Windows 10 April 2018 Update is Coming On April 30 (venturebeat.com) 214
The next major update to Windows 10 -- called Windows 10 April 2018 Update -- finally has a release date. From a report: Microsoft today announced that the free Windows 10 April 2018 Update (previously rumored to be called the Windows 10 Spring Creators Update) will begin rolling out on April 30, 2018. For those keeping track, this update is Windows 10 build 17134.
Windows 10 is a service, meaning it was built in a very different way from its predecessors so it can be regularly updated with not just fixes, but new features, too. Microsoft has released four major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, and Fall Creators Update. The fifth one will be out on Monday.
Windows 10 is a service, meaning it was built in a very different way from its predecessors so it can be regularly updated with not just fixes, but new features, too. Microsoft has released four major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, and Fall Creators Update. The fifth one will be out on Monday.
What are you going to break this time? (Score:3, Insightful)
New and improved breakage!
More things will break (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh and I get to set my default browser back to Chrome and my preferred PDF reader back to Adobe Reader.
Re:More things will break (Score:5, Funny)
and reinstall your manufacturer's video drivers, rerun shutup10 to turn windows shit off, etc, etc.. this, of course, after 4 failed attempts to download and install, breaking when it finally does try to install, reinstalling from scratch, and sucking-up 30+ gigabytes of your monthly quota and a week of your time in the process.
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A program that presents on/off toggles for turning off dozens of the various Windows 10 "features" such as forced updates, "telemetry", etc.
It doesn't install anything, it just serves as a map to and simple control for a bunch of the settings you would otherwise have to hunt for in various Windows 10 settings menus, the registry, powershell, etc. It also has a recommendation for whether or not something is safe to turn off, or whether it can impact things you might use.
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Slow ring just got the 28th update pushed and I haven't had any of that happen yet. Then again I've seen 4 pushes in the last 2 weeks and none of that happened, but I do know the update you're talking about. Drivers now...that's a different story.
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And changing your default search engine to Bing. Google is becoming more like Bing by showing unrelated search results for more and more synonyms and close spellings if you don't include search terms in quotes, but it's still so much better even with those newish problem.
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Preview my own generated documents before sending them off. Have to make sure of what they look like before they go out to people.
It's a lot less punishment than using Edge, at the very least.
Yea but.... (Score:2)
The real question is have they finally figured out how to do differential updates?
It's a pain in the ass to download and reinstall the whole blasted OS with *every* update. I can't wait to need to use my PC for something, only for it to tell me it's applying updates for 15 minutes on boot. Upgrading RHEL 7.4 to RHEL 7.5 is only a couple hundred MB - and it is done by running "yum update". Whole process changes lots of system files, but only took maybe 3 minutes and a restart.
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As someone else pointed out in a previous discussion, almost every file is touched because of the amount of static linking in the OS. Everything gets recompiled and every file changes from top to bottom.
This newest update pre-copies the files before the reboot and does a folder-swap at reboot and the only waiting is for migrating the user profile data. Just means your computer will be slow for a long time instead of unavailable.
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Re: Yea but.... (Score:2)
RHEL probably isn't as tightly integrated as Windows. Mac OS updates also take ages as well so it's probably a function of having the GUI as a core OS component.
Re:Yea but.... (Score:4, Interesting)
differential updates?
Microsoft has actually gone the other direction with their cumulative updates. Yes, ,it really sucks to download >1G updates each month at several of our sites still stuck with dial-up, but they are more reliable than the old way of having dozens and dozens of different updates that can fail.
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I have had someone in an MMO raid crash, then about 40 minutes later came back and said that the system insisted on updating itself after rebooting.
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>The real question is have they finally figured out how to do differential updates?
For the Monthly updates, yes. If you had last month's patches you'll get a delta update that is dramatically smaller than the full file cumulative update. The payload is the same, just the delivery is different.
