Forced to Windows 10

Just remember July 29 is the deadline for the free upgrade. After that it will stop bugging you to upgrade.

For my desktop, I upgraded ASAP, for my laptop, still running 7 and don't plan on upgrading. I did the manual version of what that app does for you.

I installed that tool a while ago.

Windows 10 will not run on my home brew machine.

Watch out, MS has released at least two automatic windows 10 installers:

KB3035583 (I found the second one as as an optional update but now I can't find the KB for it.. Grrr.. it sucks getting old)

This came out today if your not aware of it:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36367221

Here's a coule of other things you might want to know about how to keep Windows 10 from being installed on your system:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/how-stay-on-window...

http://www.drivethelife.com/windows-10/how-to-remove-disable...

All I can say is I think MS is going to become quite agressive on gettng everyone onto Windows 10 so they can see more about what your doing and sell that informaiton to

<_insert place here_>

Best of luck to all of you that won't be upgrading.

My desktop has 12 TB's of space on it (with another 6TB in USB drives) and I can't afford to let MS mess it up!

My next system is going to be Linux

Hope this helps someone out there!

I caught the unwanted "auto" upgrade before it started and was able to cancel the install.

Why is Microsoft resorting to these underhanded tactics to get users to upgrade? What's in it for them? If they plan to start charging for the upgrade in the future, giving away the product now makes no sense. Perhaps they are using us to debug the OS for them?

In any case, thanks for the link!

Steve Gibson, of ShieldsUp! fame, has a handy little utility called Never10 that will block unwanted upgrades here:

https://www.grc.com/never10.htm

It's only 85k, one click use and can be reversed with one click again if you change your mind.

Pardon me, but the site looks scary at first glance--like some kind of a malware-ransomware site, you know.

Yes its worth avoiding W10

Look up Steve Gibson and ShieldsUp! on Google and/or Wikipedia. It's hard to imagine anyone further from a malware provider. He's been doing this since the last century.

I fly simulators and a lot of our software is not yet supported on Windows 10. There are several engineers in our hobby and one of them posted really good steps to stop this forced migration to Win 10. The instructions have worked perfectly on all my systems including a new laptop I just bought for my wife. I hope you all find this useful:
http://www.simforums.com/forums/a-warning-about-ms-updates-f...

Bobby

All of my computers both desktops and laptops were updated to windows 10 last summer and never have thought for a second of going back to windows 7 for a second.

I have found that the update is an improvement in every way. All of my friends and relatives have made the jump and none have had any problems or have reverted back to win 7.

I fly with Microsoft flight simulator and have had no problems with any software other than one 16 bit creata card program that will not work because I went to 64bit windows 10 from 32bit windows 7.

Tried Win10 for a while and hated it so reverted

It is just unbelievable that Microsoft would do this without the customer's knowledge!

I have followed Ask Leo's advice and installed GWX on both PCs. Happily, the update process had not begun.

dobs108

it really is to late to worry about windows 10 and its data mining ! it has been going on for a while now every time you use a credit card or debit card or get on line , you have been tracked how many cookies do you have on your computer ? you have no idea do you ? every time you click on an article its tracked what you looked at, or look some thing, up its tracked, do you use MSN as a start up page ever notice the adds seem to be what you were looking at yesterday ? ive got windows 10 64 bit on two of my computers and try not to make it any easer for them to track me but I know I cant block it all! the only to really stop them from tracking me is never use credit cards use cash only and never get on the internet don't use a TV and move into a cave ! data mining is big business and its completely legal even if you don't want them to ! who is tracking you is it the IRS ,FBI, NSA, Walmart ,verizon ,kmart, sears oh and by the way stay off face book lol

Why do you say that ???
I have been using Windows 10 on two laptops for going on a year now and find it runs without any problems whatsoever.

I'm back from the days of DOS and then Windows 3.0 and so on. In those days it was very common to get the "Blue screen of death". Haven't seen that since VISTA !!!!

My experiences and thoughts match yours pretty much.

The primary reasons I updated: it was free when I updated but won't be forever and the longer period before its end-of-life compared to Win 7 or 8.

The least prepared feature of Win 10: Edge. It was offered without the ability to use plug ins or extensions but that was supposed to be a feature offered soon through updates...still waiting. I use Chrome now and by the time Edge offers plug ins, will I want to go back and use it?

I do agree that if I were among the not-Win-10 crowd, I would be upset with unasked for update attempts, etc. I originally worried about the automatic updates to Win 10 but it seems to work well for me.

Craig I have not used Internet Explorer for a VERY, VERY long time. Years gone by I used Netscape, then Opera and now for at least 10 years I use Mozilla Firefox. With Firefox I can add so many things with very tiny footprints. I use a woodgrain theme with Firefox which I like.

