Windows 10 Pro Anniversary Update tweaked to stop you disabling app promos

[Elevon]

What a load of condescending twaddle especially the last bit. It isn't an unreasonable requirement at all to have control over updates.

Interestingly one of their design goals for updates is "must be deployable with minimal impact on users" not doing so well on that front by any metric... maybe time to go back to the drawing board.

(As an aside, critical security updates aside, this tablet I'm on right now hasn't had any other updates since May 2014 and worked fine and done everything I've asked of it).

I'm not even sure what your point is with legacy software and home users - so many home users will be needing to use legacy software for a variety of reasons whether it is an old mod for a game or educational software that has long been abandoned with no immediate replacement and so on.



I don't think anyone has complained about Windows 10 being "too hard" to use ever in the 1000s of posts here - you are completely mis-reading what people are complaining about.

To break it down a bit when it comes to the start menu you tend to have 3 main types of user:

-Those that largely use search
-Those who like all the options up on screen making full use of the screen estate of their monitor to find what they are looking for
-Those who like a concise, minimal, organised menu that doesn't distract from whatever they are working on and can switch to and from it with minimal effort

For any of those users it is harder if they are forced to use one of the other types that doesn't mean they find the OS "hard" to use and no matter how much they "adapt" it will still be less effective than the method that suits them most naturally. For those that like to quickly type stuff out with minimal time away from the keyboard and minimal visual/UI interaction a menu will never be efficient no matter how easy it is to use while for those who a driven by a visual experience and like to use the mouse to find what they want having to spend time on the keyboard will never be efficient no matter how easy the functionality is and this extends to other areas of the OS and in other ways.

I know what they are saying but point is you can't build any OS to please everybody, we all like different things with regards to layout, how we actually use the OS etc, in the end it's easier just to adapt and adjust to the changes then hoping Microsoft will make changes to suit YOUR needs.

Speaking from personal experience I do find it easier to adjust to the OS rather then wanting this or that changed etc, this has been my way with Operating Systems for many decades.

 

[413x]

Glad I stuck with win 7
I must say the threat of 'no more free win 10 after today' did make me pause.
But the forced updates etc and all the new automation stopped me

 

[Billies Bangers]

Glad I stuck with win 7
I must say the threat of 'no more free win 10 after today' did make me pause.
But the forced updates etc and all the new automation stopped me

So are you going to remain in this Windows 7 bubble of yours for the rest of your life with your Honda S2000 and your Canon 70d.

What did you have before Windows 7, couldn't that have been a gamble at the time? Life's a gamble.

 

[Rroff]

I know what they are saying but point is you can't build any OS to please everybody

I agree hence why it is important to have options and flexibility as much as is reasonably possible which seems to have gone several steps backwards in 10.

Speaking from personal experience I do find it easier to adjust to the OS rather then wanting this or that changed etc, this has been my way with Operating Systems for many decades.

One thing MS seems to be doing in 10 is some kind of (to use the wording of another poster) "pain points" thing that assumes people are OK with something if they don't complain - so if people just accept and deal with less than ideal features it won't ever change to something better.

 

[Elevon]

I agree hence why it is important to have options and flexibility as much as is reasonably possible which seems to have gone several steps backwards in 10.



One thing MS seems to be doing in 10 is some kind of (to use the wording of another poster) "pain points" thing that assumes people are OK with something if they don't complain - so if people just accept and deal with less than ideal features it won't ever change to something better.

Problem is with flexibility and options, it can make the OS bloated and even in some cases confuse some users out there with array of choices etc...

As to second paragraph, I have given my fair share of improvement feedback to Microsoft and other companies as beta tester etc and to be honest 99% of times it falls on death ears(especially with Microsoft), however they do seem to make bug fixing the most important thing which I can understand.

 

[Elevon]

Glad I stuck with win 7
I must say the threat of 'no more free win 10 after today' did make me pause.
But the forced updates etc and all the new automation stopped me

Auto updates are fine until things go wrong, to be fair I've had manual updates on Win7 and other Operating Systems go wrong so nothing new there, so far Win10 updates have been fine for me.

 

[Rroff]

Auto updates are fine until things go wrong, to be fair I've had manual updates on Win7 and other Operating Systems go wrong so nothing new there, so far Win10 updates have been fine for me.

One of the differences is there though - atleast personally I tend to leave updates on 7 unless there are critical security/bug fixes, until I have some time free to deal with any potential issues and/or avoid doing updates if I'm about to do say a weekend of gaming. 10 takes a lot of control of that out of your hands and that is pretty poor experience wise. Some people might be a bit less bothered by it especially if they only run one PC - but when you have a fair few systems like myself it builds up into a much bigger management headache - especially as lately there have tended to be issues with updates hanging at like 97% for 6 hours before working or hanging for hours and never completing without manual intervention.

