Never 10 - by Steve Gibson

[jaclaz]

https://www.grc.com/never10.htm

https://www.grc.com/never10/details.htm

Quote

The GWX Control Panel (an early popular solution at 2.4 megabytes) was a useful first step. But it was wrong in too many ways. Its design and operation seemed ill suited to the simple task of preventing upgrades to Windows 10. It was confusing and offered an array of actions, options and status reports, when all anyone really wanted was simply for Windows to not upgrade itself and to leave us alone. Instead, the GWX Control Panel makes itself the center of attention. It needs to be “installed”, is resident and persistent afterward, and it pops up all the time to tell us what a great job it's doing... which is exactly the kind of nonsense most people are fed up with in this era where “your attention” is what commercial interests all want to obtain more of. But more than anything, none of that was necessary . . .

...

There have been unsubstantiated and imprecise rumors of Windows upgrading even if users were using something to inhibit or prohibit that from happening. Some claimed that Microsoft was re-enabling something that was disabled. But we've never had any details. While it's certainly possible, my guess is that people were manually avoiding and “hiding” the evil 3035583 update titled: “Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1”. The trouble is that “hiding” Windows updates is very soft protection. The Windows Update hiding system does not work reliably. Things that Microsoft wants you to have tend to reappear unbidden and they are very easy to miss.

This is why, unlike the GWX Control Panel, Never10 makes no attempt to prevent the GWX technologies from entering the user's system, nor of removing them if they are present. That's an uphill battle which requires vigilance and constant monitoring, and it's unnecessary. The GWX components occupy less than 32 megabytes in the /Windows/System32/GWX directory. You can go visit them if you're curious. So long as the proper registry settings are in place to hold them at bay and keep them disabled, they will cause no trouble and they occupy almost no storage space.

However, there's nothing wrong with a pair of suspenders to go with that belt. So, as a simple added precaution against anything that might inadvertently change those critical registry settings, Never10 goes the extra distance to deliberately edit both registry keys' DACLs (Discretionary Access Control List). Normally, read, write, and other privileges are inherited from a key's parents. But Never10 disables this flow of privilege inheritance, then adds read-only access for everyone in the system. This will cause any attempt to change the keys values to fail. While this protection is not perfect, Microsoft would need to deliberately undo this unexpected change to restore normal privilege inheritance in order for them to then modify the keys' values . . . which seems unlikely in the extreme.

So, yes. Never10 is relying upon Microsoft to obey their own provided settings, which they created a special update to Windows Update to provide. And they buried those settings where no “regular user” would ever find them. I will be stunned if Microsoft should ever choose to deliberately bypass the express desire of their users by ignoring their own registry settings. It's not impossible, but it'll never happen.

 

[ptd163]

Umm... what?

GWXControl Panel doesn't do any of that. It doesn't need to be installed either. A portable version is available. It works exactly as advertised and has never nagged me. Not once. Sounds like someone just wants in on the action despite GWX Control Panel being more than enough to block the Windows 10 malware updates.

What's funny is that Steve claims his software is so superior to GWX Control, but doesn't even realize that there's a portable version of it. It's also kind of cute that he thinks Microsoft will obey is small registry tweak when push comes to shove.

Edited April 5, 2016 by ptd163

[Jody Thornton]

Never 10?  Sounds like the name of a song ...lol.

Never 10 .... by Steve Gibson, on your hit music station - OK I'll cut it out.... lol

[helpdesk98]

I just shut off updates so far nothing bad has happened yet...  How much longer do we have until the one year of free Windows 10 is up? July-ish?

[dencorso]

No one really knows...
But I suspect MS'll continue pushing 10 for longer than that.
It's flopped, but they refuse to face up to reality, you know.

[maxXPsoft]

On 4/5/2016 at 2:08 PM, ptd163 said:

Umm... what?

GWXControl Panel doesn't do any of that. It doesn't need to be installed either. A portable version is available. It works exactly as advertised and has never nagged me. Not once. Sounds like someone just wants in on the action despite GWX Control Panel being more than enough to block the Windows 10 malware updates.

What's funny is that Steve claims his software is so superior to GWX Control, but doesn't even realize that there's a portable version of it. It's also kind of cute that he thinks Microsoft will obey is small registry tweak when push comes to shove.