To the best of my knowledge you still cannot remove IE but you do not have to use it. Years ago people wanted to remove IE to save space on their HDD, but now with the large HDD in use that is a moot point. I have a 1 TB hybrid SSD HDD in my laptop. In the distant past there were some websites you could not access without IE but those days are long gone!

I've been using this program for several months on my PC + laptop and it works very well.

I also browse this website http://www.infoworld.com/category/microsoft-windows/
& there's alot of good info on the various KB to avoid.

To each his own but as far as I'm concerned I'm planning on upgrading in January 2020 when extended support for Windows 7 ends and not a day before

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle

I cleaned the Winblows10 crap (KB3035583) off my and my Wife's Computer. A friend installed winblows10 and it totally hosed his rig. Ended up wiping out his HD and re-installing win7, lucky for him he saved all his important files..................

Use Windows 10 on a Surface Pro and it works pretty well. But I really found it devious of MS to have the "upgrade to Win10" box checked by default every time I checked for Windows Updates when it was running 8.1.

Same thing happens on a desktop running 7.0.

Really, MS??

Windows 7 is what Windows was supposed to be after XP.
Instead the desk drivers at MS tinkered and played with their pet projects and wasted our time, money, and patience by turning out garbage.
Win 8-8.1 marked a return to the stupidity at Redmond.
Win 10 is an overt attempt to cash in on the big bucks made by FaceButt and others by invading everyone's PC's to mine the saleable data.
I will never install Win 10 on any of my six PC's.

image win81 drive
install win 10 and all updates to date
image win10 drive
restore win81 disk image woot

restore win10 imge when support for win81 ends, load updates never pay for win10

Or just install FreeBSD and the heck with Microsoft.

Wish I had thought of that!

Windows 8 extended support ends in 2023. Do you think your PC will still be usable 7 years from now? Btw, you don't even need Win10 image. You can reinstall Windows 10 on that same PC at any time.

How Microsoft's tricky new Windows 10 pop-up deceives you into upgrading

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3073457/windows/how-microsoft...

Windows 10 upgrade offer starts to behave like malware now.

Windows has come a long ways. IMO, I believe it's worth the upgrade.

Having used Windows since 3.0, I completely agree that Windows 10 has come a long way. I also agree that Windows 10 is intrusive, so I downloaded O&O ShutUp 10 and ran it to disable things I didn't want Windows reporting on.

I installed the GWX control panel soon after it was first released and it has done a good job of blocking a forced (without specific permission) W10 upgrade. That said, he has released at least one update for the tool when MS circumvented it's safeguards and folks started alerting him that the prep files were being stealth downloaded -again- even with the tool in full monitor/prevention mode. I updated and so far it has kept the gates closed since. MS still manages to force a download now and then, but so far the tool has managed to block any forced install of W10. (The tool alerts you when this happens so you can "clean house". [again] ) This is a very aggressive way to do business (IMO); especially on a device they don't own.

I'm not against upgrading to Windows 10 and will do so before the deadline. I just made a decision to wait until the last minute and after all the MS "revisions" and patches which have been arriving continuously since last July. It has also given all the applications, hardware and other vendors time to release their own updates to deal with it. I'm glad I did. Just the driver updates alone through Windows Update have been virtually non-stop since last July.

Same experience here, no problems, things I were afraid wouldn't work with 10 are doing just fine.

ETA: Laptop 10 pro, desktop 10 home

I started to update my husband's Windows 7 as I was tired of going through all the updates to see what they did. I would also forget to check for updates. Doing them manually is a headache.
So I downloaded all the hidden files and the ones that were on their to update...and while they were downloading I checked my computer and HP site said it was manufactured before the ones they had cheeked to see if they was compatible with Windows 10.
Well, now I am afraid to update... back to manually updating.
I went to the download folder of Windows and deleted the ones I think were the correct ones so they would not install after a restart. In the process of restarting to see if all is ok...

I redid the Windows after I deleted the ones I downloaded and uninstalled but they installed anyway. I went to installed updates and uninstalled the updates. This worked.
I then re did the update and KB3035583 and KB3138612 came back so I hid them. I then closed the updater. I reopened the updater and checked again and kB3035583 showed up again. I have hid it again and will see.....

Am I going to have to continue updating manually after the July date or will they stop trying to make us update after that?

