5 ms·

I have a valid reason not wanting to upgrade: I've tried (after the messages that suggested "It will work we promise") and it doesn't work on my machine: turns

by acqq 11y ago

I have a valid reason not wanting to upgrade: I've tried (after the messages that suggested "It will work we promise") and it doesn't work on my machine: turns out the WiFi card on my notebook is not supported by either Intel or Microsoft for Windows 10, and if Windows 10 is running it becomes horribly unstable (hardware interrupts are wrongly interpreted or handled). After trying to revert to Windows 7, it wasn't fully recovered (the scheduled tasks, created by Windows, remained corrupted). So I had to restore Windows 7 from my backup. But it seems iTunes remain confused ("can't sync due to unknown error") as apparently some permissions in user directories remain different than initially even now? So I've added some registry entries which were supposed to mean "I don't want Windows 10." And I've hidden the updates that install "Get Windows 10." Yet not only the Update tries to install the "Get Windows 10" every month (un-hiding the updates without me!), the updates last for hours (the famous svchost looping in some unnecessary checking of something that doesn't have to be checked almost infinite number of times). (Unfortunately Linux isn't working optimally on the notebook either, making the touchpad unusable and not handling the vendor Fn keys.) Now I know that the nags came with the security patch of IE, which means that I can't even avoid it if I want to have security updates installed. Horrible. How is then that the nag doesn't happen for business users if it's a part of the security patch?

