Microsoft Makes Major Changes to Windows 10 Updating
thurrott.com
thurrott.com
That only took several years of complaining.
> “All customers will now have the ability to explicitly choose if they want to update their device when they check for updates or to pause updates for up to 35 days.”
...and they didn't actually listen. This is still user-hostile bullshit and some people at Microsoft really need to be beaten with a rubber hose until they get it through their heads that they don't own our devices.
Even as a vocal critic of Linux Desktop I feel that Microsoft is doing its best to push me there. Hell, most of the computers I own have already been transitioned to Lubuntu[0] because otherwise I'm faced with forced update garbage every time I turn them on.
> Microsoft is also working to ensure the quality of this feature update, which is important given the disastrous two feature updates that Microsoft and its users experienced in 2018.
Maybe actually having QA or at least listening to the Insiders you've conned into doing QA for you for free would have helped prevent these things, but I doubt it because you seem so determined to copy the worst aspects of web and OSS development culture. User hostility, change for the sake of it, users are QA, ads (in a paid product!) etc.
[0]Lubuntu still prompts me to update it literally every time I turn it on too, but at least I can just say no.
- prompt to install updates when shutting down/rebooting - prompt when locking the screen - prompt when updates are available
The point is, ask to install updates. Users will update if you remind them when it's convenient for them, but you don't know when that might be, so have some kind of non-intrusive prompt at any point where a user might be ready to do an update. Maybe make it more annoying if there's a critical security patch pending, but don't ever force it.
So yeah, Microsoft didn't listen, they just did the bare minimum to make it look like they're doing something.
If you run proprietary software on a computer, the proprietors have far more say in what that computer does than you do. This is true regardless of which proprietor is involved, the user's ostensible control over updates, and the ostensible high-level purpose of the software (an OS, an application, a word processor, a flight simulator, etc.). This particular proprietary software gives Microsoft a universal back door through which Microsoft can impose any change they wish (see http://www.informationweek.com/microsoft-updates-windows-wit... for an example). Even if update control were respected in full, update control does nothing to change the fact that what's running is proprietary software -- user-subjugating software.
The frequency or UI of updates is a minor detail. It's the least the proprietor can get away with to give the simulacrum of user control. Microsoft has tried other means to do less but they were discovered and news reports effectively outed Microsoft (for instance, there's the time Microsoft had Windows send reports even when configured not to per http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/even-w...)
So rather than engaging in harsh language or threats of physical abuse, I think a more productive way to address your understandable frustration is to switch your remaining proprietary-driven computers to a fully free OS running on fully free hardware (such as an FSF-approved free software distro -- https://www.gnu.org/distros/ -- running on a "Respects Your Freedom" device -- https://www.fsf.org/ryf ) and then install only free software on top of that.
Unfortunately, most people don’t want to deal with it. The computer will be the same as the day they bought it, even if it’s 10 years old. That can be dangerous with all the security issues.
I love how Apple get everyone on the latest version iOS.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/microsoft-going-to-e...
If this seems like an unreasonable maintenance burden on Microsoft, remember that the Long Term Support Branch/Channel already exists for enterprises. Microsoft supplies security-only updates to Windows 10 1607 and 1809, and will continue to do so for ten years after each versions's release.
There is no reason for Microsoft to not make this available more broadly, they've just decided not to.