Microsoft No Longer Allows Admins To Block Windows Store Access In Windows 10 Pro (zdnet.com) 407
If you're an administrator, you will no longer be able to block Windows 10 Pro users on your watch from accessing the Windows Store. Mary Jo Foley reports for ZDNet: Up until a month ago, admins could use Group Policy to shut off employees' access to Windows Store if they were running Windows 10 Pro. Controlling this access is a requirement for some businesses. But last month, Microsoft changed that option, claiming that Store access was required for all versions of Windows 10 except Enterprise and Education "by design." Admins still can use AppLocker or Group Policy to block access to the Windows Store if their employees (or students) are running Enterprise or Education.
God (Score:5, Insightful)
This company SUCKS.
Re:Company is good (Score:5, Insightful)
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The edition naming still has a point---Professional is the lowest version that can join a domain. Pretty much every organization steps up to Professional when it outgrows the "mom and pop" market.
Many mid-sized organizations do not go up to Enterprise.
If you have a thousands of employees, it's almost certainly worth it---but it doesn't start looking attractive unless you have a large IT footprint, above-average security requirements, or both.
This move forces businesses with security requirements to pay for
Re:Company is good (Score:4, Informative)
No, millions of small business just buy computers with Windows Professional installed and join them to a small domain. Only big companies pay again for the Enterprise edition. Those small business are being f...ed removing this policy.
Re:Company is good (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, and too bad. That's what they get for making themselves reliant on Microsoft. Hopefully MS will make life even more miserable for these SMBs soon with more policies like this. I really enjoy seeing MS screw over their customers, and their customers continue to bend over for them. It's amusing, in a dark way.
Re:Company is good (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, and OEMs are not allowed to sell machines with Windows 10 Enterprise. So companies have to license enterprise at it's full retail price, which is about 500 dollars a unit. This puts Enterprise outside the price range for most small/medium businesses.
Microsoft is essentially doubling down on an already dangerous precident: You either buy Microsoft's ridiculously inflated prices for the Enterprise version, or you allow Microsoft to dictate how you deploy and manage your computers. First with the telemetry, and now with the app store.
What's the quote? "I have altered our agreement. Pray I do not alter it any further."
As a sysadmin, the computers under my care are MY responsibility. That means *I* control what happens to them, and I will not be forced to almost double our upgrade costs just to satisfy Satya Nadella's "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine" freak fetish.
We've experimented with a couple of machines running Windows 10, but at this point it's become painfully clear that I will never upgrade our machines to Windows 10 because Microsoft has has demonstrated that despite all their hand wavy "I got better!" bullshit, they're still just as monopolistic and ruthless as ever.
Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't own your computer. redmond does.
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
This is increasingly apparent. My computer constantly bugs me about installing something I don't want, and I keep hearing stories of people whose computers decide to update anyway without their explicit permission, and of people who try to revert after the upgrade but have problems doing so. I paid for Windows 8. I don't really care for it, I preferred the last version, I liked the Start menu is much more useful than whatever the hell I've got now is called, but that's what I've got on my machine, and if it is really my machine, than I get the choice to do what I want, how I want, when I want, and if I want. Microsoft it seems does not appear to agree with that and can't take no for an answer. I don't care if Windows 10 is the best thing ever; it's my property and my choice.
I've for years been one of those uncommon people who has had experience and done work on Mac and Linux systems but still preferred Windows. Next computer I get, and I'll likely be in that market soon, I do not think I will get a Windows machine. This is too much humbug, and I don't like where Microsoft is taking things. If this story is accurate, this is more of Microsoft trying to control what should be under your sole command and ownership, and that's not acceptable.
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Everything else you wrote I entirely agree with, if I didn't use Photoshop and Lightroom so much I'd install Linuxmint on my main desktop right now.
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Depending on what you need it to do I have Photoshop CS2 working perfectly under wine on Linux Mint. I haven't tried Lightroom though
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Thanks for the info. Like the (great) grandparent poster I'm also in a position where I will be moving away from Windows for my next machine, but I was in the conundrum of 1) I like building my own computers vs. 2) I want to be able to keep using Photoshop.
Was looking I was going to have to just get a Mac and give up the home-built hobby, but this gives me hope.
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Depending on how much you use photoshop you may find dual booting is the way to go. I have been using Mint as my primary OS for about 4 years now and love it. However there are still a number of games that are windows only. Rather than fight with it I dual boot into windows, play my game and boot out again. The reason why I boot back out to mint though is I prefer the desktop environment, the file manager, natural support for NFS, multidesktops and the easy scripting capabilities.
