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Shutting off those Godddamn Microcrap Windows 10 updates

implmex

Diamond
Joined
Jun 23, 2002
Location
Vancouver BC Canada
Hi All:
Rather pissed off at the moment; my Surface Pro just decided to update right in the middle of a task...again.
The fucking thing just did half an hour's worth of updates this morning for crap's sake!
It started telling me it wanted to do more this afternoon, so I went into the settings and used the option that lets you reschedule them for a different day.

Haw haw haw, the settings just get ignored so here i am unable to work while it loads a bunch more shit I don't want and don't need like the ability to "sync" all my devices better than before, and guess what I can now make it do shit by yelling at it...oh fucking joy.
It's a working computer...I don't WANT all that fucking crap!.
What is it about modern software that is so indifferent to the needs of the customer and just imposes its shit in this arbitrary way.
Seems to me it's all going that way, Autodesk to Adobe to Quickbooks to Microshit; even Solidworks is nibbing around the edges.

So please please, anyone who knows the Golden Secret of how to retake control of Windows 10...tell me how to force it not to update until I'm damned well good and ready.

Not so cheery right now

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
 
So please please, anyone who knows the Golden Secret of how to retake control of Windows 10...tell me how to force it not to update until I'm damned well good and ready.

Not so cheery right now

Marcus

I don't want to brand you oblivious off the back of the most obvious of overlooked simplicity, but what has worked for as long as ever it was any sort of issue is to:

- simply disconnect the link to the outside world whilst doing "whatever".

Once out of the "critical" period, re-connect, let any update proceed while you sleep.

If even then.

Our firm, as "SI" gurus to clients with mission-critical "Windows only" Line of Business software would strip WinBoxen to bare-bones, over 70,000 files and entire subsystems removed, [1] then isolate them absolutely and TOTALLY from the outside world so as to run them many years between updates, see even a mere re-boot only at fan replacement, HDD, or MB update about once a year.

Anything that ran on Day One still ran years later, and in exactly the same manner. My Accounting package never left Win NT4, SP3 as its virtual image migrated across four different OS'en and host platforms, CPU from MHz to GHz. No need to do. Beans is beans.

Oh.. and all staff had separate boxen (Mac's, usually, but not always) for email and correspondence, and, and, and..

Windows isn't so bad at core. Just infantile defenceless. It's the damned BAGGAGE as has infinite sources of bugs and malware vulnerabilities!

2CW

[1] This one and successors "back in the day". Thereafter "virtual images" stripped, locked, multiply backed-up, and run atop a Unix box as virtual images, each image of "many, many" tailored for its one lone LOB app, and not one damned thing else. Servers went further yet. "Headless" Windows. No GUI subsystem at all.

98lite Professional - optimize windows for speed and stability
 
Hi Thermite:
Oh if only it could be so simple.
Sad thing is that the task I was doing was accounting...in Quickbooks.
Now the old version I used to run was fine; stable capable, never a hiccup and would run happily with no contact to the outside world at all.

Then they "fixed" it.
Now it refuses to run without Microsoft Exploder running in the background...no umbilicus...no workee.
Apparently that is now a critical feature...so I can have the "convenience" of emailing the invoices I write directly from Quickbooks, even though that occasionally fucks up too and won't send.
Can you tell how impressed I am?

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
 
Hi Thermite:
Oh if only it could be so simple.
Sad thing is that the task I was doing was accounting...in Quickbooks.
Now the old version I used to run was fine; stable capable, never a hiccup and would run happily with no contact to the outside world at all.
ROFLMAO! Seriously? QB???

QB, a discontinued "international" edition ISTR was actually coded in Australia, New Zealand, or both, and released for Win NT, or maybe even Win 3.11, and then...

..modified by my Swiss partner and myself to handle all the Euro, pre-euro, and other global currencies, GST, VAT, import duties, yadda, yadda, PLUS... print and/or email as .pdf legitimate Bank "Giro" payment slips, OCR typeface, proper Luhn codes (thank you, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Zurcher Kantonalsbank, for confirming that we had "cracked" those accurately!) and all...

... is the very critter we needed to "protect" against f**k-with, partly because of our extensive modifications!

It ran on NT4 SP3 "bare metal", seriously skunt-down WinWoes isolated from the world on an industrial SBC inside a re-purposed one-drive SCSI HDD box, 1.4 GByte laptop drive

It ran in a pre-alpha-test, alpha test, beta test, then gold release of Virtual PC for OS/2 Warp Server Advanced.