To give an example of something else and why I don't like Caged's post on the matter - I have a system that is used to host stuff like Minecraft, DayZ and so on type stuff semi-persistent or persistent type games with a small group of friends and family - the goal of the system is to provide better performance and availability than if a random user hosted from their desktop PC. Sometimes it will be required to be stable for days on end i.e. around a new game release of that type other times it only gets switched on when people are in the mood (usually spontaneously) to play something both of these scenarios would be considerably impacted using Windows 10 without the use of LTSB and that is just overkill for casual use and still not ideal - nothing worse than getting ready to play a game and having Windows 10 decide to either jump into a long update when you switch the system on or start prepping a new update as it has been off for awhile impacting performance for the first couple of hours and then restarting itself a couple of times at random and a concept like "active hours" is completely alien here with the differences between week days and week ends and holidays, etc. dictating gaming patterns. (Not sure I can fully explain it while trying to keep it to any semblance of concise).

 

[Elevon]

One of the differences is there though - atleast personally I tend to leave updates on 7 unless there are critical security/bug fixes, until I have some time free to deal with any potential issues and/or avoid doing updates if I'm about to do say a weekend of gaming. 10 takes a lot of control of that out of your hands and that is pretty poor experience wise. Some people might be a bit less bothered by it especially if they only run one PC - but when you have a fair few systems like myself it builds up into a much bigger management headache - especially as lately there have tended to be issues with updates hanging at like 97% for 6 hours before working or hanging for hours and never completing without manual intervention.

To give an example of something else and why I don't like Caged's post on the matter - I have a system that is used to host stuff like Minecraft, DayZ and so on type stuff semi-persistent or persistent type games with a small group of friends and family - the goal of the system is to provide better performance and availability than if a random user hosted from their desktop PC. Sometimes it will be required to be stable for days on end i.e. around a new game release of that type other times it only gets switched on when people are in the mood (usually spontaneously) to play something both of these scenarios would be considerably impacted using Windows 10 without the use of LTSB and that is just overkill for casual use and still not ideal - nothing worse than getting ready to play a game and having Windows 10 decide to either jump into a long update when you switch the system on or start prepping a new update as it has been off for awhile impacting performance for the first couple of hours and then restarting itself a couple of times at random and a concept like "active hours" is completely alien here with the differences between week days and week ends and holidays, etc. dictating gaming patterns. (Not sure I can fully explain it while trying to keep it to any semblance of concise).

Average user has probably only one PC, business wise that is a different story.

I've two Win10 PCs and two Linux PCs and Android phone and tablet.

As to Windows well we all know when the major updates come out on Tuesdays(big one normally first Tuesday evening of every month), I switch my PC on every day and off at night so gaming wise never had any issues with updates interfering.

The question is why have Microsoft gone to auto updates with 10?..I'm sure they have their reasons.

 

[Rroff]

Average user has probably only one PC, business wise that is a different story.

I've two Win10 PCs and two Linux PCs and Android phone and tablet.

As to Windows well we all know when the major updates come out on Tuesdays(big one normally first Tuesday evening of every month), I switch my PC on every day and off at night so gaming wise never had any issues with updates interfering.

The question is why have Microsoft gone to auto updates with 10?..I'm sure they have their reasons.

I know my post is a bit confusing but it isn't Minecraft that is the issue there and nothing to do with Minecraft or any other game updates - it was just an example of the type of game I host on that system - I don't think the Minecraft server on it has even been started up in about a year.

The question is why have Microsoft gone to auto updates with 10?..I'm sure they have their reasons.

The reasoning is laid out in the link Caged posted ( https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/introduction-to-windows-10-servicing ) a lot is related to the concept of "Windows as a Service" - personally I think a lot of it is rubbish - they keep banging on about it being "community-centric", etc. while not listening to what their users are actually saying and only hearing what they want to hear - if you read their design goals there they've failed on most points.

 

[koolpc]

I was thinking of dual booting Win 10 and mint. Dont have a clue about the process to do so yet though.

 

[pastymuncher]

You can still uninstall all of the rubbish you don't want (store,onedrive, solitare collection etc) with CCleaner. It was the first thing I did after the update.

 

[413x]

So are you going to remain in this Windows 7 bubble of yours for the rest of your life with your Honda S2000 and your Canon 70d.

What did you have before Windows 7, couldn't that have been a gamble at the time? Life's a gamble.

My s2k and Canon 70d won't change from what I have now without me deciding to change them.
Windows 10 could (I believe) have updates forced through that change potentially important aspects regarding privacy and more annoying, ads. And thus the product I signed up to is different.

Also I cannot see what benefits it has. For my HTpc for example windows media center is no longer available. What possible benefits will it provide? All software will work with win 7 for years to come.
If there was a big plus point to it of course I'd upgrade. But for myself, I don't see it.

 

[Elevon]

I know my post is a bit confusing but it isn't Minecraft that is the issue there and nothing to do with Minecraft or any other game updates - it was just an example of the type of game I host on that system - I don't think the Minecraft server on it has even been started up in about a year.