nopreserveroot 11y ago
What's the make/model? I overcame my hatred of broadcom wireless cards thanks to some command line wizardry.
- acqq 11y ago
  You mean in Linux? Linux has problem with the touchpad and the keyboard, not with the WiFi card. The touchpad kind-of-works but somehow interprets the movements wrong, "micro-jerky" (like if some noise were added to the reading of the coordinates) in some way that the changes of the touchpad parameters that I have found I can change don't affect. It's Microsoft and Intel that don't support the WiFi card, and I can't find the replacement that I can put in the full-size space in the notebook. There are extenders available to support the more modern (supported) half-size cards, but these adapters don't solve the problem of too short antenna cables.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    > The touchpad kind-of-works but somehow interprets the movements wrong, "micro-jerky" in some way that the changes of the touchpad parameters that I have found I can change don't affect. You might try installing the libinput-based drivers (xserver-xorg-input-libinput), and removing the synaptics driver. libinput has far better handling for current touchpads.
    - acqq 11y ago
      Thanks. Then, if they work, I "only" have to find out how to make FN buttons working, at least these that control sound volume and brightness. And I had the impression that the CPU use was worse, or the power management worse, for the same usage patterns (when not doing anything special like compiling, just editing or browsing), fan turned on more often. Edit: I'm reading about "libinput" that it has "palm detection" but it's certainly not my problem with the pseudo "noise." Even when I hold only and just one finger, the mouse cursor "trembles" and "shakes."
      - heinrich5991 11y ago
        You could first check via `xev` whether the key presses actually arrive in software. For me they did, but my desktop environment didn't adjust the brightness if an `XF86MonBrightnessUp` event fired.
        JBReefer 11y ago
        Same with my Chromebook, once you know the events arrive it was a simple mapping in Xubuntu.
        JoshTriplett 11y ago
        Manual mapping shouldn't be required for most current desktop environments. GNOME and KDE certainly do, and I think Unity does as well. If your desktop environment doesn't map those keys by default, please file a bug against it. It's great that Linux makes it possible to manually fix such things, but it's even better when they work out of the box.
dustinupdyke 11y ago
Win 10 gives me an onslaught of driver blue screens. I don't have time to investigate these, so I'm happy to stay on 8.1 for now. It's hard to not be annoyed in being asked to upgrade into something I already know does not work.
- niels_olson 11y ago
  Win10 has been quite stable in VirtualBox on my MacBook. Maybe they should give up on hardware :)
  - cm2187 11y ago
    On my surface pro I got several blue screens, something I rarely got with Windows 7. I also got some blue screens on a new supermicro server running windows 10, which I find even less amusing.
    - guardian5x 11y ago
      Why did you install Windows 7 on a Surface Pro (Touch Device) in the first place? Does the Pen etc even work? Afaik Surface Pro came with at least Windows 8 pre-installed.
      - cm2187 11y ago
        I didn't. I meant having blue screens on devices with Windows 7. I only ever got blue screen on windows 7 machines when debugging multi-threaded apps with Visual Studio. On Windows 10 it is way to frequent even when not doing anything specific. Windows 10 adds some improvements over windows 7, like hyper-v and http2. But in my experience it is nowhere as stable.
bitL 11y ago
Do what many reasonable folks did - turn off windows updates and install Linux Mint alongside for everything that can be done outside Windows. Microsoft makes it not worth it to care anymore... It's appalling to see how Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot...
- viraptor 11y ago
  That's a terrible advice IMO. You can do the other things of course, but don't turn your windows updates off. It's still better to get a nag screen than to get your machine owned by random malware, just because you didn't apply known/available security patches.
  - CamperBob2 11y ago
    That's a terrible advice IMO. Too bad. This is what happens when the OS vendor becomes the threat. Trust is important, and the Windows Update team has betrayed mine. (And spare me the tiresome "B...b...but they didn't do anything you didn't agree to in the EULA!" routine.)
    - viraptor 11y ago
      I don't care about the eula or your trust for the team. This is the only source which will provide you security updates. If you don't follow them, you are likely to simply get owned. For example skipping March updates opens you to 9 remotely exploitable issues (some of them are cumulative, so in reality it's many more). Unless you're going to go around personally restoring people's systems after they're affected, don't recommend that they turn off windows updates.
      - CamperBob2 11y ago
        The last time I accidentally infected myself, the name of the exploit was Happy99.exe. So I'm not especially worried for my own sake. But you're right about what's likely to happen in many other cases. Microsoft should have thought of this scenario when they decided to abuse their update service for marketing purposes. We're all at greater risk because of their actions. People with your point of view should also consider the ramifications when you (implicitly or otherwise) condone Microsoft's behavior in threads like this.
Silhouette 11y ago
Now I know that the nags came with the security patch of IE, which means that I can't even avoid it if I want to have security updates installed. Horrible. How is then that the nag doesn't happen for business users if it's a part of the security patch? I submitted another related article (and posted a summary) with more emphasis on the specifics, including when this nag does and doesn't appear to be showing up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11261438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11261438 While I'm here, I'll add my voice to the chorus of people who think they're crazy to include not just non-security but clearly not-even-important functionality in a bundled security update. That was a line they should never have crossed, and it's going to cost them much of whatever trust they had left after the earlier GWX unpleasantness and the questionable practices of Windows 10 itself. Edit: In fact, this Business Insider article seems to be a thin wrapper for the more detailed Infoworld one I submitted before, which is here: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042155/microsoft-windows/windows-patch-kb-3139929-when-a-security-update-is-not-a-security-update.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042155/microsoft-windows/w...
- acqq 11y ago
  Domain attachment as the nag/don't nag flag in fantastically stupid. In my previous company we had very good reason to have more Windows computers not on domain (and I'm not going to elaborate them, please don't ask, but domain is just one specific usage pattern).
  - Silhouette 11y ago
    Domain attachment as the nag/don't nag flag in fantastically stupid. Maybe. If your goal is to nag as many home users and small business customers as possible, while avoiding irritating your larger business customers as much as possible, it's probably a pretty good heuristic.
Survey_Sez 11y ago
Buisness users will not see the nag because computers joined to a domain are excluded.
- stephengillie 11y ago
  Not sure about this. Windows Enterprise was never sent the nagware bits. I use Win8.0 Enterprise at home (MSDN) and it's never asked me once. I tried to manually upgrade to 10 and it refused. One PC has never been domain joined. So it might be the fact that it's the Enterprise version of the OS, not the domain join.
  - acqq 11y ago
    I have Windows 7 Ultimate and it nags.
    - stephengillie 11y ago
      Indeed, Enterprise and Ultimate are different versions.
kyriakos 11y ago
Which wifi adapter are you using? Mine wasn't "supported" but I did get it to work (5 year old laptop)
- acqq 11y ago
  Intel 4xxx. I've spent enough energy trying, turning off the features didn't help. If the "to full size" extenders would have antenna cable extensions too I'd put something newer, but I don't know of such product.
giancarlostoro 11y ago
My main workaround for Wi-Fi issues is to get a USB Wi-Fi dongle that is supported on Linux. Worked like a charm when my regular Wi-Fi card decided to stop functioning properly on any OS I would go on (probably hardware malfunction). The one I always get is less than $20 on Amazon and is by TP Link.
- acqq 11y ago
  In Windows 7 and Linux the built-in card "just works" and supports the "n" protocol too. The dangling dongle just to have WiFi isn't really the convenient alternative. If your WiFi card in the notebook is a half-size PCIe, you'd surely be better of replacing it.
  - giancarlostoro 11y ago
    I usually have a dongle for my wireless mouse anyway, so it doesn't bother me as much. I use the same dongle on my desktop (since it has no WiFi card). For some a WiFi dongle isn't too bad an alternative, as long as it's cost effective. $12 dongle vs $60 or whatever WiFi card.
mkohlmyr 11y ago
My girlfriend upgraded and ended up with her touchpad driver dead in the water. Cue me rolling back by enabling num pad arrow keys as a cursor. I wonder how many people simply didn't know it was an option and had their laptop bricked by microsoft for all intents and purposes..
alyandon 11y ago
That's a really unfortunate experience upgrade experience. My experiences after upgrading multiple machines has been flawless so far - even on an old Dell Vostro 1500 laptop.
- acqq 11y ago
  Your better experience is not an excuse for Microsoft pushing already rejected "Get Windows 10" code every month anew to my machine where I already tried the upgrade and it doesn't work and I've rejected. They override my rejection every month! And also not an excuse for not fixing the svchost problem: (updates got immensely slower around the time since the "Get Windows 10 "updates started to appear) http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/392938-svchost-exe-netsvcs-consuming-25-quad-core-laptop.html http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/392938-sv... And for not allowing users to control the updates in Windows 10: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/49wcua/svchostexe_service_host_local_system_is_using_up/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/49wcua/svchostex...
  - alyandon 11y ago
    I just find it interesting that over a wide range of random hardware that Windows 10 appears to have not been a problematic upgrade for me and this is speaking as a power user that has oddball software/hardware configurations. Also, my statement wasn't meant to imply that a good upgrade experience was an excuse for Microsoft's behavior in regards to the constant "upgrade now" nagging or ignoring issues that impact its customers.
    - acqq 11y ago
      I guess your "random hardware" was still not random enough: My notebook that goes crazy after the upgrade is certainly not an "oddball" as it has the Intel processor, the Intel chipset, the Intel graphics card, the Intel WiFi card, most expensive of that times, the maximum amount of memory for the CPU and chipset (4 GB) and the most expensive Windows 7 version installed. I'd even say it can't be more straightforward than that. And what's worse, the Windows 10 Upgrade program "tested" the configuration and claimed "everything will be fine." Now it nags even after I reverted to Windows 7. Windows 7 has no problems, Windows 10 has problem with interrupts handling. And the Windows 7 "hours long" update problem is surely known to Microsoft, I've diagnosed it on my machine too, this function: wuaueng.dll!CUpdatesToPruneList::AddSupersedenceInfoIfNeeded appears to still (after the 2016 March update of the Update Client (7.6.7601.19161) and KB3102810 installed) be called almost infinite number of times. I guess it's some unnecessary recursion on an O(N to a high power) loop which was tolerable for small number of existing files in the list of all updates, and now explodes. Microsoft appears to avoid fixing that code even if it's quite obvious for anybody who knows to interpret the stack.