Looking at kb4093119 in the Microsoft catalog, the x64 fullfile is 1.2gb, and the delta update is 361mb.
For the feature updates I don't know.
Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another Slashdot article about Windows, and we can already see the trolls crawling out with their complaints about privacy, breakage, licensing, and other such crap.
Look, you can hate on Microsoft all you want, but please stop pulling others into your dystopian fantasies. As a longtime Linux user, I'm a big fan of FLOSS, but it's not for everyone. Most folks don't care about their software's freedom, just as long as it keeps working.
Yes, that means updating. Keeping your systems patched and updated is the best way to reduce attack surface, regardless of what OS you use. Keeping old and familiar things is comfortable, but it's also keeping around the broken permissions model that Microsoft has been trying to improve since Windows Vista. Remember how much that broke? It was mostly because Vista had a decent security model, rather than the crap from XP.
Don't go turning off security features thinking you're protecting your privacy... you're really just increasing the time it takes for you to be protected against new threats. Microsoft doesn't care about the porn you watch or how many hours you spend on My Little Pony forums. They care about whether the worm infections causing havoc in Brazil all started from a website on a common domain, or use binaries with the same hashes.
Finally, please stop complaining that your hardware from 1994 doesn't work with the new updates. I'm terribly sorry that your vendor doesn't bother to support driver APIs less than a decade old, but it's time to move on. Those random bluescreens and lockups are usually not Microsoft's fault; it's that the third-party vendor doesn't think stability is enough of a priority to actually test their drivers.
With that all out of the way, let's all have a nice friendly conversation, eh? Anyone?
Re: Here we go again... (Score:2, Insightful)
You obviously don't have to support this shit professionally. The Microsoft hate isn't about Apple vs Commodore fanboyism, it's about money. Every time they drop these 'upgrades', I have to pull systems engineers to help our technical support people because they're slammed with support calls. So fuck Microsoft, not because BSD is better, but because they cost us money.
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I do actually support it professionally... My current day job is as a sysadmin with support duties for both Linux and Windows environments.
It's not like this update is a surprise... Microsoft announced it a while ago, and there has been a steady stream of news about it as it approaches a final state. That means about a week ago would be a good time to send out a warning to your users, saying "there's an update coming, and it'll be big. Here are the common issues reported with previous updates..."
Now, I'm al
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Now, I'm all in favor of suggesting Microsoft should be responsible for making a perfect product that never causes issues, and as I said, you can hate Microsoft all you want... I'm just sick of seeing people suggesting that users go out of their way to ignore security best-practices, then whine about Windows having security problems.
We as users don't need MS to make a "perfect" product. We need MS to respect privacy while fixing security bugs.
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If you look at it objectively, Windows was a major supplier of malware with their GWX updates and forced upgrades to Windows 10. Their GWX updates acted like malware in all ways - it was unwanted, it tried to hide itself, it tried to fool the users into running it, and it took considerable time to clean up after it. When Microsoft is being hostile to its paying customers, is it any wonder that the customers treat it as untrustworthy?
Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The choice doesn't have to be between free/open-source and pay. The choice can be between subscription(as MS is currently ramming down users' throats) and pay-once, keep the same feature-set, maybe pay for security updates. Like all Windows up to and including Windows 7. Why should everyone be nickel-and-dimed to death while not even maintaining a consistent UX?
What subscription?
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Failure all around, the poster, the moderators who upmoderated this, and anyone who believes it.
I paid for Windows once - for Windows 7. The Windows 10 upgrade was free. Every update since has been free. No second payment.
No consumer has paid for Windows 10 more than once. Every busi
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in my experience, linux users are among the least likely to floss, ever.
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Security updates generally don't break much. Forced bundling of feature and functionality changes absolutely does. Nobody would be complaining as much if the LTSB edition of Windows was available to everyone.
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As I understand, LTSB does not actually include major security updates, but only patches to old implementations.