I get away using Libre
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This also won't apply to you, because TFA is about blocking access to the App Store using Group Policies, which means a AD Domain connected device, not your home PC.
Unless you have a Windows Home Server, a Samba 4 server, or other active domain controller at home, of course.
Re:Par for the course (Score:4, Interesting)
I switched to linux full-time in 1997 (same year I started hanging out here) and this is the EXACT reason why. Their whole business model and philosophy just pissed me off no end when it shows in their products and marketplace behavior. Still going strong with slackware on the desktop, every day.
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Yeah a really bad and broken version of what was there in windows xp and 7..
Re:Par for the course (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows 10 is a bug improvement.
That's how I read it. I should finally go to bed. Or maybe not...
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Windows 10 is a bug improvement.
That's how I read it. I should finally go to bed. Or maybe not...
No, you're quite right, but only a bug improvment over Win8.x...
I had the misfortune to have to look at someone's Win10 laptop a couple of days ago, eventually, out of frustration with the damn thing switching to its sub-tellytubby touchy-feely interface at the drop of a hat, had to install classic shell [classicshell.net] for my own convenience. So, fixed the main 'why is the laptop so slow' problem (two AV scanners having a bit of a 'contention' issue, yet machine infested with a trojan and fck.tons of adware/spyware), give
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The search functionality has been broken since Win7. It is just silly, that the explorer can not find a text file with given string. Sometimes it works, but since the search is so unreliable, it can not be trusted.
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You don't own your computer. redmond does.
I am fairly sure that this type of thing is really going to annoy business managers since if you want to have a server updated you have to go through Q&A on all potential updates with a change request being raised and approved. This is nothing unusual in many business and any system admin who allows updates to be installed on a machine without written permission is likely to be shown the door.
Obviously this is different for an employees computer, however some firms do want some control over what is i
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Informative)
You don't own your computer. redmond does.
I can name the date we lost control, April 4th, 2015. The update KB3035583 was listed as only to make converting to Win10 easier, more of a description has been added to it since
For seven days my HOSTS file blocked a 600K file collected over a 24 hour time from being to sent to a third party. Every malware protection on the market let it pass.
The captured material which in my case starts:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera15\28.0.1750.48\osmesa.dll 2,950.00 KB 4/3/2015 4:16:32 PM
C:\Windows\Temp\CProgram Files (x86)Opera15\installing\osmesa.dll 2,950.00 KB 4/3/2015 4:16:32 PM
Goes on for 4000 more lines ending in
C:\Users\Tone\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\4msw7c4t.default\thumbnails\cdd6f9ceb15e02a0a36b6164ce79484e.png 2.00 KB 4/4/2015 11:48:49 PM
FFFFF
Just today in the event viewer I found error entries saying GWX can't negotiate it's action (I've long ago deleted the X:windows/GWX directory).
When I found it, it had three more config.cfg files so wasn't done, it was the file responsible for installing the icon that let one download and installed Win10 for one; and viewing the GWX errors in the event viewer shows it's not done.
GWX is a pet peeve of mine. While I warned of GWX, the question I was always asked was how come I was the only person in the world to have this so called collected file, and the thread pretty much over, hey I tried. I was regulated to /.'s journal for some badly written attempts.
Because of it none saw why a hosts file is ones main defense from malware and the more one builds on it (hosts file) the better it becomes; and their loss.
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft (and malware authors) can - and have [slashdot.org] - simply rolled their own DNS clients to get around hosts-based blocking.
If you trust any solution running on the same machine as the malware itself (whether that means a cryptolocker or GWX), you will eventually lose.
Or goodness... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft, can you please stop f**king up? You had one job.
This is the year of the Linux Desktop (Score:5, Funny)
This time, I can actually believe it.
There is a reason now to switch.
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one word, though:
MSoffice
that, alone, keeps corp america locked to windows.
pretty much that.
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I would narrow that down to PowerPoint.
FTFY.
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well, yeah, except that powerpoint:
1. saves self contained presentations that will run on anything that can run powerpoint. This is a big deal when it comes to media.
