Never10: Easily Control Automatic and Unwanted Windows 7 & 8.1 Upgrading to Windows 10

[SeriousDad69]

Windows 7 will be dead in less than 4 years, you might as well just upgrade now for free and get through the growing pains now while it's free. There actually wasn't any growing pains for me personally, when I upgraded to 10 all of my programs and files worked exactly the same and nothing really changed, my computer just ran much better. Same for all my laptops running Windows 7, they used to get hot enough to cook pancakes on now they stay nice and cool and perform better.

[zacRupnow]

1 hour ago, revsilverspine said:

Yay, more useless software that staggers progress! WOOO

Aside from DX12 and security updates what progress does 10 bring over 7 to an everyday consumer? Cortana(BingBot), Windows Store, and UI design changes are not progress, they preference and/or useless.

[Energycore]

Since I had no performance issues upgrading and took the time to disable telemetry on Windows 10 I'm not exactly the target audience for the app, but I'm glad it exists. Fuck you Microsoft.

[samcool55]

GWX control panel does the same job, but doesn't look crap.

[Doobeedoo]

I guess Enterprise edition would be great for certain people since it doesn't option to upgrade to W10 haha.

 

Meh but either way, W10 is great all in all, I can see why the W10 upgrade add on older OSs can be annoying but it's easy to get rid of it anyway. No one is forcing anyone to, some say like gun is put on your head, seriously. Nothing wrong with W10 being recommended update.

[Yog]

My roommate has the opposite issue. He wants to upgrade to windows 10 but it's not being offered to him through windows update. I'd do it for him but I'm too lazy.

[Delicieuxz]

8 hours ago, revsilverspine said:

Yay, more useless software that staggers progress! WOOO

Since when is taking away user control, OS configurability, and replacing an advanced OS with one that is less advanced in many ways considered progress?

[handymanshandle]

@Michael McAllister Not related to the topic, but +1 for Bernie Sanders.

 

[zMeul]

8 hours ago, revsilverspine said:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

 

This exists, y'kno.

group policy edit doesn't exist for OS versions lower than PRO

[Nowak]

7 hours ago, zacRupnow said:

Aside from DX12 and security updates what progress does 10 bring over 7 to an everyday consumer? Cortana(BingBot), Windows Store, and UI design changes are not progress, they preference and/or useless.

It's much less bloated.

 

Windows 7 is literally Windows Vista with a slightly different UI, a .1 kernel version bump, DirectX 11 and bugfixes. They did not fix the bloat, however. Although, Windows 8 also did fix the bloated-ness.

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, revsilverspine said:

Yay, more useless software that staggers progress! WOOO

If the "progress" is that users are losing control over their own computers then I am happy to see "progress" being staggered.

 

1 hour ago, Doobeedoo said:

No one is forcing anyone to, some say like gun is put on your head, seriously. Nothing wrong with W10 being recommended update.

They are not "forcing" it, but they are being extremely shady ("accidentally making the update auto install", deleting the update and adding it again so that people who previously hid it gets it again, making the only options "install now" and "install later" in the popup, the list goes on). You can't deny that many people have been upgraded without understanding why, and then asked for help to get it back to "normal". It happened my grandparents and it would have happened to my parents if I hadn't gone and manually blocked everything (my mom though it was hard to use my Windows 10 computer because "it looked weird and nothing was in its usual place" so I thought it would be best to let her keep 7).

If they just went "do you want to upgrade to our new OS? It's free" and then had a simple "yes" and "no" answer, and then added an icon in the lower right corner to bring up that menu again then I don't think anyone would have complained. It's the extremely aggressive way they are pushing Windows 10 that is bad.

 

 

14 minutes ago, Daring said:

Windows 7 is literally Windows Vista with a slightly different UI, a .1 kernel version bump, DirectX 11 and bugfixes. They did not fix the bloat.

Please define what all this "bloat" they did not fix from Vista to 7 is.

