I occasionally have some quirky things going on with my Win7 desktop. When I try a system restore, I notice that the last install was a Windows Critical Update, usually a day earlier.
I have Win Updates turned off, too.
After the system restore to ‘before the critical update’, things seem to work again.
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I do NOT like forced updates of any kind, because MS has a history of releasing updates that mess up computers.
A year or so ago, one of their updates killed certain Dell laptops. Luckily, I had updates turned off on my Dell laptop.
And regardless, the computer (hardware at least) is your personal property, so they have no right to do ANYTHING to it without your affirmative knowledge and consent. Besides, hacking into other people's computers is against the law now.