2. local storage. presenters don't want to look bad if half the presentation fails because of some scripting error on a remote host somewhere
3. has hardware/gpu acceleration for animations and vector art. sure, web 2.0 does a lot of this too, but it's at the mercy of the browser, revision, and the os it's running on, and each company has diffe
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yes, but PDF can do all these and much, much better than PowerPoint. Probably the only appeal of PowerPoint is the ability to copy-paste snippets from other MSOffice tools.
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PDF can also be generated from LaTeX, which allows for math and pstricks (LaTex -> dvips -> ps2pdf).
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Those who have no point, use PowerPoint.
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one word, though:
MSoffice
Until they hear about Wine or Crossover. MS Office seems to have high compatibility ratings on Crossover. [codeweavers.com]
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For the little that I need to do with it Office 365 seems to work great on my Mint desktop wtih the Chromium browser.... as usual, your experience may vary
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I don't think businesses that want a locked down desktop allow people to plug in random scanners and printers
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Stop living in the 90's.
These days there is a vastly higher chance that 99% of consumer gear 'just works' on Linux without stuffing around with drivers.
Only with Windows can you take a new computer, clean install the OS and have not a single peripherals working out of the box.
Even basic stuff like Ethernet will often not work.
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I'm good at Unix, using it since '82 or so, was a sysadmin for Sun systems for maybe 3 years in the early 90s, used Linux since '94, have written Linux device drivers, yadda yadda yadda. It always pissed me off I had to jump through so many hoops just to get audio to work.
Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop (Score:5, Informative)
Yes it does. If you were to try Linux Mint MP3s will play out of the box, on the assumption you download the international version. Due to legal issues the USA version has mp3 playback removed in the default install, but can be added with 3 clicks after install. The part that is removed is the codec to allow MP3 playback.
At first boot it will be using the opensource drivers for your video card but a box will pop up saying "proprietary drivers are available for some of your hardware" it will list all of them and ask you if you want to install them or not. Hit yes and your machine will install the nVidia / amd drivers and reboot once. From there you are done. I haven't run into any media that won't play on a default install, it comes with LibreOffice which will do 99% of what people use MSOffice for, firefox, DVD burning software, audio recording software and image editing software.
There is always the possibility that you may have an edge case with your hardware that may cause you issues. However I haven't run into any other those in the past 5 years. I am running Mint on Dell latitudes, E6420 i7-2640m, NVS 4200m graphics, as their primary O/S, as well as multiple AMD processor (x2, x4 & x6 AM3 machines) on gigabyte boards with Nvidia graphics. I also have 3 Atom based machines with a mixture of Nvidia Ion and AMD Radeon cards that run without any hitch, including wireless, and ethernet. These are Shuttle XS35 machines and an ASUS EEbox.
All of these machines boot off the live cds with all hardware working. No hacks, grub parameters, hacking, compiling of drivers, downloading of anything weird, touching terminal or anything else required.
I have also installed mint on my MIL's crappy HP laptop which is an AMD Radeon and it worked perfectly. I can't remember any more of its specs though.
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I don't know the details as to why. There are just two versions in the download area - US / Japan & rest of the world.
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What about hybrid sleep (or any kind of sleep/hibernate) without driver crashing?
Sleep / Hibernate works fine on my dells and my primary desktop. I never use it on my other machines so I can't comment. That said sleep / hibernate has always been a hit and miss for me irrespective of OS
Why do I have to manually start apps with primus if I want to run under discrete graphics?
Sorry I'd forgotten about this one. Also I am not up to date on its status as I don't have any optimus based laptops any more. I don't know if this is still the case but this was one of the only major driver issues that existed for linux and it is totally out of their control. Nvidia hadn't / still ha
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I'm dual-booting my desktop. Everything works fine in both Linux and Windows with the exception of audio. Windows just can't do it.
Windows is convinced my speakers aren't plugged in and refuses to let me select them as the audio output, whereas Pulseaudio on Linux realizes that people sometimes want to select an audio device that doesn't appear to be plugged in at the moment.
(I might be able to find a driver to reinstall or something to get Windows to realize my speakers are plugged in, but it just isn't th
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That just isn't true. I like gigabyte motherboards just because and every single one of those works out of the box on linux mint. Of those the vast majority won't work without a driver disk on windows 7 or 8. I only have 1 win10 install and it did work out of the box.
Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop (Score:5, Interesting)
That did used to be the case. That's one thing that made Linux suck back in the day.
