Windows 10: Why you should NOT upgrade...

[kano]

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/4/17533926/windows-ios-android-bloatware

 

That screenshot at the top of the article says it all.

[Oktokolo]

So they write stuff like "THE BLIGHT OF UNDESIRED SOFTWARE AND PROMPTS IS ALL AROUND US", but on the same page show me a half-screen high overlay asking me to accept unneeded cookies...

Credibility level: Politician

[kano]

Yeah those cookie things are really annoying. You can thank the EU for that. But even in the US, where anything goes when it comes to corporations invading privacy for increased profits, we still see them. You would think they could filter us out by IP or something.

 

And if you run the browser in "always use private browsing mode", you see them every time you visit the site, since it can't write a cookie acknowledging that you saw the message.

[Fidcal]

Funny thing is, if you don't opt in for cookies then they have to keep nagging you each time you visit because they can't create a cookie to say you've opted out unless you opt in!

[Oktokolo]

I have the Stylish addon installed and do add the apropriate CSS to my personal anti-nagdialog file. So i will never see this one again.
But the joke here is, that such nag dialogs are not even GDPR compatible. If they need to ask (because the data collection is not a technical necessity or required by law), they also need to provide the option of using the service without collecting the data. The prohibition of consent bundling is the revolutionary new part of the GDPR (besides the possibility of heavy fines). It is the first "data protection" law featuring this rather new concept. So no, GDPR is not at fault here.

My anti-nag CSS file:

*[id*=cookie], *[class*=cookie], .pea_cook_wrapper {
  display: none !important;
}
html[id*=cookie], html[class*=cookie], body[id*=cookie], body[class*=cookie] {
  display: block !important;
}
.site-message--banner, .cc_container--open, .unsupported-browser, #update-browser-banner {
  display: none !important;
}
#js-gdpr-consent-banner, #privacy-consent {
  display: none !important;
}

You see, that it is rather small. That is because i also use the uMatrix addon to block JavaScript and 3rd-party stuff by default (wich also removes almost all advertisings and makes the web super fast).

[Fidcal]

Yeah, I also block javascript by default. The speed difference is massive and underlines how much bloat travels around the www because most sites work without it. On the rare occasions I use Internet Explorer, I often think it's crashed it's so slow (dunno about the new Edge is it called?)

 

As for the GDPR, what you say, does that mean websites must by default provide a working service without cookies? I thought they could insist. I believe it was Yahoo search I noticed the other day said something like 'if you don't agree to opt in, you can't use our service.' (So I didn't.)

 

About that anti-nag css, does that mean it will prevent you allowing cookies on all such (nagging) websites even those where you want (normal) cookies?

[Oktokolo]

Yeah, I also block javascript by default. The speed difference is massive and underlines how much bloat travels around the www because most sites work without it. On the rare occasions I use Internet Explorer, I often think it's crashed it's so slow (dunno about the new Edge is it called?)

Microsoft's browsers where among the first having settings for blocking JavaScript (this is not an endorsement).

As you already block javaScript, try to also block all 3rd party requests by default too (uMatrix addon recommended). You will have to tailor your settings the first few weeks until you have more permissive rules for the big sites and blogs you want to keep working. But the web gets even faster.

 

As for the GDPR, what you say, does that mean websites must by default provide a working service without cookies? I thought they could insist. I believe it was Yahoo search I noticed the other day said something like 'if you don't agree to opt in, you can't use our service.' (So I didn't.)

They have to provide service without cookies that are not technically required. If they provide a login, also providing a session cookie storing your serssion ID is okay. They do not have to ask about that, because it is technically implied (but they have to mention it in their privacy policy text, wich they do not have to shove into your face - providing a link in the menu is fine).

But if the cookie is for some marketing or other tracking stuff, they have to ask and yes, the site has to work without it if the user does not explicitly opt in.

 

But you should never rely on law alone. Even with the new and shiny GDPR (wich is a big leap forward) nobody will get fined for setting a cookie - and they all know that. So they will keep trying to track you (not only by using cookies).

Deny 3rd party cookies in your browser settings (every major browser lets you do that now) and never ever think about cookies again. Additionally tell the browser to forget all cookies, cache, browsing history and domstorage data (if you do not play browser games) on exit to reduce tracking potential even further.

About that anti-nag css, does that mean it will prevent you allowing cookies on all such (nagging) websites even those where you want (normal) cookies?

If you want to accept cookies for a site, don't add that site's nagscreen to your stylish CSS file. It is not hard to make your own CSS file if all you want is just to hide some stuff on some sites. Every major browser comes with a DOM inspector this day. Just get the id or class of the elements to hide and hide them. Look at my example, it is rather small because without JavaScript you don't see much nag dialogs anyway.

[kano]

I have the Stylish addon installed ...

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/05/browsers_pull_stylish_but_invasive_browser_extension/

 

One does have to laugh at the irony of this. The Chrome browser is designed to send your browsing history to Google, Windows 10 defaults to sending it to Microsoft, but when some comparatively ant-sized company implements the feature in a browser extension, it's baaaaaaaad!

