Would anyone recommend updating to Windows 10?

For anyone who hasn't already found their way to Slashdot, there's a pretty good discussion of the pro\s & cons of migrating going on there. The Slashdot crowd are pretty tech-savvy, and include a lot of IT professionals, and tech support people in particular; although they do seems to skew in a pro-Linux direction, their consensus opinion would be well worth giving a good read, if you haven't already made up your mind (or are considering changing your mind) about MS's new OS.

One of my favourites is this, from ilsaloving:

Windows 10, from a purely technical perspective, is great. It's fast, clean, stable, and relatively secure. Heck, it's the first ever Microsoft OS I've seen that is able to upgrade the average computer without turning it into goat vomit. Prior to Windows 10, this was practically a guarantee.

From a policy perspective.... To quote Darth Vader, "I have altered our agreement. Pray I do not alter it further."

That is basically Microsoft's slogan for Windows 10. Unless you are willing to drop $500 for the Enterprise edition of Windows 10, Microsoft has dictated very clearly that you do NOT have control of your machine. They *will* pull telemetry at their pleasure. They *will* force updates onto your machine whether you want them or not. Hell, they even have the power to copy any data you have on your machine. They will not permit you to block them, at least not at the OS level. If you want to block their shenanigans, your only realistic option is to either buy Enterprise or put a hardware router between your computer and the internet, and do your blocking from there. Or just use it as is and hope Microsoft doesn't continue to alter their agreement further. (Fat chance)

And we all know that Microsoft is far from perfect when it comes to releasing stable updates that don't brick people's machines.

Whether you are fine with this, is up to you. As a sysadmin who is ultimately responsible for the productivity of the employees under my charge, this is completely unacceptable, and we're going to be sticking with Windows 7 as our desktop standard.

What pisses me off the most is that Microsoft's obnoxious behaviour is forcing me to set up a WSUS server, because I now need to vet every single update Microsoft release.

Then there's this, from Solandri:

I upgraded my main PC to it a few weeks ago (after blacklisting a whole bunch of hosts and IPs on my router, and immediately installing Spybot Anti-Beacon after).

Pros:

• UI makes more sense than Win 8.1. Less schizophrenia about whether it's a desktop OS or a tablet OS.
• Games run better. A lot of the microstutters I attributed CPU load spikes or having to read stuff off the SSD are gone.
• Icon/text scaling with DPI is much improved, though still not perfect.
• I like the minimalist black and white icons in the notification bar, instead of the horrible color clash it used to be with different apps showing notifications with different colors.
• They "fixed" the popup stealing focus problem. Now when you're typing a reply on slashdot and a system warning dialog pops up, focus stays with your browser. The dialog no longer disappears an instant after it pops up before you can read it because you happened to hit the space bar an instant after it popped up.
• If you're used to Unix from the 1990s, Microsoft finally added multiple virtual desktop support.
• The animated tiles in the Start menu are much less annoying that the full-screen animated tiles in the Win 8 Start menu.

Cons:

• The animated tiles are still annoying.
• Can't turn off updates. Not that big a deal for me since I run most of my apps in a VM running Windows 7 (I got tired of having to reinstall everything every time I upgraded laptops). But could be an issue for small businesses if you're running a mission-critical app, and a forced update breaks it.
• Certain apps don't make the transition properly, and you may have to reinstall them. Others you can get working again with a few tweaks.
• File explorer windows now default to quick access instead of library + This PC view. So it's now a two-click operation to actually browse your drives, instead of one-click.
• It really, really pushes Cortana.
• Network access is flakier. I'll try to open a network share or web page and sometimes it'll take a few seconds instead of opening instantly like on Win 7/8. Might be because I'm blocking certain hosts, and it's getting confused for a few seconds when it can't phone home to report which URL I'm visiting.
• Task manager can't seem to remember the "hide when minimized" option even though I set it every time.
• The popup stealing focus fix causes other problems. If I start a new app, it sometimes doesn't start with focus. I haven't quite figured out the pattern yet. e.g. I'll start a browser and immediately type ctr-l and the URL I wanted to go to, and nothing happens because the browser doesn't have focus. I have to click on it first before I can type ctrl-l and the URL.
• Edge browser is extremely non-intuitive when changing the defaults (like homepage and search engine). You can't enter it manually. You have to browse to the page you want as your home page or your search engine, then go to the settings and the option to make that page your default shows up.
• If you use IME to occasionally type in a foreign language, the desired setup is to make IME your default keyboard. That way you can use the right alt key to switch between typing in English and the other language. Unfortunately, they combined the keyboard preference option with the language preference option. If you make IME your default, now all your notifications and apps and even certain language-aware web pages default to the other language instead of English. If you leave the English keyboard as the default, any time you want to type in another language, you first need to click to switch from the English keyboard to the IME keyboard, then switch IME from English to foreign language typing mode. This is a major PITA for those of us who are multi-lingual but prefer everything be in English.