That means that when new attack mitigations are developed against whole classes of attacks (like when ASLR became the norm), they will be dropped into the mainline releases, but LTSB won't get them. Instead, LTSB would be reliant on a separate tool (like EMET) to implement those mitigations piecemeal, essentially leaving the attack surface almost as bad as it was at release.
LTSB is meant for appli
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In that case, I recommend Debian.
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Eh..... (and we veer wildly off-topic, but it's to a more pleasant one)
I'm still kinda sour on Ubuntu for one main reason: It's heavy. Rightfully so, as its focus is on userland compatibility and hardware support, but it's always struck me as a bit of too much overkill for my (minimal) tastes.
For long-term stability, I think Debian still can't be beat, since that's its primary goal. It's very easy to have a minimal Debian install in a few hundred megabytes, and that can be trimmed down much more with some e
Re:Here we go again... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, that means updating. Keeping your systems patched and updated is the best way to reduce attack surface, regardless of what OS you use
And that's not what people are complaining about. What they are complaining about is that they have to patch for security but they have to accept patches which at the same time expose themselves to less privacy. What they are complaining about is that these updates are causing BSODs and other major bugs.
Keeping old and familiar things is comfortable, but it's also keeping around the broken permissions model that Microsoft has been trying to improve since Windows Vista. Remember how much that broke? It was mostly because Vista had a decent security model, rather than the crap from XP.
While some people refuse to change, that wasn't the major complaint of Vista. The major complaint was that it broke many things that took a while for drivers to be updated. Yes there were major changes to the security model but Vista chirping to ask for every single permission was annoying to many. Also another major complaint was how many brand new systems were sold as "Vista Capable" when they could only use the most crippled version of Vista.
Microsoft doesn't care about the porn you watch or how many hours you spend on My Little Pony forums. They care about whether the worm infections causing havoc in Brazil all started from a website on a common domain, or use binaries with the same hashes.
If MS doesn't care about those things then why are they increasingly gathering more data about what their users do? MS cares about all of that. It's a not a binary thing.
Finally, please stop complaining that your hardware from 1994 doesn't work with the new updates. I'm terribly sorry that your vendor doesn't bother to support driver APIs less than a decade old, but it's time to move on. Those random bluescreens and lockups are usually not Microsoft's fault; it's that the third-party vendor doesn't think stability is enough of a priority to actually test their drivers.
This is kinda a strawman argument isn't it? I think many admins care that Windows updates have been causing BSODs. [express.co.uk]
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And that's not what people are complaining about.
You must be talking about that other Slashdot that you're reading.
If MS doesn't care about those things then why are they increasingly gathering more data about what their users do?
You don't understand the difference between "you" and "al'y'all". Microsoft couldn't give a shit about what "you" do. However aggregated data about everyone is used for development decisions. So feel free to download and read the Anarchists Cookbook, the police won't come knocking on your door.
I think many admins care that Windows updates have been causing BSODs.
And so does MS which is precisely why they pulled the release before it was released to the general public. Admins everywhere should be cheering at the
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You don't understand the difference between "you" and "al'y'all". Microsoft couldn't give a shit about what "you" do. However aggregated data about everyone is used for development decisions. So feel free to download and read the Anarchists Cookbook, the police won't come knocking on your door.
So can you guarantee that any information that MS collects is protected and cannot possibly identify me in any way as to not sacrifice my privacy? That depends on how much I trust MS on their motives and their competency.
And so does MS which is precisely why they pulled the release before it was released to the general public. Admins everywhere should be cheering at their decision as a triumph of software development over marketing bozos pushing out garbage in favour of an artificial deadline.
Huh? Some publicly released updates have BSOD issues. That's the complaint and worry. Yes MS delayed the April update but a patch in March [tomshardware.com] caused BSODs. A patch in October 2017 [neowin.net] caused BSODs. The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update also caused BSODs. [drivethelife.com]
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So can you guarantee that any information that MS collects is protected and cannot possibly identify me in any way as to not sacrifice my privacy?