The image was converted to QEMU format, then later again within QEMU. As such it has run on Slackware Linux and two others, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonFlyBSD, G4-era MacbookPro OSX with "Q", WinTel era OS X, and still runs on OpenBSD AMD 64 approaching the quarter century mark. Same NT4, SP3 virtual Winbox.

It is far, far, faster virtualized on a 2+ GHz multicore CPU that it ever was "bare metal" on a 50 Mhz Cyrix or even twin Pentium Pro 200 Mhz.

QB may be one of the best examples EVER of an app that should simply never be f**ked-with once set up and proven for a firm's real needs.

F**ks sake, so long as ruled Accountant's pads and black biro are still LEGAL, how hard can bean-counting be?

Go find the original install media, "virtualize" the Mike Foxtrot, make "many" backups.

They are small enough, "stripped" Win host, to easily email between continents on even rather sorry bandwidth.

We did that for years! Both the bells-and whistled core AND the separate QB data files.

Virtualize it, lock the box, "f**k-with proof it", put it onto a USB stick or CF/nano-CF chip, entire, and..

Gain back the hours of your life!

:)

'puters were meant to serve OUR needs.

Not the other way 'round.

:(
 
If you've got W10 Pro, Enterprise or Education, you should be able to use the How to stop Windows 1 auto updates | Windows Central
"Local group policy editor" to disable it.

If you've just got the basic Windows 10, go into your wifi/internet settings and select "Metered internet".
They added that feature after a bunch of people using tethering/rural high speed got stuck with $1000 internet bills because Windows auto-downloaded a bunch of updates.
(hopefully Micro$oft didn't change this one)
 
I was happy with 7, no issues. Then it started asking me to update, I always decline or delay. Eventually the b-stards at microcrap take over my computer and "upgrade" it to 10. The start of a week of computer hell, NOTHING works. No printer, Easy Cam does not want to know. 10 won't talk to the floppy emulator on the lathe. 10 won't talk to the Centroid control on my mill. My e mail is f-ed up, WTF, everything was fine till they "fixed" it for me. It makes me use a password just to turn it on. I f'ing HATE it. I am not a computer genius so it takes lots of outside help to get it all working again. Now it trys to update about once a week, I wish it would just leave me alone!
 
I was happy with 7, no issues. Then it started asking me to update, I always decline or delay. Eventually the b-stards at microcrap take over my computer and "upgrade" it to 10. The start of a week of computer hell, NOTHING works. No printer, Easy Cam does not want to know. 10 won't talk to the floppy emulator on the lathe. 10 won't talk to the Centroid control on my mill. My e mail is f-ed up, WTF, everything was fine till they "fixed" it for me. It makes me use a password just to turn it on. I f'ing HATE it. I am not a computer genius so it takes lots of outside help to get it all working again. Now it trys to update about once a week, I wish it would just leave me alone!

The only "genius" needed is to move off Win altogether to "ABM". ANYTHING But Microsoft.

Then get a Virtualization guru to make images for whatever mission-critical Line of Business app runs ONLY on WinWoes.

There ARE some damned good apps. Not everything has a decent *nix or OSX alternative.

Sometimes, one just has to kick the Microshit out from UNDER them and run them in a virtual jail cell or bunker.
 
I was happy with 7, no issues. Then it started asking me to update, I always decline or delay. Eventually the b-stards at microcrap take over my computer and "upgrade" it to 10. The start of a week of computer hell, NOTHING works. No printer, Easy Cam does not want to know. 10 won't talk to the floppy emulator on the lathe. 10 won't talk to the Centroid control on my mill. My e mail is f-ed up, WTF, everything was fine till they "fixed" it for me.
You guys should all take them to small claims court :D

I absolutely refuse to move beyond xp .... stayed at win2k for about fifteen years until the Assistant applied so much pressure that I gave in. Why do youse guys want that new shit ?
 
You guys should all take them to small claims court :D

I absolutely refuse to move beyond xp .... stayed at win2k for about fifteen years until the Assistant applied so much pressure that I gave in. Why do youse guys want that new shit ?

My "assistant" AKA Wife of over a quarter of a century, runs flavour-of-the-week, all week as tablets and hand helds.

She banks and trades equities on OpenBSD.

A *nix need not be ugly nor have weird, useless, if not also dead-WRONG eye-candy, so we do not. Our UI is very, very, advanced and also very stable for Donkey's Years, already.

