Russia is ditching Microsoft because it's an easy target (Putin says "Nyet!" to Windows)

Engadget ^ | Nov 2, 2016 | Jon Fingas

[dayglored]

Anything to make the US seem like a boogeyman.

We know that Russia wants to give Microsoft products the boot, but now it's clearer as to why. A senior US intelligence official talking to NBC News not only supports talk of Russia endorsing a plan to purge Microsoft software from the government (starting with Moscow), but explains why. Reportedly, Vladimir Putin and crew are picking on Microsoft because it's an easy target for anti-American sentiment. It's a huge company that rules the tech sector, and it's not hard to persuade Russians that the firm is collaborating with US spies despite evidence to the contrary.

For its part, Microsoft maintains that it doesn't work with "any government" on surveillance, or conduct any espionage itself. Its soon-to-be-acquired job site, LinkedIn, is currently fighting a Russian attempt to block access.

... (more content and refs at link)...

[dayglored]

> Just what you need in the middle of a battle... “Windows is updating. Do not shut off or unplug your computer.”

How many times have I gotten to the end of a session, need to pack up and take the laptop with me (powered off), and the "ShutDown" button has the dreaded "You Must Install These Updates Or Else" icon over it. And no, I don't use "Hibernate", it is untrustworthy with the apps and networks I use.

Does it do that "ShutDown" button thing for the updates with the "Restart" button, when I have plenty of time and want it to install and restart? NO-O-O-O-O!

Only when I'm in a hurry and need to power it down quickly.

Worst. And. Stupidest. Design. Ever. in that regard.

[Organic Panic]

No only are the auto updates ALWAYs at an inconvenient time, they don’t even give you an option. I’ve been computerizing for decades. I know every setting all the way back to HP-UX and before that my dad’s old ZX81.

There are no setting to allow turning off the auto updates. I found a few times i got away with it but eventually it will say “Do you want to update no or in 15 minutes?”

[Alas Babylon!]

Open Powershell. Type in

Stop-computer -force

It then shuts down.

[dayglored]

> Open Powershell. Type in
Stop-computer -force
It then shuts down.

Hmmm. I often use CMD.EXE:

shutdown -s -t0

when I want to shut it down from a Remote Desktop session when "Shut Down" isn't a Start Menu option. Never thought to use it to get around the damn updates. Have to try it next time.

Thanks!!

[rarestia]

So... sorta like the NorKs have their own “operating system,” Russia is now going to do the same? Or are they simply stating that they’re going away from Microsoft in the Russian government? That leaves them with little in the way of non-American-owned operating environments unless they develop their own flavor of Linux.

Say what you want about Microsoft, Apple, etc., freedom of choice is what makes America and much of the western world great. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to use it. Microsoft isn’t going to lose sleep over that.

[dayglored]

> Say what you want about Microsoft, Apple, etc., freedom of choice is what makes America and much of the western world great. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to use it. Microsoft isn’t going to lose sleep over that.

So true.

Now if we could just get the anti-Apple and anti-Windows and anti-Linux trolls here to take it to heart: "If you don’t want it, you don’t have to use it."

It's so simple.

[rarestia]

I do commiserate with them in the sense that mainstream market providers of PCs are 90%+ Windows distributors. If there weren’t a dozen mainstream versions of Linux, they might get a foothold.

I always like to point out that you are NOT obligated to use Windows installed on a new PC. If you read the EULA, you may request a full refund for the license of any OEM Windows deployment from the vendor. It’s tucked into some paperwork provided with Dell, HP, and Lenovo machines. If you have an old copy of Windows and you want to deploy it to your new machine, you are within your rights to do so and to request a full refund of the license cost of the newer version of Windows.

[dayglored]

> If you have an old copy of Windows and you want to deploy it to your new machine, you are within your rights to do so

Yeah.... except that on laptops, in recent years more than in the past, you can't get software drivers for the older OS for some of the peripherals. I've had the experience of going to an OEM vendor's site and all they have for the model is the most recent release of Windows. Microsoft (I believe) encourages, if not outright forces, them to provide only the Windows 10 drivers.

So I end up on the chip maker's site, getting generic drivers. Most times I can get them to work with the older OS. But hey, I've been doing computers since the 70's, I know some tricks. Not everybody can do that. Certainly my business clients and users have me around specifically because they can't do that.

The stranglehold MS had for decades, and still has to a large degree, on the market will not go away quietly.

That said, I have a stash of Win7 licenses I can use on my machines until Jan 2020. And mostly I'm working on a Linux or Mac machine anyway. So I have little to complain about.

[Mr. K]

if EVERYONE does it, its a good thing.
The trick is you have to totally commit

There are tons of programs available for Linux that look exactly like Microsoft Office (like OpenOffice)

Which is what 90% of the people need

[rockrr]

(Circling back to this thread after a couple of busy days)

Here’s a curious thing that I thought I’d share. I was given an ISO to test (SW_DVD5_WIN_ENT_10_64BIT_English_MLF_X20-26061.iso). As intimated by the filename, it is a 64-bit version of Windows 10 Enterprise. I loaded it onto a spare laptop and started using it. I almost immediately started encountering anomalies with it. I can’t get the OS activated - I can ping our KMS server (which was upgraded to allow Windows 10 certificates) and telnet to port 1688 but it doesn’t auto-authorize and manual command-line attempts fail as well.

I went to set my WiFi connections to metered but the functionality to adjust the settings (under “Manage WiFi Settings/Manage Known Networks) but the button to set to metered is missing for each of the connections. I did some research and found instructions to make these adjustments using command-line. That looked like it worked but then I encountered the “You Must Install These Updates Or Else” notice that convinced me that the metered option wasn’t really working like the earlier RTM build of Win-10 - the machine is accepting and installing updates.

You are supposed to be able to determine the specific build number from the Windows Settings applet (http://www.howtogeek.com/236195/how-to-find-out-which-build-and-version-of-windows-10-you-have/) but even this functionality is missing. I sent a report back to the SCCM administrator (where I got the ISO) but haven’t heard from him yet.

I hope that he doesn’t put this build into production!