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I really thought Microsoft put that kind of sleazy behavior behind them. Guess old habits die hard.

by nas 10y ago

Silhouette 10y ago
I've been using Microsoft software since IBM PCs actually were IBM PCs. I have never known Microsoft to be as blatantly user-hostile as they have been since the current leadership took over and the business strategy shifted. Until a few months ago, I might not have chosen to use their product in every case, but I generally trusted them. In particular, I expected the products I did use to be relatively good software by industry standards, to be relatively well-supported, and to provide genuine and effective ways to turn off any features like auto-updates or telemetry that I didn't want to enable. None of those things is true any longer, and I really am quite sad about that.
- mobiuscog 10y ago
  Ballmer-led Microsoft was the scurge of the industry - it's improved 10-fold since Nadella took over. It's less user-hostile now than it's been in a long while. Anybody sufficiently tech-savvy enough to know how to keep safe without auto-updates can easily prevent them - for most people, they're a good idea. It's strange how in the web world, everything is always up-to-date and full of telemetry in every sense, but nobody really complains about that.
  - hendersoon 10y ago
    It's not easy to avoid auto-updates-- you need to edit a group policy to do it. Now your response would be that anyone who lacks the sophistication to do that should be forced to auto-update anyway. And I would agree, except the updates also force a reboot, which can be catastrophic to non-saved work, running processes, etc. And stopping the forced reboot after updating Win10 is VERY much non-trivial-- it's step 2 in the link below. https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wake-timers-from-waking-windows-10-desktop/973029#973029 https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wak... That's some serious mojo.
    - mobiuscog 10y ago
      I would agree about the updates, except that since having the most recent build (1511) on most of my machines, they rarely reboot after updates. Sure, there was a spate of them for a while, but they were all schedulable. If the forced reboot is a problem because people honestly expect to keep work unsaved and open 24/7 for days on end then... I'm not sure what to say. If it's just the upgrade reboot, then it should be noted, shceduled and performed at a suitable time - which it has been done by many people already. Regular saving, backups, and scheduled maintenance should be a standard part of any computer setup. To pretend they don't exist is madness.
      - Silhouette 10y ago
        Regular saving, backups, and scheduled maintenance should be a standard part of any computer setup. To pretend they don't exist is madness. And they are sensible precautions against system failure. However, system failures should only be caused by something unavoidable like hardware breaking or a sudden power outage, not by your own operating system pulling the rug from under you. Good operating systems have long supported extended 24/7/365 uptimes even with most security updates being applied. I have servers -- which get attacked, for real, far more than any workstation -- where the last time I needed to reboot them was when I chose to migrate to a new Linux kernel as part of a distro upgrade some number of years ago. There is simply no excuse for shipping a consumer OS in 2016 that interrupts average users every few days just to apply some updates. The need to do so betrays a deeply flawed underlying software architecture.
  - emp_zealoth 10y ago
    Less user hostile? I've just gotten a Win10 on my laptop. I had to go registry diving just so I could have normal touchpad behaviour back (Three finger tap gave me fucking Cortana instead of middle click. Two finger tap was doing something equally stupid) They changed how DPI scaling works, now I have HD screen that looks like turd because 2/3 of programs are blurry Fun fact: the old DPI scaling is present too! More registry diving! Buuuut... it just reverts to new "improved way" every so often anyway... VLC keeps getting kicked off default programs PDF reader getting kicked off default programs "User friendly"
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    Anybody sufficiently tech-savvy enough to know how to keep safe without auto-updates can easily prevent them - for most people, they're a good idea. Security updates, if that's really what they are, are a good idea by default for people who don't know enough to handle it themselves. General automatic updates, including completely reorganising how the entire system works and moving lots of UI around unexpectedly and literally overnight, are a bad idea for just about everyone. It's strange how in the web world, everything is always up-to-date and full of telemetry in every sense, but nobody really complains about that. Plenty of people complain about both of those things. They are the two most damaging trends to hit our industry in a generation, and that remains true whether we're talking about the OS, native applications, web apps, online X-as-a-Service offerings, or anything else.