There are a lot more differences between Vista and 7 than the ones you mentioned by the way. With your reasoning you might as well say Windows 10 is "literally Windows Vista" but with some small changes, because Windows 10 is just Windows 8 with small changes, which was just Windows 7 with small changes, and Windows 7 was just Vista with small changes...

[HelplmChoking]

Awesome.. Lets all stay on software that's several years old! Windows 7 is ancient, and there's really no reason to stick around with it. I agree that making it a recommended update was underhanded and rude, but you should really be upgrading as soon as possible.

[HelplmChoking]

57 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Since when is taking away user control, OS configurability, and replacing an advanced OS with one that is less advanced in many ways considered progress?

There's plenty of user control? What exact features have been removed, and how are they affecting you?

[Nowak]

35 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Please define what all this "bloat" they did not fix from Vista to 7 is.

There are a lot more differences between Vista and 7 than the ones you mentioned by the way. With your reasoning you might as well say Windows 10 is "literally Windows Vista" but with some small changes, because Windows 10 is just Windows 8 with small changes, which was just Windows 7 with small changes, and Windows 7 was just Vista with small changes...

Windows 7 still runs like dog shit on older hardware, even some hardware from the late Windows XP era (which was one of the areas Microsoft was targeting, XP users) and uses up more RAM than later versions of Windows, even on idle. I've done some (admittedly completely non-scientific) comparisons between Windows 7 and 8 idle RAM usage in virtual machines configured with 2GB RAM and each running the same processes (or as similarly I could get them) - Windows 7 used 1.3GB on idle, while Windows 8 used 850MB on idle. Keep in mind, though, that as I said, my tests weren't scientific in no way, shape or form, but I've seen Windows 8 and 10 run much faster on even Windows 7-era hardware than Windows 7.

 

And touche.

[Delicieuxz]

1 hour ago, Rangaman42 said:

There's plenty of user control? What exact features have been removed, and how are they affecting you?

Windows 10 reduces user control over Windows updates, file association assignment, visual configuration, telemetry / data collection, and also reduces control in various other ways regarding things such as universal apps, and administrator accesses.

 

Windows 10 adds heavy monetization for Microsoft's sake, and not the benefit of end user, and this is clearly the driving force behind Microsoft's push to get people to update their PC to Windows 10, rather than because Windows 10 is a clearly superior OS. Windows 10 is designed to generate revenue for Microsoft every day that a typical person uses it, via Windows store, in-OS adds, data collection, and built-in MS services like Groove Music, Skype, etc. Some of this stuff is challenging to disable, while much of it amounts to pre-installed bloatware, for users who don't want it.

 

 

Quote

Windows 7 is ancient, and there's really no reason to stick around with it.

 

Windows 10 is mostly a repackaging of Windows 7 and 8, with a different UI, reduced user control, a less efficient and reduced-functionality start menu, invasive data collection, and a lot of MS services bloatware. If Windows 7 is ancient, then so is Windows 10, because they're operating off the same core. Actually, all Windows from Vista to Windows 10 is running off what mostly is still the same kernel, but Vista doesn't have support for lots of modern hardware and technology, and so is largely obsolete. However, the same isn't true for Windows 7, which supports almost all hardware and technology to date, apart from DX12 (due to MS' decision) - but Windows 7, and all Windows going back to XP, have Vulkan support, which accomplishes the same thing as DX12.

 

In what way do you perceive Windows 10 to be more advanced than Windows 7? At its core, Windows 10 is still basically Windows 7, while going by its surface presentation, Windows 10 is a repackaging of Windows 7 and 8 that comes with built-in ads, data collection, reduced control over visual settings, reduced control over update settings, a more limited start menu. So, overall, it's pretty easy for me to see Windows 10 as a downgrade from Windows 7, at least in some areas - and so there can be reason enough to keep using Windows 7 or 8.

 

I have both Windows 10 and 7 installed, but I continue to use Windows 7 as my main boot OS. When there's a reason for me to boot into Windows 10, I will, but so far, there's not really been any reason at all for me to boot into Windows 10, other than to apply any new updates, and then boot back into Windows 7, which I see as more functional, and offering control that is advanced over Windows 10 (though I think its level of control should simply be considered basic, and available in Windows 10).