I used GWX and it failed. Let it actually install cause wife clicked something so it is not 100%

Did use Steve thing this time on her's cause he been at this a lot longer, a lot lot lot lot longer. Imagine he just want to get it right and MS will change things we know that

WTH ya mean there is no install just run Never 10 thats PORTABLE is it not? No installer

[JorgeA]

On Tuesday, April 05, 2016 at 4:41 PM, JodyT said:

Never 10?  Sounds like the name of a song ...lol.

Never 10 .... by Steve Gibson, on your hit music station - OK I'll cut it out.... lol

Is this the song you had in mind? 

--JorgeA

[dencorso]

Or, maybe, this one?

[Jody Thornton]

Neither of them actually ... lol.  But dencorso, is that the same Maria McKee of Lone Justice fame?  I used to  like them a lot.

[ptd163]

On 4/9/2016 at 0:36 PM, maxXPsoft said:

I used GWX and it failed. Let it actually install cause wife clicked something so it is not 100%

Did you use the portable version of GWX Control Panel? That's what I used and what is so difficult about using GWX? 5 clicks at most and you're done. You can delete the portable application and never have to use it again and that machine.

On 4/9/2016 at 0:36 PM, maxXPsoft said:

Did use Steve thing this time on her's cause he been at this a lot longer, a lot lot lot lot longer. Imagine he just want to get it right and MS will change things we know that

I'm not knocking Steve's ability or is his experience in the industry. What I'm saying is he is basically slandering GWX to get attention for his tool when GWX is completely viable option and IMO, offers a much better and more comprehensive solution that Steve's tool can't match.

On 4/9/2016 at 0:36 PM, maxXPsoft said:

WTH ya mean there is no install just run Never 10 thats PORTABLE is it not? No installer

What do you mean exactly?

In the end, I don't care how people are blocking Windows 10 only that they are.

Edited April 11, 2016 by ptd163

[dencorso]

6 hours ago, JodyT said:

Neither of them actually ... lol.  But dencorso, is that the same Maria McKee of Lone Justice fame?  I used to  like them a lot.

Sure, the selfsame one.   And that song is from the same period, too. 

[os2fan2]

I noticed that Microsoft had reinstalled GXP twice since i deleted the original files manually.  There has been a number of other memory hogs around too, like their software scanning stuff (compatlogger or something).  I found that in procexp, and had to use runasti to get rid of it.

The latest version of GXP control panel runs as a service, and does make all of these things that never10 does, and a few more (like actually deleting the apps, which you need to do as a trusted installer.

[phaolo]

On 5/4/2016 at 10:41 PM, JodyT said:

Never 10?  Sounds like the name of a song ...lol.

Never 10, the new scifi book by Steve Gibson.

[NoelC]

Is there anything about adding software to counter software that's been unwittingly added that's somehow better than just always hiding / avoiding installing KB3035583?

More software isn't always the answer...

-Noel

[JorgeA]

43 minutes ago, NoelC said:

Is there anything about adding software to counter software that's been unwittingly added that's somehow better than just always hiding / avoiding installing KB3035583?

More software isn't always the answer...

-Noel

Steve Gibson says (@jaclaz also quotes this in his OP) that:

Quote

There have been unsubstantiated and imprecise rumors of Windows upgrading even if users were using something to inhibit or prohibit that from happening. Some claimed that Microsoft was re-enabling something that was disabled. But we've never had any details. While it's certainly possible, my guess is that people were manually avoiding and “hiding” the evil 3035583 update titled: “Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1”. The trouble is that “hiding” Windows updates is very soft protection. The Windows Update hiding system does not work reliably. Things that Microsoft wants you to have tend to reappear unbidden and they are very easy to miss.

[emphasis added]

Interesting observation at the bottom of his page, vintage Gibson:

Quote

A final note: I'm a bit annoyed that “Never10” is as large as it is at 85 kbyte. The digital signature increases the application's size by 4k, but the high-resolution and high-color icons Microsoft now requires takes up 56k! So without all that annoying overhead, the app would be a respectable 25k. <g> And, yes, of course I wrote it in assembly language.

--JorgeA