Windows is getting disgusting

[blueskull]

Long story short, I downloaded Win10 form Windows update, but decided not to install it. It kept popping up to ask if I want to install it now. About a week ago, I finally decided to upgrade, but it failed and I got just black screen. After a force shutdown, it restored itself to Win7. After a reboot, it showed update fail, and I removed the update from Windows Update.

Today, without letting me know, it automatically upgraded to Win10 . I pulled the plug, and now it rolled back to Win7 again.

Is there anyway to permanently prevent Win10 from getting into my hard drive?

[IanJ]

I like Win7 on my dev PC, and I don't really mind Win10....but only on my other general purpose PC's, laptops etc.
What frustrates me on the Win7 machine is that I told Windows Update to "hide" the Win10 update nag.........but it only lasts a month and then it's back again. Grrrr!

All my Win7 to Win10 upgrades have gone faultlessly though.

Ian.

[crispy_tofu]

There's a program called GWX Control Panel that might be able to do what you want (no affiliation). 

[Psi]

win10 is mature enough now.

[Brumby]

What frustrates me on the Win7 machine is that I told Windows Update to "hide" the Win10 update nag.........but it only lasts a month and then it's back again. Grrrr!

Running Win 7 here and I, too, had that irritating nag.  The classic removal steps worked fine for a while (probably about a month) and then it magically reappeared.  I had wondered if MS would do something like this, so I wasn't really surprised when it happened - but I was annoyed.  However, I created my own solution that seems to be working a treat.

I simply created a program that did nothing, then copied it into the location(s) where the program gwx.exe lived.  I then renamed gwx.exe to oldgwx.exe (in case I needed to get it back for some reason) and then renamed my 'return' program to gwx.exe.

Now when the nag is kicked off, it simply runs my program which does absolutely nothing but end successfully.  I'm really happy.

If anyone is interested, I can put it up as an attachment (if putting up an .exe file is permitted)

[continuo]

Is there anyway to permanently prevent Win10 from getting into my hard drive?

Check this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

[rdl]

All I ever did was review every non-security ("important") update. There are very few of those and it's pretty easy to tell which are "upgrade" related. If you need to go back and remove them manually there are web sites which list them all by kb number and provide removal instructions.

[Homer J Simpson]

I just went back to Windows 7 and could not be happier. Ran 10 for about 3 months, (yuck), IMO.

Also, it has already been mentioned in the thread but I highly recommend GWX Control Panel if you are running 7. It will remove and stop the Windows 10 upgrade garbage.

http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

[v8dave]

I am generally happy with Win10 but one bugging thing is that their new browser Edge keeps changing the default PDF viewer to itself no matter how many times I change it in the settings to use Adobe Acrobat.

It also keep settings itself as the default browser even though I have continued to tell Chrome to be the default.

Microsoft seem to be driving things their way again and this is not good.

[madires]

Uninstall and hide Windows Update KB3035583.

or

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx]
"DisableGwx"=dword:00000001

[Lightages]

You might also want to run this:
https://github.com/WindowsLies/BlockWindows

It adds blocking in your hosts files for servers for the other spying programs being installed during updates even if you don't install windows 10, and also removes and blocks those updates.

Any other time in history, Windows 10 forced updates would be called a trojan horse.

[nctnico]

W10 is a better and faster operating system than the older ones

That is what people said when Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows7, Windows8 and now Windows 10 where released. The simple reality is that Windows slows itself down over time so a fresh install or a new version will always feel faster. However after a couple of months it will have slowed itself down again to snail speed no matter what kind of computer you throw at it.

[rdl]

It's best just to re-install Windows once a year anyway. Try to use as much portable software as possible to keep from cluttering up the registry. Windows 10 benefits Microsoft more than the users due to all the spyware and attacks on your freedom, in that they wish to turn all PCs into a locked down system like X-Box. Best to stay with Windows 7, but be watchful and begin the move to Linux.

For years many people have said Microsoft was evil. I would say, no they are just incompetent. I was wrong.

[eugenenine]

W10 is a better and faster operating system than the older ones

That is what people said when Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows7, Windows8 and now Windows 10 where released. The simple reality is that Windows slows itself down over time so a fresh install or a new version will always feel faster. However after a couple of months it will have slowed itself down again to snail speed no matter what kind of computer you throw at it.

