Windows 10: Why you should NOT upgrade...

[Shadow]

Windows won't do updates even while online if you set your NIC to be a metered connection in the NIC properties.

[Destined]

i got windows 10 home version 1803, As far as I could tell it was a critical update, and windows 10 just applies them regardless of what you are doing, the update was for windows defender which i don't use.

 

windows 10 wont update if you are not connected to the internet, so if I was doing a bios update to the computer, the router would be off and not connected.

I suppose the problem here is really the Home version. From what I have read this version usually makes a lot more unwanted stuff than the Pro version. I am not sure, how expensive this would be, but maybe you should consider upgrading (if this is possible)?

[Fidcal]

Sounds like ransomware or a protection racket. "Pay for an upgrade or else!" Mind you, I wouldn't mind paying someone else to seize control of Win 10. That's no different to buying a shotgun if you keep getting burgled.

 

That tip for setting as metered is a good one. I did that a couple of days ago. Apparently they don't download so much junk (if I ever allow an update.) Technically I am metered I guess. I get 200GB a month plus half of what's left over from the previous month. It's far more than I need but why should M$oft be allowed to steal from that? My firewall has lots of blockers for stealthy attempts by M$oft and Acer to access the net. Not one of them asked my permission or explained wtf they were doing using my phone and I would never have known without the firewall stopping them.

[OrbWeaver]

Overall I like the user experience and feature improvements in Windows 10, but its update process leaves a lot to be desired.

 

Yesterday I got yanked out of a full-screen game so Windows could nag me about an important feature update it wanted to install. After I eventually did install it, my machine rebooted and got stuck in a "Windows encountered an error and needs to restart" loop, which went through about 3 reboot cycles before automatically rolling back the changes. Now the update is showing as Pending Install and I've nervous about what is going to happen the next time it tries to install. Am I going to get stuck in endless reboot loops for the next year because of this broken update that Windows cannot install correctly?

[kano]

They need to migrate to a COW file system, where undoing a change that damaged the system takes less than 2 seconds. They do have a COW file system, ReFS, but you're not allowed to use it for Windows, only for data.

[esme]

I've set my internet connection to metered on my tablet, told it not to update on battery & shrunk the windows partition as much as I can & made a 2nd drive in the space

 

Now it only tries to update when I'm connected to the mains, there's enough room to download updates to the virus scanner which I get asked about but attempts to download O/S updates fail because there's not enough space

 

As I only use it for twitter that's fine by me

[stumpy]

just got the 1809 update took 2hrs to download and install and 3 minutes to get windows ready, then 1/2 a hour turning off the new unwanted features.

 

there was no way to block the update to version 1809, it didn't ask if I wanted to download or install it just did it as part of a automated windows update.

Edited February 13, 2019 by stumpy

[Destined]

I got a new PC at work this week and apparently my university has the program "ShutUp10" installed on all new computers. This allows for a lot of settings regarding telemetry, updates, etc. Just thought, some of you might be interested.

[Fidcal]

Yeah, definitely interested. Thanks. Downloading...

[Fidcal]

At first sight Shutup10 looks comprehensive but confusing.

BUTTON OFF - Sharing of handwriting disabled

The above appears to be OFF but the 'disabled' shows as part of the descriptive text, as if you need to turn it ON to activate the function of being disabled. In other words, the mode of being disabled is OFF.

Yet further down we see...

BUTTON ON - App access to user account info disabled

The above is the REVERSE of the first one! It appears you have to set it ON to make it disabled.

So now I wonder if all those button settings are not yet activated at all but simply recommended? Or has it read in the current settings from the system and is showing them? Or has it already changed anything without asking? (don't think so.)

I'll need to give this more thought another time and do a test on one thing at a time - something not too important. I like the idea of what it's doing but I like absolute clarity over something so important.

It also indicates it can create restore points. These are good short term but do they know that M$oft delete old restore points without telling you? (Did last time I looked in Win 7 Pro. I set a restore point right from first install of Windows and named it so. Over the next week or so as I installed new stuff I did more restore points. Eventually, M$oft deleted some of the earlier ones without asking.)

