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

[Mathwiz]

I thought this thread was dead, but today, 2/14, I saw our old friend KB2952664 reappear in my update list. I guess it's been reissued?

I hid it again, but it makes me wonder if M$ is going to make another push to get Win 7/8.1 users to upgrade to Win 10.

[dencorso]

KB2952664 has reappeared many times before... and it's not the only one, BTW... So, the question should be "when", not "if"...

[NoelC]

I'd love to see them try to force upgrades on people that would require payment.  That could land executives in prison I think.

Of course elsewhere I've read that it's still a free upgrade now, even though Microsoft said that offer would expire.

-Noel

[Dave-H]

As far as I know, the Windows 10 "upgrade" is still free if you just say that you are using accessibility features, which is what I did. 
There's no check, they just take your word for it!
Officially if you look online to upgrade, you do now have to pay, and it's not particularly cheap, especially the Pro version.

 

[dencorso]

@Dave-H: You were on 8.1 update 1, just before it, right?
Do you think the update was worth it, after all?
I know you have long experience with every Windows from at least 9x, and is not liable to be "blinded by novelty" at all.
Now that suffiocient time has passed to understand what MS means 10 to be, what's your personal evaluation of it?
As of today, of course!

[Dave-H]

Yes, I upgraded from Windows 8.1.
I resisted it for quite a while because of all the negative things I heard about Windows 10, the perceived lack of privacy with it sending a huge amount of data back to Microsoft, and the forced Windows Updates, and I never like the idea of using the very first version of anything anyway for obvious reasons.
Also, of course I resented the way that it was being pushed onto people!
By the time I came to update, the Anniversary Update had been rolled out, so that's what I got. I have no idea what Windows 10 was like before that.
It does seem to work well and is very stable, and in many ways the UI is better IMO than that of Windows 8.1, which was still far too biassed towards the use of touch screens. Had I been a Windows 7 user I might well have thought very differently of course, but as I've never used Windows 7 (or Vista) I could only really compare it with Windows 8/8.1, and I do think that 10 is better, once you've used the obvious enhancements like Classic Shell and have got the colour scheme the way you want it. Personally I think that Windows 10 "out of the box" looks absolutely hideous!
So I haven't regretted doing the change, hopefully I will be future-proofed now as far as it's possible to be in this business, as I assume and hope that my hardware will always remain compatible with Windows 10, which MS still maintain is now the final version of Windows, as OS X seems to be for Macs.
I am, I hasten to add, still a very long way from using Windows 10 as my default OS. I only really use it when I have to run a 64 bit program.
I'm sticking with XP for as long as I can for my general everyday use.

 

[Mcinwwl]

Today vile KB2952664 appeared on my update list again...

[Jody Thornton]

On 2/15/2017 at 2:59 PM, Dave-H said:

It does seem to work well and is very stable, and in many ways the UI is better IMO than that of Windows 8.1, which was still far too biassed towards the use of touch screens.
 

I just don't get that.  Once you excise all of the metro stuff from Windows 8x, it really looks more like a windowing system than 10 does.  The caption buttons (min/max/close) in Windows 10 and UI are more flat than 8x by a long shot.  And the dialog boxes in 8x are more like Windows 7.  I just don't get the dislike for Windows 8.

[greenhillmaniac]

On ‎15‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 7:59 PM, Dave-H said:

It does seem to work well and is very stable, and in many ways the UI is better IMO than that of Windows 8.1

Curiously, I've had the opposite experience with Windows 10... Random bugs like Explorer crashing for no reason, the HDD going to 100% usage because of Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry Agent...

Also, I would argue that the Windows 10 UI is worse than 8.1's. First of all, you have the weird mix of the Settings app and Control Panel, where some settings are in one, and some are in another. In 8.1, the Control Panel does it all (aside from changing the Picture of your account and lock screen). Then, you have the Metro apps that try to replace the regular Win32 counterparts, whose design is so big and adapted to touch, it makes it a pain to use, with no Context Menus, huge mouse movement to reach certains parts of the app that should be readily available and no keyboard shortcuts.

I'm happy with my Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center. I would argue that Bash for Windows is a plus on Windows 10 (the only one, honestly), but Vmware's Unity mode does the job for me.

[dencorso]

22 hours ago, JodyT said:

I just don't get the dislike for Windows 8.

That's easy: there still wasn't 10 around... were it, 8'd get only love.

[greenhillmaniac]

44 minutes ago, dencorso said:

That's easy: there still wasn't 10 around... were it, 8'd get only love.

People were much more willing to s*** on Windows 8 when it was new vs 10 now IMO

[dencorso]

8 added Metro and removed the Start menu, hence the shock. But all that could be undone by tweaking, because the underlying engines remained there. 10, instead, crippled more seriously the latent funcionalities of the underlying engines and added telemetry and advertisements, but arriving after 8+, it caused less shock. Were the release order the reverse, 8 might have been hailed as a steer back to the right direction. Ever heard of "the goat and the Rabbi"? MS used one of the oldest tricks in the book to try an' slide 10 down people's throats...

[NoelC]

What dencorso said.  !!

-Noel

[xpclient]

Windows 10 is the crappiest crap of all crap. I've seen such extreme bul***** in the OS in the last 2.5 years that I will stay away from it for the next 100 years at least. It's an epic failure of good software engineering. Parts of it are very poorly architected/designed and the UI is worse than Windows 95, and even worse than Windows 8. The reliability, stability, quality, value it delivers, ease of use, features - everything about Windows 10 is outrageously bad and completely worthless, lacking in substance.