So yes it's worth upgrading, but no it's not quite ready yet. But you don't have to decide by July 29. You can upgrade to it, and roll back to your previous OS. The upgrade will register your system as having qualified for the free upgrade, and you can upgrade to it again any time in the future. http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-lock-in-your-free-windows-10-upgrade-and-keep-using-your-old-windows-version/

Hmm.. take Microsoft for the free upgrade, then roll back to Windows 7 and stay there indefinitely? That genuinely hadn't occurred to me. I may have to re-think my "never 10" strategy now. Of course, some people have had issues with both the upgrade and the roll-back, and I can't help but notice the length of the "con" list, compared to the "pro," so it's not a risk-free strategy, but it may be worth doing. Dammit.

Back to my reading...

Get Windows 7's Start menu in Windows 10

So, you've switched to Windows 10. You didn't want to, and you didn't ask to, in fact you were pretty sure you'd said no, but Microsoft's malware approach to updates, and a new love of deceptive, anti-consumer practices, have found you staring a narrow row of tiles and and a double row of ads where your Start menu used to be, cursing the name of Satya Nadella.

Having vented your frustration.... what do you next?

We now live in a world where a burgeoning market exists for third-party software that rolls back Microsoft's horrible decisions. Want to stop your OS from spying on you? There are apps for that. Want to avoid having your OS "upgraded" against your will in the first place? There are apps for that, too.

(BTW, if you haven't "upgraded" and don't want to, you should be clicking some of those links, right about now.)

Or maybe you just want a "classic" Start menu. This sort of thing used to be an option in Windows, but not in Windows 10 -- no, you'll get tiles and like it. (And ads... you don't still believe that Windows 10 is free, do you?) Well, fear not, Windows user... there's an app for that, too.

From PC World:

Not everyone likes the new Windows 10 Start menu. The good news is you can replace it with something more traditional.

You can get a very close facsimile of earlier Windows Start menus with Classic Shell. The program is free, but the website encourages donations—a nice gesture if you appreciate the product.

So, there you have it: options. Seriously, though... it's a lot simpler to install Never10, before the unwanted "upgrade" happens to you.

Microsoft’s GWX update (KB 3035583) now reappears, even if you'd previously hidden it

I should have known better than to get my hopes up.

From InfoWorld, via Slashdot:

It's back! Microsoft’s Get Windows 10 app, KB 3035583, reappears

The nagware upgrader’s fourteenth version in fourteen months arrives with no fanfare

Once again, Microsoft has unleashed the GWX Kraken, with no explanation and no description. The latest KB 3035583 appears as a “Recommended” optional patch for Windows 7 and 8.1. Those with Automatic Update turned on and “Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates” checked -- the default settings -- will see the patch as a checked, optional update, and it will be installed the next time Automatic Update runs. If you previously hid KB 3035583, it’s now unhidden.

I’m sure there are a dozen people on earth who still have Auto Updates turned on, “Recommended updates” checked, and who haven’t yet accepted Microsoft’s kind invitation for a free copy of Windows 10. This one’s for them.

[...]

Microsoft describes the now-notorious method for dismissing the upgrade, hidden in a tiny link on the “Windows 10 is a Recommended Update for this PC” dialog, in its explanatory post KB 3095675. I was quite surprised to find that, as of early Thursday morning, the “Windows 10 upgrade: How-to information on scheduling and notifications” post has not been changed. It’s still at Version 12, dated May 18.

Lesson learned: from now on, I'll just assume that Microsoft are beyond redemption.

If you're wanting to avoid having your system upgrade automatically to Windows 10, check now to see if your system is about to auto-install update KB3035583 -- you should also check your installed updates, to see if KB3035583 has been installed already, and uninstall if it has. Unless you're wanting to switch to Windows 10, of course, in which case you're golden, because Microsoft apparently can't wait to switch your PC over.

(Seriously, Microsoft... 14 versions in 14 months?! That's just desperate.)

I won't be switching, and to guard against this kind of chicanery, I also have GRC|Never10 running on my PC; you might want to check that out, if you're also wanting to be in control of what Microsoft installs on your computer (and when).

Chinese backlash over Windows 10 upgrade push

The discontent has definitely gone international:

Microsoft is facing criticism from Chinese users about the way it is trying to persuade people to upgrade to its Windows 10 operating system.

Chinese microblog site Weibo said users had now made more than 1.2 million posts complaining about Windows 10.

The complaints in China follow criticism from IT experts who said Microsoft was using a "nasty trick" to make people upgrade.
Microsoft has not yet responded to the reports about Chinese complaints.

[...]

"The company has abused its dominant market position and broken the market order for fair play," Zhao Zhanling, a legal adviser for the Internet Society of China told the official Xinhua news agency.

He said by forcing the upgrade, Microsoft had not respected the users' right to choose what they install on their computers. This was important, he said, because eventually Microsoft might profit from the "unwanted" upgrades.

[...]

The outcry on Weibo has led Microsoft to post information on the site to help people revert to older versions of Windows.

More and more, Microsoft seems to be losing control of the narrative. Stories about Windows 10 used to be mostly about its latest, feature-laden patch, or Microsoft's latest press release about the pace at which people are switching, but now they're all about how people are being tricked or just plain forced into switching their OS, even when they don't want to.

We're not talking about a few, Luddite hold-outs, here, either; millions of customers are now complaining, very publicly, about Microsoft's tactics, and the mainstream new media are starting to pay attention... in the UK, at least. And that's not a trivial thing; if public opinion in Europe turns against MS in a big enough way, EU regulatory action could well be the result, and the EU's actions can be costly to those on the receiving end of them... as Microsoft should well know, having been on the receiving end of at least one such judgment.

