I’m not seeing this on my system. How do you find it?
Read through some of the related articles on that website. Interesting tidbits, like having no choice but to accept all patches Microsoft pushes out or risk being cut off completely. Then there’s the fact that there’s no clear definition right now as to how long the free support remains free before they start charging for updates. And PadrinoFive7’s joke about “not paying your OS bill on time” sounds less and less like a joke.
One thing that puzzles me is that in the history of changes from one version of Windows to the next, hasn’t it always been a clean install works better than an upgrade? After my limited exposure with Windows 8.x, an upgrade is a good thing, but I’m not so sure about coming from Win 7.
As far as I know, yes. A clean install doesn’t leave a bunch of garbage from the old version on the computer.
CWX,
I’m assuming Win7/Win8…
Go to Control Panel (Make sure you change View by: to either Large or Small icons)
Click on Programs and Features.
On the left side click on View installed updates.
Look for the update or paste KB3035583 in the search box in the upper right corner.
Uninstall the update. (Right-click and choose uninstall)
After a reboot if you search for updates it will be listed as an available update.
Right-click on it and choose hide update.
Unfortunately Microsoft has recently re-released this patch with the exact same KB number.
You may have to do this more than once.
Not really a problem if you choose to be notified of updates and not have them installed automatically.
I hope this makes sense.
JT
2 Likes
What about all the machines out there that are only connected to the internet on a limited basis? Either because of lack of access, or because you don’t want access on a particular machine.
Oh, yeah, this sounds fantastic.
[/sarcoff]
I’m stuck between dreading and looking forward to upgrading my family’s machines to Windows 10. They bought a duo of Samsungs and a duo of Lenovos all with Windows 8 on which is perfectly fine and good for what they need. Indeed, Windows 8 isn’t the problem with these machines at all. No. It’s the damn OEM bloatware that I never had time to get rid of before they started using the machines because I wasn’t there when they got them.
The Lenovos aren’t too bad to be honest, just a bit of cruft and a McAfee free trial that will not shut up.
The Samsungs though, oh man, I cannot wait to blast their hard drives. Again, this is nothing to do with Windows 8, this is because Samsung saw fit to include a piece of software called SWUpdate which I can only assume was written by Satan himself to make the tech-literate family members of the world weep sorrowfully long into the night. SWUpdate disables Windows Update. I don’t know how, or why, but I think it might be something to do with a custom USB controller that WinUpdate keeps trying to erase and replace with a stock one (I read that somewhere but took it with a pinch of salt).
Erasing SWUpdate causes it to reinstall on the next reboot. Admittedly it wouldn’t take long to plug the drive into my own laptop and find Satan’s Partition and nuke it but when the laptop belongs to your mother who is midway through her Doctorate and is scared to move her laptop let alone rip the drive out to poke at it… eh, it’s gonna be easier waiting for the Windows 10 update so I can just nuke the whole drive completely.
So yeah… weird that… I’m looking forward to the release not for new features but simply because it’s a great opportunity to nuke cruft off four machines so that I don’t have to keep fiddling with them every couple weeks just to make sure that Samsung isn’t vetoing security updates again.
On the topic of ‘how long is it free for’ I really don’t know where to throw my hat. I hope they’re going to roll the OS and Office into one subscription, which would make sense… ‘Pay £x/mo (£y/yr) for Windows, including Office!’ but as PadrinoFive7 said, what if you missed your bill? Although they currently give you leeway with Office 365 they do say in the small print that they reserve the right to change the conditions, they could, if they wanted to be entirely evil, program in the Hacker’s Favourite ‘kill switch’ for non-payment.
I seriously doubt they would, but they could, and it would be legal if they did so. Eek.
1 Like
So, anyone done it?
Minecraft 10 is tempting, but I just built this damn machine, I’m scared to do anything to it.
I reserved a copy, but I’m kinda nervous as well. On one hand, my computer’s been wonky for a while with booing and the like, so DH is wondering if maybe this will help (and we were going to pull the trigger and get a new computer with the back-to-school sales anyway since mine’s so old). On the other hand, my computer’s been wonky for a while and DH is wondering if the update might kill it completely. 
He’s actually kinda pissed because we put an SSD in here and it isn’t any more stable than before. Maybe even less so. At least we didn’t pay for it (vendor gifts rule!) since we’ve had it since they were ~$400… At least I have everything backed up in case of complete annihilation…
My old laptop is in line for it but it hadn’t gotten it as of last night. I’m not going to risk any other stable machines in the house just yet but I’ve thought about upgrading the all-in-one. I’m planning to purchase a Surface Pro 3 soon and I will be upgrading that one.
The built-in motherboard video that I’m not using is not Windows 10 compatible, so it won’t upgrade me. Maybe I can disable it first. Not sure I want to bother. I have no compelling need for Windows 10; I only grudgingly updated to 7 from XP last year.
I’m still waiting to see what the major problems are.
Okay, here’s one that just popped onto my feed.
The rather amusing thing is quite a lot of the number of ways that it reports home are only detailed in the EULA… which isn’t legally binding in the UK and a few other EU countries (you cannot be forced to sign a contract relating to a product after the contract of sale has completed). So it appears that MSFT have stepped into very, very murky waters.
At least when Windows 8 sent back data, it was open about it and asked you, rather than hiding a bunch of tick boxes away somewhere and keeping quiet about it all.
Gee, what a concept. I’m surprised that the courts haven’t realized this yet.
I suppose we should be grateful that there are tick boxes at all.
I remember when XP would register as a Trojan on some anti-virus because there “backdoors” embedded in it.
1 Like
With the invalid EULA, it’s not that the courts haven’t noticed, they’re relying on the customer not knowing their rights. Like how Apple still sell AppleCare in the EU despite the fact that by law, computers must be protected under a five-year warranty (six-year in England and Wales).
I loved (well, cynically admired) how sneaky MSFT were with XP, and how they got away with labelling so many things as ‘features to improve your experience’ - users (by which I mean Geoff Average, esq.) just weren’t suspicious enough to pick up on just how much of it was simply data mining.
Now people are suspicious, and I’ve already heard someone on the street saying simply “I’ll never get Windows 10, my son said it saves everything I say out loud and sends it to Microsoft” which although true isn’t actually as bad a thing as they think it is - but the things that are bad are things which are hard to explain to the tech illiterate.
2 Likes
despite the fact that by law, computers must be protected under a five-year warranty
The government actually took the time to mandate computer warranty lengths? Glad they got all those other problems taken care of. Shouldn’t it be the consumer’s choice whether or not to pay for a warranty?
If I had to guess, I’d say it’s more about trying to manage how much electronics waste ends up in landfills and the like. PC breaks after 2 years w/ a 1-year warranty - owner throws it out and buys a new one. With a 5 year warranty, it’s more likely to be repaired or traded in, refurbed and resold.
I didn’t see anything about the consumer being forced to pay for it.
I didn’t see that it was government subsidized .Therefore TANSTAAFL. That cost gets helpfully rolled into the cost of the product. Even if, for some odd reason, I was going to buy a computer to destroy I would still be paying for a 5 year warranty. Or one that I was going to mod so much it would break the warranty.
Come to think of it, why am I assuming the government did this on it’s own. It could be a money maker for the company.