I will only guarantee something if you first guarantee that we keep playing the same sport and that the goal posts don't move around the field randomly to suit your narrative.
Some publicly released updates have BSOD issues
Indeed they have, and now we have a company that has actively held back to try and improve on previous practices and yet all you can do is bitch about it. Good work.
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they have to patch for security but they have to accept patches which at the same time expose themselves to less privacy.
Like what, exactly? Is there a particular feature you have in mind, with whose privacy policy you don't agree?
The major complaint was that [Vista] broke many things that took a while for drivers to be updated.
...which were mostly broken due to the drivers abusing the old security model, but sure...
...Vista chirping to ask for every single permission was annoying to many. Also another major complaint was how many brand new systems were sold as "Vista Capable" when they could only use the most crippled version of Vista.
That UX problem is something I'll happily join in complaining about, but it's still wasn't a good excuse to stay with XP's wider attack surface. Similarly, Microsoft's sales tactics are another area for valid complaint, and have no bearing on whether it's acceptable to tell users to sabotage their own security
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> we can already see the trolls crawling out with their complaints about privacy, breakage, licensing, and other such crap.
Ad Hominem much?
So you are offering to fix things when MS breaks it?
Just because _you_ aren't running into valid issues, doesn't mean no else is. But keep trying to paint everyone with the same brush.
The other problem is that we CAN'T opt-out of whatever MS shoves down our throats unless we stick with older OS's that actually respect our privacy.
> Yes, that means updating.
The pro
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Another Slashdot article about Windows, and we can already see the trolls crawling out with their complaints about privacy, breakage, licensing, and other such crap.
Is your assertion anyone who "complains" about these things is a troll?
Most folks don't care about their software's freedom, just as long as it keeps working.
I keep hearing how nobody cares when the actual truth is closer to nobody knows or understands.
Yes, that means updating. Keeping your systems patched and updated is the best way to reduce attack surface, regardless of what OS you use.
Over 90% of those being owned are via social engineering not exploitation of any software vulnerabilities.
Most users sit behind a stealth mode firewall leaving much of the remaining avenue for attack in the realm of user behavior and security properties of user mode software.
I don't buy keeping Windows patched is the _best_ way. Ideally it sho
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Concur with above opinions.
I have a main computer (Windows 7 to Windows 10) which will not 'update'. I will leave until one good program outlives its life; as no longer with ability to re-load on Windows 10 in a fresh install, and using Windows is unnecessary except for that program , then re-install a clean install of Windows 10. meanwhile. I use Linux by dual booting.
All operating systems have both good and bad points.
It is the user who decides, but many just 'go with the flow' of what they bought.
If you
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Emphasis mine. That's the crux of it. Are you sure that it will keep working after the update?
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I'll give it a 99% chance. That statistic is pretty generous to the 1% side, since in the past decade, I've pushed out every single MS update to about 1500 devices in total, and I've had 5 problems. That's not "5 updates caused problems," that's "I've had to fix problems 5 times that I can recall". Two stopped booting after an AV update, two ASUS systems had a nasty issue with a MS update, and a server once killed itself during an update and wouldn't reboot cleanly without some TLC.
Now, it takes some effort
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If Microsoft kept its frequent updates to only dealing with security, then that would be great. Instead it takes these opportunities to add unncessary features, changes to UI, and such, all of which add to the lengthy update time. Do you forget the lengthy period of time during which Microsoft regularly included the Get-Windows-10 advertising as part of its "important patches"? You can't just turn around and forgive them for that when there's been no apology or apparent change of heart. We'll be nice to M
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Really makes /. users look like bearded babies whining about anything not FLOSS.
I mean, to be fair, that's generally an accurate depiction... When I shave, I look like I'm 25 again.
I still drink like I'm 25, but that's mostly because I deal with infosec.