It LOOKS like OS X but always with six buttons each "window", rather than one, two, or three, depending on Apples's virtual menstrual cycle.

Far cleaner, yet more feature-rich, easier to use, and less offensive UI than Mac OR WinWoes, any generation of either.

Thank you Xorg, xfce4, and the option to change most anything for the better, and "cross platform" as well.
 
My "assistant" AKA Wife of over a quarter of a century, runs flavour-of-the-week, all week as tablets and hand helds.
She banks and trades equities on OpenBSD.

The government supplied tax program also only runs on Windows xp or newer. There are ways to trick it but at some point, the ends do not justify the effort.

At least it wasn't Vista.

@implmex, can you back up on your version to where it doesn't require exploder ? Or get a cheap old laptop just for book-keeping, so it doesn't mess with the rest of your life ?

@ moonlight, the old trick is to put a loopback address 127.0.0.1 in your hosts file as "microsoft.com" or wherever the darn thing goes to check for updates. But those clever barstadges may have hard-coded an ip into their code instead of a domain, so that trick might not work anymore. It really is us against them :(
 
The government supplied tax program also only runs on Windows xp or newer. There are ways to trick it but at some point, the ends do not justify the effort.

At least it wasn't Vista.

@implmex, can you back up on your version to where it doesn't require exploder ? Or get a cheap old laptop just for book-keeping, so it doesn't mess with the rest of your life ?

@ moonlight, the old trick is to put a loopback address 127.0.0.1 in your hosts file as "microsoft.com" or wherever the darn thing goes to check for updates. But those clever barstadges may have hard-coded an ip into their code instead of a domain, so that trick might not work anymore. It really is us against them :(

Phht.. not that I have EVER had to care, licenses from MS BASIC in ROM onward, always for client use - that QB and a seriously good contact Management system I've forgotten, it was so briefly used and so long ago - the only ones EVER for my own use...

...but just "down" or physically disconnect the effing LINK!

Virtualize anything you really need. Control the links for that, if even it needs such.

Microsoft BOUGHT that pioneering virtualizer firm I had worked with the founders of.

MS have virtualizers and hosts that work. Far more germane is that they have compatible container files for hosts safe enough to actually USE, not just pay through, then roof-bolt why-ed open one's wreakedbum for.
 
The brute force way to stop windows updates is to disable the wupdate service. This completely disables any and all checking for, downloading of, and installing of updates for the OS, until you turn it back on again.
 
1. They DID get sued for "auto downloading" win10 onto Win7 machines, and promptly lost.

2. They push so hard because they believe they have various business cases to try to force people to run the new product - for example if they can force all windows PCs (we're talking a billion units) to run skype, then it's easier to sell various value add features for skype. They are trying to monetize PC users just like facebook monitizes people.

3. Other houses (and MSFT) are feeling insane pressure to try to force everybody to subscription, one way or another. This is entirely about not going out of business because, well, version Z of your product was more than good enough. Current IP law allows this, a great comeuppence may overturn it (Apple makes a lot of money, but is an ever smaller share of the smartphone market - cheap generic stuff wins...)

4. The web is full discussions about how to force off windows 10 update - from blocking the service, to blocking the servers with firewall. It can be done. But I will run win7 until something forces me to stop, and then probably stop using computers or something....
 
It can be done. But I will run win7 until something forces me to stop, and then probably stop using computers or something....

I have for decades held the position that "young Bill" (given that Herr Gates and I used to get email mis-addressed to each other now and then when he was using "[email protected]" and "old Bill" was still "[email protected])

..did not introduce an operating system.

Far to greater profit, he instead rolled-out a pan-global, pan-cultural background, pan-educational-background, pan-economic-status, even pan-IQ Gullibility tester!

Anyone as believed, ever then, or yet today, that they "HAD to have Windows" was ID'ed as a "mark" that anything at all could be sold to with the least effort.

Here you are. Known to this community, whether anywhere else we know not, as a bright guy. And yet you have habituated to that kool-aid?

Never been much of a fan of Apple. Big Iron, else a decent UNIX, rather.

But WTH? N'er mind a *nix or a *nux. At least a Mac is no more effort than a different box-tick at order time.

And THEIR minimally-intrusive auto-updates only take even a minor dump in their own rice-bowl but once in several years, easily reversed, by them, and at once. Mind - they were several orders of magnitude less voluntarily b**t f****ed to begin with. But that's another horse.

Go figure.
 
When you get paid well to mix the coolaid, you drink some of it.

