Microsoft including Windows 10 with patch Tuesday updates for Windows 7 and 8 Users.

[owsf2000]

If you did that big ass patch barrage on Tuesday that had like 50+ security patches (at least 2 of which were being actively exploited already) you might want to check to see if your computer is losing 3 gigs or so of harddrive space mysteriously. Apparently Microsoft is pushing Windows 10 out to Windows 7 and 8 users without their consent "just in case" they want to suddenly change their mind and upgrade despite not taking advantage of the free upgrade for the last couple of months.

There are reports of people who are on metered broadband who blew right past their data cap for the month as a result of this, causing them to incur additional charges to their internet bill. Apparently Microsoft wouldn't toss it out if you mark your connection as "metered". And apparently finding that option is trivial in Windows 8, although it's hidden deep deep into the settings of Windows 10. (Maybe if you set your connection to metered in windows 10, they won't go abusing your connection to send data about yourself and forcefeed you the updates? That would certainly explain why they'd take the trouble to hide it yes?)

Problem is, most people don't know about that. Second problem is, the option is new to Windows 8. Windows 7 users thus can't mark their connection as metered to stop Microsoft from forcefeeding them many gigabytes of UNWANTED data.

You can see if this is happening to you by looking for a hidden directory labeled '$Windows.~BT'. It'll apparently also trigger a lot of "failed to upgrade to windows 10" errors. Either way the directory will probably be between 3.5 and 6 gigabytes.

You know, this whole situation is pretty fucking hilarious if you look at it. Normally Microsoft is suing companies and trying hard to put a clamp on pirated copies of their OS. Why? Because people want it, but don't want to pay a few hundred bucks for a full version.

Now it's the other way around. People are trying hard to STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THE OS but Microsoft is trying to force it on them with every trick (several times underhandedly so) in the book from sleazily marking the upgrades and nagware patches as "important/critical" to trick people into automatically installing it if they have their Windows Updates configured to ONLY download things that should be necessary. (And those are generally SECURITY updates. There's nothing important about setting a nagware button in your tray.)

The more they push that OS out unwilling computer users, the more I wonder WHY they're trying to do so. Especially with all the privacy invading aspects built in and the degrees people have to go to simply to avoid it.

Kinda reminds me of when Apple forcefed everyone one of U2's new albums. Pissed off shitloads of people. (IE: Everyone who wasn't a U2 fan. Which is actually a lot more of than fans.) Only difference here is that Apple spent over 100 million dollars to piss off their customers. And they still apparently honored their "auto-download" feature - that is, only auto-downloaded it to those who had that turned on. Of course, those turning that on expected it to auto-download things they explicitly added to their account. And only those things.

Meanwhile Microsoft is simply forcefeeding everyone their new OS, bypassing the host file settings and as often as possible their own Windows Update settings. All so they can track the users and get info on every little thing (I kinda hope I'm exaggerating here.) a person does on their computer. Expect that shit to help them send targeted advertising to you eventually. You know they won't be able to resist, assuming it's not already being done. (I don't have Windows 10 so really can't say for sure.)

If Microsoft ONLY has over 100 million users WORLDWIDE for their new flagship after a couple of months, when they're giving it away for free AND trying to sneak it onto Win7/8 computers every chance they get AND this is despite lots of people resisting it as much as possible... there's gotta be something bad about it. I'm not that big of a PC gamer. I'll have no problems jumping over to Linux if the alternative is Windows 10. (Oh wait. I already have a computer running Linux. :P)

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really don't get what the big rush is and why it seems so terribly goddamn important for them to get Win10 everywhere, especially for free, enough so that they'd stoop to such underhanded tactics as this, unless there definitely are some sort of nefarious ulterior motives for doing so, as you also surmise to be the case. And so, specifically because of this exact bullshit and their seeming desperation to get people to move to Win10, I am explicitly going to wait until it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by independent 3rd party investigation that Win10 is indeed actually safe to use and not laden with extraneous malware of some sort (even if said malware were to be 100% sanctioned by Microsoft itself). I'm fairly sure that it mostly probably is safe to use, on the whole, but if I wasn't already committed to a wait-and-see approach before, I definitely am now, even so.

The only thing stopping me from switching to Linux myself (for now, at least) is that I used Linux (Ubuntu, specifically) quite a lot during my old testing job back in WA, and it wasn't the greatest thing in the world to have to deal with. Better than OSX, at least, but that's not saying much. There were some things that I liked better about Linux than Windows, though (e.g. the lack of a need to manually defrag your HDD (http://www.howtogeek.com/115229/htg-explains-why-linux-doesnt-need-defragmenting/), for one thing [but then, that's apparently true of OSX as well, so really, Windows is the odd duck out on that particular issue]).

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

I have Ubuntu on the other box. Seemed to work just fine for me for most things, although some of the replacement software isn't as convenient by a long shot. (I had to use Gimp and another prog to try to get most of the functionality of Paint Shop Pro 8 at a level of convenience I found acceptable. I'm sure Gimp could do it all, but at points it did things in rather retarded ways and I just didn't have the patience to figure out what it expected. This was mostly for sprite work for my 7800 games.

There is certainly other software that's still Windows only, so it may be true that I'll need a Windows 10 computer eventually - BUT if I do, I'll be getting a computer that should be sufficient for the things I need it for (I won't be spending thousands on it) and the comp will likely be used ONLY for using those windows only programs. And the software I'm referring to are things that would work for my projects. (For instance, if I were to start fiddling with music and vocaloid software, and other such things. It won't be used for -playing- games.)

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

And to clarify with respect to that Windows computer (And I'll try for Win7 etc at first if at all possible), but the computer will essentially be physically turned off when not in use for those projects. (Currently there's little need for Windows with my current projects, but I'm not using Win10 either so for now it's a moot point.)