The reasoning is laid out in the link Caged posted ( https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/introduction-to-windows-10-servicing ) a lot is related to the concept of "Windows as a Service" - personally I think a lot of it is rubbish - they keep banging on about it being "community-centric", etc. while not listening to what their users are actually saying and only hearing what they want to hear - if you read their design goals there they've failed on most points.

There is a a good article on deferring updates etc on Win10 here http://www.computerworld.com/article/3005569/microsoft-windows/how-to-defer-upgrades-and-updates-in-windows-10-pro.html .

 

[Rroff]

There is a a good article on deferring updates etc on Win10 here http://www.computerworld.com/article/3005569/microsoft-windows/how-to-defer-upgrades-and-updates-in-windows-10-pro.html .

All that does is shuffle the problem around a bit it doesn't fix it. I could pull the update service out by the roots but then that disables other potentially useful features and/or makes it more complicated to get more important updates done.

 

[Elevon]

All that does is shuffle the problem around a bit it doesn't fix it. I could pull the update service out by the roots but then that disables other potentially useful features and/or makes it more complicated to get more important updates done.

You'll have to update at some point so don't see the real issue, updates are there for a reason, but even then you can defer them for awhile.

 

[Rroff]

You'll have to update at some point so don't see the real issue, updates are there for a reason, but even then you can defer them for awhile.

True but it is still less ideal than having better control over updates. If they have to go down this road they could alteast make the professional edition better (than it is) for handling thing kind of thing - I recognise my usage isn't your typical facebook generation home user and happy enough to pay a bit extra to get a "professional" version of the OS that suited my needs better :S

 

[koolpc]

MS are taking over the world!

 

[Caged]

What a load of condescending twaddle especially the last bit. It isn't an unreasonable requirement at all to have control over updates.

Interestingly one of their design goals for updates is "must be deployable with minimal impact on users" not doing so well on that front by any metric... maybe time to go back to the drawing board.

(As an aside, critical security updates aside, this tablet I'm on right now hasn't had any other updates since May 2014 and worked fine and done everything I've asked of it).

I'm not even sure what your point is with legacy software and home users - so many home users will be needing to use legacy software for a variety of reasons whether it is an old mod for a game or educational software that has long been abandoned with no immediate replacement and so on.

You do have control over updates - you can defer them if you're in CBB and if you run WSUS you can withhold individual patches for testing environments etc. If you absolutely need to hold a system at a certain state then that's what LTSB is for. The days of enterprise customers doing patch rollups once every six months or not updating outside of reimaging PCs is gone - the security issues associated with doing that were too high. It doesn't matter how much money you spend on firewalls or third-party Symantec crud to slap all over your machine, if there's an OS vulnerability then it's a risk.

None of this should be surprising to people - the information has been out there for a long time. There's also the option of sticking on Windows 7 until 2020 which should give people more than enough time to work out the split of current branch / CBB / LTSB that they want to deploy.

Apologies if it all seems condescending and that isn't the intention, but I've been through all this before when Apple moved to annual updates and actively started pushing users in that direction. Eventually the rest of the ecosystem catches up and you don't have a choice but to go along with it. At that point it become more fruitful to invest in how best to handle OS upgrades instead of trying to delay the inevitable. I would expect the experience on Windows to get better over time as bad software stops running, the vendors are slow to act, and market forces push people to web-based solutions or competing products from more competent vendors.

 

[Rroff]

^^ LTSB us only available via volume licensing which puts it beyond the realm of most home users but there are plenty of things home users can do i.e. my example which puts their requirements in the zone of what MS only provide under LTSB provisioning.

Problem is there is a widening split between the needs of your average consumer and those who are more IT centric and MS seems to be going down the road of lumping everyone into the curated experience camp and that just doesn't work in the long term.

My frustration is that the OS is NOT real life context aware so it is silly to force upgrades in the way MS does - sure there are many people where that has minimal impact on their usage and might even be an advantage for them so a good option to have but equally there are a good number where it has a high impact.

 

[Caged]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Windows 10 is a particularly high quality product. It's an OK start but the settings being shotgunned into any of three different interfaces despite ample time being allowed to correct this since it was first done, the goddam awful support for different display DPIs and and removal of such advanced features as 'easily forgot a Wi-Fi network' and 'decide the order of preference for networks' are infuriating. I remain hopeful that it will become something I want to use rather than something that I have to use.

I'm just trying to point out that it's easier to go along with this than to fight it indefinitely. A home user doesn't need LTSB - I would be surprised if an application that ran on Windows 7 can't run on Windows 10 with a compatibility flag checked. Unless that application interfaces with something that relies on an unsigned driver or something, in which case the vendor has had since Vista to fix that, and the user has had since that time to find a replacement.

In terms of IT centric - I might be missing a chunk of experience that would make this more obvious to me, but I've always had access to Volume Licensing through my employer when I've worked in IT, and if anything the actual management of Windows is moving more and more towards PowerShell remoting or remotely connecting to server core via an MMC snapin. I don't really see where 10 Pro fails to meet this requirement.