Windows 10 forced upgrade

Too late to edit my previous post, but this short paper from ECIS in 2009 is worth a look.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 03/06/2016 13:35:32

Netscape isn't dead. It morphed into Firefox.

Russell.

.

Commercial product morphs into open source freebie ...

**LINK**

In business terms, I would call that a 'kill'

MichaelG.

Thanks for that. Not sure I've seen it before.

Hi Chaps

Our IT department reports seeing a number of unasked for upgrades occurring around the lab. The suggestion is to download the free tool on this site.

**LINK**

"Dear all, we are getting reports of Windows machines being automatically updated to Windows 10 despite the user repeatedly clicking the 'do not upgrade' option. One upgraded you only have a limited time to downgrade before that option is removed. The upgrade appears to be free, and it is for a while, however it appears Microsoft are then planning to move to a subscription model, maybe as soon as mid 2016. From then on you'll need to pay per year to keep using it. There are also reports of some machines failing to upgrade properly and then being unusable. We have one such machine in IT at the moment, and I know of a couple of others."

Hope you find this useful.

regards Martin

I understand, Windows Live Mail is also going to die? The IT magazines I have read give details but it get a bit complicated to keep it going.

Anybody know more?

Clive

Well, it went OK on my laptop, so I'm going to make TWO full backups of my HDD as well as my regular backup/restore disc. I also have a W8.1 recovery setup on a 16 gig USB stick.

What can possibly go wrong...

Neil

I reported that I have had no problems with W10-- well I have now, been off all morning while W10 updates were performed. No warnings, no asking for permission. All I can see different is something called cortina ( or similar) which does not seem to do anything. I suppose I am going to devote more days of my life to figure out what next.

Too late to edit my previous post, but this short paper from ECIS in 2009 is worth a look.

MichaelG.

Interesting reading which condenses and confirms all I've ever known and suspected about Microsoft. Thanks Michael.

I would though just add two other items to the list - the attack on Lindows/Linspire whereby as I understand it, Microsoft attempted to force a name change as Lindows was too near Windows (!). Initially this failed in an English speaking country because windows is a glass thing you look through. Undeterred, Microsoft then went to a non-English speaking country - and succeeded in forcing a name change. There were other reasons why Lindows/Linspire failed, but this can not have helped.

The other item that really does concern me is the Secure Boot Feature of modern pc's in which Microsoft insists that these machines can only boot using signed and secure programs. Microsoft has denied that this is an attempt to shut out Linux, but this does seem to me to be the start of a campaign by Microsoft to eliminate Linux by making it difficult to obtain a pc which will boot to Linux. Maybe I'm wrong, but past experience of Microsoft does not give me much hope.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

I really don't understand why instead of this continual moaning about MS folk just don't dump it and use another OS.

I did a long time ago.

Some good news-- since the forced "updates " today I can't get Facebook.

OK,I have re-read the article about Windows Live Mail and from 30th June coming Live mail will no longer work through Outlook.com . Older Hotmail addresses may no longer work as it is also involved with Outlook.com which some people use to log into the web mail services. This will be interesting on the 30th as many people will not know until it happens.

Microsofts reasoning is that it is trying to get Outlook to sync. across a range of different devices and as a result some users have been quietly upgraded to conform to a new version of the Web mail service. Microsofts advice is if it happens then upgrade? Win 7 users will be affected from what I read. What they say is that Win 8.1 and Win 10 will be OK. It will not support POP3 only IMAP. This is going to be a SNAFU of huge proportions as emails go down.

This from page 60 of the Computer Active dtd 8-21 June issue 477. Worth reading.

Clive

Clive,

This may be of interest **LINK**

MichaelG.

What a bummer, i'm on Win 7 but I will see how it goes. Just another way to get the hoy poloy to upgrade I think. Crafty Gxts.

Clive

Hmm. I too have been bombarded with messages to update for free to win 10. You know what they say about something too good to be true. There were times when I couldn't get rid of it off my computer. At 80 I am not an IT wizard but I must have p....d them off because I haven't had any more invitations to upgrade for a few weeks now.

That's what the scuttlebut says. It's going to be interesting to see what it actually means. Whether MS really has the audacity to "upgrade" it's users (either with or without their connivance) and then tell them later that they've been sucked into a subscription model (after paying for a non-subscription licence on their original version) remains to be seen.

Speculation-wise, it's possible that they won't be that direct. Perhaps the current W10 version (non-subscription) will (rapidly) become unsupported (apart from, perhaps security updates) and be metamorphosed into "Windows-Lite" (perhaps with the help of some judicious "updates" ). MS may lean on companies writing Windows software (and hardware drivers) to ensure that they work only with the subscription version. So that Windows-Lite degenerates into the position that XP is in now (only perhaps more so and more rapidly) ..... yes, it still works - and for some, it's all they need - but for many it's a pain to keep going with contemporary aps and hardware.

(Edited to remove spurious "winky"

Edited By Bandersnatch on 13/06/2016 22:11:31

Kinda the whole point of the thread. See thread title and skip if it bothers you.

MS's attempts at scuttling OS/2, which was a superb OS at the time and most definitely far superior to Windows, goes right back to the late 80s and Windows 2.x.

At the time I was working for a small software developer, we were keen to have our product ready to run on the then soon to be released OS/2 GUI, but the OS/2 Software development kit supplied by MS at the then astronomical price of $2500USD a seat was a major stumbling block. Not to worry our friendly MS salesman told us when we questioned the price, MS had a solution, we could get the Windows software development kit for only $70USD a seat, and they "guaranteed" that if we would use that for our development, that when OS/2 was released, our software would be completely compatible, needing nothing more than a recompile and some minor tweaks, at most a days work to have our software running on OS/2 as well as Windows.

Needless to say that is the last time I believed anything from an MS salesman. When O/S 2 was released it had basically two applications; Lotus 123 and WordPerfect. Around the same time MS released Microsoft Word for Windows and Excel accompanied by a whole slew of 3rd party applications by developers who had been tricked into developing for Windows. In one foul swoop, MS had put the first nail in OS/2's coffin and at the same time put Lotus and WordPerfect on the slippery slope towards extinction. Some people called it marketing genius, to me it was downright dishonest.

That being said though, as far as I am concerned Excel has the distinction of being MS's only product that could have succeeded on merit. All MS's other products were no better, and often especially in their earlier incarnations, far worse than competing products relying instead on clever and often extremely underhand marketing techniques to crush the competition and capture market share.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 13/06/2016 23:05:30

(after paying for a non-subscription licence on their original version)

The contract must have changed fundamentally at some point to allow them to do as they please now

Usually when you get newer software you get the "I agree" tickbox to accept or reject software, this seems to have disappeared now

It doesn't bother me Bandersnatch but I do find it amusing so I'll stay watching.