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Thank you for saying this, I feel like every article about Microsoft needs this at the top. Most people on the blog fully understand that Windows isn't perfect, but take your doomsaying and fear mongering somewhere else. Really makes /. users look like bearded babies whining about anything not FLOSS.
That's not true at all!
/. whines about everything, regardless of its license.
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Oh, no... Feel free to bash Microsoft, but please do it in a way that doesn't make my life (as an infosec-heavy sysadmin) worse. Feel free to comment on Microsoft's business practices, compatibility, standards integration, charity/recruitment, UX/UI, SKU complexity, unwanted features, configurability, pricing, proprietary formats, data services, or the lack of any of the aforementioned, but please don't encourage people to expose themselves to risk just to "stick it to the man".
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Ok, here are my suggestions for Microsoft's business practices.
- Break apart the updates. Separate important security updates from the useless fluff. If you have to make an update *mandatory* then only do so for the security updates.
- Separate your advertising from the updates.
- Fix bugs before you add new features.
- Treat your customers with respect. Maybe I should have listed that as the first and only item...
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Let's go ahead and add that to the list, then...
I'd much prefer to see non-security updates completely branched off, but I can also understand Microsoft's reluctance to do that. It makes their testing and rollout far more complex. On the other hand, it's what GNU/Linux distros do all the time, with so few problems that they become news events when they do happen. It would seem to me that Microsoft should be able to spin up a boatload of Azure instances test every configuration, since they're pushing that cl
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Linux bugs tend to get fixed over time. Microsoft bugs tend to be labelled as features.
Features this won't include (Score:2, Interesting)
A working OS to replace Windows
Support for Elite Dangerous
A decent filesystem
Security
Reliability
A decent attitude at Microsoft
Working technical support
Standards-compliant software
POSIX
A shutdown that works without hacking it
The ability to remove Clippy Jr
Retention of privacy
A decent compiler
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POSIX
What substantial deficiencies have you found in Windows Subsystem for Linux, other than the fact that Microsoft doesn't offer to install an X server to view the output of X clients running in WSL?
More like Windows 30 April 2018 (Score:2)
Microsoft missed an opportunity to mess with language parsers here.
Or are they just running late because their language parser crashed when presented with this idea and they had to fix it?
What if I don't want new features? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm all for security updates, but I haven't recovered from the last time I was hit with "new features."
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Hear hear! Please let me opt out of your bullshit updates and mandatory reboots without having to pay for a pro license.
The second better eGPU support is added, and more of the games i'd want to play are available on linux (no, WINE does not count) I'll move my home computer off of that POS windows 10. (so realistically, never)
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SteamOS?
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yeah it's intriguing, but mainly dependent on the available games --pretty sparse list of AAA games, which is understandable.
Also curious about big-picture and e-gpu support.
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Some linux systems are able to do an upgrade of all components except the kernel without upgrading. Including upgrading the C runtime library that most utilities rely on. Add a copy of new libraries, upgrade and restart services so that they now use the new libraries, rinse and repeat. Then if you do want to upgrade the kernel it's just a quick reboot.
As for choosing positive things to say about Windows 10, I can only think of one and that's their linux-in-windows capability. Now there are things I like
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but I haven't recovered from the last time I was hit with "new features."
You mean features like the ability to control the update and reboot process? Or all those features that you won't ever touch even in the slightest?
That's what I don't understand about you whingers. You spend all this time trying to block updates to "features" that you won't ever encounter or use, and then complain about shit that has long been fixed on your out of date install.
Now please do share, what "new feature" has kicked your dog that upset you so?
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Now please do share, what "new feature" has kicked your dog that upset you so?
Feature update downloads that push the satellite Internet connection past the household's monthly data transfer quota and into overage fees. Built-in applications, such as Windows Notepad, that cannot preserve unsaved data across an overnight unattended restart.
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Feature update downloads that push the satellite Internet connection past the household's monthly data transfer quota and into overage fees.
So turn on metered connection.
