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Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

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bmw
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Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by bmw » Thu Jun 03, 2021 8:37 am

While it is unclear whether it will retain the name "Windows 10" or some variant thereof....
At Build, Nadella said he's been testing the new OS for the past few months. He added, "We will create more opportunity for every Windows developer today and welcome every creator who is looking for the most innovative, new, open platform to build and distribute and monetize applications.
https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-wind ... 09239.html

Great. Just what Windows needs - more aggressive bloat and adware. HOW ABOUT FIXING THE DAILY ERRORS AND BUGS?

I miss the days when Windows was just an operating system. Now it is an eco system, and a bloated, buggy one at that. On the computer I sell, I have mostly moved on from Windows 7 unless the customer requests it, and over the past 3 years, my Windows 10 installation image files keep getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Now-a-days, a base install (without any 3rd party bloat) with nothing more than Google Chrome installed as additional software barely leaves 80 GB of free space on a 128 GB hard drive. That number was closer to 90 GB not all that long ago. And as time goes on, I am getting more and more computers in for repair for no reason other than a Windows update broke something.



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audiophile
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by audiophile » Thu Jun 03, 2021 7:22 pm

How do you fix, roll back registry files by hand?


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bmw
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by bmw » Thu Jun 03, 2021 8:38 pm

You can (sometimes) uninstall the problematic update, IF you can figure out which update broke things. But then good luck getting it to not just auto-download again, even if you tell it not to.

Microsoft's updates are EXTREMELY aggressive.

Often times people's systems are so jacked up I end up suggesting a fresh installation of Windows (I keep fully updates Windows 10 images ready to go) and just transferring their data over.



kager
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by kager » Sat Jun 05, 2021 9:17 am

bmw wrote:
Thu Jun 03, 2021 8:37 am
While it is unclear whether it will retain the name "Windows 10" or some variant thereof....
At Build, Nadella said he's been testing the new OS for the past few months. He added, "We will create more opportunity for every Windows developer today and welcome every creator who is looking for the most innovative, new, open platform to build and distribute and monetize applications.
https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-wind ... 09239.html

Great. Just what Windows needs - more aggressive bloat and adware. HOW ABOUT FIXING THE DAILY ERRORS AND BUGS?

I miss the days when Windows was just an operating system. Now it is an eco system, and a bloated, buggy one at that. On the computer I sell, I have mostly moved on from Windows 7 unless the customer requests it, and over the past 3 years, my Windows 10 installation image files keep getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Now-a-days, a base install (without any 3rd party bloat) with nothing more than Google Chrome installed as additional software barely leaves 80 GB of free space on a 128 GB hard drive. That number was closer to 90 GB not all that long ago. And as time goes on, I am getting more and more computers in for repair for no reason other than a Windows update broke something.
Thanks for sharing. I liked the snark comment below the article on Engadget suggesting the change would be a 'new colour for BSOD' :lol

The MS-Mantra since release has been that Windows 10 would be the 'last version of Windows'... The company has marketing types that still need follow Apple's every move (which has GOT to be getting dull these days - rainbow iMac, purple iPhone - wow) and maybe this 'change' on the 24th will mark a departure from that?

Or not.

It will likely just further make the OS an advertising platform disguised as a tool.


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MWmetalhead
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by MWmetalhead » Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:17 pm

Great post, bmw.

Over the past ten days, I had what looked like a splash screen (upon boot up) appear three times welcoming me to Windows 10 and asking me to "make the most of Windows 10." In the lower left corner, there was an option - in small text, of course - giving me the option to skip and to "remind me" to review the recommended actions in three days.

Long story short - the splash screen was attempting to compel me to install a bunch of Windows crap on my smart phone, and (to make matters worse) to compel me to move all of my Google Chrome favorites to Microsoft Edge and to change Edge to my default browser.

Alas, I was able to reject Microsoft's recommendations, but holy crap, did I find that splash screen intrusive. It reminds me of something one might see upon booting a new computer for the first time. I've been using this machine for seven years and Windows 10 for close to 18 months.

Microsoft should instead focus on fixing the horrible pivot tables functionality in Excel, fixing the horrible charts functionality in Excel, fixing the horrible headers and footers functionality in Word, fixing the horrible section breaks functionality in Word, and fixing the horrible bullet points functionality in Word.

I *do* actually like Windows 10 quite a bit. However, Microsoft has a history of taking something that works reasonably well and then replacing it with something that is inferior.



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Bull Shannon
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by Bull Shannon » Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:35 pm

128GB is TINY for a primary drive these days. Most major brands aren't selling with anything smaller than 500GB. 250 at the very least.



bmw
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by bmw » Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:17 am

128GB is plenty for the vast majority of my clients who primarily use their desktop or laptop to surf the internet, use Microsoft Office, and perhaps upload some photos from their camera. The rare person who requires 250GB is someone who just plain has a TON of photos, and I think I've had maybe 2 people that require larger - in both of those cases those people had large music libraries. Now a gaming, video editing, or graphic arts machine would admittedly be a different story, but even then those people can often get away with something like a 250GB primary SSD and a 1 TB or larger secondary mechanical drive.

I used to manage a school district's computers, including labs - and in our process of upgrading everything from mechanical to SSD back in 2013-2014, we upgraded most everything to 60GB drives, which was plenty for Windows 7, the necessary installed software, and everyone saved their work to a NAS in the server room.



bmw
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by bmw » Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:22 am

MW - to add to your observations, one of my biggest pet peeves (albeit admittedly a minor one) is when Microsoft keeps pinning their crap back to my task bar after I've unpinned it. I'm so tired re-removing Edge.

