Microsoft Is Still Driving Some Windows 7 Users Crazy With Nagging Ads To Upgrade

BI ^ | Julie Bort

[minnesota_bound]

Your own pc is being used to transfer the Windows 10 files around the world.

Windows 10 shares your files with the internet... here’s how to turn it off
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/windows-10-shares-files-internet-164600352.html

[kanawa]

Ditto

[dayglored]

> Tech stories when it comes to MS always take one mundane issue and amps it up to such a cartoonish level, that it ceases to resemble reality and just becomes a parody.

True, but of course it's not just Microsoft. The exact same thing happens to Apple at the same or higher rate (higher only because headline writers wet themselves over the chance to put "Apple" in a critical headline. It's not about Microsoft or Apple, it's about tech writers whores.

> My windows 7 machine at work gets this message once every other week. I click the x and go on with my life.

You're one of the lucky ones (as am I) -- the nags are rare. There are some folks who, for reasons I haven't yet discovered, get bothered daily. We lucky ones shouldn't assume everybody is so lucky.

> If this is driving you insane, then you need to seek some professional help.

Could well be they do.

For my part, I've switched over full-time from Win7 to Win10 on my dayjob (System Admin) Windows workstation (a VM under CentOS, for those times only Windows will do). I found that without resorting to any third-party bolt-ons (e.g. Classic Shell) I was able to get the Win10 UI beat into submission sufficiently that it isn't all that different from Win7 in most important regards. The only thing that remains is style -- the stupid plain Metro look-and-feel that works so well on a hand-held and looks like early-90's crap on a widescreen desktop monitor. I'm hoping to find a theme somewhere that can override the remnants of Metro.

But in all other respects, I gotta admit that after a day spent finding where they hid the stuff I actually use, I am able to get work done admirably, and the response of the OS is downright snappy.

[dayglored]

> I have no plans to switch to Windows 10 though....I've read that it's a huge spy effort.

As far as I can tell, these two things are true:

1. You can turn off the so-called "spy" stuff with Windows 10 settings, to the point where it's below the level of the earlier Windows releases that you feel were clean.

2. Microsoft has back-ported the "spy" stuff to Windows 7 and 8.x over the past few months, so there's really no place to hide. (And reverting to Win XP is beyond foolish.) But you can selectively uninstall the Windows Updates that have those functions.

There are numerous comments on Windows 10 threads that discuss the "how-to" of the above at length.

I have come to the conclusion that -IF- one is willing to go through that process of unsetting and uninstalling, then one can make a Windows 10 installation just a private as Windows 7 was (before they backported the crapware).

Then, one can decide whether the feature set of Windows 10 is sufficient to justify upgrading to it. For me and a lot of other Windows 7 users, that's an open question.

[dayglored]

> It blows my mind that FR is so populated with people this technologically inept. No wonder the left owns the internet.

Nah, the Left is just as inept. But they have the media, which make it LOOK like they own the internet.

[dayglored]

> As another FReeper who runs a different technology company's ping list (and I'm not naming the company or the person) once said, "Haters got to hate."

indeed.

What a sad statement on the utter emptiness of someone's life, that the only thing that fulfills them is trolling and screeching on an anonymous internet forum. It must be a part of the human animal -- before the internet, people sat at home and raged at their televisions or went out to saloons and got into fistfights. It's really not very different.

I suppose in earlier times, trolling and whining was done exclusively in person...

"Aurelius, you stupid toad, how can you say that your chariot is any good? It was made by Brutus, and we all know he is a stuffer of monkeys!"

"Ah, Marcus you lying troll, you mutant offspring of various barnyard animals, your chariot is worthless even as firestarter for the oven of a syphilitic pottery maker!"

... Nothing ever changes, really.

[Poser]

Yup. That’s almost as annoying as Apple trying to get me to upgrade my iPad to OS 9. OS9 turned it into a gob of molasses and I had to restore to OS 8. So far, Windows has not gotten me to install Win 10.

[dayglored]

> I have several Windows 10 and one remaining Windows 7 system. I haven’t seen a pop-up to upgrade on the 7 box for several weeks now.

You're lucky. I'm doing okay -- I only get bugged once or twice a week. A few friends and family members report daily "reminders". It may be something about the applications they run.

> Question for you. Do Apple OSX systems ask if you want to upgrade from an older OS version? I’m not complaining about Apple, I think I’d be happy to be told.

Well, my MacMini is on 10.9 Mavericks, and the only time I see anything about upgrading the OS is when I specifically go to "Software Update" (the moral equivalent of Windows Updates) and ask what's available. At the top of the page of available upgradable software is a pretty picture and a few lines saying that "El Capitan" is wonderful:

If I click "Learn More" I can read about it at my option. If I click "Free Upgrade", it presumably takes my down that path. If I do nothing, it's as though I never saw it, since it doesn't chase me down and keep reminding me.