But these days, I've got no problems getting any of my stuff to work. Including a couple things that don't work on Windows anymore. I've got an old legal-paper size HP scanner, there haven't been Windows drivers for it since (!!!) Windows 2000. Works just fine on Linux Mint, I was amazed. Also an old thing that lets you use an SD card as an external drive via a USB cable, hasn't worked since around Windows Vista, also works just fine on Mint. An older 8-core 64 bit Xeon box (Dell Precision 690) that I had no driver issues with.
It's really gotten better. I'm sure the Mac guys will vehemently disagree, but I'd say the latest version of Linux Mint is better than anything from Apple or Microsoft.
Try it again!
Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop (Score:4, Interesting)
...HP scanner, there haven't been Windows drivers for it since (!!!) Windows 2000.
Yeah, there are loads of examples like that - I have a small Lexmark USB laser printer that stopped working under windows for that very reason. I set it up under Linux on my RaspberryPi (took me about 5 min to set up in CUPS), then shared it on the network. Now I have a networked laser printer, and I can even use it from Windows. In fact, you can take just about any old printer, and turn it into a networked Postscript printer via Gutenprint or similar.
I did the same with a scanner - which I can now use over the network as well. Not sure if that is even an option from Windows.
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Again? Really? You guys need to have a nice cup of STFU. Linux hasn't had trouble with peripherals for a long time. On the other hand, I sure wish the Windows partition on my new box would recognize my USB mouse, reliably.
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Businesses usually have a lot of time and money tied up in their custom internal applications developed in-house.
Which are almost always web-based applications.
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Sure there are a lot of web-based applications but they usually run on top of a database, middle tier components, and services that depend on the OS. Internal web-based applications are also responsible for the slow adoption of alternative browsers. Companies designate a standard browser and all the intranet applications are developed against that one browser.
Re:This is the year of the Linux Desktop (Score:4, Informative)
...Because Office 365 hasn't colossally fucked ANY organization recently!!!
https://support.microsoft.com/... [microsoft.com]
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I really liked Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I really liked Windows 7 (Score:4)
Re:I really liked Windows 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
MS realized that corp america will be stuck with them for still quite a while. home users user whatever comes installed; they mostly are just sheep and do what they are told. we are a tiny tiny exception. and beyond that, mac people are their own strange kind that will never consider using windows (most hate linux, too).
MS can do whatever it wants and it will still have business' loyalty.
the key was entrenching Word format and getting it so complicated that it simply cannot be made interoperable with free alternatives.
when all your docs are locked to MS formats, you know the result. you have no choice anymore.
MS stopped trying to get us to CHOOSE windows. they now have decided to say 'fuck it' and just force whatever they want on people and with win10, they remove all your choices. little by little, the frog is slowly cooked and users are having all their choices taken away, for rejecting updates and for setting policies on their own.
you and I will reject windows, but again, we are not big enough ($$) to even register on the pocket-change o-meter that MS has. MS is kept alive by business licenses and the home stuff is just to keep you 'trained' on using windows so that business will continue to think that their userbase needs to continue with that same old os.
Re:I really liked Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
Because renting you stuff and getting a steady revenue stream is a WAY better business model than trying to get you to buy a new version every few years.
The truth is that selling the OS & Office the way they have been is a sucky way to make money - you have to put out a bunch of cash making the new version, then hope you can con enough suckers into buying it to make your money back at the end. Much better to sell monthly subscriptions to Office 365 through your controlled App store. Plus, you can charge a fee to let other people sell through your app store.
I'm waiting for the day that they try to block non-app store installs.
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> I'm waiting for the day that they try to block non-app store installs.
Ugh, you are probably right.
Is there any good open-source memory-managed languages out there with a solid IDE to use. Sorry, I am way too many years down the C# path to just easily jump to C/C++, I hate dealing with memory issues. I'm spoiled, I don't want to think about allocating and deallocating memory, and even worse, memory leaks. I just want to build new software and get things done. I don't wanna do Java, another corporate lan
Re:I really liked Windows 7 (Score:4, Insightful)
I miss Windows 2000.
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Life was good then...
I am guessing (Score:2)
Re:I am guessing (Score:5, Insightful)
There's probably technical reasons for this
No, there isn't.
additional revenue.
The *ONLY* reason it's being done.
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I imagine even if you don't install apps from the store, the store still has all of the deployment and patching code built into it that's necessary to install an AppX.
