Not sure if this was reported here or not yet: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/windows-10-free-for-all-windows-8-1-and-windows-7-users-for-first-year/
A lot of speculation floating around that this may be Microsoft's first steps toward a subscription model like Adobe
Quote from: Melbosa on January 21, 2015, 01:42:13 PM
Not sure if this was reported here or not yet: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/windows-10-free-for-all-windows-8-1-and-windows-7-users-for-first-year/
Good idea in theory.
Bad execution though -- there is no way that I can see to tell it "STOP REMINDING ME 8 TIMES A DAY! YEESH!"
Seriously, I click that top-right corner "x" multiple times per day, lately it's gotta be at least 4. What other application etc. doesn't shut up after the one time each day, or at most 2?
Any way of permanently telling it "back off! I am happy enough with 8.1!"
Quote from: Mr. Analog on January 21, 2015, 01:48:02 PM
A lot of speculation floating around that this may be Microsoft's first steps toward a subscription model like Adobe
^ this is part of the reason why I ain't jumping onto this bandwagon yet.
There is a patch you have to uninstall to remove the reminder
I can't remember which one, you'd have to google it
@%&#ty marketing is @%&#ty
I did a fresh install, cause it wouldn't give me the actual update and kept showing that dumb reminder instead thinking I didn't say "upgrade", when i did.
I recall reading somewhere that MS has stated that /windows 10/ will not go subscription only. That's nothing to say about any future version.
Well I did a quick search online -- for "reserve copy windows 10 DISABLE (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=reserve+copy+windows+10+disable)" -- and apparently** it's as simple as uninstalling the "KB3035583 (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3035583)" update, which "created a new directory in C:\Windows\System32\GWX and installs some executables and files that serve as a notification tool that could display banners and other ads for Windows 10 as the launch date approaches. Meanwhile, the GWXUXWorker.exe file acts as the Windows 10 downloader." [1]
I agree with [2] which half-jokingly said:
"One of the biggest reasons many users, including us, are getting roped into installing this update is that the actual verbiage for the recommended update is a tad misleading. ... This update doesn?t resolve any ?issues? other than Microsoft?s own issue with getting the word out about Windows 10. Again, we don?t need help with this."
[1] https://techjourney.net/disable-remove-get-windows-10-upgrade-reservation-notification-system-tray-icon/
[2] http://www.howtogeek.com/218856/how-do-you-disable-the-get-windows-10-icon-shown-in-the-notification-tray/
** #FingersCrossed (since sometimes uninstalling MS KBs goes less-than-smoothly...)
PS: the comments in one of the above pages mentioned a few other options, including a registry edit, and a 3rd party "uninstall this annoying nagware" app on GitHub. Also somebody mentioned additionally getting rid of KB 2976978 (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2976978) since all that does is add some diagnosticy thingies to do with upgrading to the next version of Windows.
Quote from: Darren Dirt on August 19, 2015, 10:08:15 PM
Well I did a quick search online -- for "reserve copy windows 10 DISABLE (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=reserve+copy+windows+10+disable)" -- and apparently** it's as simple as uninstalling the "KB3035583 (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3035583)" update, which "created a new directory in and installs some executables and files that serve as a notification tool that could display banners and other ads for Windows 10 as the launch date approaches. Meanwhile, the GWXUXWorker.exe file acts as the Windows 10 downloader." [1]
I uninstalled the 2 KBs and then rebooted and verified the "C:\Windows\System32\GWX" folder is now empty (but not deleted, weird) ... so I hope it doesn't come back to life ;) [in Windows Update I don't even see those old KBs as an option to re-install -- which I would like so I can hide them]
BTW for you folks excited about Windows 10 and it's helpful voice-activated cyber-agent etc... just remember there is a downside to educating this agent with all your personal taste preferences etc.
http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/31/9075531/windows-10-privacy-how-to
Quote
...by default, Windows 10 can track and share the websites you visit, the purchases you make, the places you go, the words you type, the things you say and more.
You have the ability to control Windows 10's data collection, but it takes some doing. The installation process lets you customize privacy settings at the end or go with the defaults in "express settings." We'd suggest taking the extra two minutes to forgo the latter and make your own choices here, or adjusting the options after installation, because Microsoft's default privacy settings might not be as private as you'd like.
imo the bolded part translates to: "most users will be too lazy to turn down the default level of how W10 gonna be learning EVERYTHING about you... mwahahaha" or something to that effect ;)
I spent the extra few seconds to turn as much of that off as i could on install. Interestingly, the install reverted a bit after a reboot, and asked me all of that stuff again. I think i ended up making sure to turn ALL things off the second time. I was slightly annoyed. lol.
Also this feature is coming to Windows 7 and 8
Sent from my SGH-I317M using Tapatalk
So... Windows 10 has been out for over a year, I assume that most of the bugs are ironed out now, so I'm willing to upgrade. I wonder if the free upgrade is still available?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12435/windows-10-upgrade-faq
Quote
The free upgrade offer to Windows 10 will end on July 29, 2016
Well damn, better get that done this month then!