Could the tide be starting to turn? Could this be just the beginning of a backlash of sufficient intensity to convince Microsoft to change course? Or is it too little, too late? Windows 10's "free" upgrade period only has another two months to run; Microsoft could well decide to just tough it out, managing a worsening backlash rather than abandoning a corporate strategy on which they've staked so much of the company's future.

Microsoft Tweaks 'Nasty Trick' Upgrade To Windows 10

Could a level of bad PR actually exist which gets Microsoft's attention?

Well... maybe... but with a lot of asterisks:

Based on "customer feedback", Microsoft said that it had added another notification that provided customers with "an additional opportunity for cancelling the upgrade".

The pop-up design had been described as a "nasty trick".
Microsoft told the BBC it had modified the pop-up two weeks ago as a result of criticism: "We've added another notification that confirms the time of the scheduled upgrade and provides the customer an additional opportunity for cancelling or rescheduling the upgrade.

"If the customer wishes to continue with their upgrade at the designated time, they can click 'OK' or close the notifications with no further action needed."

So... not exactly "backtracking," then. Basically, this is exactly the same bullshit rationalization that they gave for the dirty trick itself.

Senior editor at PC World magazine Brad Chacos, who describes himself as a fan of the Windows 10 operating system, had previously described the use of the cross to mean people had agreed to the upgrade as "a nasty trick".

He said: "I don't think that adding more pestering pop-ups improves the situation. At the very least they should add a large, obvious 'No, I don't want this' button."

Mr Chacos has been a vocal critic of what he described as the "heavy-handed tactics that Microsoft's been using to force people into the upgrade".

Previously, users had to press the cross to cancel the suggested upgrade, he pointed out, so the latest move is counter-intuitive - "akin to swapping out the brake and the accelerator in your car".

Once again, I have to agree with Brad Chacos on this one. Microsoft are just adding yet another annoying pop-up to the process, while leaving the final step in place, exactly as it was. Considering that people are clicking "x" to close these pop-ups precisely because they're so sick of seeing them, this actually fixes nothing at all -- it's a pure PR move.

Still... it is a PR move, something that Microsoft haven't seemed to feel any need to even attempt recently. Maybe the message is starting to seep through?

Yeah, and maybe pigs will fly, too. Who am I kidding? It's Microsoft! They won't change course until they actually run aground. Antitrust action, that's the ticket.

I've just realized why I don't watch TV anymore

Like a steadily growing contingent of cord-cutters, I stopped paying for cable TV years ago.

This wasn't some principled act on my part; I wasn't making a statement, or trying to make any kind of a life change. Instead, cutting the cord was just the logical next step for me -- I realized, much to my surprise, that I just wasn't watching TV anymore, even when I had it on tap. My DVR was full of shows that I'd recorded and never watched; I was constantly deleting recorded content to record more content.. which I also would never watch. And I knew it.

I've never been able to really put a finger on why; I just... stopped watching. I stopped even wanting to watch.

So, I cut the cord. It was slightly weird for a bit, but I find that I don't miss mindlessly channel-surfing, an activity that used to be one of my favourite ways to pass time. However, I still didn't know why.

Then I found myself reading Jezebel's rundown of the coming season's new shows, and OMG, do I ever now know why I don't care about TV anymore.

Some high low points:

• Frequency... the TV show.
• Lethal Weapon... the TV show.
• The Exorcist... the TV show.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show... the TV show.
• Time After Time... the TV show.
• Training Day... the TV show.
• And, for a change of pace: MacGyver... again...

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Now, movies have been effectively adapted into TV shows before; Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate SG-1 leap to mind, here. And an old TV series can find new life, and a new audience, with a new incarnation. But.. Son of MacGuyer? Why not the Spawn of Airwolf?

Actually, ixnay on that last one. I really shouldn't give them any ideas.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the first season or two of MacGuyer, back in the 80's when they first aired, but it hasn't aged well. Neither had The A-Team, when they decided to turn that into a major motion picture, or The Dukes of Hazzard, when Jessica Simpson tried to fill Catherine Bach's "Daisy Dukes." Or Airwolf, for that matter; I freaking loved that show, as a kid, but trying to watch it now is cringe-inducing. 

And this year's "original" content isn't much better:

• Imaginary Mary. Do you remember Drop Dead Fred? Do you remember how hot Phoebe Cates was, before that horrible flop killed her career? Well, this looks to be Drop Dead Fred... the TV show. Pass.
• Downward Dog. “A struggling millennial, from the point of view of her lonely and philosophical dog. One session at obedience school already makes them realize that even at their worst they may be the best thing for each other.” Obedience school? Not yoga class? What a missed opportunity. Pass.
• Kevin Can Wait. “A newly retired police officer looks forward to spending more quality time with his wife and three kids only to discover he faces much tougher challenges at home than he ever did on the streets.” Or, Family Matters... but starting the King of Queens, and with no Leah Remini. Pass.
• Conviction. “Lawyer and former First Daughter Hayes Morrison is about to accept a job offered from her sexy nemesis, NY District Attorney Wayne Wallis, to avoid jail time for cocaine possession and avoid hurting her mother’s Senate campaign.” Yawn. Pass.
• Notorious. “A provocative look at the unique, sexy and dangerous interplay of criminal law and the media.” Wow. Provocative, sexy, and dangerous? All in one show? Be still my heart... oh, wait... we live in a post-Game of Thrones world, don't we? You know, where the bar for that shit has been way higher than network TV will ever go since episode 1, season 1? Pass.