Built-in applications, such as Windows Notepad, that cannot preserve unsaved data across an overnight unattended restart.
To be clear you're complaining about data loss from unsaved data over fucking night? Why do you hate your work this much? I mean of all the complaints about Windows I've seen this one a few times and I gotta say, that is petty as fuck!
And you still didn't answer my question, so I'll assume the answer was: "No actually none of the features changes Windows made has negatively affected me, I just like to whine about Windows in the hope of scoring some karma on Slashdot."
Update model (Score:2)
Why do they insist on this broken update model which breaks things every fucking time. Last time was my VPN and Virtualbox network adapters.
Why can't they just put their 3D paint to the Windows store? I wish they modularized more. Cortana should also be an optional application. So does Edge.
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Why do they insist on this broken update model which breaks things every fucking time. Last time was my VPN and Virtualbox network adapters.
"DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run"
But seriously, our users run a lot of weird or old apps and nearly every month something breaks after a Windows update. It's gotten to the point where some departments refuse to install updates even on public-facing servers. Microsoft has created a serious problem.
I haven't seen the problem with VirtualBox. I have about three dozen vms, and sometimes run half a dozen of them at a time some with very complicated network setups with multiple interfaces. Also, I usually
Here is what I do (and what I recommend doing) (Score:3)
Come April 29, disable the updating process. Yes, it's possible. Wait for May 3-4. Read up what's going on. Then decide whether you want to install or whether it's better to keep the update disabled.
Windows Updates are not a nature of force. You still have every option to not let them happen and wait it out 'til others have played Russian roulette for your convenience.
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Disabling the update process is not as easy as disabling the Windows Update service. It will magically re-enable itself.
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It's not even the WU and BITS that need attention.
I tried turning WU and BITS to disable in order to get a bunch of machines (16 x entry-level SLOW W10 Home Lenovo laptops) to a consistent state - then WU and BITS could be re-enabled. These are laptops bought by someone else for a small cash-strapped independent school. I needed to get candy crush and all the other crap off permanently before releasing them to the classroom. You can't just "uninstall" candy crush - it's still there and will activate for any
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But instead of telling people how to do this, you preferred to belittle me. Did that serve any purpose?
ISO (Score:2)
An OS as a "Service"? I still don't get it... (Score:2)
The previous versions certainly weren't a "service".
Updates, support and bug fixes. Those are a service to support a product.
The OS itself?
Am I the only one that feels like saying "humbug" to the notion?
Maybe I should step up my Lubuntu education...
Just in case.
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>Any time I have to use Windows, I feel vaguely unclean.
Be careful you don't cut yourself on that edge there. One of the reasons Linux is having trouble taking off as a mainstream desktop is because of the mental image projected by comments like yours above. None of what you've 'prophesied' has come to pass in Win10 updates, so unless/until it does you sound like a crank, and by association that paints general Linux users in the same hue with current Windows users who encounter comments like that.
How a
Re:Nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
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To counter this, look at One Note. Microsoft just moved it from Office (paid) to part of Windows (free). The things people are constantly bitching about are bad decisions from two years ago that have already been corrected: such as the ability to easily disable telemetry now, or the ability to set "working hours" in which Windows will not update / restart itself because it may interfere with daily activities. Microsoft has actively been listening and correcting these issues that customers have massively com
Re:Nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
To counter this, look at One Note. Microsoft just moved it from Office (paid) to part of Windows (free).
Microsoft account required, so only "free" in the sense that it doesn't cost money.
the ability to easily disable telemetry now
Not really, the OS still tries to talk to the telemetry servers even if you disable all reporting options.
the ability to set "working hours" in which Windows will not update / restart itself because it may interfere with daily activities
To be fair, that never should have been an issue in the first place.
So no one else can access your private notes (Score:3)
Microsoft account required, so only "free" in the sense that it doesn't cost money.
Without some form of authentication, how else should the offsite backup or web access feature ensure that only you can view or edit your notes? Other tools to back up your notes offsite, such as Dropbox and Google Keep, also require an account.