Mary, sorry to hear you are going into Windows Update to prevent an update to Windows 10. Even if you do that, the update may happen anyway! I have done what jgermann has suggested at the top of this thread, and after reading Ask Leo, I installed GWX Control Panel. It seems easier than going into Windows Update and possibly failing to prevent Microsoft from updating without asking me.

dobs108

https://askleo.com/block-windows-10-wi

I wonder why Microsoft is pushing so hard their FREE Windows 10 OS ? How come they've issued the same Windows 10 related update to those of us that haven't upgraded yet 14 times in a row ?

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3075480/microsoft-windows/m...

How come their trying to trick us with the redesigned GWX pop-up that now treats exiting the window as consent for the Windows 10 upgrade ?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3073457/windows/how-microsoft...

Wow they certainly are going to all lengths so that we upgrade to their FREE Windows 10 operating system !

I'm wondering how much lower or dirty they can get ? It's disgusting the means in which their using and I certainly hope that on July 30th these unethical tactics come to and end once and for all.

Remember folks, that if they want you to upgrade that badly & trying as hard as they are, there's a reason why

I hope you are right, but I don't think so.

dobs108

Just hate to put something else on computer. I have to research a lot before I install the toolbar.

It sure does look funny that they are trying to force everyone to upgrade and then start charging for the program. If they want the money why force the program on us? Makes you think the charge threat is just to get everyone to upgrade in a timely manner.

Will be interesting to see if they really do charge after July.

I would like the Windows 10 on my Windows 7 but don't want to mess it up. Hp said it is too old (2012) to check to see if it will update ok. I updated my Vista then had to put it back to Vista after problems with the graphic card. Just don't want to take a chance on Windows 10 messing up husband's Windows 7 (would never hear the end of it)

Thanks for this prog, Strephon. Just downloaded it.

If they can get all the machines in the world into one OS it's cheaper for them to provide fixed / patches.

Instead of having to fix the same bug in 3 or 4 Operating systems (7 x-32&64, 8 x32&64, 8.1 x32&64 10 x-32&64, and that doesn't begin toadress the home, pro, enterprise systems) is much more expensive than only having to fix the big in one operating system.

That's one of the reasons for the hard push to upgrade.

Since there is no such thing as a free lunch, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop on the "free" Windows 10 upgrade.

My father-in-law got a forced upgrade from Windows7 to Windows10 and didn't even realize what was going on until he saw one of the final clean-up and introduction/set-up "Welcome to Windows 10" screens. His workstation is pre-2012 and he upgraded previous from XP to W7. He's in his 80's and pretty tech-savvy but he called me because the computer seemed unresponsive and he didn't know how to proceed with the "Create a Windows account/password" for logging in which made him nervous. I walked him through that (ignore and keep the normal login password) which is tedious even for experienced folks. To me this is the worst part of what Microsoft is doing here with the forced upgrades: they assume everyone is a non-casual user or "power user" who will be able to deal with all the set-up glitches. I then told him to just leave it alone and wait until all the re-boots, updates and all the other chaos was finished and advised it it could take more that an hour to settle out. Once done, all was fine and he was on his way...but Cortana bugs him him all the time, the constant "Use your location?" prompts worry him (he powers down the computer and the router every time he finishes AND he unplugs the ethernet cable too! ) I have shut down most of the stuff he'll never use and tightened up the privacy settings, but we all know how relentless MS is about these details. Anyway, the point is: He went from W7 to 10 without much problem on a pre-2012 HP workstation. YMMV

All the concern expressed is almost amusing .... allowing this ... disabling that ...... why free .....ulterior motive .... geez

With all that code (host AND client), there's probably thousands of opportunities for them to get varying degrees of your data .... (meta/content) without your knowledge ....ever!

The reluctance to upgrade is a personal choice ... I guess. I can appreciate why MS might want to streamline its offerings and related support. Also, it looks like they are going toward a cellphone-like environment where the sales of options or additional software online is a clear/easy revenu opportunity.

I upgraded last year and enjoy the new stable/speedy system. As mentioned in an earlier comment, I believe the launching of the new browser "Edge" was premature and clearly not ready for prime time. Solution: Don't use it! IE in W10 works a lot better and doesn't crash as often. Net Result: Improvement!

In a digital age, if you are that concerned about security in an "over the counter" product, the only way to be sure about your security is not to use it for anything important.... period...... or write your own OS/Security systems.......

I have an old laptop that I bootlegged at work. I tried Windows 10 on it and wasn't able to get sound. I did multiple searches for the issue and found that the old Lenovo X200 simply doesn't work with Windows 10. There was a beta driver for sound but it toasted everything. I did a safe boot and rolled back to Windows 7.

After that I simply disabled the Windows 10 nag for that computer.

I went to Windows Updates and removed KB3035583. Then I let it get updates again but not install them. I found that same update and said to hide the update and never show it again. Problem solved.