Oh, and did I mention the time travel? Because there are a bunch of time travel shows coming next season...

Yawn. Pass.

If the big networks were trying to convince people like me to reattach the cord... well.. they failed. In epic fashion. Again.

Esports can giveth... but will it?

Esports are so hot right now.

League of Legends, DOTA2, CS:GO, Hearthstone, StarCraft 2... with a few high-profile titles making esports look more legit every day, suddenly everyone wants some of that sweet, sweet esports action:

Per a release from the Pac-12, the athletic conference will become the first to run and broadcast officially sanctioned esports competitions. They haven’t picked a game yet, but they say they will pick one soon and broadcast some gaming starting next year:

Intercollegiate competition in egaming is in its initial stages, but Pac-12 universities are increasingly involved through passionate student groups competing in competitions with popular games. Esports is also closely tied to academic departments at Pac-12 universities such as computer science, visual and cinematic arts, engineering and others.

And they're not the only ones. Activision Blizzard recently "scaled back" their licensed properties division, even as they were acquiring Major League Gaming; they've since partnered with Facebook to deliver esport content worldwide.

They're not alone, either:

Turner Broadcasting and WME/IMG announced that they were forming an eSports league that would debut on TBS. Amazon-owned Twitch, one of the pioneers in this space, receives over 100 million monthly unique viewers, and 1.7 million monthly unique broadcasters. Users view approximately 422 minutes of programming on Twitch, which is more than YouTube’s 291 monthly minutes, according to TechCrunch.

Yes, it's the new videogame gold rush. In the same way that everyone wanted to be making MMOs (only to discover that there really only was room for one World of WarCraft), and then MOBAs (only to discover that there really is only room for one League of Legends), and then free-to-play games (only to discover that people are only willing to drop so much cash on microtransactions for ostensibly free games), now everyone wants to be in esports.

Is this realistic? Maybe not:

While some publishers establish their own eSports divisions and appoint chief competition officers, Take-Two is approaching the competitive gaming trend with a bit more caution. Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz in advance of the company's financial earnings reporttoday, CEO and chairman Strauss Zelnick said the field was promising, but still unproven.

"eSports we find very interesting," Zelnick said. "It is, however, still more a promotional tool than anything else. And most people see eSports as an opportunity to increase consumer engagement in their titles, and depending on the title, to increase consumer spending within the title."

That more or less matches my thinking on the subject. Riot Games didn't design League of Legends to be an esport -- they were just making a game, that they were hoping players would enjoy enough to support with online purchases. It was always an online multiplayer game, and it always had its competitive elements, but there are a lot of competitive online multiplayer games, and almost none of them have become juggernauts of esports in the same way that LoL has.

The same applies to games like Hearthstone, the popularity of which was something of a surprise to Blizzard; players were organizing their own tournaments long before Blizzard got involved. Even Blizzard's StarCraft and WarCraft III, which basically established the current eSports template when it became a cultural phenomenon in South Korea, were not designed as esport titles. Just as with regular, athletic sporting events, the biggest esports grew organically, from games that people just loved to play.

The same applies to almost every big, athletic, sports league. Soccer (or Football, for readers outside NA) was a game long before FIFA became a sporting juggernaut. Football (or gridiron football, for readers outside NA), was organized into the massively profitable NFL long after its popularity as a game had helped it to spread. Baseball is big business, but that's because it was everywhere in the USA at the start of the 20th Century, and not because some corporation decided that their strategy called for a strong position in pastoral past-times.

Conversely, more recent attempts to manufacture new sports have largely flopped. Do you remember when Roller Derby was huge? Do you also remember watching moon landings on TV as a kid? Roller Derby is still around, and experiencing something of a renaissance in the last two years, but it's a long way from being the pop cultural touchstone that it briefly became, back in the 1970s. 

Even attempts to popularize already-existing but lesser-known sports, like Lacrosse (yes, there's a pro Lacrosse league) have met with only moderate success; and other contenders only meet with fleeting success before fading into obscurity, living on like zombies in the wasteland of daytime weekday ESPN. Meanwhile, Professional Darts has gone from daytime ESPN broadcasts out of croweded pubs to packing good-sized arenas, much like esports... again, I think, because it was already a popular game.

I have a feeling that esports are here to stay, but even absolutely dominant titles like LoL can only remain on top for so long; it's the nature of the medium, for new games to eventually supplant older ones at the top of gaming's zeitgeist. But companies that are revamping their entire business models around chasing esports gold? I have a feeling that even the even the AAA prospectors might end up with more fools' gold, than real stuff.

Unintended, yet predictable, consequences

Oculus' attempt to shut down Revive, ostensibly to prevent piracy, seems to be having exactly the result that one would expect:

A new software update for the Oculus Rift VR headset that was supposed to “curb piracy and protect games and apps that developers have worked so hard to make” has actually had the opposite effect. Whoops.

