Microsoft Is Firing Their Customers 4
5/2016 Updated below:
Pressing the X to close the update will cause the update to occur according to a slashdot article. Desperate. Really desperate. Also, they’ve added a new recommended patch, so anyone with automatic patching will be screwed. Need to add more more patch to the ignore list.
When you run a small business, one of the lessons to learn is that sometimes you need to fire some customers. This is mainly due to bad pricing in an initial contract when we just start out. The rates in early contracts don’t usually reflect the real-world, competitive rates from other competitors.
As a small biz gets other clients, those new clients are usually given higher rates. That can make service providers less-than-happy dealing with other clients for less money.
3/2016 update – Microsoft is back at it pushing Win10 advertising as part of critical updates which aren’t critical.
So – back to Microsoft and their situation …
Different Competition
Sadly for them, Microsoft’s competition is charging $0 or $20 for an OS, so their $130 retail pricing is significantly higher. It is hard to compete on price with $0.
Windows still does some things that other OSes do not do well enough. For me, those things were:
- Recording TV through Windows Media Center
- Free schedule data included
- Video Editing with EDL support
- Quicken
- Certain video recording devices only have Windows drivers
that’s it.
For everything else – EVERYTHING ELSE – a Linux install exceeds my needs. I get frustrated using Windows for all the simple things that Linux does and Windows make hard. That is my viewpoint. Scripting on Windows sorta … sucks.
July 2015 – Schedules Break Media Center
Last July, Microsoft decided to change TV schedule providers. I was slightly worried, but as a long time TiVo user, wasn’t too worried. I had two systems recording TV and they mostly work well, up to that point. After the change, neither system ever got schedule data again. I’ve removed and reinstalled media center a few times on each system. I’ve manually wiped the ehome directories. Nothing has helped. One system is 32-bit and the other is 64-bit. One is on a laptop, the other is running inside a KVM virtual machine. Both of these systems have been working FOR YEARS recording TV.
When the TV recording stopped working, the primary reason for one of those systems disappears. That’s one license less that I need Microsoft.
Windows7, 8, 8.1, 10 Privacy Changes
Microsoft has decided that they need to have access to more information on my computers. Initially it was just for Windows10 – which I’ve decided wouldn’t be useful for my need – after all – without media center, I just don’t want it. Then more and more anti-privacy items about Win10 have been released.
- Keyboard logging – everything typed is sent to Microsoft!
- Encrypted disks – the keys to unlock it are sent to Microsoft!
- Searching the disks for “illegal files” – not really a big deal for me, but as a privacy advocate, it is just wrong!
- Disabling commonly used methods to block networking through /etc/hosts – Microsoft has decided that for their telemetry needs, the hosts file would be ignored. That breaks OS networking, IMHO.
You can easily find all the other spying things that Microsoft has decided to include in Windows10 with a websearch. However, the back-porting of those same items to Win8 and Win7 is surprising to everyone.
Disabling The Spying
Over on Slashdot, someone wrote up a guide for how to disable most of these items.
It is non-trivial and some of the most important items in that guide are not available on Home Premium systems.
- uninstall about 10-15 patches
- change the group policy
- disabled multiple scheduled tasks
- Delete Diagtrack (whatever that is)
- Disable Remote Registry (whatever that is) in Services
- Disable lots of Media Center stuff – which I didn’t do.
Do you have dangerous patches installed? Open powershell and run this on a single line:
get-hotfix -id KB2952664 , KB2976978, KB2977759 , KB2990214, KB3021917, KB3022345, KB3035583 , KB3044374, KB3068708, KB3075249 , KB3080149, KB3146449, KB3123862
To remove all those patches, drop this into a file.cmd and run it:
for %%patch in (
2952664
2976978
2977759
2990214
3021917
3022345
3035583
3044374
3068708
3075249
3080149
3146449
3123862
) do start "" /w %%patch /passive /norestart
Enjoy. Be certain to Hide those updates so they aren’t reinstalled next patch cycle. Updated 5/2016 to prevent another Microsoft browser infection with ads.
Someday, Media Center might start working – who knows?
Microsoft is making it harder to swallow their offerings. I just cannot do it any more.
Microsoft Pushing Win10
Seems MSFT is pushing Windows 10 to anyone with automatic updates enabled.
They are desperate. I foresee a class action lawsuit by all the people on metered internet plans since they will be hit with a 3.5G download they didn’t want.
Microsoft Is Firing Me
- One of my Windows licenses was a gift from Microsoft for attending an event back in 2007/8 (don’t remember exactly). It is a “retail” version.
- Other was pre-installed on a Dell laptop which is nearing EOL for me.
- Quicken can be run in WINE under Linux.
- Video editing can be done, just not with EDL. Comskip works great on Linux.
- The Windows-only video capture device broke earlier this year and while it was being repaired, I discovered an $80 device that can do the same thing and doesn’t require Windows.
Windows hasn’t supported my printer-scanner since Vista, so I’ve been printing from Linux for years. The lack of drivers goes both ways, Microsoft.
Stopped drinking the MSFT Koolaid years ago. Expected to continue using Win7 and media center until support ends in 2020-ish.
My Mother ran Linux (Lubuntu) from 2009 until 2013. Linux isn’t that hard folks.
Nobody should have to pick an operating system just to avoid unwanted tracking.
It appears that Microsoft feels they need to fire me as a customer. Oh well.
There is a report on /. today that Microsoft is automatically downloading Windows10 to all Win7 and later users who haven’t updated.
Original story from the Inquirer
People on metered internet plans are really pissed. Looks like a class-action lawsuit will be in Microsoft’s future. Not everyone agreed to the new terms of service that are in Win10 which allows all of this crap.
Looks like my router firewall will need to block anything to/from Miscrosoft. Sad.
Ars Article about Win10 being automatically installed.
Microsoft needs a class action lawsuit for this crap to stop.
March 2016 and MSFT is pushing automatic updates still?
Automatic push to install Win10 is still happening
kb3123862 – avoid. Seems like the first patch that pushed Win10 on the world according to infoworld. They recommend avoiding it.
Also, previously hidden patches (that I manually hide) have become unhidden again. Thanks Microsoft – NOT! This is just slimy.
Plus just noticed that 7MC guide data runs out in 5 days. This should have 10 days of data – though most guide data is 14 days, MSFT never did this. Some quick searching and it appears the TV schedule data screw up happens every year in Windows Media Center due to DST change-over. Embarrassing. At least I would be embarrassed if I worked at MSFT. This isn’t something new. They should have this on their calendars to be handled. If they don’t resolve it and I’m forced to move to a different solution, that’s 1 less reason to use anything from MSFT (I’m down to 3 reasons today).
Problems is all I have with Windows these days. Problems and more problems. Flash has started locking up the system too – all this started when I applied patches a few days ago from MSFT. The Window box isn’t on the internet much. It is not my daily driver and only used with reputable sites – adobe, microsoft, fina.org … you get the idea. I don’t visit media sites like youtube or CNN or Fox or BCC with this machine. Programs aren’t constantly tried out on it either. The last program installed was over a year ago, besides patches from MSFT.
I don’t know what is going on at Microsoft, but it isn’t good. They truly are trying to fire their customers.