 

Which is the kind of point I've been trying to make. Really, over updates, you are playing with a Microsoft that has turned itself into a mythological Hydra. Cut off one head and two more appear in its place. It's a loser's game, Microsoft are sitting with all the cards. I just keep wondering if they persist in this if a tipping point will be reached and people just say, "Sod that" and off they go to Linux.

 

I doubt if Microsoft has ever had our interests at heart. The bank balance yes - but the user's no.

Edited September 6, 2015 by Radish

[Odos270]

When support ended for XP, I'd planned on buying a new computer (not out of the box, a custom build). I was then going to put Linux on the old machine. I could then learn Linux at my own pace. Well, the video card died in the old machine and it wasn't worth it (to me) to buy a new video card for it. Besides, it was getting some age on it.

 

Who knows, I might pick up a cheap used box and put Linux on it.

[NoelC]

I doubt if Microsoft has ever had our interests at heart. The bank balance yes - but the user's no.

 

That seems a bit extreme.  Generally speaking, we have (with up to Win 8.1) as good an OS today than as we ever had before - though some might say it's not been getting better in any substantial way since Win 7, and that would be hard to argue against.

 

But there's no question that the business model of "provide value for the user so the user will buy the software" has been followed in the past.  Now, not so much.

 

-Noel

Edited September 6, 2015 by NoelC