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

[kahlil88]

8 hours ago, Mcinwwl said:

Far past time, but I'm afraid there is no simple way to hide updates. Look Here. As if the couldn't add some /hide switch to Wusa...

Personally I did try to automatize it using Powershell script and some community-provided modules on Win 7 pro 64 bit, but soon decided I'll do it faster by hand. PS under 7 has no Cmdlets for managing updates, and the ones found in the internet were far from being perfect.

I've had great luck with the aegis tool mentioned in the original post. No longer being maintained due to some beef the creator has with Voat, which is a strange place for it. Perhaps someone wants to invite him over to this thread?

[dencorso]

8 hours ago, kahlil88 said:

Perhaps someone wants to invite him over to this thread?

Please feel free to go ahead and make it so.

[kahlil88]

18 minutes ago, dencorso said:

Please feel free to go ahead and make it so.

Couldn't find a way to contact him on GitHub but I sent him a private message on Voat.

[dencorso]

Great!

[jaclaz]

29 minutes ago, dencorso said:

Please feel free to go ahead and make it so.

Too many Star Trek New Generation episodes leave a sign, seemingly.

Fascinating!

jaclaz

[dencorso]

9 minutes ago, jaclaz said:

Too many Star Trek New Generation episodes leave a sign, seemingly.

Fascinating!

jaclaz

Sure it does! But just a handfull is enough, it seems. Some day I'll watch the full NG, but that's not in the near future.
The original series, however, I did watch in full, twice at least, back when it was broadcast in B&W... 
 

[bphlpt]

Indeed!  LOL

[submix8c]

Well! I was *assuming* that Win-X Free was over, but apparently only for Auto-Update and for any/all (Retail/OEM). This says you can still get it if have a legit Retail key.

http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/696537/Get-Windows-10-Upgrade-Free-Download-After-July-29

Not that I *really* wanted it, but...

More info  (re out of luck, with previously posted screenshot) -

http://www.zdnet.com/article/what-happens-free-windows-10-upgrades-after-july-29-2016/

According to that, there's still 56% of PC's running Win7 (until January 2020 at least), so...

And whatever "Assistive Technologies" is...

http://bgr.com/2016/08/02/windows-10-free-upgrade-late/

Edited August 5, 2016 by submix8c

[glnz]

Gang - Today is August 6.  Now that free upgrade is past, I see that Mr. GWX himself KB3035583 has been magically erased from the "Restore Hidden Updates" list in my Win 7 Pro SP1 64-bit.  Impressive!

I still have the following KBs in my "Restore Hidden Updates" list and wonder if I should now UNhide any of them and install them:

KB2952664

KB2999226

KB3021917

KB3068708

KB3080149

KB3118401

What say you? 

Edited August 7, 2016 by glnz

[dencorso]

I say: let sleeping dogs lie! You got no reason to fix what ain't broken, right? Or do you?

[NoelC]

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

Edited August 7, 2016 by NoelC

[jaclaz]

10 hours ago, glnz said:

Gang - Today is August 6.  Now that free upgrade is past, I see that Mr. GWX himself KB3035583 has been magically erased from the "Restore Hidden Updates" list in my Win 7 Pro SP1 64-bit.  Impressive!

More than impressive, it is "terrifying", it plainly means that - even on 7 - the good MS guys have full (or almost full) control of the software on your machine AND that they don' t care to notify you in any way what (the heck) they are doing on your machine , they add (or remove) software at will, without your explicit authorization. Today this resulted in a good thing, removing that senseless crap, tomorrow it may be *whatever*.

jaclaz
 

[dencorso]

3 hours ago, jaclaz said:

More than impressive, it is "terrifying", it plainly means that - even on 7 - the good MS guys have full (or almost full) control of the software on your machine AND that they don' t care to notify you in any way what (the heck) they are doing on your machine , they add (or remove) software at will, without your explicit authorization. Today this resulted in a good thing, removing that senseless crap, tomorrow it may be *whatever*.

jaclaz
 

Resistance is futile... prepare for assimilation!

[NoelC]

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

[dencorso]

Bring Bill back and bid Nadella begone!