Jury won't be in for another hundred years, I suppose. But my guess on malware war and failure at it costs alone is that Redmond has retarded the progress of Information Technology by some tens of trillions of dollars more in a short time than the gospels of Mecca and Medina have in a far longer span of years. Same "let's get OURS!" bandit-cult mentality, either one.

Just drink more kool aid. And faster, please! MS has had a good run, but there is one Helluva house-cleaning not far over the horizon.
 
I have 2 windows XP shop computers which are wired into all my CNC's of the same and older vintage. Not hooked to the internet they run perfect.

I ran one from 2001 to 2016. Never turned it off. Never a problem until a lightening strike fried components in the board on the hard drive.

Can't help with 10. Just siding with those suggesting disconnecting from the web is all.
 
Jury won't be in for another hundred years, I suppose. But my guess on malware war and failure at it costs alone is that Redmond has retarded the progress of Information Technology by some tens of trillions of dollars more in a short time than the gospels of Mecca and Medina have in a far longer span of years. Same "let's get OURS!" bandit-cult mentality, either one.

Just drink more kool aid. And faster, please! MS has had a good run, but there is one Helluva house-cleaning not far over the horizon.

I often think that most people don't comprehend the damage that Microsoft have done to the general progress of computing. Their serial practice of undercutting the market in the 80's and 90's to boost their market share left so many objectively superior alternatives by the wayside.

Now that we are entirely stuck with them we find ourselves being forced into genuinely regressive user experiences, supported by barely functioning systems on a grander scale. All Microsoft's doing.
 
I often think that most people don't comprehend the damage that Microsoft have done to the general progress of computing. Their serial practice of undercutting the market in the 80's and 90's to boost their market share left so many objectively superior alternatives by the wayside.

Now that we are entirely stuck with them we find ourselves being forced into genuinely regressive user experiences, supported by barely functioning systems on a grander scale. All Microsoft's doing.

Don't forget the ever increasing security issues.
 
Don't forget the ever increasing security issues.

From the luxury of a life-long near-as dammit "ABM" environment [1] I've always called the lot of them "Wincrobes".

Doesn't seem to be much of any other kind.

Even to the extent there are, it was the Winvirusment that massive legions of criminals trained-up on.

[1] Licenses from Ohio Scientific, Challenger II MS BASIC in ROM, MSDOS 1.1 trialed, found useless vs CP/M, MASM 8080, no match for better assemblers, were the last ones I used until NT4 SP3 for Ecco Pro and Quickbooks, both virtualized, OS/2 onward.

List of what I used INSTEAD? "Personal" only, not Big Iron nor mid-iron? Rough one:

CP/M, MP/M, Concurrent CP/M, DRDOS, Novel DOS & GEM environment, OS/2, briefly Slackware and Vector Linux, all of the *BSD, settled on OpenBSD, and we have run at least one Mac since G4 OSX as well.

Ecco Pro was nice enough, but I couldn't justify Win-nuisance to support it. Quickbooks didn't get used often, Hong Kong office, so it mattered little. Intuit had dropped the Mac version. By the time they had it again, we had too much customization rolled into the Win Version to want to redo, so stayed with it and ran it virtualized on the G4 Macs.
And everything later, OSX or *BSD.

If a WinApp existed I actually NEEDED, Virtual PC & QEMU days onward, I'd just buy he WinOS license and run "whatever" virtualized.

"Skunt down" and "Headless" Win is so lean and efficient it runs faster virtualized than "ordinary" Win runs on bare metal, same hardware.

I think they fixed this, but one of the more foolish things it used to do to keep the premises warm was to repeatedly query the system to see if more RAM had been added whilst running. I don't mean "freed up", either. Physically plugged-in.

Last "PC" I personally operated that could actually DO that was the Burroughs D800 AKA AN/GSA-51, BUIC II, NORAD, 1965, and the added memory would have been rotating mag drum. OTOH D800 could also swap CPU in and out on the fly.

It was, after all, a Weapons System, and a crucial one for its era. "Senior Weapons Director" my job title at the time and controlling century-series fighter-interceptors armed with "Genie" missiles the job. Eventually, it got good enough to take-over FULL time from AN/FSQ-7 SAGE (Whirlwind II) and a couple of dozen 3 MW powered sites cooled-down around 60,000 vacuum tubes each.

Q7 had a trackball, smoother vector graphics. BUIC had a light-pen, raster graphics. Personally, I preferred Q7 for fighting the air battle. Simulated, thankfully.
 
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