The creator of the Revive hack, which had allowed HTC Vive owners to play Oculus-exclusive programs before Rift’s latest update, has now released a workaround which restores functionality to his code.

Revive’s creator, Libre VR, tells Motherboard that “the original version of Revive simply took functions from the Oculus Runtime and translated them to OpenVR calls...the new version of Revive now uses the same injection technique to bypass Oculus’ ownership check altogether. By disabling the ownership check the game can no longer determine whether you legitimately own the game.”

This is the thing about DRM: it may stop honest, paying customers from using the products they've paid for, in the ways that they feel are reasonable, but it does very little stop actual pirates, who can usually find away around it. Even when that's not really something they really even want to be doing:

Libre VR later added on Reddit that “This is my first success at bypassing the DRM, I really didn’t want to go down that path. I still do not support piracy, do not use this library for pirated copies.” He also told Motherboard that “if he finds a workaround that doesn’t need to disable the ownership check, he’ll implement it.”

I'm reminded of the formerly paying Canadian Netflix customers, who are reportedly considering a return to piracy, now that Netflix won't deliver the same content to Canadian as to their American customers. Or the legion of Canadians pirating Game of Thrones, in large part because HBO won't make HBO Now available north of the 49th parallel.

Note that we're not talking about people wanting something for nothing, here. Canadian Game of Thrones fans are willing to pay for Game of Thrones; they're just not willing to pay for everything else on HBO Canada to get it. Canadian Netflix customers were paying for the service, only to find the service that was being delivered to them had been rather drastically curtailed.

Early adopters of Revive want to buy games from Oculus... they just want to be able to play them on any compatible hardware, something Oculus used to be OK with... until they discovered that Vive was going to actually give them a run for their money, at which point they suddenly weren't so OK with it.

So much for those principles, eh, Palmer Luckey? GG.

Microsoft makes deep cuts to smartphone business

There were signs a while ago that this was coming, and today, it came:

Microsoft Corp announced more big cuts to its smartphone business on Wednesday, just two years after it bought handset maker Nokia in an ill-fated attempt to take on market leaders Apple and Samsung.

The U.S. company said it would shed up to 1,850 jobs, most of them in Finland, and write down $950 million from the
business. It did not say how many employees currently work on smartphones in the group as a whole.

A Finnish union representative told Reuters the cuts would essentially put an end to Microsoft's development of new phones.

"My understanding is that Windows 10 will go on as an operating system, but there will be no more phones made by
Microsoft," said Kalle Kiili, a shop steward.

Microsoft said in a statement it would continue to develop the Windows 10 platform and support its Lumia smartphones, but gave no comment on whether it would develop new Windows phones.

Windows 10's Universal Windows Platform was intended, among other things, to help Microsoft push Windows Phone, but this announcement would seem to indicate that Windows Phone is officially dead, with Microsoft basically writing off their Phone effort.

So, does this push Microsoft into doubling down on their overbearing and arguably underhanded efforts to push Windows 10 on PC, even though it clearly won't revive the fortunes of Windows Phone? And will Universal Windows Platform continue to be a centrepiece of Windows 10, even though the prospect of Universal Windows Apps running on smartphones has proven to be a non-starter?

I guess time will tell. But Microsoft's XBox and Windows 10 tactics have seemed, to me anyway, rather desperate for some time now. With this new development, their desperation is unlikely to do anything but increase.

UPDATE | I love the CBC, but their coverage missed a fair bit of Microsoft's response. What MS actually said about this move may well send a chill down the spine of many a MS shareholder. From C|Net:

"We are focusing our phone efforts where we have differentiation -- with enterprises that value security, manageability and our Continuum capability, and consumers who value the same," Chief Executive Satya Nadella said in a statement. "We will continue to innovate across devices and on our cloud services across all mobile platforms."

Is it just me, or does that sound a lot like BlackBerry's action plan, back when they were still trying to compete with iPhone and Android? BlackBerry now make Android devices, and even companies that used to have BlackBerry apps have decided that it's not worth the cost. And BlackBerry had market share to lose; Windows Phone doesn't.

Microsoft now straight up trolling on Windows 10 updates.

Seriously, WTF?

Microsoft has faced criticism for changing the pop-up box encouraging Windows users to upgrade to Windows 10.

 

Clicking the red cross on the right hand corner of the pop-up box now activates the upgrade instead of closing the box. And this has caused confusion as typically clicking a red cross closes a pop-up notification.

So, just to recap, your options when told that it's time to upgrade are now:

1. "Upgrade now," which starts the upgrade right away; 
2. "OK," which schedules the upgrade for later; and 
3. closing the window... which now also schedules the upgrade for later. 

Microsoft is still claiming that "Customers can choose to accept or decline the Windows 10 upgrade," which seems rather disingenuous since the pop-up box doesn't have a single option on it anywhere which leads to that result.

The change occurred because the update is now labelled "recommended" and many people have their PCs configured to accept recommended updates for security reasons. This means dismissing the box does not dismiss the update.

Brad Chacos, senior editor at the PC World website, described it as a "nasty trick".

