6 ms·

> You can't turn off Windows Update. It will always end up downloading new updates. Just an idea, I don't know if it would work: there's a setting where you ca

by usrusr 10y ago

> You can't turn off Windows Update. It will always end up downloading new updates. Just an idea, I don't know if it would work: there's a setting where you can tell Windows that you are on a "metered connection", which supposedly makes Windows postpone various background tasks until you tell it that you are ready for bandwidth abuse (which never happens). I doubt that this would influence any connections by third party applications, so it should do little or no harm. The question is, would Windows let itself get fooled so easily?

Frank2312 10y ago
If you have a wired connection, there is no toggle for that setting. There is probably a registry value you can change to do so though.
- graycat 10y ago
  > There is probably a registry value you can change to do so though. Thanks, but with "probably" I sense that I'm about to get into what I call "mud wrestling" or hours or days of just throwing wild guesses against a wall to see if any appear to stick. I've only got 365 days a year, and I've given away far too many of them to such mud wrestling. GOD knows I do NOT want to do more of that. For physical things, say, an alarm clock that won't quit making a noise, often can use a big hammer or an axe to solve the problem. Too often in mud wrestling with sick-o software, I wanted such a hammer or axe. The EFF OP and this thread have me literally just TERRIFIED that my work with Windows will have me spending a huge fraction of my time that I do NOT have mud wrestling with some version of Windows. Again, GOD knows well I do NOT want mud wrestling. To Microsoft: I am trying, desperately trying, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, to the limits of strength of my body, to get my software written for my Web site startup. For my software, I have 80,000 lines of typing for the real-time parts and another 20,000 for the off-line parts. I want, desperately NEED, to do the rest of the work of my startup. NO WAY do I have in addition the time, money, strength, and energy to fight Microsoft software for no good reason. I want NO updates, NO changes, without my well informed, explicit permission. I want NO data sent from my computer elsewhere without my well informed, explicit permission. Cortana or whatever it is called? I wouldn't hit a hog in the butt with all the copies of Cortana on the planet. To me the work and objectives of Cortana are insulting, outrageous, patronizing, demeaning, intrusive, and worse. I don't want it. What do I want from Microsoft? (1) Fix the outrageous security problems Microsoft has been struggling with back at least to XP. (2) Do much better technical writing in technical documentation of Microsoft software. Then I want to finish my startup with no more attention to anything from Microsoft.
  - E6300 10y ago
    Why don't you just put a firewall between the machine you want to stay untouched and the Internet. Block all outgoing connection attempts to Microsoft servers. "Firewall block windows update" seems to return relevant results. That seems like a good "big hammer" sort of solution to me.
    - blibble 10y ago
      it's pretty hard to do this these days with a dumb firewall, given CDNs
  - sjellis 10y ago
    Speaking as a veteran Microsoft administrator, in total seriousness: buy a Mac. If you have a corporate network complete with good administrators, Windows can be made to work well enough. If you are a lone professional, Macs are secure, low-maintenance and have an OS designed by people that care about your privacy. Windows is probably not worth your time or energy right now unless there a specific piece of Windows-only software that you must use.
    - graycat 10y ago
      Thanks. Okay, and when my Web site software, with several special back end servers, is all working well, what platform do I use to keep, say, an 8 core AMD processor at 4.0 GHz busy? On Windows, I'm aiming at Windows Server (WS). My initial usage of WS will be just dirt simple. As I get revenue, for more I will pick up a phone, call an expert, maybe you, pay for an hour to walk me through the most recent issue, take notes, and then move on until the next issue. For Windows, I have used the .NET Framework, Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, a little of platform invoke to call some C code, etc. and, of course, Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) to sit between my Web pages and the users. I wish the .NET documentation had better technical writing, but otherwise I'm from happy enough to thrilled with .NET. If I am to use .NET heavily, then I sense that to minimize mud wrestling with weak documentation and too many bugs (e.g., from trying to get .NET to run well on iOS or Linux) I should stay on Windows. Maybe implicit in your suggestion is that I would deploy for production on some Linux system? Okay, which one? And how many loose ends, third party, open source, do it yourself issues would I encounter? Roughly I get the impression that for high end production use of Linux, I would be nearly rolling my own operating system -- this could be wrong. I'm eager to have good information on any operating system I use, but really I want to draw a line at the operating system, compilers, etc. and not cross that line. At this point, I about have to go ahead with Windows. Maybe I'll get some books Windows Server 101 for Dummies or some such.
hendersoon 10y ago
You can set ethernet as a metered connection in the registry and the Winaero Tweaker tool can do it for you. However, when I did it, I found manually initiated windows updates stalling on "Downloading Updates 0%" so I don't recommend that solution. Instead, configure a group policy as documented below. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/328010 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/328010 Note that Windows respects the "download only" policy but does NOT respect the "no reboot after updates" policy. To stop Windows from rebooting after installing updates, follow steps labeled #2 at 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...