You have the two product lines rolled together, WinNT wasn't the successor to 95.  NT 3.5 then NT4 then W2000 were the business products in parallel with 95, 98 and ME.  XP was where they combined them.
I ran win 3.1 then 3.11 then 95, then NT4, tried 98 for a day but it was a total bust and went back to NT4 until 2k.  Ran 2k until XP then bought a new laptop in 2002 with XP and it was just a let down after 2k that after a year I switched to Linux and never went back.  Still have that old laptop and it can still run the same current version of Linux I run now.
Bought my wife a new laptop with 8 last year and it was so unusable that the laptop sat for months just being used as a stand for her phone.  She upgraded to 10 and it almost works now so she can get a little bit of work done on it now but still user her phone more.  Was a nice laptop too, if the store hadn't run out of stock I'd have bought myself one too, was a refurbished deal for a good price such a shame to see it go to waste.

[nctnico]

I switched to Linux too. I'm thinking about getting a new laptop but having it run Linux as the primary OS and XP in a VM for legacy support seems like a very good idea. I installed Windows 8 in a VM once. I had a  moment, scratched the back of my head and deleted the VM.

[NiHaoMike]

Maybe it's time to make some software that feeds the "spyware" junk to make it harder to get actual data from it?

I just use Linux...

[bingo600]

Linux for me too

Debian on servers , and Mint 17 on workstation/lappy's

I actually need to have one functioning windows for updating my Garmin GPS , as i have no Mac 

Quartus & ISE are native linux @ here 

lt-spice runs ok in wine

/Bingo

Ps: I just discovered shutter , a "snagit lookalike" for linux .... 

Maybe we should have a : What ee-related programs do you use in linux thread

[Zero999]

Is there anyway to permanently prevent Win10 from getting into my hard drive?

Check this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

I did that a few months ago and it hasn't bugged me since.

I will probably upgrade to Windows 10 but will do so when I want to, not when M$ pushes it on me.

[nctnico]

It's best just to re-install Windows once a year anyway.

And spend most of a week to reinstall & reconfigure all the software? No thanks! I make a snapshot every now and then so if Windows starts to misbehave I just roll the snapshot back.

[VK3DRB]

win10 is mature enough now.

You are joking aren't you.

Windows 10 is still a lot slower to boot up than Window 7. Worse still is the "I think am booted up" rubbish where keystrokes are delayed or are lost altogether, and the browser does not work when invoked early. None of this happened under Windows 7. And there still are too many bugs in Windows 10, like screen refresh problems. Give it 2 years and maybe it will be stable.

Why Gates never thought it was an idea to give Windows a subsystem boot status, as Linux has, beggars belief. Quote from Gates himself... “If you can't make it good, at least make it look good.”

As much as I dislike Windows bloatware, at least Windows 7 was stable and they called programs "programs". The buffoons at Microsoft now call programs "apps", and soon you all will doing the same, as you are being reprogrammed to do.

[Howardlong]

The buffoons at Microsoft

To put it into perspective, Steven Sinofsky, former President of the Windows Division, and who we can all thank for Windows 8, is on the board of investments at Andreessen Horowitz, who invested in.... uBeam.

[DimitriP]

Steven Sinofsky,
It was just a gig, and now he is on the next one...
May all his windows be dirty forever

[rjeberhardt]

Why can't Microsoft write a system which will continue working while updates are in progress like Linux?  I use Linux 95% of the time but when I must boot into Windows (because I need to run something I can't run under Linux such as updating my GPS) Windows always decides that it must do some updates and makes me wait half an hour or so before it will let me in, frequently rebooting into Linux unless I sit watching it.

As for "Moving to Linux is not a viable solution for non technical users", I installed PCLinuxOS on my wife's computer and she wouldn't go back to Windows if it was the last OS on Earth!

Russell.

[rdl]

And spend most of a week to reinstall & reconfigure all the software? No thanks! I make a snapshot every now and then so if Windows starts to misbehave I just roll the snapshot back.

This won't work for everything, but you would be surprised at how much software doesn't actually need to be "installed". Put a copy of the program folder on a different machine or a flash drive and try it. Note that if the developer was an idiot and stored settings in the registry instead of a proper configuration file, then there may be some additional set up required.

I have a general rule that any programs I use must be able to run in portable mode, or close to it. The only exception would be something I really, really need but will not run unless actually installed.

[Karel]

Moving to Linux is not a viable solution for non technical users.

It's true that windows is meant for non technical users.  That's one of the many reasons I don't work with it.