Re: I am guessing (Score:2)
Yes. Enterprise edition which is alot more expensive has the gpo support to block it. Go buy the enterprise will make them more money and app store for not. MS wins either way. On Neowin
Net there are lots of folks defending it saying if you have more than 20 employees you should pay for a $100,000 license and audit rights anyway. Jeesh
Re: I am guessing (Score:2)
They've forgotten... (Score:2)
Re:They've forgotten... (Score:4, Insightful)
No,they haven't. It's not the people they're giving free upgrades to 10 to,
Wanna guess who the customer is?
It isn't a problem. (Score:2)
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you mean, there isn't an angry-flying-toaster app, even for a screen saver?
Defective by design.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Forced "upgrades", removing features after the fact, spyware you can't disable.
Please Microsoft, keep pissing off users and administrators. Soon since everything will be "in the cloud" and all apps will be web based we won't have a reason to use your shitty OS anymore.
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They already are, with Geforce Now.
Once we can get the businesses off of Windows, the home users will follow which means the games will follow too.
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My future? It's the way the industry is going. Pretty soon you won't be able to buy copies of Adobe Creative Suite or Microsoft Office. The only option you'll have is a subscription service to cloud based versions.
Once that happens, it doesn't matter what OS you're using.
Coming soon... (Score:5, Funny)
Candy Crush Pro Business
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+1
Would buy.
I really can't beleive it at this point,....... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not your normal /. "#$%! Microsoft" kinda guy. I've been an MS guy my whole life, only dabbling in other OSs briefly.
Often you see people (here) chanting about #@$%^ Microsoft or "are you surprised" or any other snarky remark, I traditionally dismiss these as the extreme tinfoil people who would hate whatever they do, regardless.
That being said, Microsofts moves with Windows 10 have gone from "hmm ok that's questionable, but I can see past it" and "this looks desperate, it's kinda shitty, but oh well" and "well that's definitely dumb, but I'm sure some great nerd will hack up an awesome all-in-one little 'fixit' tool for Windows 10 to take out all the crap"
It's now at a point where it's outright sounding BAD. Like proper, bad. The things they keep doing are worse and worse, more and more intrusive. I thought the pushy installer was rough but ok, once it's on, they aren't going to abuse it too much, they are getting their data, from most people who aren't clever enough to turn stuff off.
Nope! It's getting SO bad, I'm really thinking of sticking with 7 as long as humanly possible. Maybe I really will end up a Mac guy after all, or something?
Super unimpressed at this point.
Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,....... (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, if you can pay the Mac tax, consider it. Also consider Linux and BSD.
I've always had a real beef with Microsoft's many shady dealings. If you have followed them closely, they did a lot of really shady stuff, and had legal pushback. Eventually, they settled into a path where they were making plenty of money and were sort of easy to predict- when they screwed up, which was sometimes, they would try to make it right. This long gentle summer of Microsoft had its peak with Windows 7. Windows 8 didn't feature any of the strange drama we see in 10, but we saw the designers essentially say "we want to move casual users away from the old UI". That's why they pretty much did everything they could to ruin it- if it was still there and easy to turn on, power users would run a script for their friends, and everyone would have the old UI. But this decision was ACTIVE and MALICIOUS. Windows 10 is an absolute nest of drama, as you've noticed.
Basically, the reason you weren't a "screw Microsoft" guy is that you weren't paying attention. I was fine with 7- it offers way less freedom than non-Windows OSes, but it ultimately belongs to the user. Windows 10 breaks that totally. Microsoft sometimes briefly releases the coils. That's just to get you to inhale and exhale so it can clamp down tighter next time. Stop falling for it. Use another OS for everything you possibly can. Evaluate carefully each demand from those around you to install a new MS-only thing. Push back where you can. If you really can discard Microsoft completely, good. But you'll never see how hard it is until you try, how thoroughly they have themselves wrapped tight around anything that they can.
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The issue is, most technical workers have to use windows, as most pro level CAD, CAM and even Embedded Development platforms, are windows only.
The monopoly will be around for at least my lifetime.
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One (dedicated and heavily firewalled) machine for the CAD/CAM/wahtever special tool, one for desktop use. Relatively easy, relatively cheap. Treat those super specialized applications as an "appliance" instead of a software package on a desktop machine...
Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,....... (Score:5, Insightful)
" Maybe I really will end up a Mac guy after all, or something?"
Ok. Since the presence of the 'forced' app store on Windows 10 offended you so much that you are considering switching to Mac.
What is the Apple supported way to remove the App Store in OSX El Capitan?