Anyone here not on Windows 10 yet that is planning to upgrade? I have to do a couple of desktops and a tablet (although it might have already auto-updated). Hopefully upgrading doesn't wipe out all my users.
All my clients have been making me schedule this upgrade last minute. Damn busy time for me!
I have one machine on one machine off (mostly for legacy software / drivers... it's like Windows XP all over again)
Anyway, Windows 10 is working very well now, far better than Windows 8 was. So far I have only run into problems with Adobe software but other than that no complaints.
IMPORTANT THING
-Disable Cortana
-Disable AS MUCH telemetry as you can
You can't fully disable Microsoft telemetry or ad injection which is a problem and/or causes stability issues if you try some of the hackier solutions out there. Know this before going off Windows 7
Both my home systems run Windows 10.
Still run Windows 7 enterprise on everything at work, no rush there. Only a handfull of ms surface tablets running 10.
Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk
I upgraded to windows 10 just for the fact that it seems stable, and the UI makes more sense than windows 8 ever did. Ignoring the spyware and forceful upgrade shenanigans...
I actually let a neighbour's old ass amd system stick with win7, I didn't think windows 10 would be a good fit for that box. old dual core box with 3GB ram, and an old nvidia nforce chipset+igpu. It was fun just finding the right up todate drivers for it :(
Personally, my one and only computer, a mid-level laptop, I initially disabled a bunch of Windows 8 stuff and so now for more than a year even with dozens of tabs of Chrome AND Firefox, still been running quite smoothly for weeks at a time before I reboot to apply the latest Windows Updates ... so no need for me to GWX.
Quote from: Mr. Analog on July 06, 2016, 05:16:16 PM
Anyway, Windows 10 is working very well now, far better than Windows 8 was. So far I have only run into problems with Adobe software but other than that no complaints.
IMPORTANT THING
-Disable Cortana
-Disable AS MUCH telemetry as you can
You can't fully disable Microsoft telemetry or ad injection which is a problem and/or causes stability issues if you try some of the hackier solutions out there. Know this before going off Windows 7
Quote from: Mr. Analog on August 28, 2015, 06:40:53 PM
Also this feature is coming to Windows 7 and 8
I wonder if there is an easy to find list on the web somewhere, listing all of the KB# I need to add to my list of "stealth GWX.EXE installer" updates that I currently have. So I can just take away the very ABILITY of Windows to silently re-enable Cortana and that advanced telemetry, after I disable it. You know, the way that GWX.EXE keeps getting re-enabled after you kill it. (Because of the handful of "updates" that add it after you have removed it -- but do very little else.)
The problem so far is that Microsoft has baked in a lot of features like ad-push and Cortana so getting cute with the registry / renaming exe's / blocking apps works until an MS Update rolls out and expects things to be more or less where they should and then pukes all over itself, so, it's kind of risky trying to fully cripple those features (not impossible tho, just risky)
Windows 10 would have been a perfect 5 out of 7 had it not been for Cortana / ad-push in the start menu
Most of the time I don't bother anymore anyway, I got so used to using "Win+R" in Windows H8 that most apps I run are either pinned and in front of me or one run box away
Quote from: Mr. Analog on July 08, 2016, 08:12:43 AM
The problem so far is that Microsoft has baked in a lot of features like ad-push and Cortana
Windows 10 would have been a perfect 5 out of 7 had it not been for Cortana / ad-push in the start menu
What is this exactly?
Different than Cortana (MS's attempt at Siri right?) but what is "ad-push"?
Quote from: Mr. Analog on July 08, 2016, 08:12:43 AM
Most of the time I don't bother anymore anyway, I got so used to using "Win+R" in Windows H8 that most apps I run are either pinned and in front of me or one run box away
That is EXACTLY how my current W8.1 is set up -- I have about a dozen pinned apps plus 2 folders on my desktop containing about a dozen more shortcuts to certain little widget tools etc. otherwise a clean desktop, and a TON of WIN+R+[shortname] memorized that I do all the time. That covers 95% of what I ever do on my Lappy.
Hmm, I'm very keyboard-focused. I use WinHotKey to make system-wide hotkeys to start the programs I use most often. Like Shift+Win+C starts Chrome. I looked at AutoHotKey, but it's more complex than I need (very powerful if you do need it, though). The downside is sitting down at a computer that doesn't have it set up, I have to remember how to do things the old way.
Windows key, start typing the name of the app hit enter. Super frequent apps I keep pined to the tray.
Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk
Quote from: Darren Dirt on July 08, 2016, 06:02:22 PM
Quote from: Mr. Analog on July 08, 2016, 08:12:43 AM
The problem so far is that Microsoft has baked in a lot of features like ad-push and Cortana
Windows 10 would have been a perfect 5 out of 7 had it not been for Cortana / ad-push in the start menu
What is this exactly?