by usrusr 10y ago

Frank2312 10y ago

If you have a wired connection, there is no toggle for that setting. There is probably a registry value you can change to do so though.

graycat 10y ago
> There is probably a registry value you can change to do so though. Thanks, but with "probably" I sense that I'm about to get into what I call "mud wrestling" or hours or days of just throwing wild guesses against a wall to see if any appear to stick. I've only got 365 days a year, and I've given away far too many of them to such mud wrestling. GOD knows I do NOT want to do more of that. For physical things, say, an alarm clock that won't quit making a noise, often can use a big hammer or an axe to solve the problem. Too often in mud wrestling with sick-o software, I wanted such a hammer or axe. The EFF OP and this thread have me literally just TERRIFIED that my work with Windows will have me spending a huge fraction of my time that I do NOT have mud wrestling with some version of Windows. Again, GOD knows well I do NOT want mud wrestling. To Microsoft: I am trying, desperately trying, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, to the limits of strength of my body, to get my software written for my Web site startup. For my software, I have 80,000 lines of typing for the real-time parts and another 20,000 for the off-line parts. I want, desperately NEED, to do the rest of the work of my startup. NO WAY do I have in addition the time, money, strength, and energy to fight Microsoft software for no good reason. I want NO updates, NO changes, without my well informed, explicit permission. I want NO data sent from my computer elsewhere without my well informed, explicit permission. Cortana or whatever it is called? I wouldn't hit a hog in the butt with all the copies of Cortana on the planet. To me the work and objectives of Cortana are insulting, outrageous, patronizing, demeaning, intrusive, and worse. I don't want it. What do I want from Microsoft? (1) Fix the outrageous security problems Microsoft has been struggling with back at least to XP. (2) Do much better technical writing in technical documentation of Microsoft software. Then I want to finish my startup with no more attention to anything from Microsoft.
- E6300 10y ago
  Why don't you just put a firewall between the machine you want to stay untouched and the Internet. Block all outgoing connection attempts to Microsoft servers. "Firewall block windows update" seems to return relevant results. That seems like a good "big hammer" sort of solution to me.
  - blibble 10y ago
    it's pretty hard to do this these days with a dumb firewall, given CDNs
- sjellis 10y ago
  Speaking as a veteran Microsoft administrator, in total seriousness: buy a Mac. If you have a corporate network complete with good administrators, Windows can be made to work well enough. If you are a lone professional, Macs are secure, low-maintenance and have an OS designed by people that care about your privacy. Windows is probably not worth your time or energy right now unless there a specific piece of Windows-only software that you must use.
  - graycat 10y ago
    Thanks. Okay, and when my Web site software, with several special back end servers, is all working well, what platform do I use to keep, say, an 8 core AMD processor at 4.0 GHz busy? On Windows, I'm aiming at Windows Server (WS). My initial usage of WS will be just dirt simple. As I get revenue, for more I will pick up a phone, call an expert, maybe you, pay for an hour to walk me through the most recent issue, take notes, and then move on until the next issue. For Windows, I have used the .NET Framework, Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, a little of platform invoke to call some C code, etc. and, of course, Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) to sit between my Web pages and the users. I wish the .NET documentation had better technical writing, but otherwise I'm from happy enough to thrilled with .NET. If I am to use .NET heavily, then I sense that to minimize mud wrestling with weak documentation and too many bugs (e.g., from trying to get .NET to run well on iOS or Linux) I should stay on Windows. Maybe implicit in your suggestion is that I would deploy for production on some Linux system? Okay, which one? And how many loose ends, third party, open source, do it yourself issues would I encounter? Roughly I get the impression that for high end production use of Linux, I would be nearly rolling my own operating system -- this could be wrong. I'm eager to have good information on any operating system I use, but really I want to draw a line at the operating system, compilers, etc. and not cross that line. At this point, I about have to go ahead with Windows. Maybe I'll get some books Windows Server 101 for Dummies or some such.

hendersoon 10y ago

You can set ethernet as a metered connection in the registry and the Winaero Tweaker tool can do it for you. However, when I did it, I found manually initiated windows updates stalling on "Downloading Updates 0%" so I don't recommend that solution. Instead, configure a group policy as documented below. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/328010 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/328010 Note that Windows respects the "download only" policy but does NOT respect the "no reboot after updates" policy. To stop Windows from rebooting after installing updates, follow steps labeled #2 at 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...