Posted on 12/05/2016 5:51:23 AM PST by george76
Jesse Worley threatened to sue Microsoft. Hes not the first to take on the Redmond company, but his move to take legal action had a purpose. He wanted Microsoft to acknowledge that aggressively pushing the Windows 10 update was a problem. Customers weary of the Windows 8 disaster were unwilling to take the upgrade leap; Microsoft was, he reasoned, ignoring their fear of heights.
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Im an IT tech whose grandfathers computer was updated through subterfuge, which made life harder for him and his caretakers until it was fixed
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Privacy advocates dislike it, as Microsoft collects data such as voice input, text input, website history, and more. There are ways to limit the personal information Microsoft receives, but these steps likely arent known by the average Joe. The growing privacy concerns have called out security experts, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and even Frances National Data Protection Commission.
Is this data-mining the fuel that powered Microsofts aggressive Windows 10 upgrade program?
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The tactics Microsoft employed to get users of earlier versions of Windows to upgrade to Windows 10 went from annoying to downright malicious, the EFF said in August. Some highlights: Microsoft installed an app in users system trays advertising the free upgrade to Windows 10. The app couldnt be easily hidden or removed, but some enterprising users figured out a way. Then, the company kept changing the app and bundling it into various security patches, creating a cat-and-mouse game to uninstall it
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As Worley pointed out in his email, hes likely not the only one who suffered from Microsofts seemingly malicious upgrade scheme.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
REALLY NEW! Welcome to FreeRepublic!
Upgraded all Windows 7 computers in my house to Windows 10.
Mostly a big pain in the ass for me, a tech guy.
I did it thinking that since Microsoft was pushing free upgrades, that they’d be on the fast path to have hardware guys update their drivers, etc. etc.
Turns out no, not the case. Most hardware still uses Windows 7 drivers, most of which still work but some of which are now broken and need you to perform voodoo to get the equipment working properly. I can’t tell you how many times I have to unplug and replug my 1-year-old USB webcam and what incantations I have to mutter to talk to my oldest son via Skype.
Then there’s the interface. I swear to you, if I have to drop to a search line to find Calculator or Notepad again, I’m going jihadi on the Redmond campus. There’s absolutely no reason I should ever need to click Cortana search (and I didn’t even install Cortana) to find a program that’s already installed on my computer, ESPECIALLY if it’s an old Accessory group program.
Ugh.
Select the dual boot option.
There are a few things that require Windows.
If you never ever use it, easy to delete. (Takes time to install.)
If you don’t use it, you never see it.
At start-up there is a slight pause to select OS, if you went for coffee, it will auto boot Linux in about ten seconds.
get with the program or get off the boat
the cloud is the new direction and one must go or be left out altogether
It was not an upgrade. It was a replacement operating system. I blocked all attempts by the MS bastards to install something on my computers without my knowledge.
When I’m ready to buy a new computer, it’ll have Win 10, and that will be fine.
I bought a Linux laptop a few months ago to check out Linux. I had previously played around with various distros and was never impressed.
I am still not.
I have been trying to figure out how to install an Adobe Flash update. It is like having to learn how to be a programmer. And the 4 different flavors of Adobe Flash for Linux does not help. Youtube videos and web instructions go into a long dissertation on programming the installation through the terminal.
I just want to update Flash.
The same goes for several other software programs. WINE is about as useless as ... on a boar hog. I got a couple of old Windows programs to finally load, but much of the GUI was gone and the programs would not work.
So, be wary of those posting ‘get Linux’. It is okay for hobbyists and programmers, but still has a long way to go to be user friendly.
I tried Win10 a year ago and went back to Win7 on my desktop and laptop.
I got pretty frantic combating the W10 upgrade aggressions until I was advised how to prevent the update notices as well as the update from coming into my space. I suspect MSFT will eventually get around that or will simply disable my W7. I am not at all interested in “upgrading” to a system that is slated to become an annual subscription. I would be off MSFT by now except I seem to suffer from some sort of digital block against Linux. Mostly I am unable to load versions of it and when I do get it successfully loaded my machine will short out or just stop working and after the fourth session with an IT guy (expensive) I give up on that version. I am still trying.
