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

[NoelC]

Of course there is something to worry about, though possibly not this month.

Microsoft is switching Windows 8 and older updates to be CUMULATIVE (last I heard, in October).

That's a lot to worry about.

-Noel

[Tripredacus]

Well cumulative updates are always a problem. Consider a situation where you need to have some update to fix a security issue you know you need, but another update is known to break something else you need.

[NoelC]

Methinks someone has the forum sorting posts based on local time, not UT.

-Noel

[helpdesk98]

still not updates no major issues most things seem to be fine decided to just hold off on updates for the time being. 

[Mcinwwl]

New updates, something to worry about? Or is this madness gone for good?

[NoelC]

I just updated my Win 8.1 test virtual machine with all currently available updates to see if any new privacy intrusions are initiated.  None showed up at the doorstep of my firewall right away.  But it kind of needs to run longer to be sure.

-Noel

[xpclient]

I am concerned about Cumulative Update Rollups too. I am hoping they won't be a huge problem on Windows 7 and 8.1. I have a p***-poor pathetically slow yet expensive internet connection. In my country, India, broadband is defined as "512 Kbps" and with a population of 1.25 billion, the bandwidth per user is super-expensive. Broadband here is slower than the cellular/LTE speeds people get in first world countries. I have a 1 Mbps connection which is considered "faster" than the average speed of 512 Kbps.

So it is critically important that I am always aware of the size of updates I download, how long it's gonna take to download them, what is included in the update, what is the speed I am getting, how much of the update data has been downloaded vs synthesized from files on my PC (as per the WU delta update algorithm). Windows 10 gives me NONE of this and I am completely in the dark of what's happening behind the scenes.

From my brief observation, I have concluded that something is horribly broken in WU in Windows 10 because it takes around 10-15 minutes for updates to download AND install on my 7/8.1 installations but that same PC on Windows 10 takes from a minimum of 40 minutes to sometimes hours.

Given Microsoft's general incompetence with coding anything effectively without serious regressions or breaking the whole functionality, I seriously wonder if they have screwed up the servicing stack in Windows 10 again (besides the loss of control over updates). As in, by switching to cumulative updates, they may have INCREASED the actual amount of data that needs to be downloaded instead of keeping it to a minimum. There was a lot of work done in Windows XP, XPSP2 and Vista to reduce the size of updates and it seems to be UNDONE in Windows 10. Also, after the updates are downloaded 100%, Windows 10 seems to take far more time and CPU, disk and memory resources to install them compared to Windows 8.1/7.

Windows 10 shows me nothing about size of updates, what % of data is downloaded, no approximation of time remaining, no indication of download speed. I just get a plain progress bar that LITERALLY takes hours to move ahead and often gets completely stuck or moves ahead at a glacially slow pace compared to 8.1/7. This leads me to believe that they have completely screwed up what they got right in Vista/7/8.1. Also, updates in Windows 10 install at the most inopportune times, when my PC is busy doing something important so they have a negative impact on the core task I am doing at that moment.

Now, knowing that the cumulative update rollup model is coming to 8.1/7 as well, I am shocked and worried that the size of the updates will tremendously increase. Technically, it should decrease because there is a lot of overlap/common code for multiple small updates vs one large update but it all depends on what Microsoft has coded and how efficient their delta upgrade algorithm is. We will find out soon starting next month. On Windows 10, they keep us in the dark by hiding everything behind the scenes.

On the contrary, the update experience on Windows 7/8.1 should remain superior to the blind, crippled mess on Windows 10 because on these older OSes, we can still stop updating on demand, download them but not install them, install updates as per our convenience when the PC is not busy, and get an idea beforehand of how much data is going to be downloaded - all of this is missing on Windows 10. Also, Windows 7/8.1 will not get huge feature updates which reset your personalized setup like an in-place OS upgrade does. (Not that anybody wants these "features updates" given how poorly they are built and the value that they take away by breaking or removing functionality). Most current updates for Windows 7/8.1 are very small - most of them smaller than 1 MB and a few of around 4-5 MB. The IE Cumulative Update is around 50-60 MB and the .NET Framework updates are larger. The Malicious Software Removal Tool which is useless is also quite large - I can skip downloading that on Windows 7/8.1 but can't on Windows 10.

Another thing Microsoft has mentioned - over time, the cumulative monthly update rollups is going to retroactively include updates released in the past so it remains to be seen what the impact of these changes is. For a machine that has not been updated, the single update could be huge but convenient. For an already up-to-date machine, if the update rollup ends up being huge, then that would be a serious regression from what we currently have. Time will tell soon but unfortunately, Microsoft is no longer the smart, efficient company that they used to be - their developers write crap and they ship broken disasters as "RTM" code.