by acqq 11y ago

nopreserveroot 11y ago

What's the make/model? I overcame my hatred of broadcom wireless cards thanks to some command line wizardry.

acqq 11y ago
You mean in Linux? Linux has problem with the touchpad and the keyboard, not with the WiFi card. The touchpad kind-of-works but somehow interprets the movements wrong, "micro-jerky" (like if some noise were added to the reading of the coordinates) in some way that the changes of the touchpad parameters that I have found I can change don't affect. It's Microsoft and Intel that don't support the WiFi card, and I can't find the replacement that I can put in the full-size space in the notebook. There are extenders available to support the more modern (supported) half-size cards, but these adapters don't solve the problem of too short antenna cables.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > The touchpad kind-of-works but somehow interprets the movements wrong, "micro-jerky" in some way that the changes of the touchpad parameters that I have found I can change don't affect. You might try installing the libinput-based drivers (xserver-xorg-input-libinput), and removing the synaptics driver. libinput has far better handling for current touchpads.
  - acqq 11y ago
    Thanks. Then, if they work, I "only" have to find out how to make FN buttons working, at least these that control sound volume and brightness. And I had the impression that the CPU use was worse, or the power management worse, for the same usage patterns (when not doing anything special like compiling, just editing or browsing), fan turned on more often. Edit: I'm reading about "libinput" that it has "palm detection" but it's certainly not my problem with the pseudo "noise." Even when I hold only and just one finger, the mouse cursor "trembles" and "shakes."
    - heinrich5991 11y ago
      You could first check via `xev` whether the key presses actually arrive in software. For me they did, but my desktop environment didn't adjust the brightness if an `XF86MonBrightnessUp` event fired.
      - JBReefer 11y ago
        Same with my Chromebook, once you know the events arrive it was a simple mapping in Xubuntu.
        JoshTriplett 11y ago
        Manual mapping shouldn't be required for most current desktop environments. GNOME and KDE certainly do, and I think Unity does as well. If your desktop environment doesn't map those keys by default, please file a bug against it. It's great that Linux makes it possible to manually fix such things, but it's even better when they work out of the box.