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All medical equipment, all ATMs, every single factory automation system, every single biomedical device interfaces with windows.
"Interfaces with" is a very broad term. Anything that speaks a standard network protocol that an application made for or ported to Windows also speaks can be said to "interface with" Windows.
Now as for health care stuff actually running on GNU/Linux, look at these free health record databases [linuxlinks.com]. The VA's VistA can run on anything that runs MUMPS, and there are distributions of the VistA that run on an Ubuntu VM [osehra.org].
The computer you're typing on was made because of Windows.
That's quite a "stretch" of logic, especially as I type this comment into a Lenovo ThinkPad X61 run
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That's odd. My cable modem runs on Linux. So does my wireless router. Oh, look! Even my Rokus run Linux. Strange how user-friendly each of these interfaces are. Rokus are extremely popular, and so easy to set up, I have family in their mid to late 60s setting them up by themselves with no help from their technically inclined family members.
Linux's failure on the desktop is due to many reasons, though I believe it's mostly due to lack of game support. Most people use their cell phones (Android is king
Time-dependent Internet data metering (Score:2)
The things people are constantly bitching about are bad decisions from two years ago that have already been corrected: such as the ability to easily disable telemetry now, or the ability to set "working hours" in which Windows will not update / restart itself because it may interfere with daily activities.
Including the ability to mark Ethernet as metered without using the registry editor (which isn't even present on Windows 10 Lean), or to mark a connection as metered from 05:00 to 01:00 local time? Satellite Internet subscribers depend on those features in order not to exceed the monthly data transfer quota that satellite ISPs impose.
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Settings > Network > Change connection properties > Metered connection
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That works for wireless connections. But since which Windows 10 build does it work for Ethernet (wired) connections?
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To counter this, look at One Note. Microsoft just moved it from Office (paid) to part of Windows (free).
Not true. The "desktop" version of OneNote has been free for a long time. So has the Windows app. The only change being made is that you'll need to install OneNote separately from Office now, and Microsoft prefers you install the Windows 10 app version; in fact, they'll probably discontinue the Windows desktop version before logn. It's more strong-arming from Microsoft.
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>As far as apps being moved to a paid model, look at something as stupid as Solitaire. Free in Windows 7, pay to remove ads in Windows 10
I knew someone was going to mention Solitare! So if you offer a free app in your OS, you are obligated till the end of time to enhance, update and include it free in all future versions of the OS? Especially something as irrelevant as a card game?
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Enhance and update? No.
Include the basic version that is already done and paid for since Windows 3.1? Sure.
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>As far as apps being moved to a paid model, look at something as stupid as Solitaire. Free in Windows 7, pay to remove ads in Windows 10
I knew someone was going to mention Solitare! So if you offer a free app in your OS, you are obligated till the end of time to enhance, update and include it free in all future versions of the OS? Especially something as irrelevant as a card game?
Well, that skips just a few interim possibilities there, doesn't it? Let's not forget that MS played all kinds of sketchy games with 'consent' when it came to updating lots of Windows 7 users to Windows 10; it wasn't exactly a truly conscious opt-in decision for many.
Possibility #1: leaving it in for users who upgraded from Windows 7/8.
Possibility #2: copy/pasting the same Solitaire release from Windows 8 to Windows 10. No enhancements, no updates. just inclusion of already-completed code that costs them $0
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How about possibility 6: Make a free XBL version for use with Windows 10 and offer that for free?
Like, uh... this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/store/p/microsoft-solitaire-collection/9wzdncrfhwd2?activetab=pivot%3aoverviewtab
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I knew someone was going to mention Solitare! So if you offer a free app in your OS, you are obligated till the end of time to enhance, update and include it free in all future versions of the OS? Especially something as irrelevant as a card game?
The OP said " turning off a previously free application or feature until the customer pays for it.. Solitaire was given as an example of that, which indeed it is whether you think it is important or not.
