Win 10

Maverick said:
Yes, the server 2012 GUI is much like Windows 8 and the server 2012R2 is much like Windows 8.1. I hate them both and I've been tempted to down grade to server 2008R2. I don't see the advantage of a tablet OS on a server but the tablet kernel has been carried across all the products. Then there are issues with incompatibility with certain version of software such as versions of Exchange and outlook. I was happy with the 2003 version of server and Exchange other than the lack of 64 bit.
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It's not THAT bad in 2012R2. At least that server manager thingy is somewhat useful and has a decent menu in the top right to go to 99% of the stuff admins go to.

No digging down through Start->Adminstration-> blah blah blah ten mouse clicks to get to "Active Directory Users and Computers" to freaking unlock some maroon's account anymore.

And if you type fast, Windows key and "active directory" will bring up that desktop searchy thing and autocomplete and find it in one mouse click.

Assuming you haven't just given up on the UI and written something in Powershell to just unlock the stupid account from your own Windows machine and never bother to log into the servers anyway... Which is more Unix'y and probably as God intended admin chores to be. Haha.
 
denverpilot said:
Poor guy. One does have to keep up a little bit because execs are trained by their schools and trade rags that new tech is better than old tech, and have not a single clue that even their own hand picked CTOs know there isn't any real new tech behind those glossy ads in the trade rags.
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Tech choices for my last ~7 years worth of corp projects were made by dev leads and architects, not executives.

What 'old tech' do you keep referring to that is so great? These are the most popular programming languages and the founding year.
Java - 1995
Python - 1991
c++ - 1985
Ruby - 1995
Javascript - 1995
PHP - 1995
SQL - 1974
C# - 2000
 
MadseasoN said:
Tech choices for my last ~7 years worth of corp projects were made by dev leads and architects, not executives.



What 'old tech' do you keep referring to that is so great? These are the most popular programming languages and the founding year.

Java - 1995

Python - 1991

c++ - 1985

Ruby - 1995

Javascript - 1995

PHP - 1995

SQL - 1974

C# - 2000
Click to expand...


All of those do the exact same base computing functions. The language merry go round is an utter waste of time.

Bunch more before those, that did the same things those did.

Devs chase the "next new language" so as to remain "relevant", execs hire for those new languages with no idea that the vast majority of what their systems usually do is text manipulation and storage. Merry go round.

Yes there were bigger strides in the past. Moving away from raw machine code and assembly to an HLL was an actual investment in new tech that mattered. Moving to some of the early parsed languages that had a bit more structure than early shells, also.

Leaving SQL out, since it's not really a programming language (don't go there Greg. Haha...) out of the above listed C++ can get lower level access to hardware than the others. Other than that, they're all really doing the same general stuff.

Add an RDBMS and SQL to everything of course, even for non-structured data that shouldn't be in one. Because that's what everyone does these days.

Throw some COBOL, Ada, REXX, Lisp, and Erlang in there and you have some languages that actually do certain things better that others because they were designed to. Toss some C in there if you really want to talk to the hardware in an HLL that's a step above assembly. And oddball variants like Objective C, of course, which is really a different beast. Oh and don't forget Pascal and oooh, Turbo Pascal. ;)

Same design requirements, same end results when the customer finally gets what they wanted on their screen and their data handled the way they want it handled ... Tower of Babel of hundreds of languages to write those same functions in over and over and over again and thousands of "frameworks" that do essentially the same things also.

Lots of time wasted, coding things over and over again.

It's just how the industry works. It loves to waste time.
 
The industry loves to waste time yet you disagree with 'code reuse' and framework use?? Okay.

I listed the most popular languages and release year. I don't think we're pushing for newer programming languages.

I think you're trolling so that's my last reply.
 
MadseasoN said:
The industry loves to waste time yet you disagree with 'code reuse' and framework use?? Okay.

I listed the most popular languages and release year. I don't think we're pushing for newer programming languages.

I think you're trolling so that's my last reply.
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What framework "reuse"? I said there's a hundred frameworks built that all do the same crap. That's not reuse.

Not trolling either. Telling you exactly like it is in this biz and has been for a long time. Most of the developers are wasting time. When they're not, other developers are wasting the first group's time by convincing them there's yet another new text parsing language to learn.

"Oh look! A new language with fifty new frameworks to handle the same http request someone handled in 1995! Damn we should learn that and convert the whole damn company to it!"