I did the update on my personal laptop a couple of weeks ago and, while Windows 10 does have so things that totally peeve me, it works well for the most part. As for the old laptop, after killing that particular update forever it runs happily along on Windows 7 Pro and I never get the Windows 10 nag.

Most of the angst can be broken down to the following.

1. The forced nature of the upgrade.
2. The amount of information sent to Microsoft during normal use.

The human species is by nature a stubborn lot, and a lot of members of that species don't like change. One only has to read or watch the news reports about North Carolina and HB2 to see that. Windows 10 is no different. Humans do not like being forced into doing something they don't want to do. I can understand NOT wanting to upgrade. There are legitimate reasons for it, with the biggest (for normal users) being the loss of Windows Media Center. Follow that with hardware incompatibilities and software that just doesn't work any more, and it's easy to see why there is so much angst.

We humans also value our privacy and will do anything we can to maintain it, or more accurately maintain the illusion of it. Privacy in the digital age is an illusion. Your purchases, your communications, your habits are all being tracked, and it happens every single day. Go to the grocery store and pay by credit card? The bank gets a record of that transaction and where that transaction took place. Talk on your cell phone? The carrier records both your number and the number of the other party. Did you get a divorce? Your divorce decree is a public record and readily available online. Paying cash won't help, since stores have their own systems that can tell what you did and when. The only way to avoid giving any information about yourself is to drop off the grid, hide in the mountains, and learn to forage for food in the wilderness.

I've done the upgrade on the laptop I'm typing this on. I've also done the upgrade to the other six computers in the house, including my oldest computer, an HP laptop from 2005. Almost all of them went without a hitch, though one laptop did have an issue with Bluetooth that Microsoft fixed shortly after the upgrade. I've done the upgrade, despite knowing that Windows 10 was collecting data on me, because I know there's no way to be truly anonymous in the digital age. The best I can do is minimize the amount of information it collects on me, because I'm no mountain man.

So what if I want to upgrade after June 29? How much will it cost me?

Next trick:
Encrypt all Windows 7 and 8 data and hold it for ransom. You can only decrypt if you upgrade. Not entirely implausible judging by what MS has been doing.

$110, if I recall. So upgrade before the 29th, then roll back to Windows 7. That way if you do want to upgrade later on, you're not having to shell out money, since the upgrade has already been logged on Microsoft's servers.

This latest version is a little tricky. There are reports of folks clicking decline and it will still install Win 10. Click the red "X" in the upper right corner and it sets up an install time. If the "Install Win 10" window appears, there is a selection in the 2nd or 3rd line to decline that works.

Lots of info about this latest version from MS at Google just type in "uninstall KB3035583" (without the quotes). Note: I know the steps are described in previous posts.

The first item shown tells you how to uninstall, but you will need to run "Windows Update" again and then "Hide" the update. I've hidden it numerous time, but MS somehow over-rides it every couple of months and I have to go through the same rigmarole again.

In this version, it is harder to avoid the upgrade.

Yup, that thing showed up on my 2 Win7 PCs earlier this week. I have always set my PCs to just notify me of updates, not download or install them automatically. I hid this update, AGAIN as well.

I can see why people shy away from Win 10, but it's not all that hateful, imo. This coming from someone who has been using Linux on his desktop PC since midway through Win XP's life, and still do. I still love Linux, but sometimes there's just no substitute for a particular Windows program.

A tablet I bought had Win 8 on it and I hated it. Upgraded it to Win 10 and tolerated it. Upgraded to Win 10.1 and have no real issues with it. Switched two laptops to it, and find very little it won't run in one of the compatibility modes. Has a quirk now and again with updates breaking touch screen drivers but newer updates have fixed the issues.

I do wish the install was more straight forward in setting it up as a local user rather than M$soft pushing you to use a M$oft account. And yes, now and again I find myself saying that they've gone down hill since little Billy left.

But, I'm not switching my tablets/laptops to Linux.

'Windows 10 nagware: You can't click X. Make a date OR ELSE'

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/01/windows_10_nagware_n...

Reminds me of an old geek joke. It was a string of Hexadecimal numbers that, when translated into ASCII, gave a message about Bill Gates and his OS ambitions:

4F6E65204F5320746F2072756C65207468656D20616C6C2C204F6E65204F5320746F
2066696E64207468656D2C0D0A4F6E65204F5320746F206272696E67207468656D20
616C6C20616E6420696E20746865206461726B6E6573732062696E64207468656D

"One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

I blocked any MS on my Win 7 system until August.

I wonder if a class action law suit againsrt MS could be formed because they are trying to force you to MS Windows 10...