The big sad irony is that Microsoft's current CEO is from India and he is supposed to be an engineer so it's kind of an extreme shock that they deliver a system like Windows 10 with horribly broken updating. For someone with a fast internet connection like 100 Mbps, the changes in Windows 10 might have a minimal impact on his bandwidth costs although I am sure they cause a productivity loss when his personalized Windows environment gets reset and badly messed up by updates. Clearly neither the CEO nor the people he has hired for Windows development, have the ability to anticipate or understand the impact of their stupid and customer-hurting changes.

UPDATE: Windows Update MiniTool for Bob 10 tells me that the size of its typical cumulative update is close to 450 MB. So this is unacceptable. From Windows 8.1's updates which used to be in KB, the size of updates has ballooned to 431 MB. Microsoft can kindly fire their CEO again and the entire Windows team or they can go to hell. 

Edited September 16, 2016 by xpclient

[Radish]

xpclient - this won't solve all your problems but it will help you find out some of the information that is connected to your broadband usage. Download NetWorx. You can get it as a portable if you don't want to install anything to the system to try it out. (If you use it as a portable, I do all the time, you won't have access to a couple of its functions but other than that I find it very good.) They also have a pretty good Online NetWorx User Manual for it to help get started.

Totally different topic but the company also has a very good for free SoftPerfect Ramdisk available. Some companies are charging big bucks for ramdisk software.

[pcalvert]

My mother has a Windows 8.1 PC with GWX Control Panel and Never10 installed on it. This past Wednesday, GWX Control Panel reported the presence of files related to Windows 10. Running Never10 reported that "Windows 10 Upgrade is ENABLED for this system!" Apparently, a Windows update re-enabled the ability of Windows 8.1 to be "upgraded" to Windows 10. In addition, neither GWX Control Panel nor Never10 are able to reverse this condition or delete the Windows 10-related files. Considering that the period for the free "upgrade" to Windows 10 has passed, it seems rather strange that this would happen now.

Something else strange also occurred. I sent the following two links to my mother so she could download the latest version of GWX Control Panel.

Download page:
http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

Direct download link:
http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/GwxControlPanelSetup.exe

My mother's reply:
 "My computer won't let me download either one. I
click on the link and I wait and it doesn't open."

I downloaded GwxControlPanelSetup.exe, changed its name, and then uploaded the renamed installer file to a personal website. My mother was then able to download the (renamed) GWX Control Panel installer and install the latest version. The latest version of GWX Control Panel also failed to fix the problem.

I'm not sure what to think of all this.

Phil

[JorgeA]

Well, that would be pretty sh!tty of Microsoft if they 1) sneaked GWX files back onto Win7/8 systems despite the official end of the Windows 10 downgrade push; and also 2) rigged things so that users couldn't download programs to stop that.

In the past, MSFT has made things so that Classic Shell's installation program won't run unless you renamed it. So there is a precedent for that sort of thing. Actually preventing a download based on its filename, though, would be an escalation of this behavior.

Do you know if your mother runs Windows Defender as her AV? Maybe Microsoft added GWX Control Panel or the URL to a WD blacklist?

--JorgeA

P.S. You may want to contact the GWX Control Panel's developer to ask if he's heard other reports like this.

Edited September 19, 2016 by JorgeA
addition

[Dibya]

@xpclient

I also have a 1MBPS line from AlliAnce but i get around 800KBPS.(getting that for 1700 is really bad)

In village house , There is BSNL which use to give speed around 120KBPS

[Stefan43]

The Get Windows 10 app will be removed after installing update KB3184143

https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-finally-removes-get-windows-10-app-windows-7-8-1-pcs/

[NoelC]

A direct link...  Not clear what it installs in place of said unwanted software, though.  There has to be something...  GWXI maybe?

Remove software related to the Windows 10 free upgrade offer

-Noel

Edited September 23, 2016 by NoelC

[MTDirector]

Oh no, some updates reappears... It seems that this Windows 10 upgrade non-sense can be back sooner or later....

For Windows 7 : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2952664

For Windows 8.x : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2976978

Edited October 5, 2016 by MTDirector

[Radish]

4 minutes ago, MTDirector said:

Oh no, some updates reappears... It seems that this Windows 10 upgrade non-sense can be back sooner or later....

I had precious little faith in Microsoft anyway but since this Win 10 nonsense I have absolutely ziltch. Of course the "upgrade" will be back and even if it doesn't they'll still try and dump so called "telemetry" spyware junk onto Win 7 and 8 systems via so called updates. Only safe thing to do in this regard is a fresh install install of Win 7 or 8 and never update it for anything. Dancing with the devil to do otherwise.