 

Not that I'm sticking up for these guys, it's just that treatment should be equal.

Edited July 5, 2018 by kano

[Oktokolo]

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/05/browsers_pull_stylish_but_invasive_browser_extension/

 

One does have to laugh at the irony of this. The Chrome browser is designed to send your browsing history to Google, Windows 10 defaults to sending it to Microsoft, but when some comparatively ant-sized company implements the feature in a browser extension, it's baaaaaaaad!

Don't know about Windows 10. But in Chromium and Stylish disabling the "telemetry" at installation was easy.

[stumpy]

if you reinstall windows 10 it now want you to create a pin as well as create a Microsoft account to login to windows, there's is no bypass button to not create a pin, although you can delete the pin once you have installed windows 10.

[kano]

Best way to dodge creating a Microsoft Account when setting up Windows (for extra spying goodness!) is to not be connected to the net during the OOBE (out of box experience). Then, it'll just make you a local account as usual.

Edited July 6, 2018 by kano

[stumpy]

not really a choice when reinstalling free version of windows 10, you need a microsoft account to access your free activation code, else you have to buy a new code at full price in your region. my ssd had run out of life and needed replacing, which mean you have to make a copy of the windows 10 operating system on a usb flashdrive, which you can only download if you have a micrsoft account, then swap the ssd around, boot from usb flashdrive, which reinstalls windows 10 to new ssd, in about 5 minutes, then you need a microsoft account to reactivate windows 10 as its serial code is kept on the microsoft servers which is only accessable via the account, it checks the microsoft account and the motherboard serial number, and when they both match windows 10 gets reactivated.

[kano]

not really a choice when reinstalling free version of windows 10, you need a microsoft account to access your free activation code, else you have to buy a new code at full price in your region. my ssd had run out of life and needed replacing, which mean you have to make a copy of the windows 10 operating system on a usb flashdrive, which you can only download if you have a micrsoft account, then swap the ssd around, boot from usb flashdrive, which reinstalls windows 10 to new ssd, in about 5 minutes, then you need a microsoft account to reactivate windows 10 as its serial code is kept on the microsoft servers which is only accessable via the account, it checks the microsoft account and the motherboard serial number, and when they both match windows 10 gets reactivated.

Sounds like a stalker's dream come true. Good thing there is Linux.

[Destined]

not really a choice when reinstalling free version of windows 10, you need a microsoft account to access your free activation code, else you have to buy a new code at full price in your region. my ssd had run out of life and needed replacing, which mean you have to make a copy of the windows 10 operating system on a usb flashdrive, which you can only download if you have a micrsoft account, then swap the ssd around, boot from usb flashdrive, which reinstalls windows 10 to new ssd, in about 5 minutes, then you need a microsoft account to reactivate windows 10 as its serial code is kept on the microsoft servers which is only accessable via the account, it checks the microsoft account and the motherboard serial number, and when they both match windows 10 gets reactivated.

Why not just create a system backup and copy this to the new SSD? Or does this not work with the free version? I tried this, but had other problems with the new SSD, which prevented me to succeed with that.

[stumpy]

system backup copies all the drives in your computer, so that would also include any hard drives, I tried that but after it spent 6 hours copying a 1tb drive it crashed, it starts with the last drive in the list. it wont let you backup just the c drive. reinstalling is messy you have to disconnect any hard drives, else windows 10 install shares files with all connected drives. so you end up with a operating system scattered across all connected drives.

anyway I looked around on the internet and most of the tech forums said to do a clean install. windows registry gets messy after many updates.

 

and nearly everything is turned off in settings

 

if you are a business dont get windows 10 as networking computers together seems to not work unless you get some special version of windows 10 and remote desktop isn't available in windows 10 home

Edited July 8, 2018 by stumpy

[Destined]

Hm,ok. Good to know...

[unfairlight]

My experience of Win10 was poor when I first used it on my new laptop because some updates entirely broke my PC, and it always needed to do overly long updates in the worst possible times. If you are on the newest version from the start, as I am now my experience has been pretty good. The UI is worse and less functional than 10, the ads are bullshit, I hate that you can't disable certain features, among other things but there have been some really great QOL improvements and I like that Microsoft has yet to revoke my right to use my computer as I did pre win10, with pure desktop focus and not being connected to their ecosystem at all aside from just the OS.

[stumpy]

according to rumours windows 10 might be the last numbered operating system, microsoft will just keep updating it and still call it windows 10

[esme]

system backup copies all the drives in your computer, so that would also include any hard drives, I tried that but after it spent 6 hours copying a 1tb drive it crashed, it starts with the last drive in the list. it wont let you backup just the c drive....

 

Would something like Acronis not work ? or will Win10 not let you change the hard drive without a reinstall ?