For those who cannot judge its quality and cannot see its massive flaws, I saw tough luck.  You are stupid and you might have a weird obsession to stay on the "latest" OS no matter how bad it is, and nobody can fight that if you've made up your mind to ignore its deal-breaking flaws. The worst is yet to come. Windows 10 will only get worse from here on as it destroys everything that truly made the PC great. Microsoft will remove more features and value than what they are adding, and they will change it into a perpetual expensive subscription.

You'll experience MASSIVE troubles CONTINUOUSLY with Windows 10 - it goes against the fundamental principle of software which is that it should stable, trustworthy, reliable and productive in the long term.

Now at this point, end of Microsoft support also means nothing to me. So I will continue to run Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell for as long as I can. Windows is secure enough now that security patches ending won't cause your PC to get hacked unless you run unknown apps from untrusted sources. It's just a tactic that Microsoft uses to scare everyone. In fact I am willing to take that 1 in a billion chance that my PC will get hacked because of a security vulnerability. That is lesser of the two evils, the one option being extorted by Microsoft perpetually with ridiculous changes that you can't say no to. Microsoft will bleed you dry without offering any additional value, and while secretly eliminating what you paid for.

The driver model hasn't changed between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 so it will be possible to run Windows 8.1 for a very, very, very long time. Even NVMe SSDs have native drivers in Windows 8.1. USB 3.1 - yep. Bluetooth Low Energy. Yep 8.1 supports. Miracast? Yep. There hasn't been any hardware technology evolution or revolution big enough to require the dreadful abomination called Windows 10.

No amount of Registry tweaking, configuring and tuning can fix the awfulness of updates in Windows 10. Updates that should have been 10 MB in size are 1 GB and are constant. To hide from the user how awfully bloated they are, Microsoft no longer shows their size so the user remains cluelessly deceived. Updates reset your customized stuff and completely kill your productivity. Updates also impact internet bandwidth when downloading and affect your PC performance while they slowly install. Updates will wear out your SSD with tons of unnecessary writes. Whoever worked on the updating stack should never again be allowed to touch a computer, let alone code. They should be sent back to the college or university they came from to learn efficient coding from scratch again. Until then, all their degrees and qualifications should be taken away. I haven't seen anything worse in 30 years of computing than Windows 10 updates.

UI inconsistences have increased 100 times more in Windows 10 vs 8.1. Settings and notification area Metro s*** is all over the place. For example, there are 3 Defender UIs: (see this image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C28Xt4gXcAEf0c4.jpg:large ) AND a tray icon and weekly Action Center notifications! Action Center is a badly design notification UI straight from hell to constantly bug and annoy you. On the other hand, Windows 8.1 with the addition of Classic Shell is largely like Windows 7. You don't even have to ever see or use the dreadful Metro UI in Windows 8 except for a few areas like the Network flyout/tray pane. Whereas in Windows 10, the extremely crappily designed UI has infected all the parts of the OS. Everywhere, silly dumb undecipherable icons are used instead of text and everything is hidden behind hamburger menus that require more clicks. More classic Win32 desktop apps are replaced by extremely dumbed down Metro crap. There is no more any concept like usability, productivity or efficiency of doing things.

Windows 8.1 is the fastest out of Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10 in my benchmarks. Also besides synthetic performance, Windows 10 has real-world UI sluggishness issues due to use of managed code in the UI/graphical shell. Plus, it is unstable and breaks on its own. It also has loads of unnecessary crap which cannot be uninstalled, fully disabled and continues to take loads of memory. It also comes back when you do updates.

So Windows 10 has severely regressed in several core areas:
1. Updates (or the way the OS is serviced) which affects user productivity and long-term stability and desired configuration
2. User interface which has pathetic usability. The entire UWP/Metro UI control stack should be canceled and something better based on modified Win32 controls for touch should be built. Making the controls usable still won't fix their awful design and broken underpinnings of UWP and of most apps though
3. Poor performance due to use of managed code in the OS unlike fast, low footprint native code (C++)

I think those who say Windows 10 is actually better than 8.1 or 7 don't have any understanding of operating systems and therefore cannot see just how bad it is. They have no idea of the crap they are accepting. What can I say - ignorance is bliss.

Windows 10 is unbearable for me so I never use it. I refuse to use such a junk piece of software, so it's 8.1 for me unless there is really something useful added in Windows 10 in the future. But Microsoft has run out of great ideas and innovation. They only add useless gimmicky fluff now that is of no value to me. Most of their "ideas" are copied from competitors, and since there is no long-term continuity or guarantee of any feature staying around, their software suddenly becomes completely worthless for me - because you paid for some commitment and now they're backing off that commitment - it's an epic breach of trust. Spending money on such crap would be the biggest mistake ever. Plus anything that requires the cloud or interacts so much with the cloud gets a big thumbs down from me. I will never use it because their grand plan is to hold everyone hostage as they pull off any kind of random meaningless changes FORCIBLY to make themselves rich while offering nothing new really that is of significant value or use to you. Again, it's a violation of trust and reduction in value in the "improved" version.

I will wait till the new Microsoft CEO gets fired - you know, the id*** who cannot even understand that operating systems should be an offline but occasionally connected-product, not a cloud-first service.

Edited February 27, 2017 by xpclient

[NoelC]

Heh heh heh...  Don't hold back, xpclient, tell us how you really feel! 

Too bad we're on opposite sides of the world; I imagine we'd get along over a few beers.  If we ever meet, the first round is on me.

In all seriousness I have to agree with pretty much all your points, and unfortunately time does not heal these wounds.  No matter WHAT Microsoft's social networking manipulation and FUD mongering tries to push people into thinking, Windows 10 will just not be as good as what we've already seen until (unless) Microsoft re-grasps the fundamentals of making operating systems.

For me a well-tweaked Win 8.1 is still my reasoned choice.

-Noel

Edited February 26, 2017 by NoelC