Oh I forgot the part where they write another framework because they don't like the other 100 available... Sheesh. Silly me.

Yay GitHub. LOL. No doubt there's good stuff there, but you really have to dig through mountains crap that's added every day at an increasing rate to find it.
 
denverpilot said:
All of those do the exact same base computing functions. The language merry go round is an utter waste of time.

Bunch more before those, that did the same things those did.

Devs chase the "next new language" so as to remain "relevant", execs hire for those new languages with no idea that the vast majority of what their systems usually do is text manipulation and storage. Merry go round.

Yes there were bigger strides in the past. Moving away from raw machine code and assembly to an HLL was an actual investment in new tech that mattered. Moving to some of the early parsed languages that had a bit more structure than early shells, also.

Leaving SQL out, since it's not really a programming language (don't go there Greg. Haha...) out of the above listed C++ can get lower level access to hardware than the others. Other than that, they're all really doing the same general stuff.

Add an RDBMS and SQL to everything of course, even for non-structured data that shouldn't be in one. Because that's what everyone does these days.

Throw some COBOL, Ada, REXX, Lisp, and Erlang in there and you have some languages that actually do certain things better that others because they were designed to. Toss some C in there if you really want to talk to the hardware in an HLL that's a step above assembly. And oddball variants like Objective C, of course, which is really a different beast. Oh and don't forget Pascal and oooh, Turbo Pascal. ;)

Same design requirements, same end results when the customer finally gets what they wanted on their screen and their data handled the way they want it handled ... Tower of Babel of hundreds of languages to write those same functions in over and over and over again and thousands of "frameworks" that do essentially the same things also.

Lots of time wasted, coding things over and over again.

It's just how the industry works. It loves to waste time.
Click to expand...

I don't understand your statement. There is a lot of overlap, but I sure don't want to program control of a lab instrument in SQL. and accessing a database doesn't make a lot of sense using C++.

The end user doesn't care what is running behind the screen so long as it works- I agree with that. But programming languages are like tools, and people should use the best tool for the job. I've worked with systems that use machine code that run pumps, which is controlled by C++ tying the different microcontrollers together, using a PHP front end that displays the user interface.

The user sets up their run on the web page in the instrument display screen, which passes the parameters to the C++ code which passes the parameters to the various microcontrollers. It also does the math that we need to calculate absorbance and other data, interfaces with other detectors such as a mass spectrometer, and sends the needed data to the web interface. Being a web interface, I can run the system from my desk. Each language does what it is best suited for.

Trying to use one language for everything wastes a programmer's time making it fit, and lengthens the development time, and makes for slower code working through the kludges. Even people that program in LabView will call modules written in another language for talking to other equipment especially where hand-shaking is required and the other equipment doesn't push data.
 
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I'm about to order a Mac air. I will probably be stuck with Office 365, however, as the venture I am working with is using same. Can't fully escape the grip.
 
wsuffa said:
I'm about to order a Mac air. I will probably be stuck with Office 365, however, as the venture I am working with is using same. Can't fully escape the grip.
Click to expand...

you can try using openoffice...
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I don't understand your statement. There is a lot of overlap, but I sure don't want to program control of a lab instrument in SQL. and accessing a database doesn't make a lot of sense using C++.



The end user doesn't care what is running behind the screen so long as it works- I agree with that. But programming languages are like tools, and people should use the best tool for the job. I've worked with systems that use machine code that run pumps, which is controlled by C++ tying the different microcontrollers together, using a PHP front end that displays the user interface.



The user sets up their run on the web page in the instrument display screen, which passes the parameters to the C++ code which passes the parameters to the various microcontrollers. It also does the math that we need to calculate absorbance and other data, interfaces with other detectors such as a mass spectrometer, and sends the needed data to the web interface. Being a web interface, I can run the system from my desk. Each language does what it is best suited for.



Trying to use one language for everything wastes a programmer's time making it fit, and lengthens the development time, and makes for slower code working through the kludges. Even people that program in LabView will call modules written in another language for talking to other equipment especially where hand-shaking is required and the other equipment doesn't push data.
Click to expand...


Understand all. What you're missing when making an analogy to "tools" is that a regular toolbox is full of tools that have been known and designed to work properly at specific tasks for decades, even centuries. A wrench is a wrench is a wrench. Mostly.