Yeah, no shit, Brad. But that's today's Microsoft for you: hard at work, losing friends and alienating customers.

By the way, if you're still auto-installing Windows updates whenever Microsoft tells you to, it's long past time to stop. You might also want to look into GRC|Never10, to stop Windows from upgrading anyway, even against your wishes, because Microsoft clearly cannot be trusted to respect your wishes. And if you aren't already running Spybot's Anti-Beacon, then you should consider doing that, too (those of you who have been upgraded to Windows 10, whether or not you actually chose to upgrade, can run O&O ShutUp10 instead).

And, seriously, people... Linux. If you are tech savvy at all, you should be at least looking into running a dual-boot Linux set-up. I know that I am, and will be actually setting it up in about a month, as my summer vacation project, with a goal of completely "defenestrating" when Microsoft sunset Windows 7 ahead of schedule. Because that's obviously their next move.

No, consumers really didn't like the Kinect

I just read this bit of revisionist history on HuffPost Tech, courtesy of Reuters:

Consumers liked Kinect, but it never lived up to its full potential, in part because it spawned no blockbuster games. Microsoft failed to persuade top gaming studios to invest seriously in Kinect, developers say, and by 2014 it was no longer being included with Xbox consoles.

That's a lovely story. Just one problem... that's not what happened.

Critics and reviewers liked the Kinect, yes. Some of them even liked the XBox One version, which was on all the time and reporting what it saw and heard back to Microsoft even when your XBOne was "off," praising it's camera quality and fast response time, among other things. But consumers didn't take to the Kinect, either on the XB360 or the XBOne. That's why the AAA studios weren't making games for the thing... there were no users to whom they could've sold those games, even if they'd made some.

That may have been partly why Microsoft were so keen to bundle the Kinect with the XBOne, back when they were still selling XBOne as the device which was going to take over your living room, and control all your devices, while downplaying games as the main use of the device... a disastrous marketing strategy which Sony capitalised on, allowing them to clean XBox's clock in this console generation, outselling them two to one.

It certainly didn't help, though, that Kinect on XBOne had other issues besides a near-total lack of games that made use of the thing:

Prior to Xbox One's launch, privacy concerns were raised over the new Kinect; critics showed concerns the device could be used for surveillance, stemming from the originally announced requirements that Xbox One's Kinect be plugged in at all times, plus the initial always-on DRM system that required the console to be connected to the internet to ensure continued functionality. Privacy advocates contended that the increased amount of data which could be collected with the new Kinect (such as a person's eye movements, heart rate, and mood) could be used for targeted advertising.

Reports also surfaced regarding recent Microsoft patents involving Kinect, such as a DRM system based on detecting the number of viewers in a room, and tracking viewing habits by awarding achievements for watching television programs and advertising. While Microsoft stated that its privacy policy "prohibit[s] the collection, storage, or use of Kinect data for the purpose of advertising", critics did not rule out the possibility that these policies could be changed prior to the release of the console.

Concerns were also raised that the device could also record conversations, as its microphone remains active at all times. In response to the criticism, a Microsoft spokesperson stated that users are "in control of when Kinect sensing is On, Off or Paused", will be provided with key privacy information and settings during the console's initial setup, and that user-generated content such as photos and videos "will not leave your Xbox One without your explicit permission."[19][20][21][22] Microsoft ultimately decided to reverse its decision to require Kinect usage on Xbox One, but the console still shipped with the device upon its launch in November 2013.[9]

The decision to still ship XBOne with Kinect added $150 to the price tag, for a device that consumers had never taken to, and which now came with a freight of Orwellian PR, a combination which sunk the platform; Microsoft would eventually backtrack on their claim that Kinect was "essential" to the XBOne experience, and ship a SKU with no Kinect in the box, but the damage was done: PlayStation 4 was already well ahead, and Microsoft would never get close to Sony again in console unit sales.

And yet, Reuters is still claiming that consumers "liked Kinect," in spite of the fact that Microsoft has released it twice, only to have consumers refuse, en masse, to buy the thing. No. Just.... no.

One less reason to get excited about VR

Here's a recipe for success:

1. First, make a really expensive toy with no obvious practical application.
2. Then, make consumers choose between your toy and your competitions' versions, when there aren't yet any games to speak of for either of your platforms.
3. Make sure you use DRM to lock that shit down.
4. In the process, make sure you break the promise you'd made to your customers that you wouldn't use DRM to lock that shit down.
5. Profit?!

Yes, Oculus is doing exactly that:

As recently as 5 months ago, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey was promising his customers that they could play the software they bought from the Oculus store on "whatever they want," guaranteeing that the company wouldn't shut down apps that let customers move their purchased software to non-Oculus hardware.

But now, Oculus has changed its DRM to exclude Revive, a "proof-of-concept compatibility layer between the Oculus SDK [software development kit] and OpenVR," that let players buy software in the Oculus store and run it on competing hardware.

The company billed the update as an anti-piracy measure, but Revive's developer, who calls themself "Libre VR," points out that the DRM only prevents piracy using non-Oculus hardware, and allows for unlimited piracy by Oculus owners.