The app store in OSX is, if anything even more integrated than the App Store in Windows is, as it delivers OS updates as well. I look around a bit and found a few articles from circa 2011 when they first introduced it in 10.6. and even back then the removal instructions amounted to hacks where "you can do a-b-c to remove it but its not supported by apple at all". And that was several releases ago now.
So here we have a case of Microsoft doing a thing that everyone has seemingly already accepted from Apple years ago... but hate Microsoft doing it so much that they threaten to switch to Apple over it... so...um... yeah.
Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,....... (Score:4, Informative)
"Restrict App Store to MDM installed apps and software updates only": "When this option is on, the App Store can only be used to update apps installed by MDM and Apple software updates. The default is Off."
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"Restrict App Store to MDM installed apps and software updates only":
Do you not need an OSX Server to do that though? Fewer people have those than have Windows 10 Enterprise licenses.
I mean even Microsoft has a very simple solution involving Active Directory and Windows 10 Enterprise licensing. Its there its just not cheap.
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Yes, it does need OS X server, which since Mavericks is a $20 add on to OS X [apple.com] - OS X server is no longer a separate OS you install. Instead it's just an addon (which doesn't really add any
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This isn't me angry about the forced App store in Windows 10, it's about the culmination of all the shitty things they've done in the past 18 months.
They might have a history long, long ago of being quite evil but there was a period there, where I personally, really didn't see them being all that bad, within reason for a business anyhow. It's now getting utterly ridiculous.
Yeah proprietary Mac store is frustrating but for the most part with MacOS you're the consumer, under Windows 10 and the spying stuff
Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,....... (Score:5, Informative)
under Windows 10 and the spying stuff (which is sadly, mostly true) you're the product.
It's really not much different in OSX.
1) Spotlight has been in OSX forever and can be used to search web so potentially 'local search terms are sent out to the internet'. Same issue as windows search.
2) "Microsoft Accounts" to sign-in; again just retreading a feature OSX *already* has, where OSX prompts you to create an account tied to your AppleID with itunes, appstore, and icloud links.
3) App Store you can't remove... as discussed OSX had it years ago.
4) Telemetry -- ok windows got here first; but honest to goodness telemetry really isn't the bogeyman its made out to be. Yes, its truly irritating microsoft hasn't been transparent enough, and bizarre they won't just let you turn it off. (Most people won't even bother so why not just let that vocal group turn it off and avoid the circus I don't know.)
5) "Spying"; ok... lets stop there and talk Cortana first. Because again OSX did it first, with siri. But so far Siri is only on your phone -- and a TON of the information that is so-called spying (and part of why the EULA is such a wide cast net) is related to the cortana "feature"... to function as designed it "needs" to know who your contacts are, your search terms, your calendar, document meta data, etc, etc. And it needs to be in the 'cloud' so it can be processed and available on other devices you use, etc, etc. And further for Cortana to be be any use she needs to be pretty integrated into the OS... so where am I going with this? Siri is exactly the same, on IOS. All the same problems are there. Microsoft's only 'innovation' is to put it on the desktop.
So what about apple? Watch for the June WWDC where Apple annouces Siri availability for OSX... and then check out the accompanying EULA that has to go with it.
Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,....... (Score:4, Informative)
>1) Spotlight has been in OSX forever and can be used to search web so potentially 'local search terms are sent out to the internet'. Same issue as windows search.
When you disable spotlight's web search [howtogeek.com] it stays disabled.
>2) "Microsoft Accounts" to sign-in; again just retreading a feature OSX *already* has, where OSX prompts you to create an account tied to your AppleID with itunes, appstore, and icloud links.
And you can freely ignore this with no real drawbacks.
>3) App Store you can't remove... as discussed OSX had it years ago.
It's not that you can't remove it, you stupid fuck. It's that MS won't let the admin block it. Apple *does* allow MDM to restrict the app store to updating MDM installed apps and the OS only. Which is what MS just removed from their platform.
Re:I really can't beleive it at this point,....... (Score:4, Informative)
grr (Score:2)
Bullshit... (Score:5, Informative)
If you're an administrator, you will no longer be able to block Windows 10 Pro users on your watch from accessing the Windows Store.
Works just fine with some firewall rules on the core router in the office.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I didn't even know that my watch could even RUN Windows 10 Pro...
Hello firewall (Score:2)
What competent windows administrator hasn't already blocked the telemetry, live tile, and play store IP addresses at the corporate firewall already?