My bigger pet peeve is how they've REMOVED your ability to create just a local account upon a fresh Windows install. Literally the only way you can get around not having to tie your machine to an online Microsoft account is to disconnect your internet first, make sure you don't connect it to wifi on the earlier screens, and then and only then will it give you the option to create a local account. This kind of forced entry into their online ecosystem where you have to come up with work-arounds when the built-in functionally does still exist is utter BS and is one of the worst business practices in the industry.

It is quite clear that Microsoft's business model has shifted form making revenue off of the OS itself (note that you can STILL activate, to this day, Windows 10 with either a Windows 7 COA or on any motherboard with an embedded Windows 8 license) to instead making money from their aggressive eco system.



bmw
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by bmw » Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:28 am

Lastly, I am starting to notice that Windows 10 is starting to take longer to boot up to a desktop screen as the updates keep coming. I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until a client last week requested Windows 7 on his moderately-specced laptop (a 3rd or 4th generation i5 CPU with 8 GB of ram and HD 3000 intel onboard graphics, but an SSD). I had kind of forgotten how fast Windows 7 boots up on that level of hardware - I'm certain Windows 10 would have taken an additional 10 seconds or so from power on to a desktop on that exact machine.



km1125
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by km1125 » Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:40 am

One of the workarounds that used to work really good was to get your internet connection to "metered connection". That seems to stop a lot of the BS MS updates, but it seems like more are getting through on Win10 than they used to.



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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by ZenithCKLW » Mon Jun 07, 2021 11:18 am

bmw wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:22 am
My bigger pet peeve is how they've REMOVED your ability to create just a local account upon a fresh Windows install. Literally the only way you can get around not having to tie your machine to an online Microsoft account is to disconnect your internet first, make sure you don't connect it to wifi on the earlier screens, and then and only then will it give you the option to create a local account. This kind of forced entry into their online ecosystem where you have to come up with work-arounds when the built-in functionally does still exist is utter BS and is one of the worst business practices in the industry.
As an IT Director myself with experience going back to DOS and Windows 3.1, I found myself getting flat out pissed off recently at not being able to figure out how to set up a local account. I can't even prepare a computer after a factory reset. I sold a used company computer, reset back to "factory" to a colleague for personal purposes, (allowing him to set it up with his own account and password with absolutely no company involvement per policy). When he asked for guidance how to set up the damn thing, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get that set up. He connected to wifi already at the first step, and now I can't figure out how to back out of that, which makes me feel tricked by Microsoft.

The fact that he has to set up a Microsoft account to simply set up a new computer and get to a desktop is ludicrous. Even Apple lets you use their product without being signed in with an Apple ID. This is only one thing for which many people distrust the tech industry.



bmw
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by bmw » Mon Jun 07, 2021 11:35 am

ZenithCKLW wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 11:18 am
When he asked for guidance how to set up the damn thing, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get that set up. He connected to wifi already at the first step, and now I can't figure out how to back out of that, which makes me feel tricked by Microsoft.
I can't recall if you can go backwards through those install screens or not to undo the wifi connection. If not, I suppose he could just power down his wifi router while setting up - that would effectively kill the connection.



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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by kager » Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:20 am

I didn't know this 'lack of local account during setup' limitation existed until I looked it up. Only exists with WX Home (my company only uses that in a software test / QA environment.) You can still create a local account after the fact, and delete the MS account afterwards...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answer ... unt-n.html

WX Pro asks whether the PC is being set up for an individual or organization, and you can easily set up a local admin account by choosing the latter and then domain-join - even if you have no plan on joining it to a domain.

If you are buying company computers with WX Home, I recommend you pony up the extra $$$ for Pro. If you are selling company computers with WX Home, well...
ZenithCKLW wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 11:18 am
The fact that he has to set up a Microsoft account to simply set up a new computer and get to a desktop is ludicrous. Even Apple lets you use their product without being signed in with an Apple ID. This is only one thing for which many people distrust the tech industry.
It's not so apparent with Apple, either, sorry. The number of things you can do on any Apple device without being signed in has diminished significantly.


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ZenithCKLW
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by ZenithCKLW » Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:36 am

kager wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:20 am
It's not so apparent with Apple, either, sorry. The number of things you can do on any Apple device without being signed in has diminished significantly.
You're right, Apple still requires your Apple ID for lots of functionality. However, Windows won't let you get past step 1 without it. In comparison, on a Mac, you can bypass signing in and still reach a web browser, install non-App Store software, and receive software updates. I know this because many of my Apple users don't use the Apple ID. On this particular PC, which does have Windows 10 Pro (all of the PC's in my company have Pro; I won't allow Home versions), the new owner simply wants it to surf the web, but we can't get past that spot.



bmw
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Re: Major update to Microsoft Windows coming later this month

Post by bmw » Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:52 am

kager wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:20 am
I didn't know this 'lack of local account during setup' limitation existed until I looked it up. Only exists with WX Home (my company only uses that in a software test / QA environment.) You can still create a local account after the fact, and delete the MS account afterwards...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answer ... unt-n.html
Yeah, and how many home users are going to delete their MS account after-the-fact and create a local account? That number is probably in the low single-digit percentile, and Microsoft knows this. It is still a terrible business practice. Given that Windows 10 Home does in fact support local account functionality, that should be offered as an option upon installation. Knowingly and intentionally creating unnecessary hoops for people to jump through in order to use software a certain way is in my opinion bordering on an unethical business practice.



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