dustinupdyke 11y ago

Win 10 gives me an onslaught of driver blue screens. I don't have time to investigate these, so I'm happy to stay on 8.1 for now. It's hard to not be annoyed in being asked to upgrade into something I already know does not work.

niels_olson 11y ago
Win10 has been quite stable in VirtualBox on my MacBook. Maybe they should give up on hardware :)
- cm2187 11y ago
  On my surface pro I got several blue screens, something I rarely got with Windows 7. I also got some blue screens on a new supermicro server running windows 10, which I find even less amusing.
  - guardian5x 11y ago
    Why did you install Windows 7 on a Surface Pro (Touch Device) in the first place? Does the Pen etc even work? Afaik Surface Pro came with at least Windows 8 pre-installed.
    - cm2187 11y ago
      I didn't. I meant having blue screens on devices with Windows 7. I only ever got blue screen on windows 7 machines when debugging multi-threaded apps with Visual Studio. On Windows 10 it is way to frequent even when not doing anything specific. Windows 10 adds some improvements over windows 7, like hyper-v and http2. But in my experience it is nowhere as stable.

bitL 11y ago

Do what many reasonable folks did - turn off windows updates and install Linux Mint alongside for everything that can be done outside Windows. Microsoft makes it not worth it to care anymore... It's appalling to see how Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot...

viraptor 11y ago
That's a terrible advice IMO. You can do the other things of course, but don't turn your windows updates off. It's still better to get a nag screen than to get your machine owned by random malware, just because you didn't apply known/available security patches.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  That's a terrible advice IMO. Too bad. This is what happens when the OS vendor becomes the threat. Trust is important, and the Windows Update team has betrayed mine. (And spare me the tiresome "B...b...but they didn't do anything you didn't agree to in the EULA!" routine.)
  - viraptor 11y ago
    I don't care about the eula or your trust for the team. This is the only source which will provide you security updates. If you don't follow them, you are likely to simply get owned. For example skipping March updates opens you to 9 remotely exploitable issues (some of them are cumulative, so in reality it's many more). Unless you're going to go around personally restoring people's systems after they're affected, don't recommend that they turn off windows updates.
    - CamperBob2 11y ago
      The last time I accidentally infected myself, the name of the exploit was Happy99.exe. So I'm not especially worried for my own sake. But you're right about what's likely to happen in many other cases. Microsoft should have thought of this scenario when they decided to abuse their update service for marketing purposes. We're all at greater risk because of their actions. People with your point of view should also consider the ramifications when you (implicitly or otherwise) condone Microsoft's behavior in threads like this.

Silhouette 11y ago

Now I know that the nags came with the security patch of IE, which means that I can't even avoid it if I want to have security updates installed. Horrible. How is then that the nag doesn't happen for business users if it's a part of the security patch? I submitted another related article (and posted a summary) with more emphasis on the specifics, including when this nag does and doesn't appear to be showing up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11261438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11261438 While I'm here, I'll add my voice to the chorus of people who think they're crazy to include not just non-security but clearly not-even-important functionality in a bundled security update. That was a line they should never have crossed, and it's going to cost them much of whatever trust they had left after the earlier GWX unpleasantness and the questionable practices of Windows 10 itself. Edit: In fact, this Business Insider article seems to be a thin wrapper for the more detailed Infoworld one I submitted before, which is here: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042155/microsoft-windows/windows-patch-kb-3139929-when-a-security-update-is-not-a-security-update.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042155/microsoft-windows/w...

acqq 11y ago
Domain attachment as the nag/don't nag flag in fantastically stupid. In my previous company we had very good reason to have more Windows computers not on domain (and I'm not going to elaborate them, please don't ask, but domain is just one specific usage pattern).
- Silhouette 11y ago
  Domain attachment as the nag/don't nag flag in fantastically stupid. Maybe. If your goal is to nag as many home users and small business customers as possible, while avoiding irritating your larger business customers as much as possible, it's probably a pretty good heuristic.