[stumpy]

windows 10 only lets you have one restore point, although you can make one on a 16gb memory stick, but only one per stick.

[Fidcal]

Yeah, now you mention it, I see there's only one of my restore points still there a few days old. There are two others but they were made covertly by M$oft before an uninstall and before a new install. No doubt they will disappear soon. Even so, all three are 'hidden' from a casual view. M$oft don't even have any direct link that I can see to restore; you have to pretend you're going to Create a Restore Point and that's where it offers to restore. But it still hides everything but the last restore point until you look further down for a link to others. Even then (!) you only see the last restore point! You have to then click again to 'show others'. Finally you see the few there are (if there are any.) Clearly they don't want you to know any of this but simply click and leave it to M$oft. Problem is, they cater for the blundering masses who don't know what they are doing, and for the most expert who do. Slightly knowledgeable thinkers like myself in the middle struggle. We neither want to blunder blindly, but neither can we easily find what we need.

[kano]

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-edge-secret-whitelist-allows-facebook-to-autorun-flash/

 

Why I don't feel comfortable using proprietary software to browse the Internet.

[Oktokolo]

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-edge-secret-whitelist-allows-facebook-to-autorun-flash/

Flash still exists in 2019?!

And why do they promote Flash instead of their equally bad but selfinvented Silverlight?

Why I don't feel comfortable using proprietary software to browse the Internet.

On Gentoo Linux there is a somehwat stripped down and easy to compile Chromium available.

But on Windows you will probably have to use a binary blob containing features that someone else wants you to use (i like my new tinfoil hat - it's so shiny)...

Can't have both: Easy to use and the ability to cherry-pick the features you want.

[kano]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3344476/windows-10-should-never-reboot-your-pc-without-your-express-permission-researchers-conclude.html

 

Windows 10 reminds me a lot of AMD and their Bulldozer chips, which lost in benchmarks when they were tested against the prior generation of AMD chips! If your product is less performant and more complicated with the new iteration than the old one was (Windows 7 in this case), you screwed up big time. We don't see people complaining about forced reboots or excessive down-time on Windows 7!

 

Ceasing to bundle stuff into Windows that nobody asked for like Skype, Xbox, and Candy Crush would be a good place to start. Because, believe it or not, most computer users don't play video games. A vast majority of computers aren't even equipped to run demanding games in the first place. But the hell with that, everyone gets Xbox. And Skype. And Candy Crush. And anything else Microsoft earns a commission to install onto peoples' computers with their oh-so vital updates. https://www.howtogeek.com/342871/hey-microsoft-stop-installing-apps-on-my-pc-without-asking/

[woah]

Windows won't do updates even while online if you set your NIC to be a metered connection in the NIC properties.

 

Are you sure? Back when I was still bothered to fight windows updates and telemetry through internal means (i.e. from within the OS--now I do it through the router) it just seemed to ignore this option after some time.

 

Actually, that seems to be a trend with Windows 10. Every option is a mere "suggestion". Options you try to rely on are regularly obfuscated or disappear. I have no confidence that any configuration option will actually do what it says because Windows seems to override everything at its own discretion. E.g. I attempted to use that ShutUp10 program a while back but I've found that there's a constant back and forth battle between it and Windows. Recently I installed the latest version in an offline environment on an old 10 install iso. On the next reboot Windows displayed a "Windows is performing some updates..." message and then I found that some of the options I set were reverted on the next boot. I'd imagine that it's a constant battle in an online environment and some day ShutUp10's developer will probably just give up. And if you're at all concerned about privacy, it means all of the effort you've put in to fight windows over the past 6 months or whatever will go to waste within that one week window in which ShutUp10 is lagging behind the latest update from MS.

 

Another example is when trying to disable Cortana (as in actually stop its exe from running). Every few months you need a new solution because subsequent updates circumvent the workaround. Do companies like microsoft really change the nature of their OS frameworks so frequently? Or are they intentionally doing this? I feel like someday I won't even be able to trust that Windows will keep my NIC card disabled.