So... My apartment doesn't have a 5½ x 6½ foot space free in which to set up an HTC Vive, even if I'd wanted one; Oculus are well on their way to being exactly like the kind of anti-competitive outfit that people were afraid of, when it was first announced that Facebook had bought their souls; Sony's VR only works with a PS4, which I neither have nor want... What does that leave? And why would I want it? For that matter, why should I want any of them?

Add a heavy-handed DRM policy to a basically useless, over-hyped, and way too expensive product, and it's no sale, at least for me. GG, Oculus. GG.

Firefox tops Microsoft's browser in market share

I thought that this had happened a while ago, but apparently I was thinking of Chrome, which still holds 60% of the browser market share. IE & Edge, together, held the #2 spot, though, until five minutes ago:

Firefox has gingerly pulled ahead of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Edge browsers for the first time across the globe.

Mozilla’s Firefox grabbed 15.6 percent of worldwide desktop browser usage in April, according to the latest numbers from Web analytics outfit StatCounter.

However, neither browser threatens the market leader—Google’s Chrome continues to command two thirds of the market.

StatCounter, which analysed data from three million websites, found that Firefox’s worldwide desktop browser usage last month was 0.1 percent ahead of the combined share of Internet Explorer and Edge at 15.5 percent.

[...]

“Microsoft might have expected a boost to its overall browser share as the result of the launch of the Windows 10 with Edge but it hasn’t happened to date,” said StatCounter chief Aodhan Cullen.

This probably has very little to do with the quality or features of Edge, which, by all accounts, is essentially as good as Chrome or Firefox. But Edge isn't a better browser than Chrome or Firefox, and apparently it's not shiny enough to sell the new OS, because even with since Microsoft having stopped supporting IE, and everybody now having to switch their browsers, the trend so far is one of people switching to Edge's competitors, rather than switching to Windows 10.

GG, Microsoft. GG.

Windows Phone continues failing to be a thing

One of the other big strategic goals behind Universal Windows Platform, and a big part of the reason why Microsoft is pushing Windows 10 way too hard (ad revenue is another), was to make it easier to develop apps for Windows Phone, by making every Univeral Windows Application work on every Windows 10 device. 

Microsoft's mobile offering simply can't make inroads into a saturated mobile marketplace where everyone already has either an iPhone or an Android, and nobody apart from a few Fenestraphiles (Windows-lovers; from fenestra, window, and philia, fondness; like it?) ever bought a Windows phone. The platform has a "chicken and egg" problem -- with no users, the platform gets no apps made; but with no apps, the platform can't attract new users, let alone lure away users of the other, app-rich mobile ecosystems.

Even the Surface, which was actually ahead of the curve in terms of tablets (convertible laptop/tablet form-factors are the only ones still selling, and the Surface was the first of those to market) is being outsold by Apple's iPad Pro, which Microsoft beat to market by three full years. The most-used OS in the world actually isn't Windows anymore; it's Android, which is only found on smartphones. Only on desktops and laptops does Windows still reign supreme.

Choice is Microsoft's enemy here. Choice has made Android the #1 OS on earth, and seen Windows frozen out of the mobile space completely... even the part of it that they ventured into first. The peril of consumers' choices, and the fact that increasingly mobile, platform-independent consumers are increasingly and overwhelming not choosing Windows... well, apparently that just isn't to be borne. Hence UWP. Hence Windows 10.

(UWP isn't unique to Windows 10, of course; UWP was also a big part of Windows 8... which didn't end well. In fact, Windows 8 is so unpopular that Microsoft skipped over 9 when numbering the next version of their OS; Windows 9 just didn't have enough separation from Windows 8 in terms of brand identity.)

And thus, the desperate gamble: If Microsoft can convince coerce enough desktop and laptop Windows users to adopt Windows 10, the core of which is Univeral Windows Platform, then they have a built-in user base of Windows Store customers; and if every Windows 10 program is also a Universal Windows Application, which can run on any Windows device, their phones included, then they can build a base of captive consumers who will be invested in the Windows Phone ecosystem by default, rather than having to rely on consumers' choices.

It's just a step above underpants gnome logic:

• Phase 1. Switch everyone to Windows 10.
• Phase 2: ...
• Phase 3: Profit!

So... Microsoft... How's that working out for you?

Microsoft has dragged its mobile phone business for long enough with poor results, so the company is reportedly letting go of manufacturing feature phones.

Microsoft and Nokia struck a deal in 2014 and the terms of acquisition read that the Windows developer owns full rights for the Nokia brand for smartphones until 2024. Now, Microsoft looks into licensing the Nokia brand to Foxconn.

The decision purportedly comes due to the unexpected bleak results for the first quarter of 2016, when Microsoft managed to sell a mere 15 million handsets.

The [translated] report from VTech claims that the company aims to discontinue the Microsoft Mobile business, which fans know as the department behind the building of Lumia handsets. The Lumia smartphone business will reportely [sic] join the Surface line. This sounds as bad as it seems for Microsoft's employees, a part of which expect to get the boot during the restructuring. About 50 percent of the Microsoft Mobile members will be looking for new jobs, the report notes.

Oh. That well, huh?

