Maybe. Maybe trying to establish a data base of cause and effect, since they seem to be focused on post updates. Did the latest set cause you any issues?

I cannot claim that is true, based on the fact mine still updates and I have hacked my registry to stop the annoying Win10 thing. My PC still gets updates, it is just more painful, my laptop has the Win10 thing going and will not update, just keeps running and running, I have let it go 12 hours and still looking for updates, so that does not track my experience.

That seems to fit the facts as they stand. Not very honest and upfront though...

From what I have heard, once it offers Win10 as an update, Win7 stops updating. I had to wipe a computer for a friend's son and that's what his did.. I've tried all of the fixes that MS has out and none worked.

I'm sure that is part of it.. Since I am on broadband with no limit, I'm not sure if it does it or not.. I only have the evaluation experience on my laptop that I have at my GFs place, and my desktop is not part of the evaluation trials. The one thing I find ironic is that they ask for feedback when you first boot up the computer from an update, instead of having you wait a couple of days and ask for feedback. With any system, you are going to have positives and negatives. At least, I do feel that they're trying to improve the product.

I misread your first response here about MS not allowing competitors like Apple and IBM at the same distributors. I still don't have a problem with that. They had to have had the market share by that point or the Distributors would not have agreed to such a thing. Besides, I looked into getting setup with IBM as a reseller of their computers and it was like was like pulling teeth - I decided not to pursue the idea. I can't hardly imagine IBM or Apple either one truly pursuing the distributors as real distribution options. Where is they reseller base now? I never had MS make me, as an authorized MS reseller, agree to not resell these other brands.

In my early years, I worked in retail stores selling computers and they had IBM computers as well as clones. If I remember right, they even had IBMs PS2s with OS2 on them - the customers bought the clone PCs with DOS and early versions of Windows - this would have been 1987 or 1988 or so. They cost more too - people just didn't buy them.

Small world ;) - I don't know Jabil Circuit though. I lived on the north end - bordering Lutz. Mostly did business in North Tampa, with a bit in southern Tampa - Riverview - St. Pete.

I put a 2009 WIndows XP laptop on Xubuntu and it runs well except for close lid bug. I have Windows 10 on another laptop (used for network testing) and find the GUI laughable. I mostly use Mac until that is ruined too.

I completely agree. I swear this has to do with them listening to their customers though. They are really going for the idea of "less broad more detail" - like common core - where they seem to be moving away from the idea of users who know how to deal with their computers on their own - just do it for them. Too many users don't apply updates themselves and leave their systems vulnerable the hacks, viruses, Trojans, spyware, malware, etc... I don't know if you do support, but that is the majority of the issues I have people coming to me about. Their systems are infested with crap - even when running scanning software. Their systems get slow, unstable, crash, etc... Is this MS or users not applying updates or bothering to learn enough to avoid suspicious stuff? Microsoft trying to keep their OS open to greater capabilities and customer user configurability - also opens the door to bad stuff getting in. So what do they do? Take control over the OS and go to Apps instead of regular software. Apps are such crap - for business needs they are so restrictive in their abilities making any software of substance is almost impossible - but, Win10 is focused on the App market. I think MS is caving as users in my opinion are not becoming more advanced users - they are staying relatively computer illiterate and are just enjoying the simplified - less capable "software" that lets them play their games and mess around in their social networks - at the cost of control, customizations, options, etc... That's all too hard. Just make it work. I have an iPad - and for doing anything other than games, social media, and a few interesting little apps that are simple tools - like building calculators, and such - it's incapable of anything truly useful - but to the masses - it's great. It works - few options, little power, easy to use for daily BS screwing around - but how many users want more.

Anyway, that's a pet peeve rant of mine - but I think is a strong reason for MS's current direction - take away control - simplify - reduce capabilities, options, etc... - make it simple and work. They do need to remember there is a tech group like us out there that need to be able to fix these things and not giving good recovery options is an issue. Of course, anymore - they are getting so cheap - it's getting to the point where it's just cheaper to get ride of the unit and buy another one - so maybe they're intentionally moving away from the techs - maybe they'll be Apple part 2 before we know it.