Survey_Sez 11y ago

Buisness users will not see the nag because computers joined to a domain are excluded.

stephengillie 11y ago
Not sure about this. Windows Enterprise was never sent the nagware bits. I use Win8.0 Enterprise at home (MSDN) and it's never asked me once. I tried to manually upgrade to 10 and it refused. One PC has never been domain joined. So it might be the fact that it's the Enterprise version of the OS, not the domain join.
- acqq 11y ago
  I have Windows 7 Ultimate and it nags.
  - stephengillie 11y ago
    Indeed, Enterprise and Ultimate are different versions.

kyriakos 11y ago

Which wifi adapter are you using? Mine wasn't "supported" but I did get it to work (5 year old laptop)

acqq 11y ago
Intel 4xxx. I've spent enough energy trying, turning off the features didn't help. If the "to full size" extenders would have antenna cable extensions too I'd put something newer, but I don't know of such product.

giancarlostoro 11y ago

My main workaround for Wi-Fi issues is to get a USB Wi-Fi dongle that is supported on Linux. Worked like a charm when my regular Wi-Fi card decided to stop functioning properly on any OS I would go on (probably hardware malfunction). The one I always get is less than $20 on Amazon and is by TP Link.

acqq 11y ago
In Windows 7 and Linux the built-in card "just works" and supports the "n" protocol too. The dangling dongle just to have WiFi isn't really the convenient alternative. If your WiFi card in the notebook is a half-size PCIe, you'd surely be better of replacing it.
- giancarlostoro 11y ago
  I usually have a dongle for my wireless mouse anyway, so it doesn't bother me as much. I use the same dongle on my desktop (since it has no WiFi card). For some a WiFi dongle isn't too bad an alternative, as long as it's cost effective. $12 dongle vs $60 or whatever WiFi card.

mkohlmyr 11y ago

My girlfriend upgraded and ended up with her touchpad driver dead in the water. Cue me rolling back by enabling num pad arrow keys as a cursor. I wonder how many people simply didn't know it was an option and had their laptop bricked by microsoft for all intents and purposes..

alyandon 11y ago

That's a really unfortunate experience upgrade experience. My experiences after upgrading multiple machines has been flawless so far - even on an old Dell Vostro 1500 laptop.

acqq 11y ago
Your better experience is not an excuse for Microsoft pushing already rejected "Get Windows 10" code every month anew to my machine where I already tried the upgrade and it doesn't work and I've rejected. They override my rejection every month! And also not an excuse for not fixing the svchost problem: (updates got immensely slower around the time since the "Get Windows 10 "updates started to appear) http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/392938-svchost-exe-netsvcs-consuming-25-quad-core-laptop.html http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/392938-sv... And for not allowing users to control the updates in Windows 10: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/49wcua/svchostexe_service_host_local_system_is_using_up/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/49wcua/svchostex...
- alyandon 11y ago
  I just find it interesting that over a wide range of random hardware that Windows 10 appears to have not been a problematic upgrade for me and this is speaking as a power user that has oddball software/hardware configurations. Also, my statement wasn't meant to imply that a good upgrade experience was an excuse for Microsoft's behavior in regards to the constant "upgrade now" nagging or ignoring issues that impact its customers.
  - acqq 11y ago
    I guess your "random hardware" was still not random enough: My notebook that goes crazy after the upgrade is certainly not an "oddball" as it has the Intel processor, the Intel chipset, the Intel graphics card, the Intel WiFi card, most expensive of that times, the maximum amount of memory for the CPU and chipset (4 GB) and the most expensive Windows 7 version installed. I'd even say it can't be more straightforward than that. And what's worse, the Windows 10 Upgrade program "tested" the configuration and claimed "everything will be fine." Now it nags even after I reverted to Windows 7. Windows 7 has no problems, Windows 10 has problem with interrupts handling. And the Windows 7 "hours long" update problem is surely known to Microsoft, I've diagnosed it on my machine too, this function: wuaueng.dll!CUpdatesToPruneList::AddSupersedenceInfoIfNeeded appears to still (after the 2016 March update of the Update Client (7.6.7601.19161) and KB3102810 installed) be called almost infinite number of times. I guess it's some unnecessary recursion on an O(N to a high power) loop which was tolerable for small number of existing files in the list of all updates, and now explodes. Microsoft appears to avoid fixing that code even if it's quite obvious for anybody who knows to interpret the stack.