Different than Cortana (MS's attempt at Siri right?) but what is "ad-push"?
Cortana is what you think it is, by default it is your "search engine" for files ans stuff on the web. If you have a mic hooked up you can even have it listen to you. The thing is when I'm searching for files on my hard drive I don't want results from the web showing up... in fact the only time I want to search the web is when I go to the web to search for things. Anyway it's easy enough to disable Cortana on the surface HOWEVER the process is always running unless you cripple it. If you're not using it virtually no resources are used but it's annoying that you can't get rid of it for good (also windows search reverts back to Win 7-ish when you disable Cortana). I only know one person who actually enjoys Cortana and he's a bit of a MS junkie
AS FOR THE START MENU, remember "tiles" in Windows 8? They still kind of exist in the start menu. I kind of like tiles on a touch device (like my XPS 13) but on a PC? Forget about it and by default they contain ads (though you
can add / remove tiles) see screenshot for a taste
Finally, out of the box there are ads displayed on the lock screen, I reckon most of us don't ever see the lock screen but if you want to disable this you need to go to your personalization settings and disable the "Windows spotlight" feature
Anyway, that's the only real cruft I had to fiddle with... for now
http://www.theweek.co.uk/73982/microsoft-pays-10000-for-unwanted-windows-10-update
^ business woman sues MS and wins! For forced auto-update (GWX.EXE FTL!)
Quote
... Windows 10 became a "recommended download" last October, meaning those with automatic updates enabled found themselves unwittingly downloading it.
Microsoft has also been strongly criticised for its use of pop-up boxes ? in one, users thought they were selecting to reject the OS but instead began the download, while another offered two options, both of them to upgrade.
WOW holy @%&# I had no idea those assholes @%&#ed it up that bad. @%&#in' crazy @%&#.
Yup they dialed back how pushy they were about it big time
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Quote from: Thorin on July 06, 2016, 05:10:43 PM
So... Windows 10 has been out for over a year, I assume that most of the bugs are ironed out now, so I'm willing to upgrade. I wonder if the free upgrade is still available?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12435/windows-10-upgrade-faq
Quote
The free upgrade offer to Windows 10 will end on July 29, 2016
Well damn, better get that done this month then!
Anyone here not on Windows 10 yet that is planning to upgrade? I have to do a couple of desktops and a tablet (although it might have already auto-updated). Hopefully upgrading doesn't wipe out all my users.
I'm upgrading one computer tonight, and the other one tomorrow night. Hopefully everything I've set up (users, extra installed apps, ports, etc) remain working.
The rollback isn't all that painful so even if things bork you should be okay.
I would make a Windows 7 recovery disc (if you don't have one already)
Well, Windows 8, I didn't have Windows 7 on these computers. The install took a while (old hardware), and then I had to go through each user for their first-time set up (six users on the computer). Also, making the task bar the same colour as the background is @%&#ing stupid, so I changed it for each user to have a highlight colour, use that highlight colour for the task bar, and have the task bar not be transparent. And I set Chrome as the default browser for each user, as it was before. That's nice that you renamed your browser, Microsoft, but I still don't want to use it.
Hopefully things go well on the other machine tonight. That's where I have Plex, uTorrent, Minecraft Server, IIS, Sql Server, etc installed. Hopefully all those stay running.
I wish you good luck. If you run into any problems let me know as I've been doing almost 100 computers in the last 3 weeks and have seen a variety of issues.
FYI Windows 10 anniversary update is coming up on August 3rd. This is going to have a lot of changes to UI / tablet features (FML)
It figures! It's just before Fraga
Well, updating to Win10 went pretty smoothly. The computer started binging with every notification, had to turn that off toot-sweet, and the Snap Assist bothers me, so I turned that off. But Plex and uTorrent and TheRenamer and Minecraft Server and IIS and Sql Server all still work.
Nice
Quote from: Thorin on July 25, 2016, 09:47:14 PM
Well, updating to Win10 went pretty smoothly. The computer started binging with every notification, had to turn that off toot-sweet, and the Snap Assist bothers me, so I turned that off. But Plex and uTorrent and TheRenamer and Minecraft Server and IIS and Sql Server all still work.
Excellent!
If you run into problems with Windows Picture Viewer not showing things in the right order or issues with USB mic volume I can help, in the last 2 weeks I've found out about some cool tweaks that fixes issues with both
One thing I've noticed about w10 is the modern ui version of the gallery is useless. But the old windows photo gallery is still there and functional!
Quote from: Tom on July 26, 2016, 12:08:50 PM
One thing I've noticed about w10 is the modern ui version of the gallery is useless. But the old windows photo gallery is still there and functional!
Yup, it still works good except two things
-If you have DPI scaling enabled it borks the slideshow view
-The order of the images will not match the order you have in Explorer (unless you apply a registry fix)