 

[Doobeedoo]

53 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

They are not "forcing" it, but they are being extremely shady ("accidentally making the update auto install", deleting the update and adding it again so that people who previously hid it gets it again, making the only options "install now" and "install later" in the popup, the list goes on). You can't deny that many people have been upgraded without understanding why, and then asked for help to get it back to "normal". It happened my grandparents and it would have happened to my parents if I hadn't gone and manually blocked everything (my mom though it was hard to use my Windows 10 computer because "it looked weird and nothing was in its usual place" so I thought it would be best to let her keep 7).

If they just went "do you want to upgrade to our new OS? It's free" and then had a simple "yes" and "no" answer, and then added an icon in the lower right corner to bring up that menu again then I don't think anyone would have complained. It's the extremely aggressive way they are pushing Windows 10 that is bad.

Hmm, I haven't heard that everyone get auto update install, weird. I agree that 'yes' and 'no' with icon in tray to always be an option would be more appropriate.

Though in a way I can understand extremely aggressive way they're pushing W10 with all 'universal' and 'last Windows' and more focus on OS etc. Probably could've been more polished upgrade experience. But yeah, user having full control over their PC must be assured.

Nothing should be automatically installed/uninstalled without final confirmation from user, specially something like OS and other core updates for system. As far as I've seen, as far as online for most people and machines I was at person, upgrade wasn't done automatically. For those machines that are on older OS I checked them many times and everything seems fine. Main aside, two older PCs I have one is running W7 other 8.1 and no annoying behaviour on them though.

 

Maybe having auto-updates for W10 and more nagging upgrade offer on older Windows' isn't the best, specially to us here. Though they're mainly targeting casual consumers where this works. They could've probably offer OS upgrade more nicer and appealing to postpone upgrade whenever.

We'll see how it will go after 1. anniversary. How many did/didn't upgrade until and at what pace will futher W10 growth be.

[beebskadoo]

11 hours ago, revsilverspine said:

Yay, more useless software that staggers progress! WOOO

You have no clue the countless issues that come from forcing and update like this or you wouldn't be saying that.

I have seen it completely mess up peoples systems to the point that it simply doesn't boot and needs to be restored. It shouldn't be a forced upgrade if someone says no. No means no.

[LAwLz]

14 hours ago, Daring said:

Windows 7 still runs like dog shit on older hardware, even some hardware from the late Windows XP era (which was one of the areas Microsoft was targeting, XP users) and uses up more RAM than later versions of Windows, even on idle. I've done some (admittedly completely non-scientific) comparisons between Windows 7 and 8 idle RAM usage in virtual machines configured with 2GB RAM and each running the same processes (or as similarly I could get them) - Windows 7 used 1.3GB on idle, while Windows 8 used 850MB on idle. Keep in mind, though, that as I said, my tests weren't scientific in no way, shape or form, but I've seen Windows 8 and 10 run much faster on even Windows 7-era hardware than Windows 7.

 

And touche.

You can't determine if something is bloated or not by just looking at RAM usage. Maybe the difference in RAM usage comes from Windows 7's SuperFetch being in use? If you don't know, SuperFetch is a feature introduced in Vista. What it does is preloads things into RAM before you actually start something. So for example if you use your browser a lot then SuperFetch will load parts of your browser into RAM before you even start it. It's to speed things up.

Since unused RAM is wasted RAM, it is better to do things like that because it has a performance benefit. Also, if Windows detects that it is running out of RAM it will just delete the preloaded things before it becomes an issue.

 

The part about Windows 8 and 10 running faster are just anecdotal evidence. There are a billion reasons why you that might happen which aren't related to "because it is less bloated". A lot of people think Windows XP runs faster than Windows 10, but does that mean that Windows 10 is bad and everyone should go back to XP?

 

14 hours ago, Rangaman42 said:

There's plenty of user control? What exact features have been removed, and how are they affecting you?