This is a dick move for sure by microsoft (not that apple didn't do this years ago), but seriously folks... Maybe for certain elements you use the domain policy to disable features and whatnot, but blocking access to other computers is EXACTLY why we have firewalls.
I'm not a very good windows admin, just a programmer for a small consulting company. And the very
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You shouldn't have to do this. Essentially you're treating the OS itself as malware.
Re: (Score:2)
What competent windows administrator is inflicting MS Windows10 on their users when MS Windows 7 is still on sale :)
You brought up the "competent" thing so expect something back when you frame things in such a way.
Lead us not.. (Score:2)
Just as I am getting tempted to try windows again for my next P.C build, I read stories like this.
It is not that this would necessary affect me in a negative way either - I just don't want to support a product that (overtly) treats me more like a commodity than anything else.
Thankfully delivered from evil.
Don't trust - firewall (Score:2)
It will at least work until updates have to come from their marketing site.
See Comment... (Score:2, Insightful)
FUCK MICROSOFT!! (*somebody* had to say it.. the fanbois never will...)
Good. (Score:2)
This should piss off all the sysadmins that keep pushing windows/Microsoft infrastructure down our throats at work.
Windows admins don't need to (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
i just block the outgoing connection with my firewall.
Re: Perhaps Microsoft forgets ... (Score:2)
Yeah until your executives with laptops install keyloggers malware and then hold you the IT guy responsible for being hacked
Re:Opinions on upgrade...potentially off topic. (Score:5, Informative)
I've been using Windows 7 for a long time and i haven't seen much of a compelling reason to upgrade to 10.
Most of the worst bits of windows 10 telemetry etc have been backported to 7 so unless you are spending more than normal amount of time inspecting updates there's no advantage to 7 on that front.
Better and simpler IMO to update to 10 and just install one of the telemetry blockers.
Ok... as for compelling reasons to upgrade..
.
DirectX 11.3 / 12.0 -- whether that's compelling is up to you.
HyperV -- and better virtualization support in general
Multimonitor -- better than 7, better than 7 with 3rd party addons IMO
Sleep / Wake / Reboot -- markedly better/faster than 7
Task Manager -- much improved over what's in 7
Antivirus -- built in good enough to run without more
SystemTray -- much better system tray/notifications setup
Security -- More OS hardening features
Smaller footprint -- smaller on disk, smaller in memory
There's a bunch of features (built in) and addons (like classic shell) you can use to make 10 look more like 7; but IMO sticking with the look of 7 vs 10 really just amounts to "resisting changes" for the sake of "resisting changes". I know people who jumped through hoops to make XP look like 98, then to make 7 look like XP etc... I don't think its productive or worth the effort, and you do miss out on some of the actual improvements by being close minded to the idea that maybe just may the windows 7 really might not be the pinnacle of user interfaces. (Not that windows 10 is... but it took little effort to adjust to it)
As a user of several windows versions 3.1 onward, Mac os7 thru X, and several linux desktops I can say that windows 10 desktop has some flaws (the confusing mix of old control panels and new "settings" to set things is probably the worst; and the a bunch of the defaults are idiotic; -- the default start menu tiles for example; I unpinned all of them; or the default file viewers for a few things being useless "modern apps" but that is all easily and quickly tamed. )
Is 10 a big upgrade from 7? No. But it is an upgrade, and it doesn't cost anything but some time and effort.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. Smaller footprint. RAM usage from task manager doesn't really mean anything anymore; for a lot of reasons.
Windows 10 runs markely better on a system with 2GB ram than 7 or 8 does for example.
Re: (Score:2)
If you ignore the telemetry slurping, which has been back ported to 7 anyway 10 is ok. I think its seriously ugly but that is a personal preference. Like you I also hate the boxes in the start menu but I rarely hit the start menu in windows as I only use it for games and I run steam so its a non issue. Outside of that photoshop gets an icon on the desktop.
As for games DirectX 11.3 / 12 is probably the reason to move.
Re: (Score:2)
a so called "pro" user, who by his own choice, buys windows(or any m$ product), or needs it to do anything, or depends on it for anything, is no pro user, but an rank uninformed idiot.
same btw goes for anyone buying, needing, or depending, in any apple product.
You don't seem to have any idea how professional people actually use computers.
Re: (Score:3)
Not a 'non-issue'. Large companies with assurance licencing may have enterprise.... but all the small companies with 10-200 employees order PCs with an OEM windows PRO lic on it.