I really thought Microsoft put that kind of sleazy behavior behind them. Guess old habits die hard.

by nas 10y ago

I really thought Microsoft put that kind of sleazy behavior behind them. Guess old habits die hard.

I've been using Microsoft software since IBM PCs actually were IBM PCs. I have never known Microsoft to be as blatantly user-hostile as they have been since the current leadership took over and the business strategy shifted. Until a few months ago, I might not have chosen to use their product in every case, but I generally trusted them. In particular, I expected the products I did use to be relatively good software by industry standards, to be relatively well-supported, and to provide genuine and effective ways to turn off any features like auto-updates or telemetry that I didn't want to enable. None of those things is true any longer, and I really am quite sad about that.

mobiuscog 10y ago
Ballmer-led Microsoft was the scurge of the industry - it's improved 10-fold since Nadella took over. It's less user-hostile now than it's been in a long while. Anybody sufficiently tech-savvy enough to know how to keep safe without auto-updates can easily prevent them - for most people, they're a good idea. It's strange how in the web world, everything is always up-to-date and full of telemetry in every sense, but nobody really complains about that.
- hendersoon 10y ago
  It's not easy to avoid auto-updates-- you need to edit a group policy to do it. Now your response would be that anyone who lacks the sophistication to do that should be forced to auto-update anyway. And I would agree, except the updates also force a reboot, which can be catastrophic to non-saved work, running processes, etc. And stopping the forced reboot after updating Win10 is VERY much non-trivial-- it's step 2 in the link below. https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wake-timers-from-waking-windows-10-desktop/973029#973029 https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wak... That's some serious mojo.
  - mobiuscog 10y ago
    I would agree about the updates, except that since having the most recent build (1511) on most of my machines, they rarely reboot after updates. Sure, there was a spate of them for a while, but they were all schedulable. If the forced reboot is a problem because people honestly expect to keep work unsaved and open 24/7 for days on end then... I'm not sure what to say. If it's just the upgrade reboot, then it should be noted, shceduled and performed at a suitable time - which it has been done by many people already. Regular saving, backups, and scheduled maintenance should be a standard part of any computer setup. To pretend they don't exist is madness.
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      Regular saving, backups, and scheduled maintenance should be a standard part of any computer setup. To pretend they don't exist is madness. And they are sensible precautions against system failure. However, system failures should only be caused by something unavoidable like hardware breaking or a sudden power outage, not by your own operating system pulling the rug from under you. Good operating systems have long supported extended 24/7/365 uptimes even with most security updates being applied. I have servers -- which get attacked, for real, far more than any workstation -- where the last time I needed to reboot them was when I chose to migrate to a new Linux kernel as part of a distro upgrade some number of years ago. There is simply no excuse for shipping a consumer OS in 2016 that interrupts average users every few days just to apply some updates. The need to do so betrays a deeply flawed underlying software architecture.
- emp_zealoth 10y ago
  Less user hostile? I've just gotten a Win10 on my laptop. I had to go registry diving just so I could have normal touchpad behaviour back (Three finger tap gave me fucking Cortana instead of middle click. Two finger tap was doing something equally stupid) They changed how DPI scaling works, now I have HD screen that looks like turd because 2/3 of programs are blurry Fun fact: the old DPI scaling is present too! More registry diving! Buuuut... it just reverts to new "improved way" every so often anyway... VLC keeps getting kicked off default programs PDF reader getting kicked off default programs "User friendly"
- Silhouette 10y ago
  Anybody sufficiently tech-savvy enough to know how to keep safe without auto-updates can easily prevent them - for most people, they're a good idea. Security updates, if that's really what they are, are a good idea by default for people who don't know enough to handle it themselves. General automatic updates, including completely reorganising how the entire system works and moving lots of UI around unexpectedly and literally overnight, are a bad idea for just about everyone. It's strange how in the web world, everything is always up-to-date and full of telemetry in every sense, but nobody really complains about that. Plenty of people complain about both of those things. They are the two most damaging trends to hit our industry in a generation, and that remains true whether we're talking about the OS, native applications, web apps, online X-as-a-Service offerings, or anything else.