Take any of the common HLLs today and compare them and you can't use "the wrench" they used at the last company to "access the database" necessarily, they have to waste time learning a new "wrench" and the output is the same. The nut still gets turned. The amount of code necessary and the problems involved are almost always the exact same patterns and problems, but 1000 guys have 100 wrenches that all operate differently to turn the same nut. Not only do they have the different wrenches, it's not like the fan boy stuff of Craftsman vs SnapOn, it's orders of magnitude worse.

Your example of LabView is interesting. I had a friend who passed away who was a world leading expert in LabView. If you measured his actual output, not lines of code or anything, he could crank out something insanely difficult in LabView, even things LabView wasn't designed to do, in minutes vs someone who knew a bunch of tools only to a weak depth, that would take them an hour.

Most developers would have the same complaint you do, that LabView "wasn't the right tool for the job", but for Harry, it was, because he could get 100x the work done over his non-expert counterparts in real work completed over time. His work also needed less debugging and had less overall bugs written into it on the first pass, often being complete without a single code review and doing exactly what it was supposed to do. We have him a lot of crap that he "did it the hard way", but he could still get more done than anyone around him, wherever he went. No "agile", no "scrum", no "waterfall", he just *knew* his tool really really well.

Now I'm not suggesting that everyone be like Harry and use an obscure tool like LabView their whole life, but when I see someone bouncing from Perl, to PHP, to Python, to shell, and all over the place, I wonder if they really know what they're doing or if they just code via Google searches. The first three can all do essentially the same things for the same knowledge level and effort. Shells are gonna be a little harder but cross over UNIX platforms better with less crud to install, since they're almost always already there as part of the glue running the OS itself.

MSFT has an interesting tactic going along these lines these days. I think anyone who has to deal with Windows had better know PowerShell really well or they're going to be left way behind.

Web development has to be the absolute worst in regards to this multiple tool thing. There's not only the languages themselves but thousands of frameworks that have their camps that love them and when a framework hits a brick wall it's the rare developer who fixes the framework, they just load in another one and write in that.

Tower of Babel.
 
denverpilot said:
Understand all. What you're missing when making an analogy to "tools" is that a regular toolbox is full of tools that have been known and designed to work properly at specific tasks for decades, even centuries. A wrench is a wrench is a wrench. Mostly.
Click to expand...
Not really. Adjustable jaw. Box end. Tubing wrenches. Socket wrenches. And many others.

denverpilot said:
Take any of the common HLLs today and compare them and you can't use "the wrench" they used at the last company to "access the database" necessarily, they have to waste time learning a new "wrench" and the output is the same. The nut still gets turned. The amount of code necessary and the problems involved are almost always the exact same patterns and problems, but 1000 guys have 100 wrenches that all operate differently to turn the same nut. Not only do they have the different wrenches, it's not like the fan boy stuff of Craftsman vs SnapOn, it's orders of magnitude worse.
Click to expand...
Depends on the circumstances, I suppose. I've worked almost exclusively in lab equipment and I only see a few languages used there. Assembly, C/C++, VB or VBA as a macro language, occasionally FORTRAN, and Labview. PHP is recent only for running the UI. The major difference was what libraries we might have bought or developed some some of the math image processing, Fourier transform, etc), but that was usally straightforward.

denverpilot said:
Your example of LabView is interesting. I had a friend who passed away who was a world leading expert in LabView. If you measured his actual output, not lines of code or anything, he could crank out something insanely difficult in LabView, even things LabView wasn't designed to do, in minutes vs someone who knew a bunch of tools only to a weak depth, that would take them an hour.

Most developers would have the same complaint you do, that LabView "wasn't the right tool for the job", but for Harry, it was, because he could get 100x the work done over his non-expert counterparts in real work completed over time. His work also needed less debugging and had less overall bugs written into it on the first pass, often being complete without a single code review and doing exactly what it was supposed to do. We have him a lot of crap that he "did it the hard way", but he could still get more done than anyone around him, wherever he went. No "agile", no "scrum", no "waterfall", he just *knew* his tool really really well.
Click to expand...
I didn't complain that LabView wasn't the right tool, since it did work. But he might have gotten it done faster if he used the tools more appropriate for some of the programming tasks. However, having worked with it long enough, he probably had his own libraries of code snippets that he could draw upon. Text parsing is important when tying different instruments together and I had my own "library" of routines that I tended to reuse.

denverpilot said:
Now I'm not suggesting that everyone be like Harry and use an obscure tool like LabView their whole life, but when I see someone bouncing from Perl, to PHP, to Python, to shell, and all over the place, I wonder if they really know what they're doing or if they just code via Google searches. The first three can all do essentially the same things for the same knowledge level and effort. Shells are gonna be a little harder but cross over UNIX platforms better with less crud to install, since they're almost always already there as part of the glue running the OS itself.