 

 

The trend of all of these "ecosystems" toward "absolute control" doesn't just exist with Microsoft of course and I think it's a characteristic of a larger problem that's occuring.

Edited February 28, 2019 by woah

[stumpy]

in some windows 10 updates, after logging into windows and before the anti-virus starts, windows 10 auto loads windows edge even if its not set as default browser and loads up a web page full of flash based adverts to tell you about the current new features. its like who gave permission to load those maybe malware infected adverts.

[Fidcal]

Yes, if you stop Cortana in Task Manager then it restarts within seconds.

 

Shutup10 I couldn't understand the settings but StopUpdates10 is working fine! It's running in the background constantly monitoring Windows. In Settings - Windows Update the status shows as 'Your device is up to date. Last checked 07/02/2019 16:07. But it's definitely not true. If I run the StopUpdates10 control program in the start menu it shows Windows Update is blocked with below it a big button: 'Restore Windows Updates' so I can permit Windows to update if I wish then block it again - or leave it to never update. It's been no problem. In my Firewall, I've also refused permission to everything of M$oft's except: svchost (set to local only) and system (local only.) That alone blocked updates but Windows still tried. Now it doesn't even try because it thinks it's up to date. Forever. StopUpdates10 is really simple because there are no settings except Stop or Restore Updates.

[esme]

To stop Cortana, open a windows explorer window, find & rename it's folder, this will fail as Cortana is running but you should get a retry popup, then open the task manager, kill Cortana & quickly hit the retry button

 

If you're too slow Cortana will restart & the rename will fail again & you'll get another retry popup, so try again until you manage to rename the folder

 

Once the folder is renamed Cortana can't start

 

At least until the next time Windows updates

[Anderson]

Did anyone have memory leaks with RAM? I do not know if this is a Win 10 issue in particular but the most common advice I see is to buy more RAM ( I have 2 Gb atm).

The problem is that if the laptop idles for 20-30 minutes or more then it just stalls whenever I return from any distraction I was busy with because RAM is full apparently.

I think it might be the Antivirus but, could it be the main culprit? RAM is 70-80% busy in task manager even shortly after startup and so is the hard drive.

[Destined]

The official requirements state that you should have 2 GB RAM for Windows 10 (64 bit), but another source says 4 GB, so it may well be that Windows is at fault here. I am currently at 3,3 GB RAM usage (with Firefox and Spotify running)

[Fidcal]

Just read this in the private Editpad Pro forums:

 

clickable links in text files don't work I updated to latest Windows 1809 (17763.79 build and now the links in text files aren't clickable

 

 

That would REALLY annoy me if I updated because I use local and distant links a lot from text files.

[Destined]

I actually had this problem with an Excel file recently at work (my computer has been upgraded just recently). I never thought that this may have to do with the OS and just thought that the link was broken. Fascinating

[Fidcal]

I just hit ANOTHER problem! A few days ago I installed Autoclose to try. It didn't do what I wanted so this morning I just uninstalled it. But its folder remained and contained MSCOMCTL.OCX. When I tried to delete it, Win10 said NO! - Reminder Commander is using it. I did a reboot. Reminder Commander crashed. So I reinstalled Reminder Commander over itself (without uninstalling) and then it was fine again. Now I could delete the autoclose folder with its MSCOMCTL.OCX.

 

Theory: When I installed Autoclose, I think Win10 tried to be smart and thought 'Hullo, two programs using their own two instances of MSCOMCTL.OCX - I can't have that. I'll make them share. So it redirects Reminder Commander to the new copy, forgetting about uninstalls.

[OrbWeaver]

Did anyone have memory leaks with RAM? I do not know if this is a Win 10 issue in particular but the most common advice I see is to buy more RAM ( I have 2 Gb atm).

 

2 GB of RAM is way too little for any normal present-day workload, unless you are running a specifically-designed stripped-down operating system (which Windows 10 certainly isn't).

 

You're effectively trying to run a full-featured desktop operating system with the same amount of RAM as my six year old Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.