I would not have blamedf MS if they had simply dropped it as old hat or "irrelevant", or perhaps left it as an optional free download. But by starting to charge for it after all these years is petty money-grubbing typical of MS and shows they think nothing irrelevant if they can squeeze even a little bit of
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> The OP said " turning off a previously free application or feature until the customer pays for it.. Solitaire was given as an example of that, which indeed it is whether you think it is important or not.
Actually OP said turning off a previously free application **in an update**. Windows 10's version of Solitaire, which is an updated version and different from Windows 7's and previous, has never been free. That is the difference. Personally I think they should have just dropped it rather than try a s
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>As far as apps being moved to a paid model, look at something as stupid as Solitaire. Free in Windows 7, pay to remove ads in Windows 10
I knew someone was going to mention Solitare! So if you offer a free app in your OS, you are obligated till the end of time to enhance, update and include it free in all future versions of the OS? Especially something as irrelevant as a card game?
Yes, you are... or it's basically preinstalled bloatware on an OS that a customer already paid for when they bought the license. A smoother approach would have been for MS to remove it and resell a fancier version as SolitarePlus.
Go ahead and act indignant, but don't be surprised when MS starts charging $1 each time you open Word.
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Free in Windows 7, pay to remove ads in Windows 10.
So what you are saying is it's a game that was never free in Windows 10 to begin with making the earlier comment completely invalid? Gotchya.
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So what you are saying is it's a game that was never free in Windows 10 to begin with making the earlier comment completely invalid? Gotchya.
You know you are a hopeless MS fanboy when you find yourself defending Microsoft making Mine sweeper and Solitaire pay apps.
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Fanboi? No. Fucking thankful? Hell yeah! They have done the world a favour. The "increased productivity" they were advertising when Windows 8 first came out? This is what they were talking about.
Also do you always move goalposts and then cry fanboi when someone calls you out for being wrong? In the words of everyone's least favourite president: "SAD!"
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One of the reasons Linux is having trouble taking off as a mainstream desktop ...
The main reason Linux never has and never will become a mainstream desktop is because OEMs are required to pre install Windows. For most use cases Linux is perfectly acceptable. The auto reboots in the middle of the night is not prophesy. It's god damned real and it doesn't matter you have a bunch of shit running while you sleep.
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What's wrong with Windows? Some of us like to play videogames!
GNU/Linux + PS4 (Score:3)
You can play video games without Windows. Switch your PC from Windows to GNU/Linux and add a PlayStation 4 console. Quite a few PC games on Steam and emulators of retro consoles are ported to Linux, and Wine runs numerous others. Many unported games that do not work in Wine are ported to a PlayStation platform, and some PlayStation 2 through 4 games can use a mouse and keyboard. One thing you do lose on PlayStation 4, however, is mods.
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My problem is the "some" parts. And with Microsoft and Sony, you're limited to what they offer. There's a lot more games on Steam than there is for consoles.
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Microsoft almost admitted as such once when they suggested that Enterprisers users have the ability to wait see what happens for Home and Pro users when updates come out.
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Free as in "Windows is free to crash without notice whenever it feels like"?
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So...20 days late? Not bad.
It was coming earlier, but a blue screen was affecting some users. Hence the delay.
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So...20 days late? Not bad.
It was coming earlier, but a blue screen was affecting some users. Hence the delay.
20 years late would be better.
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So...20 days late? Not bad.
It was coming earlier, but a blue screen was affecting some users. Hence the delay.
Blue Screens - the one Windows legacy that will be with us always.
Let's raid AppDB (Score:2)
The program doesn't run on Wine.
Which program is it, so we can Slashdot the program's AppDB entry with requests to get it working?
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That's the thing, with a VM you can try it out and see if it works. No need to upgrade and find out you don't like it them jump through hoops to try to downgrade again (probably full disk mirroring would work but a VM is so much simpler).