MSFT has an interesting tactic going along these lines these days. I think anyone who has to deal with Windows had better know PowerShell really well or they're going to be left way behind.

Web development has to be the absolute worst in regards to this multiple tool thing. There's not only the languages themselves but thousands of frameworks that have their camps that love them and when a framework hits a brick wall it's the rare developer who fixes the framework, they just load in another one and write in that.

Tower of Babel.
Click to expand...

I suspect that Perl, PHP, Python, etc are more similar than assembly, C/C++, PHP, and SQL are to each other, which you mention above. I don't do web work so I can't comment much on that. I do ask if I'm using the best tool available for the task at hand.

As for LabView being obscure, I really disagree. NI has a booth at most of the major scientific meetings, so most scientists at least know of the product.

We work in very different programming worlds.
 
flhrci said:
What advertisements? My laptop has 10 on it and I don't see anything other than Microsoft pushing its own apps. Please elaborate further if I am missing something.

I like 10 better than 8.1. Laptop had 8.1 for maybe 2 days before I put 10 on it forcefully back in July. Haven't looked back since.

Desktop has 7 and will continue to do so because I use Windows Media Center for my cable box.

David
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David you can get Media Center working on Windows 10, I have it working on my desktop, which is also used as a Media Center pushing to the TV in my bedroom.

http://lifehacker.com/get-windows-media-center-running-on-windows-10-with-a-f-1729919907
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I suspect that Perl, PHP, Python, etc are more similar than assembly, C/C++, PHP, and SQL are to each other, which you mention above. I don't do web work so I can't comment much on that. I do ask if I'm using the best tool available for the task at hand.



As for LabView being obscure, I really disagree. NI has a booth at most of the major scientific meetings, so most scientists at least know of the product.



We work in very different programming worlds.
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True all. Recall that I don't technically work in the programming world, I'm the recipient of every single bug from beginning to end... I'm a sysadmin and system designer. I have to make the garbage code work on Monday when it fails on Friday night at midnight. :)

(Or provide a way to roll back and listen to the butt hurt complaints that it could have been fixed in time for heavy production traffic, or that it wasn't that big of a problem, or whatever. Haha. Because sure... I should wait around for it to get fixed when it's been through four different environments and nobody caught this anywhere until production... In other words, I usually get to be the guy who says, "We're done screwing with this...") :)
 
CT4ME said:
For those who are concerned about Windows 10 snooping on you and reporting your every move to the NSA....



http://www.zdnet.com/article/revealed-the-crucial-detail-that-windows-10-privacy-critics-are-missing
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He's focusing on the news yesterday that MSFT tracks user usage patterns.

Note he didn't cover the image hashing nor the private key upload if you link the machine to your MSFT account during setup, amongst two of the much more questionable things it does.

I wouldn't count this article from a ZDNet reporter as the end all be all of Win10's bad behavior or an actual analysis. It looks like he was fed the info about what it sends directly from MSFT Marketing.

The real bottom line is that nobody buys an OS to have it do things for the OS manufacturer. Anything the OS manufacturer wants to have a computer do for them, "innocuous" or not, should be by permission and opt-in only. Not defaulted on and opt-out to stop it.
 
denverpilot said:
He's focusing on the news yesterday that MSFT tracks user usage patterns.

Note he didn't cover the image hashing nor the private key upload if you link the machine to your MSFT account during setup, amongst two of the much more questionable things it does.

I wouldn't count this article from a ZDNet reporter as the end all be all of Win10's bad behavior or an actual analysis. It looks like he was fed the info about what it sends directly from MSFT Marketing.

The real bottom line is that nobody buys an OS to have it do things for the OS manufacturer. Anything the OS manufacturer wants to have a computer do for them, "innocuous" or not, should be by permission and opt-in only. Not defaulted on and opt-out to stop it.
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Agree. He's your prototypical MS fanboy. I'd be willing to bet that MS places a fair amount of advertising in their publications.

He completely ignores the first part of the Apple policy:
•With your explicit consent, we may collect data about how you use your device and applications in order to help app developers improve their apps.
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MS does NOT require explicit consent - it just collects. That is a key difference.