I like to do these installs on empty hard disks, they are likely to work without giving any trouble. I also tend to use older computers; the Dell Optiplex series works nicely. You can buy one for $25-50, and throw in an old hard drive, and you’re off.
The newer computers have Secure Boot, and may give trouble.
To initiate the install, you need a bootable medium. A bootable CD is easiest; I downloaded the minimal image of 16.04 from this handy page:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
For most standard computers like the Dell Optiplex, the 64-bit Xenial Xerius will do the job. You have to burn it to a CD as an image; insert a burnable CD in your CD-burner, right-click the image, and select ‘Burn Disc Image’. When you put the CD in a computer that has no OS on the hard drive and boot, the computer will boot from the CD.
The installation is mostly pretty standard if you just take the defaults. Some computer knowledge is advisable.
The latest update to Linux Mint has received rave reviews.
I haven’t tried it yet, though.
At this point, since microsoft is no longer “offering” the “upgrade” to windows 10, it’s probably relatively safe to turn on security updates on Win7. The problem is, MS is still trying to push out some of their telemetry programs to Win7. You have to know which ones to disable, and likely have to keep disabling them because MS has a habit of not accepting “no” for an answer. At one time I had a list of the telemetry ‘updates’, but haven’t bothered keeping track of it. I have Win7 running as a VM under Linux Mint so I can back up my iPhone. The only program that ever runs in that VM is iTunes so I’m not worrying about updates at all, as the VM is never used to browse the web.
That's what happened to my dad's machine. Did one to many Windows 10 blocks and it wouldn't update. Said to heck with it and went with the Windows 10 upgrade. Had major problems upgrading to 10 but finally got it working. The windows update service would hang after awhile. I stopped the update service. It automatically restarts by it self. Had to do this about 3 or 4 times. It has been working fine since last June. I should have sent MS a bill for 2 days of labor.
Once a message came on my screen, blocking everything, with no “x” or any visible way to remove it, asking me if I wanted to upgrade to Windows 10 now or a couple days in the future. No other choices. No opt out. I was furious! The tactics they have used are just plain wrong.
LinuxMint has been my most used OS for several years now.Works fine on everything online I need .Install was simple,just put Live DVDin and boot from it then click install.
You paid a scammer?????
Due, get off Windows. And learn to do a backup/system image.
The world awaits a program that, once installed on Windows 10, will block internet traffic that big brother uses to snoop on us. This doesn’t sound like a big job.
If big brother realized that the traffic was being blocked, it might retaliate, but if it did that then there might be grounds for a lawsuit.
bookmark
OK. I read the article, but I don’t see the “and won” part that is in the title. What was won? It doesn’t mention the winning.
Gates has been involved in subterfuge since before they tried to explain to everyone how to unistall IE by deleting the desktop icon.
Your program is already sniffed for and is deleted with every new update and the security is revamped to steal your information and keep it hidden from you in the process.
GOTO 10
RUN
LATHER!
GOTO 20
RUN
RINSE!
GOTO 10
I took the chance and upgraded one of my desktops to Win 10 (from Win7) back in March or April. While not completely trouble free, the installation was pretty easy, and the program ran well. I later upgraded all of my computers including a couple of Win 8.1 boxes.
Win 10 has been a good program with zero BSOD occurrences on on any of my machines.
I dual boot Ubuntu on the two desktops in my office and Win 10 upgrades have caused no issues with the existing Linux partitions. I’m not a Microsoft fan, but I give Windows 10 two thumbs up as a quality operating system. Since I didn’t have to pay anything for it, I can’t complain (Somebody else paid for the original Win 7 licenses).
Just set up an new Linux workstation, and ran into the adobe issue.
Quick google , paste a few lines into terminal, that was it!
IIRC Apple kissed off Adobe years ago, and MS not too far behind them.
If you require Windows software, you need Windows.
Outside of games and WORK things, not so much.
Dual boot!
Had a ransomware screen popup on me!!!I knew exactly what it was; oh crap! I quickly ran to a different computer to ask around about it.Linux is quick to rebuild, but you often loose some stuff.
THANK YOU LINUS TORVALDS!!!
It was a nothing burger!!! HA HA!
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