> It seems to me this thread is a joke, because who wouldn’t want to be reminded that something newer (and FREE) is available? So whether I was running a Apple, Linux or Windows OS, getting informed periodically about upgrades is at worst, a VERY minor annoyance, or at best, a helpful tip. Getting it multiple times a day? No. If you are, something is broke.

What's broke is Microsoft's Marketing Department. This is a historical fact, details on request.

The things that piss people off the most seem to be:

1. Having once told Microsoft that you're not interested in Windows 10, they should STFU for at least a month.

2. They should not, in any case, try to trick you into downloading the upgrade using the same techniques used by scammers. It looks real bad.

Microsoft has no class, in this circumstance. They're being annoying and tacky. They are pissing people off. That much, at least, is not the people's fault.

[martin_fierro]

Running 7 at work now, IT dep’t all over me up “upgrade” to 8.1

[daniel1212]

I found Linux to be wanting over Windows for power users unless you have a lot of time, but you can use the export/import feature of FF.

Better yet is to copy your whole Profile. Press Alt+h and hit Troubleshooting and then Show folder to open it.

Profile should be in /home/username/mozilla/firefox (put your user name where it says username)

In Linux Ubuntu, Firefox program should be in /usr/lib/firefox

To add another profile, I think this worked: drag icon from Applications launcher (Start Menu,) to Desktop, r. clk and hit Launcher and change to firefox %u —Profilemanager and click close. Then launch and choose Create new profile. Then choose to create folder and navigate to copied folder. Then choose that when launching.

Migration of just key files:

Most important files to migrate are cert8.db

formhistory.sqlite

key3.db

persdict.dat

places.sqlite (bookmarks)

signons.sqlite

[Swordmaker]

Aurelius, you stupid toad, how can you say that your chariot is any good? It was made by Brutus, and we all know he is a stuffer of monkeys!" "Ah, Marcus you lying troll, you mutant offspring of various barnyard animals, your chariot is worthless even as firestarter for the oven of a syphilitic pottery maker!"

Rolling mine eyes in mirth, as everyone knows who has two thoughts worth thinking, the only Chariots worth buying are imported Chariots from either Greece or Thrace! Domestic crap isn't worth riding off the lot. . . If it'll get that far! You might as well trade them in for two donkeys and and a cart for all the use you'll get out of 'em before you break an axle or crack a tongue. Don't get me started on that Egyptian Junk. The Pharoah II won't float worth a damn. Just ask Ramses the Great, lost a whole army using those damn things! I wouldn't trust any of those sieves. . .

[dayglored]

> Running 7 at work now, IT dep’t all over me up “upgrade” to 8.1

Seriously. Stay at 7. Or if you want/have to go to 10, go directly to 10. But don't stop at 8.x. Seriously.

I'm serious. It's a trap. 8 is the new Vista.

Seriously.

[dayglored]

> Just ask Ramses the Great, lost a whole army using those damn things!

LOL!!

[huldah1776]

It took me a while to get my updates done but windows 10 is actually much better than 8. I am a visual learner and have created web pages, had to help others with 8 and 10 (not much) and getting around 8 for the first time was very hard for me. Windows 10 gave me some fits but it was because the monitor settings keep reverting to a larger size and the left side of the windows program was off screen. If I had 8, and wasn’t stressed, I would probably upgrade.

The reason I don’t go from 7 to 10 is paranoia about gathering info and rumors of not being able to run older software. I use adobe CS4 and am very afraid to lose that.

[FourtySeven]

I will never “upgrade” to Windows 10, at least not for the foreseeable future. When I did, or tried, back in July, it was a complete mess (from Windows 7).

It was running perfectly but in 10, the machine wouldn’t stop with a crippling screen flicker. It was so bad it wouldn’t let me click on the Start menu to shut down! I had to use Ctrl+Alt+Del to force the task manager to “shut down”. I let it sit for a good hour in that sorry state hoping for some kind of update or something that would fix the problem but nothing but the continual flickering.

I think the cause was an incompatibility between Windows 10’s default video driver (which at least at that time Win 10 was forcing use of that) and the video card I have (nVidia GeForce GTX 770) which wanted/needed to use its own driver from nVidia. This was a known issue at the time but I foolishly “upgraded” anyway (in my defense the issues reported centered around multiple monitors being used with GeForce cards and Windows 10; I thought maybe it wouldn’t happen with ONE monitor).

Anyway I’m not trying again until I see/hear this specific issue has been addressed by Windows, and yes it’s their fault because 10 forced the use of Windows drivers over manufacturer specific ones. So they need to stop that before I go to 10 (on my Windows 7 machine)

I will say though a laptop I bought recently (a cheap-o at Bestbuy for $250, I just couldn’t resist that price for a laptop) has Windows 10 pre installed and it works fine. So I’d say a machine with a “pure” Windows 10 install should be fine. But don’t “upgrade”.

[huldah1776]

I really want a microsoft surface pro. Want to be able to sketch on site. I’ll probably end up just taking a picture anyway, but always wanted a wacom and figured 2 birds-one stone. Will check it out b4 I get one though.