If the politicians really cared about the consumer, they'd pass a bill (similar to the credit acts) that required each and every software manufacturer to disclose details of any and all information they collect on users upon request. It literally will take an act of Congress...
 
Bob Noel said:
you can try using openoffice...
Click to expand...

OpenOffice is so good and so free that I still have a hard time believing it hasn't (yet) become the standard. I've been using it preferentially since the 1990's when it was still maintained by Sun and sold as StarOffice, with Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris versions included, for about $25.00.

I think now that Apache is maintaining it, it's better than ever. But it's still not very different from StarOffice in terms of its general layout. Someone who hadn't used it since the 1990's would still feel comfortable with today's versions. There would be new features, but most of the old ones would still be right there where they used to be.

Even when I was an MS "Partner" and got working copies of all their stuff for free in return to listening to their sales pitches at meetings, I still preferred OpenOffice. I just found it more straightforward and usable, and I liked the fact that I didn't have to re-learn the interface every few years.

Rich
 
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wsuffa said:
Agree. He's your prototypical MS fanboy. I'd be willing to bet that MS places a fair amount of advertising in their publications.

He completely ignores the first part of the Apple policy:


MS does NOT require explicit consent - it just collects. That is a key difference...
Click to expand...

Yeah, he is definitely a consistent Microsoft apologist. However, there are other writers with that publisher who are definitely not.
 
Palmpilot said:
Yeah, he is definitely a consistent Microsoft apologist. However, there are other writers with that publisher who are definitely not.
Click to expand...


ZDNet will suck up equally to all advertisers. They just do it with specific reporters.

Which makes me wonder what cranky old John Dvorak is up to these days... I should go look. He was always an interesting read and podcast listen.
 
John was a regular on TWIT.tv until recenty, when he and Leo got into a tussle over advertisers. He has a blog and this show, among others. Twit TV is a pretty good source of info, with many different shows representing many perspectives. Steve Gibson's stuff is particularly good.
 
My laptop came with Windows 8.1, which I was not a fan of. I took the upgrade to Windows 10 when it came along and I'm quite happy with it.
 
alfadog said:
My laptop came with Windows 8.1, which I was not a fan of. I took the upgrade to Windows 10 when it came along and I'm quite happy with it.
Click to expand...

Compared to 8.1, it's a huge improvement.

My biggest gripes are it's data collection (spyware) for advertising and other purposes (spyware), and it's automatic upload of memory dumps and files - which might include confidential information. And Microsoft's incessant pushing the product on us Win 7 users, even on a machine that the manufacturer says won't support Win 10. I forsee a "forced" upgrade & system crash, and eventual lawsuits against MS.
 
Microsoft released 24 updates to Windows 7 today.

They didn't show on my computer. Going into Windows Update through the control panel, there was no update indicated to be available, just a display that said "Start installing Windows 10 now". There was also a very small link to "Show all available updates". And had to "Check for updates", which took 15 minutes to complete.

That link brought up the "Critical" updates, all of which were unchecked for install. Going into optional updates, the Windows 10 update was checked, the others were unchecked.

I had to uncheck the "Upgrade to Windows 10" box in optional updates, and check all 24 in the critical/important updates screen. Then install them.

MS has made it much, much harder to maintain an Win 7 system, is is doing all they can to force Win 10 down our throats. Still working on critical project - can't afford to even try Win 10 at this point.

I am looking at MacBooks to replace the laptop (where Windows Update has effectively been disabled, and it WILL NOT run Win 10) as I'm about fed up with MS.
 
I'm actually testing a Win10 Pro system now. I have ten days left to return it, no questions asked, if I don't like it. It's an HP business model and actually came with Win7 Pro and a DVD for Win10 Pro, so I bought a spare hard drive and installed 10 Pro.

First impressions of the snooping: All or almost all of it can be disabled in Group Policy Editor if you have Pro. If not, then there are third-party apps that claim to make the registry changes for you.

The ads "occasional recommendations" in the start menu can also be easily disabled, as can Cortana. SmartScreen is a bit more persistent, but can also be banished. OneDrive doesn't bother you if you use a local login. You have to drill down a bit to disable or minimize the amount of data reported by Error Reporting. But it looks like all or almost all of the snooping can be shut off if you spend the time doing it.

Judging by how many times the only way to disable snooping seemed to be manually in Group Policy Editor, I suggest getting Pro if you want 10 but also want privacy. Also, one of the updates set many of the privacy settings back to MS defaults, so check after any updates to make sure MS didn't sneakily switch the spyware back on.

