Bill Gates leaves MS board

[nctnico]

This way MS get their license money up front, the OEMs sell their PCs complete with OS and legit COA,
and the customer fires up their new Win 10 PC that just works out of the box,
with an OS that behaves and does what it's TOLD,
an OS that doesn't meander off to the internet to play the sneaky unauthorized update game,

The problem with PCs with an OS that doesn't get updated is they become vulnerable to exploits and wind up as part of botnets. Making updates optional doesn't help here because most won't bother to update their systems ever.

You have to divide that into OS updates and application updates. OS updates are less important since the biggest attack vector are the applications. Now the problem with Windows is that there isn't a very clear dividing line between the OS and the applications. The WMF attack comes to mind as an example.

[Sal Ammoniac]

For all the talk about exploits and vulnerabilities, I've yet to see it happen on a consumer PC. I've cleaned up many dozens of infected machines and always without exception the user had installed something. As long as the browser is up to date the biggest most wide open attack vector is the user. Next probably the browser, I use Adblock and Noscript always. Not saying it's impossible, but the risks of running an old unpatched operating system are dramatically overblown and the resistance to updating is Microsoft's own doing by bundling security updates with feature and UI changes, and by requiring a stream of constant reboots.

I've seen it happen on three PCs, but those machines were basically servers (although they were running a consumer version of Windows) that were never updated, either the OS or the apps.

[james_s]

For all the talk about exploits and vulnerabilities, I've yet to see it happen on a consumer PC. I've cleaned up many dozens of infected machines and always without exception the user had installed something. As long as the browser is up to date the biggest most wide open attack vector is the user. Next probably the browser, I use Adblock and Noscript always. Not saying it's impossible, but the risks of running an old unpatched operating system are dramatically overblown and the resistance to updating is Microsoft's own doing by bundling security updates with feature and UI changes, and by requiring a stream of constant reboots.

I've seen it happen on three PCs, but those machines were basically servers (although they were running a consumer version of Windows) that were never updated, either the OS or the apps.

Well that's not really the same thing. I mean if you have a server that is exposed to the outside world then yes you need to keep it up to date, but a non-server OS on a server is a problem in itself.

The problem is forced updates on desktop/laptop machines which not only rudely change features and functionality, annoyingly revert settings that the user deliberately took time to set and occasionally uninstall programs, but also they wake the machine in the middle of the night or hijack it for an hour or more right when you're trying to get some work done.

I've seen a business put on hold for over an hour when the PC they used for all the client invoicing and credit card processing decided to update in the middle of the work day, I've had my work laptop hijacked right at the start of a meetinrbg when I was about to present something. My friend who lives in a studio apartment has complained of his gaming PC waking up in the middle of the night, fans roaring and lights blazing to install updates. The whole thing is just poorly thought out, they have made some improvements but these are all things I would consider the bare minimum that should have shipped in the first place. An operating system as a service is not the way to go, users want to customize and control their OS.

[Karel]

... users want to customize and control their OS.

And microsoft don't want you to be in control anymore. They want to take over control of your pc.
And they are getting away with it. Most people don't care. And the people who care and who would
like to switch to another os can not do that because they need some special software that only runs on windows.
So, nothing is going to change and people wil continue to swallow it.

[Electro Detective]

   ..and how does one debate with herds of idiots, that think they know better than someone who actually does know better