"I owned an IT company in Tampa, FL from the early 90' to 2006"
By chance I lived in Tampa Bay from '98 at to '03 when I worked at Jabil Circuit. :)

Microsoft was not forcing distributors to sell only MS based PC's - That is total BS. I owned an IT company in Tampa, FL from the early 90' to 2006. I custom built computers for individuals - but mostly businesses and none of the multiple distributors I bought parts from forced me to buy MS. I bought from a few local suppliers as well as TechData, MaLabs, CDW, Ingram Micro, etc... Whether I bought pre-built white box or all the components to build from scratch, they never in any circumstance ever made me buy any OS with my orders. Now, did they force such agreements with someone like Dell for lower prices points - maybe, but again, they could have went with OS2 - or the early variants of Linux/Unix or DOS based systems.

The point is, people based their purchasing decisions (including the resellers) on bang for the buck and went with MS based systems. The hardware - because MS did not force particular hardware configurations enabled an less expensive hardware option than many of the competing systems - like Apple and IBM. MS developed to fit a niche that was open and it advanced the computer markets and computers getting to the consumer faster than any other of the hardware companies (like IBM) or specialized companies like Novell, etc... had the vision to go after.

Maybe Microsoft has messed up some - no doubt - there's things they've been doing as of late that are making me consider looking elsewhere - it's just hard to swallow after putting 30 or so years into them. I ended up moving to the PC world after investing a lot of time and effort into Apple when they were working with the Apple II line - until they screwed their customers and dropped that line like a rock and went in the Mac direction.

But, that doesn't change the fact that they have had a huge positive impact on the PC world. I agree that they should not be forcing these updates on people. I have a particular system I'm been fighting with recently because the new driver they keep pushing on it fails. I roll back the driver, and give it a day or two and they've pushed to new driver back on it again. Yep, very annoying. They remind me more and more of Apple these days. It is however rather ridiculous considering the vast customer base and hardware base to assume they could ever push out any update that isn't going to cause some people grief. In how many of those cases is it because of a driver or software that was improperly written by 3rd parties that caused the failure - not truly due to MS writing a bad update.

MS needs to improve customer service - especially for resellers if that is who they want handling the majority of their support issues. They need to give control back - of course there are an awful lot of app type users out there that don't want to think and learn and expect it to just work and do it's thing. That's hard to accomplish without taking away control.

They should have gotten out there faster in the mobile markets - but you also know that is one of the reasons they are pushing Win10 so hard- to get more developers to work on Apps since they will then work across the mobiles, phones, desktops, etc... The faster they can move pre-Win10 systems to Win10, the bigger that market is - and they hope to then take a much bigger chunk than 5% or 6%. MS even giving it away for free - when has that ever happened?!? They have rebuilt their .NET framework open source and targeting Linux so Apps and software can even move cross platform - and again, Win10 has to do with this coming together. They are betting a lot on Win10 and are trying very hard to push it out fast to gain the advantages they are looking for to expand into these other markets at a much bigger level.

MS support and tooo many of MS devs are coming from India. MS has spent a huge amount of money overseas in training people to take over the developer market - then import them back here or use them over VOIP systems while still in India. I believe this has had a large impact on their customer service quality as well as the quality of the code coming from MS. They have become so focused on moving quickly with the markets that they are taking a hit on quality - and for devs like me that have 20 other jobs - it makes it very difficult to keep up with their constant changes to the dev software (like Visual Studio). New version ever 18 months to 2 years. if they would set back and plan better they could come out with single releases less often where people could adjust and become highly proficient again before they go to next release. But as stated - they don't really listen to people much. But that's their prerogative. If they get it right - everyone is happy - but if they don't they fail.

I don't give MS a free pass - but they get a lot of criticism that is not earned from too many people that only listen to one side of the "hate the big evil company" hype.

my ad blocker stops this article. . let's see ... if I copy
the url ....... -- j

p.s. that worked!
.

The steps below, posted here previously, seem to still work to block W7 downgrades to W10 and the promotions for it.

suppress display of W10 update popup notices in Windows 7:
....control panel > all control panel items > notification areas icons
..or
....right click taskbar > properties > customize
then
......."GWX Get Windows 10" - "Hide icon and notifications"

to remove KB3035583 "update" pushing W10:
....control panel > all control panel items > programs and features > installed updates
........"Upgrade for Windows 7 for x64-based systems (KB3035583)"
............right click > uninstall

to view your update history
....control panel > all control panel items > windows update > view update history

hide KB3035583 "update" to prevent future "offer"
....control panel > all control panel items > windows update > select updates to install
........important
............"Upgrade for Windows 7 for x64-based systems (KB3035583)"
............right click > hide update

prevent silent automatic updates -- notification only, you choose updates installed (but you don't know what may be snuck in behind vague descriptions)
....(updates are normally released on the second Tues of each month)
........control panel > windows update > change settings
............notify important updates
............notify recommended updates

Just what the h--l was that supposed to be
about?!