Performance-wise, no problems at all. Compatibility mode is also much better than that of Win8. Even my ancient MailWasher Pro 6.5.4 installed and works without a hitch.

GUI-wise, no idea. I installed ClassicShell before I tried the native GUI.

If I return this machine, it will be because of principle, not performance. The machine and the OS work just fine, and I'm pretty sure I plugged all the privacy holes. I just hate being part of a company that wants to sell me like a crack whore.

Rich
 
CT4ME said:
John was a regular on TWIT.tv until recenty, when he and Leo got into a tussle over advertisers. He has a blog and this show, among others. Twit TV is a pretty good source of info, with many different shows representing many perspectives. Steve Gibson's stuff is particularly good.
Click to expand...


Who doesn't Leo get in tussles over money with? Haha. I didn't know John was still slumming with him this many years later.

RJM62 said:
I'm actually testing a Win10 Pro system now. I have ten days left to return it, no questions asked, if I don't like it. It's an HP business model and actually came with Win7 Pro and a DVD for Win10 Pro, so I bought a spare hard drive and installed 10 Pro.

First impressions of the snooping: All or almost all of it can be disabled in Group Policy Editor if you have Pro. If not, then there are third-party apps that claim to make the registry changes for you.

The ads "occasional recommendations" in the start menu can also be easily disabled, as can Cortana. SmartScreen is a bit more persistent, but can also be banished. OneDrive doesn't bother you if you use a local login. You have to drill down a bit to disable or minimize the amount of data reported by Error Reporting. But it looks like all or almost all of the snooping can be shut off if you spend the time doing it.

Judging by how many times the only way to disable snooping seemed to be manually in Group Policy Editor, I suggest getting Pro if you want 10 but also want privacy. Also, one of the updates set many of the privacy settings back to MS defaults, so check after any updates to make sure MS didn't sneakily switch the spyware back on.

Performance-wise, no problems at all. Compatibility mode is also much better than that of Win8. Even my ancient MailWasher Pro 6.5.4 installed and works without a hitch.

GUI-wise, no idea. I installed ClassicShell before I tried the native GUI.

If I return this machine, it will be because of principle, not performance. The machine and the OS work just fine, and I'm pretty sure I plugged all the privacy holes. I just hate being part of a company that wants to sell me like a crack whore.

Rich
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^^ TL;DR: If you want privacy you'll need Pro and you'll have to work hard to get it.

Seems simpler to just ignore 10 as useful until they knock off the stupidity. It doesn't do anything significant that anyone needs.
 
wsuffa said:
MS has made it much, much harder to maintain an Win 7 system, is is doing all they can to force Win 10 down our throats.
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Absolutely not my experience. I have all Win 7 updates performed automatically and never ever was I prompted or somehow coerced into upgrading to Win 10. Actually if I weren't reading forums like this I wouldn't even know Win 10 was available.

wsuffa said:
and check all 24 in the critical/important updates screen.
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I didn't see 24 critical updates on Jan 12 (or about). There were 11 important security updates on or about that date. I was travelling on Jan 12 but when I returned a few days later all 11 updates installed automatically without me lifting a finger, seamlessly.

General observations ...

I was running Win XP until 09.2014 and I did not recall that period very fondly. I had constant OS/hardware problems, it was a nightmare in upgrading new drivers, fighting incompatibilities, deciding whether the issue is hardware or software related, etc. In 09.2014 I finally dumped old PC and bought new hardware with Win 7. It was like migrating from hell to heaven, this system is so stable, so hassle free, so predictable, it runs better than my Linux at work (not to mention it is a lot friendlier).
 
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Win10 is being pushed aggressively to Win 7 and Win 8.1 users, even those attached to Windows Domains (previously not pushed to those machines due to them usually being part of corporate networks).

MSFT has documented how to stop it. Well, kinda anyway... total PITA.

They need to leave the damned work systems alone. This announcement is seriously annoying, as well as without a specific date to shoot for to make sure none of this crap happens to machines in our office environment by accident.

