Windows 7, 8.1 moving to Windows 10’s cumulative update model
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Desktop style messed up, taskbar messed up (IE and something else magically decide to come back), a few things added to startup, some new windows 10 Skype app trying to log me in without even asking (really?? and it basically "stole" the credentials from the regular app?? quickly uninstalled it), SkyDrive pops up and tries to do stuff, VirtualBox broken for some reason - had to reinstall, a few file associations reverted to defaults, and most funnily no obvious new features.
It's like someone searching through your house leaving a big mess behind without a decent excuse.
I have noticed that thanks to UEFI (or something related to it) my laptop can no start doing things in the middle of the night even if i put it very firmly to sleep earlier.
This migration is not quite seamless, always a few options/settings that have to be re-done manually for me.
But that has nothing to do with this new cumulative security update model, it's not a full re-installation.
At this point with new lap I just buy Windows 7 and Office 2010 and with limited updates first then turned off I'm a happy camper and hadn't had issue, virus or malware since 2007.
I tried Mac few times but for someone who loves Total Commander, I was totally lost :(
Will any Linux with decent GUI do it?
Original: http://www.computerworld.com/article/3023533/microsoft-windo...
Later: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/225075-microsoft-gives-...
Whether Intel's new processor, Kaby Lake, is supported by Windows 7 I don't know. If someone does I would be interested.
Seems Microsoft's aggressive upgrade strategy has not ended even though the recent successful lawsuits.
So as things stand, if you buy a new PC with Windows after that date, you're getting Windows 10 preinstalled whether you like it or not. In some cases, it looks like downgrade rights might still apply, but that involves a lot of hassle and may depend on the willingness of your OEM to support it.
Whether the OEMs will actually stand for this, I don't know. Vendors we buy from still tend to supply Windows 7 Pro by default on new business laptops, for example, which suits us (small business environment) fine since we have no interest in moving to Windows 10. If Microsoft turns around in a couple of months and tells OEMs they can no longer sell what their customers want to buy, there's going to be a mighty fight.
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifec...
Each time that Windows update comes in and forces me to update and shut down is a day I dread. This hardware worked so well under Windows 7 and causes headaches under Windows 10.
I've run the "Problem Fixer" utility for Windows Update, deleted the update cache, and all the other recommendations with no success. I end up killing the wuauserv service to free up that CPU.
It used to work 100% fine until the Windows 10 nag/forced upgrade debacle started being pushed out.
This is the last version of Windows I will run.
Like others posting here, we see the service host process spinning an entire core at around 100%. That keeps the CPU clock speeds and power draw up all the time as a notable side effect.
This seems to be a separate issue from problems with Windows Update taking hours to check for and/or apply the updates themselves.
IMO a better approach would be to offload the work to MS: upload a list of applied updates and let the cloud do the crunching. Much higher chance of memoizing and reusing work that way too. It's a sign of MS's client oriented culture still sticking around.
And indeed, it wasn't until I loaded up Process Hacker to find out exactly what process was gobbling the CPU.
When I actually want to update, I start the update widget manually. Still takes many hours to update, but it's elective and can be run overnight on mains.
Good that MS never shipped a crappy update like that. /s
Another big "fuck you" and taking away control over own machines.
Considering how poorly the average end user maintains their machines and the sheer quantity of malware out there, taking away control over their own machines is the kindest thing MS can do.
Microsoft have caused a huge number of serious problems with Windows 7 updates over the past year, many of which could be avoided by not installing a bad update.
And you see this across the board, from Microsoft to Apple, and even among the Linux user space developers.
Callous as this may sound, what about them? As technical professionals, you know as well as I do that we have to design for the worst or average case, not the best case. Put another way, wearing a seatbelt is mandated by law, no matter how good a driver one is.
And don't get me wrong; I find the additional restrictions on consumer versions of Windows 10 to be tremendously irritating too. But that doesn't change anything.
Obviously Microsoft can choose to shaft those people anyway. After all, what are they going to do, sue? However, in doing so, it's going to further alienate a substantial and influential part of its user base. There are going to be consequences for that in the long term, or possibly even the not-so-long term if they start bundling essential security updates with other potentially undesirable things very soon as part of this exercise.
I actually had a vendor tell me LAST WEEK that the solution to their software not working was to uninstall one Windows Update from two months ago temporarily while the issue is resolved. That's a plausibly reasonable scenario, unless, as you can guess where this is going, you have Windows 10 deployed. Then the "solution" becomes "remove all cumulative updates for the last two months", which is a colossal joke and non-option to which my answer was "uh... no".
On Debian, CentOS, or FreeBSD, server and desktop, I usually install all and any updates that are available, reboot if there is an update to the kernel (or libc) and move on.
The fact that there is even a need for "patch management" beyond "just ing deploy them already" is ... embarrassing for Microsoft, IMHO. But simply installing any and all updates that Microsoft publishes has shown to be a bad idea. So I really hope that at least using a WSUS will allow me to pick what updates get installed.
Can anyone use WSUS and SCCM, or are these licensed separately, e.g. with Windows Server?
Could the US FTC require that security updates be delivered separately as a condition of sale, i.e. cannot be bundled with non-security updates? They are already studying mobile device security updates, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/05/ftc-s...:
"In order to gain a better understanding of security in the mobile ecosystem, the Federal Trade Commission has issued orders to eight mobile device manufacturers requiring them to provide the agency with information about how they issue security updates to address vulnerabilities in smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. The eight companies receiving orders from the FTC are: Apple, Inc.; Blackberry Corp.; Google, Inc.; HTC America, Inc.; LG Electronics USA, Inc.; Microsoft Corp.; Motorola Mobility, LLC; and Samsung Electronics America, Inc."
Edit: looks like a user or device CAL (Client Access License) is needed for each Windows 7 instance that is connecting to WSUS to receive security updates.
Edit2: it may be possible to manually copy security-only update files from WSUS to unmanaged Win7 clients that have no CAL.
2003 reached end of life on July 14, 2015...
Getting definitive licensing answers out of MSFT has proven difficult for me. I've gotten varying answers from different people in the past (not necessarily about this topic). MSFT definitely keeps things vague, IMO, to keep their options open.
Which coincidentally is when my infrequently booted windows install started crashing in the middle of windows update. (Update enabled, 10 min uptime. Update disabled, Days, with sleep/hibernate/wake cycles)
The obvious suspicion here is that bundling the changes is an excuse for Microsoft to force updates people don't want, Windows 10 style, onto people whose Windows 7/8 systems currently allow them to choose.
> This means that the ability to pick and choose individual fixes to apply will be removed; they'll be distributed and deployed as a singular all-or-nothing proposition.
So, if this "update" contains the Windows 10 nagware or all that fancy new "telemetry" that I definitely do not want, I don't have an option...
I currently run Windows 7 on a VM on OS X, using it only to (a) digitally sign documents since the hardware key that is provided only works on Windows, and (b) do my annual IT returns with an Excel utility that again, only runs on Windows. Looks like (b) is no longer an issue - there's now a Java utility that does the same thing. Now if only I had a way out of (a), I'd get rid of Win altogether.
> This means that the ability to pick and choose individual fixes to apply will be removed; they'll be distributed and deployed as a singular all-or-nothing proposition.
My concern is whether they will stop shipping the separate security updates that have already been released, which are useful for patching a new system on first boot.