Control over updates has been removed. Right now I have edited group policies (good thing I got the Pro version) so that I get no updates at all until I say so. That's a really bad situation to be in, but I think it is better than having updates automatically install and restart my computer. The updating system in Windows 7 was far superior because the users were actually in control. Now it is all or nothing.

 

Control over telemetry data is removed. It's not just telemetry data either. Windows 10 does some really shady thing like contact the Bing server whenever you search for something locally on your PC. Even when you have everything related to Cortana and web searches disabled it still calls home to Microsoft very frequently. There is no way to completely turn it off.

[HelplmChoking]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Control over updates has been removed. Right now I have edited group policies (good thing I got the Pro version) so that I get no updates at all until I say so. That's a really bad situation to be in, but I think it is better than having updates automatically install and restart my computer. The updating system in Windows 7 was far superior because the users were actually in control. Now it is all or nothing.

 

Control over telemetry data is removed. It's not just telemetry data either. Windows 10 does some really shady thing like contact the Bing server whenever you search for something locally on your PC. Even when you have everything related to Cortana and web searches disabled it still calls home to Microsoft very frequently. There is no way to completely turn it off.

Not sure what the issue with updates is, I've never had my PC restart itself because of an update, and I was on Windows 10 during the beta days. And besides, I want updates. I want security flaws to be fixed, and new features added.

 

Windows 10 definitely phones home a lot, but mainly for things like checking the time, checking for updates, and a million little things. From what I've been able to tell, windows search finds related search suggestions from bing, so it can try to help find what you're looking for. Useless, but not shady.

 

You can roll with Windows 7 if you like, I just don't understand all the hate around windows 10.

[Omon_Ra]

I have to keep Windows 7 on my laptop because Serato Scratch Live doesn't work with Windows 10. The little Windows 10 icon in the taskbar can be removed by uninstalling update KB3035583. It will sometimes manage to reinstall itself, even when I hide the update, but as soon as I see the icon pop up I go to recent updates and remove it.

[FakezZ]

On 3/30/2016 at 5:31 PM, Hunter259 said:

Every desktop I've have has had a complete heart attack from windows 10. It's a step backwards thats forced upon millions of people.

Just because it has happened to you does not make it a universal issue. Everyone I know, including me, has had a great experience upgrading and using Windows 10. And that's even coming from a linux fanboy  

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Rangaman42 said:

Not sure what the issue with updates is, I've never had my PC restart itself because of an update, and I was on Windows 10 during the beta days. And besides, I want updates. I want security flaws to be fixed, and new features added.

That's because you turn off your computer. When you install an update in Windows 10 it will basically say "if you don't turn off your computer manually, I will do it automatically at a time I don't think you use it." For me it usually picks 4 in the morning when it decides it wants to restart itself.

As long as you turn your computer off every day you won't notice it. If you are like me who usually go about a month between restarts (sometimes more) then you do notice it.

 

 

1 hour ago, Rangaman42 said:

Windows 10 definitely phones home a lot, but mainly for things like checking the time, checking for updates, and a million little things. From what I've been able to tell, windows search finds related search suggestions from bing, so it can try to help find what you're looking for. Useless, but not shady.

No, if you look at the video I turned that off. I explicitly told the OS to not contact Bing when I do searches, but when I sniff the traffic leaving the computer I see that it still does it. Just look at the video I linked. I have online searches disabled, it does not show any Bing searches, but it still contacts Bing's servers whenever I search for something locally. That is shady. This is not things like checking for time or updates either. I filtered out a bunch of the traffic you would expect (DNS, arp, all IPv6 traffic, all local traffic and so on) so that I only got traffic that really should not be there if the settings in Windows did what they tell you they do.

I am not one of the idiots that sees NTP traffic and goes "oh shit Microsoft is spying on me!". I know what I am doing.