And by "accident" I mean stupid user who clicks "Yes" on anything, as long as it means they can get back to their YouTube video. LOL.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351
 
Read the article. If you're running Win 7 or 8.1 Pro, you will, unless you set a registry key to tell them to stuff it, it'll be downloading the upgrader tool by the end of January and then asking you during standard Windows Update if you want to upgrade.
 
denverpilot said:
it'll be downloading the upgrader tool by the end of January
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If the end of January comes and if it happens I will act accordingly but don't tell me what I did or did not do until that point in time. :mad2:
 
olasek said:
If the end of January comes and if it happens I will act accordingly but don't tell me what I did or did not do until that point in time. :mad2:
Click to expand...


Saying you know how to click "no" doesn't say you actually did. Hello?
 
denverpilot said:
^^ TL;DR:
Click to expand...

Rather ironic considering some of your own tomes, Nate. :rolleyes:

denverpilot said:
If you want privacy you'll need Pro and you'll have to work hard to get it.
Click to expand...

Yep.

denverpilot said:
Seems simpler to just ignore 10 as useful until they knock off the stupidity. It doesn't do anything significant that anyone needs.
Click to expand...

On an existing machine, absolutely. Unless the new system represents a serious improvement over what you have or provides some new functionality that you need, stay put. But that applies to pretty much any OS upgrade, in my opinion. If what you have is working and there's nothing to be gained from upgrading, don't bother.

Rich
 
olasek said:
Absolutely not my experience. I have all Win 7 updates performed automatically and never ever was I prompted or somehow coerced into upgrading to Win 10. Actually if I weren't reading forums like this I wouldn't even know Win 10 was available.
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That's very unusual unless you either are on a domain, are running the Enterprise version, manually edited the registry, or otherwise actively disabled the upgrade. MS has been pushing 10 very hard in multiple ways, including a few innocuous-looking Windows updates that seem designed specifically to sneak it on to machines whose users have declined previous updates that included the upgrader.

olasek said:
I didn't see 24 critical updates on Jan 12 (or about). There were 11 important security updates on or about that date. I was travelling on Jan 12 but when I returned a few days later all 11 updates installed automatically without me lifting a finger, seamlessly.
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Not every machine is offered the same updates.

olasek said:
General observations ...

I was running Win XP until 09.2014 and I did not recall that period very fondly. I had constant OS/hardware problems, it was a nightmare in upgrading new drivers, fighting incompatibilities, deciding whether the issue is hardware or software related, etc. In 09.2014 I finally dumped old PC and bought new hardware with Win 7. It was like migrating from hell to heaven, this system is so stable, so hassle free, so predictable, it runs better than my Linux at work (not to mention it is a lot friendlier).
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XP was a huge improvement for DOS-legacy Windows users, but it degraded stability for NT/2000 users. Vista actually tried to fix those problems, but introduced new ones (especially pertaining to UAC). Win7 finally got it right.

Win8 and 8.1 are actually even better than Win7 in terms of essential stability and resource-management. Had they not forced the horrid Metro GUI onto users (or had they at least offered the more conventional Windows desktop as an option), I think it would have been embraced with open arms. I do hope that MS made a generous contribution to ‎Ivo Beltchev. The availability of Classic Shell became such a standard part of computer salespeople's pitches when potential customers tried -- and were horrified by -- the Metro GUI that Ivo should have gotten a commission on every Win8 sale.

The floor sales staff at several stores I know of quietly installed Classic Shell onto a few computers to let customers try it and burned copies of it onto CD-Rs to give to them if they bought a computer. That's how repulsive the Metro interface was to most potential customers. That was a shame because once you get past the horrid tiled GUI and replace all the navigation functionality that MS got rid of or hid, Win8/8.1 was and remains an outstanding OS.

Rich
 
denverpilot said:
Going to work out GREAT once folks figure out how to manipulate what their machines are sending, or create software that mimics a Windows machine and hands out malware...
Click to expand...

Microsoft updates (including even from the Microsoft servers) are SHA256 signed.

If someone can manage to crack SHA256 - there is a MUCH more attractive target for them out there: Bitcoin. Bitcoin is basically a billion dollar reward for hackers to try and crack SHA256. It hasn't happened yet. Do you think it's for lack of trying?

You also can't brute-force SHA256 with distributed computing. See:
http://i.imgur.com/vCkuFAY.jpeg

"brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space."


So yeah, you'll be fine with taking an update from somewhere unknown for the foreseeable future.

Still annoying though that Microsoft uses your outbound bandwidth that you pay for, without compensating you for it. But then again, chances are you're on COMCAST, and COMCAST anyway turns a part of your bandwidth into a WiFi hotspot that anybody can use. So there's that.
 
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