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Comment by Causality1 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder, if Gates was still driving Windows development would Windows 10 still spy on users and restrict their ability to control updates like it does with Nadella at the helm?

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Automatic updates are a good thing, otherwise far too many machines would be lagging behind on security fixes.

Can we stop this tired rhetoric? Yes ideally everyone would keep their system up to date 100% of the time, however it is not a good thing that users have that control stripped away from them, especially when these updates can actually have _adverse_ effects on their systems cough randomly deleting files cough.

I may disapprove of users not updating their systems, but I'll defend to the death their right to not do so.

No.

We cannot rely on people to keep their systems updated, and this behavior costs society billions of dollars annually. Because of this people need to either accept automated patching, or stay off of the public internet.

This is an entrenched aspect of our society: you're free to do what you want, until your behavior causes negative ramifications to the rest of us, at which point, we as a society reserve the right to regulate poor behavior.

You can already do that. Buy the business edition. Or use Linux and run windows in a VM. Or block the windows update system in one of a million ways including firewalling it. If you are really such a power user, you can do what you want already.

For the millions of others people who don't know how to find facebook without putting it into google search... yeah the automatic updates are good for them, and I'm tired of power users thinking their opinions are the only ones that matter.

Do you know where can I buy one license of the business edition?

I recently purchased a Pro license and couldn't find this "LTSB" (I believe it's called) version.

It's called Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 (there was a 2016 version as well). Without getting into the Byzantine nature of Microsoft licensing for their enterprise products, I recommend you just use local group policy to set the 'defer updates' option and put yourself on the Current Branch for Business release track in your current Windows 10 Pro.

Are you willing to accept responsibility for the breach then?

I see it as an analog to public health issues. If you are going to use the public internet, then you need to have automatic updates on.

This feels a little like if you are going to attend a public school, you need to be vaccinated.

> updates can actually have _adverse_ effects on their systems

While Microsoft's QA leaves much to be desired, there are plenty of instances where non-updated machines have had adverse effects on other people's systems.

Yes I remember Gates was a true Saint when he was running Microsoft.

I hate Windows10 like anyone with any self respect and appreciation to Privacy, and this is why I am still on a heavily fortified Win8.1 (with Classic Shell UI).

Microsoft is doing what Facebook is doing. You either 'shut up' and accept the T&C, or go your merry way and use Fedora and SMS.

They don't do it for the fun of it, they do it for the $$$ of it. And since both they got greedy shareholders to keep happy, there is only one way forward (for these/such companies).

Apologies for the follow-up, no spam intended.

For this AMA he self-identified as "co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation", and I have to admit that as a syst-admin 'some time ago', I made my living with Microsoft products.

And now as a 'wiser' (snicker) human being, I appreciate his efforts to improve Humanity via his dedication and actions.

LOL, your humor is much appreciated. :-)

https://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/No-Bull-Bill-Gate...

History will forget all of that. His humanitarian efforts are going to have a much larger and longer lasting positive impact than anything he did at Microsoft.

Gates would be just as ruthless, if not more. Don't let his shift in focus to humanitarian issues fool you. Microsoft can't rely on its consumer brand prestige like Apple can (thus selling orders of magnitudes more devices), so it needs to extract as much revenue as it can from consumer machines.

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