[HelplmChoking]

Just now, LAwLz said:

That's because you turn off your computer. When you install an update in Windows 10 it will basically say "if you don't turn off your computer manually, I will do it automatically at a time I don't think you use it." For me it usually picks 4 in the morning when it decides it wants to restart itself.

As long as you turn your computer off every day you won't notice it. If you are like me who usually go about a month between restarts (sometimes more) then you do notice it.

 

 

No, if you look at the video I turned that off. I explicitly told the OS to not contact Bing when I do searches, but when I sniff the traffic leaving the computer I see that it still does it. Just look at the video I linked. I have online searches disabled, it does not show any Bing searches, but it still contacts Bing's servers whenever I search for something locally. That is shady. This is not things like checking for time or updates either. I filtered out a bunch of the traffic you would expect (DNS, arp, all IPv6 traffic, all local traffic and so on) so that I only got traffic that really should not be there if the settings in Windows did what they tell you they do.

I am not one of the idiots that sees NTP traffic and goes "oh shit Microsoft is spying on me!". I know what I am doing.

Yeah so I NEVER turn my PC off. Like several months at a time usually. I got used to Macs a few years ago, and I basically refuse to shut down unless I need to update.

 

I have no issue with Windows phoning home. It doesn't send anything personal, or identifiable. Who cares that it contacts various servers? I get that you do, and its not exactly cool of them to put in a specific option then ignore it. But it does no harm, and if it did, there would be a bigger uproar than this. Technology is moving more towards being connected, rather than an isolated box. I don't agree with all of Microsoft's choices (I actually prefer OSX, more refined and better put together. Also Bash), but I also am not keen on running outdated software. Windows 7 is just plain old, and it does the overall PC market no good sticking to outdated software. This is why Android is a mess, because of the crazy levels of fragmentation.

[BuckGup]

On 3/30/2016 at 9:12 AM, revsilverspine said:

Yay, more useless software that staggers progress! WOOO

Other way around. If progress is DX12 then watch out for Vulkan. Also the reason most don't or won't upgrade is because they have had countless problems with it in the past example me

[LAwLz]

18 minutes ago, Rangaman42 said:

Yeah so I NEVER turn my PC off. Like several months at a time usually. I got used to Macs a few years ago, and I basically refuse to shut down unless I need to update.

Check your up time. Windows 10 WILL automatically install updates and restart itself. You might not have noticed it, but it does.

 

20 minutes ago, Rangaman42 said:

I have no issue with Windows phoning home. It doesn't send anything personal, or identifiable. Who cares that it contacts various servers? I get that you do, and its not exactly cool of them to put in a specific option then ignore it. But it does no harm, and if it did, there would be a bigger uproar than this. Technology is moving more towards being connected, rather than an isolated box. I don't agree with all of Microsoft's choices (I actually prefer OSX, more refined and better put together. Also Bash), but I also am not keen on running outdated software. Windows 7 is just plain old, and it does the overall PC market no good sticking to outdated software. This is why Android is a mess, because of the crazy levels of fragmentation.

1) It does send things which are personal. On the default settings it even ends data from inside processes, so if you got a third party mail client such as Thunderbird open, it might collect data from inside mails (even mails that are not hotmail/outlook mails) and send them to Microsoft. Even if you take Microsoft's word, that they are only doing it so that they can for example analyze what might have caused a crash, it is still a really bad thing that we can't opt-out from the data collection.

 

2) It is extremely identifiable. Microsoft got several unique IDs tied to you and your computer. Their reasoning for it is so that they can see if it's one person having the same issue 100 times a day, or if it is 100 people having the same issue once a day. That is genuinely useful data for Microsoft, and they can use it for good purposes. It is really bad that they collect that data from the perceptive of their users privacy though.

Julia Angwin said it pretty well when she said: "yes maybe they don't know your name but that's only because they haven't bothered to look it up".

 

 

Windows 7 isn't outdated. I joked about it earlier, but Windows 8 and 10 haven't really been groundbreaking changes. Windows 7 is barely more "outdated" than Windows 10 is. Once it hits EOL you got a point, but we are almost 4 years away from that happening.