[stumpy]

i don't know. I've changed it now. the operating system is on the c: drive, which is the one that got replaced before it became a read only drive, 1% life left I worked out was about 12 days, but I don't know when it became 1%, everything else is on the harddrive. windows 10 backup used to let you pick which drive to backup, but in one of the recent updates they seem to have changed it so it does a backup on all connected drives and no longer gives a choice. microsoft removing control on how you backup your computer.

[kano]

https://betanews.com/2018/07/13/edgedeflector-for-windows-10-no-edge/

 

EdgeDeflector for Windows 10 forces all links to open in the default browser, not Microsoft Edge

 

How sad is it that people needed to make something like this? And you just know that Microsoft will break/override it with each new update...

[Fidcal]

M$soft's efforts to control and manipulate their own users/customers never ends until legislation forces them to seek another loophole. The very setting of a default by the user MEANS that is the browser the user wishes to use! To bypass that setting directly and deliberately overrides the wishes of their own customers.

[Anderson]

Does anyone tech savvy willing to give a thoughtful answer to this question here?

 

Ok, so I had a desktop PC with Windows 7 Pro installed on it, probably a pirated version (the programmer that built the computer and selected the pieces is gone for a while). It was a processor with an i3 dual core, had a GT 450 video card, 4 Gb of Ram and 500 Gb of hard drive memory.

 

After a while I installed Win 10 on it, thinking that doing so would sort of "legalize" the OS if the updater allows it.

 

Then, last year it had really weird behavior. The PC kept being stuck at the Win 10 boot screen where the circle keeps rotating at the Windows 10 logo. If I rebooted it a few times it would start, but even then it had instances of restarting randomly after a certain period time. Very unstable and unreliable when doing any work at all.

 

Went to some specialists and they said that it might one of the Windows 10 updates blocking the PC at booting.

 

The point is that I had very weird experiences with updating Windows 10 on a laptop too because it seemed not have one of the updates compatible with the hardware it seems.

 

Could certain Windows 10 updates not work on the PC if you have automatic updates on? If so, is this because the PC had Win 7/ Win 8 beforehand and so unless the PC comes with Win 10 from the store, it probably can have conflicts with some apps preinstalled on the PC that prevents the computer from booting?

 

 

 

[…] as networking computers together seems to not work unless you get some special version of windows 10 and remote desktop isn't available in windows 10 home

Stumpy, do you mean networking through LAN?

Or simply something like TeamViewer?

Edited July 20, 2018 by Anderson

[Oktokolo]

After a while I installed Win 10 on it, thinking that doing so would sort of "legalize" the OS if the updater allows it.

Microsoft OSes will tell you directly if they think your license might be invalid. If you did not get any such message, the OS is probably thinking that the license is okay. So i would not expect the issue beeing about piracy in this case. Also Microsoft is now switching his core business to a much more cloud-based business model. So they also stopped caring about piracy in the last years anyway.

 

Then, last year it had really weird behavior. The PC kept being stuck at the Win 10 boot screen where the circle keeps rotating at the Windows 10 logo. If I rebooted it a few times it would start, but even then it had instances of restarting randomly after a certain period time. Very unstable and unreliable when doing any work at all.

 

Went to some specialists and they said that it might one of the Windows 10 updates blocking the PC at booting.

 

The point is that I had very weird experiences with updating Windows 10 on a laptop too because it seemed not have one of the updates compatible with the hardware it seems.

 

Could certain Windows 10 updates not work on the PC if you have automatic updates on? If so, is this because the PC had Win 7/ Win 8 beforehand and so unless the PC comes with Win 10 from the store, it probably can have conflicts with some apps preinstalled on the PC that prevents the computer from booting?

Microsoft's update process became more and more brittle in the last ten years - to the point where they already hat some scandals where companies had to reinstall lots of PCs because they would not boot or get right to the bluescreen after a regular update.

They got absurdly sloppy when it comes to their update process and the update QA. As it is now, most Linux distributions featuring automatic updates are doing them more reliably than Microsoft (it is a real shame because their update process was nearly perfect ten years ago - for the OS itself only of course)...

 

So yes, could very well be an update. Could also be a hardware failure or anything else of course.

 

As that OS installation seems to have accumulated quite some history now, i would recommend just getting rid of it.

Backup all the data (might as well backup everything and sort it out later) - twice if you can.

Then do a fresh install of whatever Os you want and chose to reformat the disk while installing it.

After that put some days to good use by reinstalling and configuring all the software you need and sift through the backupped data.

[stumpy]

networking through Lan works from windows 10 pro one way direction to windows 10 home, doesn't work the other way. windows 10 home see's the windows 10 pro machine as a media device, but not a computer. used to work both ways when windows 10 was first installed, but getting them to connect after version 1803 seems near impossible. I wouldn't want to be a business who's been forced to upgrade to windows 10 then find out they can't see each others computers in the office.

 

one of the failures I read which only effected 6 core systems made them constanly reboot.

 

windows 10 also had problems with ryzen cpu's because they weren't made by intel, but windows 10 tried to instal the intel cpu drivers that only work on intel cpu. which also caused them to go into a looping reboot.

Edited July 21, 2018 by stumpy