My problem with Windows is not so much its reliability but its profligate use of processor resources as it performs all sorts of tasks that are completely irrelevant to what I want the computer to be doing. I have a number of computers connected in a Beowulf array that are running a series of programs, written in C++. These programs analyze data from the international pulsar timing network as part of a project to refine the Earth's geodesic. I have used Windows as part of the input-output and process management subsystem and also as a pathway to the internet. Evey new version of Windows becomes more intrusive than its predecessor and less useful in this application. Now with the intimidation from Microsoft beginning to intrude on even my use of email and web browsing I have finally abandoned that OS on all but a few of my machines. And even there Windows days are numbered. Windows has become more of a toy for people that hate computer programming and as such it has lost its appeal, at least for me.

Two options for getting the legacy programs running. The first thing to try is a framework called WINE, which can run a fair percentage of Windows programs successfully within Linux. If that fails, install VirtualBox, create a virtual machine and install Windows 7 in it, and use it as needed for running such programs.

I have not seen that happen on mine yet, if it is a result of (yet again) one of their sneaky updates, uninstall it I will!!

I did the registry hack on my main PC, I am going to try the gizmo on the laptop to see if it really works.

dnr, most versions of WIN were paid for, one way or another, if you build a business, you cannot just say "we did our best" and hope people survive. Think about the 80% who do not have any clue how software works, and just from a customer service basis, MS owes them some sort of working method to identify a bad patch, and recover it, without going to Best Buy to have it done. Maybe they should have a modular approach, if you want a basic computer, get a basic module, the more you add, the more you need, but that might help out a lot of people who's machine died because NTKERNEL did not like their AMD video card driver.

I agree. But now, if you run Windows Update, it forces the setting to always run regardless of what the user wants. This even applies to servers, where you want absolute control over patching and testing!

"That is a bad business model"

Agreed!

Microsoft's support lines used to be a complete joke: they forced support off on the PC manufacturers so they wouldn't have to deal with it. I know - I did my time working the phones at HP. I can remember the days when we'd get nothing but calls about how Internet Explorer 5 crashed their PC with the only option being format/restore. I can't remember talking to a single customer who thought that was a good idea. To the contrary, I remember the shipping on the box telling customers that if they updated IE it would void their warranties!

They've gotten much better, there is no question. But when you're paying $250 per incident, they darn well better!

The whole coercive and intrusive nature of the Windows 10 upgrade just sets my teeth on edge. I know several people (non-tech savvy) who saw that and thought oh, it's going to tell me about Windows 10 only to have it initiate the download of the update from which there is no going back. And their upgrades went horribly wrong. I used the registry hack to block Windows 10 on all my Windows 7 devices (I can't stand the tiles).

And don't get me started on the whole Office Ribbon...

See below, but I am not verifying it works or is not a bad thing, until I get to try it. If it works, I'll post.

Prof, this website has a gadget you can download that will allow you to easily disable all the GWX stuff and supposedly end the issue. I intend to try it on my laptop I don't use much just to see if it works, since I reloaded and in 253 updates, they slid them in.

https://www.winhelp.us/reinstall-wind...

I have been a system (operating systems) and applications software developer for over 40 years. I want to tell y'all something. The developers at Microsoft are just as smart or smarter than the developers on any other operating systems. Apple is easy. They have a closed ecosystem. This is an environment that even average programmers can support. Linux blends (and I know most of them quite well) are no better than Windows. Microsoft has a mission with Widows that no one else has, i.e., support 10s of thousands of vendors in all releases forever. Hey, you can still run DOS applications on Windows. OS/X and Linux do not have this kind of backwards compatibility. Yea, Windows ain't perfect, but Microsoft does quite well given their mission. Do they make mistakes. Yes, e.g., Windows 8/8.1. Do they ship bugs? Yes, all vendors ship bugs. Should you not take updates? That is up to you and it is really easy to just turn them off. Quit your griping!

Do you allow it to phone home all the time with your usage data? Since trust of any business and politicians is in short supply, I have yet to find a good explanation for all the monitoring, nor why they snuck it into Win 8 and 7 with innocuous "updates".