At this point, I'd just like to mention that Steve Ballmer told you so:

Steve Ballmer may not be running Microsoft anymore, but the former CEO of the company clearly has some opinions on its current Windows 10 app strategy. Ballmer believes that the universal app platform that Microsoft is currently following is not the way to go, and that the company should consider having Windows Phones run Android apps.

Nadella may just want to listen to him. Especially since it's looking more and more like he was right.

Microsoft to put even more ads in Windows 10’s Start menu

You know, when I started this blog, I really was intending to blog about things other than Microsoft, and how they're being such incredible jerks about everything surrounding their new OS. Hell, there was a moment when I was even looking forward to Windows 10; when my planned summer project was switching to MS's new OS, and not turning my Windows 7 rig into a dual-boot Linux/SteamOS system.

But that was then, and in the now, the hits just keep coming:

Microsoft is planning to put even more ads inside Windows 10’s Start menu in its upcoming Anniversary Update. There won’t just be an extra one or two; the software giant plants to double the current number from five to ten.

Start menu ads are typically promoted tiles for apps and games available from the Windows Store, and according to The Verge, they mostly appear on new PCs to encourage new users to check out the titles available in the Store.

[...]

Microsoft confirmed it was doubling the number of ads at the WinHEC conference, where it also announced fingerprint scanner support is coming to Windows 10 Mobile. The company did not provide a reason for the move, but it’s likely to boost Windows Store downloads.

Of course it's to boost Windows Store downloads. Windows Store is a major focus of Windows 10's Universal Windows Platform, after all. Apparently, nothing else matters, including users' privacy, or their continued trust and good will. We will upgrade whether we like it or not, and we will download from the Windows Store after "upgrading," because UWP will ensure that we don't have any other options. At least, that seems to be Microsoft's plan.

It seems to me like it's just about time for Microsoft to face another antitrust action, and maybe more EU regulatory action, also.

Desperate Microsoft now auto-scheduling Windows 10 updates...

... and, yes, I do mean with or without consent from end users:

When Microsoft created Windows 10, it tied in numerous monitoring and data collection tools. The operating system is capable of gathering your search history, web usage, Windows Store usage, details of what applications you use, voice recordings, emails, geographic information and just about anything else that is on your PC. This information is gathered in part for improving Windows-based services, but it is also used for market research and advertising purposes.

Because each user on Windows 10 increases the amount of advertising information available to Microsoft, which in turn enables Microsoft to earn more revenue from selling this data, it is not surprising that Microsoft wants everyone to use its new OS. This lead to Microsoft offering Windows 10 as a free upgrade to both Windows 7 and Windows 8, as users of either OS were unlikely to want to pay for a new OS on an already relatively new PC.

Still, there were numerous users that opted to stick with their older Windows OSes, but they were still subject to annoying pop-ups trying to get you to move to Windows 10. Even after you close the pop-up, it returns after a few short hours, relentlessly probing you to upgrade.

Now, as we near the end of the free upgrade period, Microsoft’s malware-like upgrade system is becoming even more intrusive by autoscheduling upgrades to Windows 10. I noticed that the Windows 10 upgrade reminder pop-up on a Windows 7 PC was no longer asking me to upgrade; instead, it’s now informing me that it has already scheduled an update for May 17.

There are options to cancel the scheduled upgrade or to change the upgrade date, so the system isn’t exactly forcing you to upgrade if you catch it soon enough. The problem is that some users won’t see it in time to stop it; they’ll wake up one morning to use their PC and find it is stuck attempting to upgrade to Windows 10 or hogging bandwidth while Windows 10 downloads.

[...] 

Hopefully after July 29, Microsoft will deactivate this overbearing upgrade system, but until then, watchfulness and diligence is the only way to be sure your system does not upgrade to Windows 10 without your knowledge.

We knew that they could, so it really was only matter of time until they did. After all, there's nothing but benefit to Microsoft in switching you to their new OS, so that they can force you buy all your software through their storefront (with them taking a 30% cut), even as they harvest your metadata and sell it to advertisers. Faced with the reality that everyone who wanted to switch, had switched already, the only way to get more people to switch was to remove as much choice from the equation as possible.

So, I'm not surprised that Microsoft are doing this; I'm only surprised that they haven't simply forced us all to "upgrade." Because you'd better believe that they can do that, too, if they decide that it better serves their greedy, overbearing, corporate interests. At this point, it's fair to say that any trust and good-will that I ever had for Microsoft is pretty much gone:

Users shouldn't have to be watching their PCs like hawks to ensure nothing is amiss in terms of updates. Having your machine fire up an OS upgrade without your knowledge really is – let's find a way of putting this politely, how about: beyond the pale.

If, like me, you'd rather not be "upgraded" to an OS that will spy on you, so that Microsoft can sell your metadata to advertisers, then options exist, like Never10. And, to stop Windows 7 from spying on you, too, because of course it does, I suggest using something like SpyBot's Anti-Beacon.

Microsoft can’t even give away Windows 10?

From Killian Bell at Cult of Mac:

Despite being free for almost a year, the company’s latest upgrade hasn’t been able to put any significant dent in Windows 7’s user base. It has only just overtaken the universally despised Windows 8.1 release.

You might think Microsoft made Windows 10 free just to copy Apple, which has been offering free OS X upgrades for years. There may be a bit of that, but the real reason is a desperate attempt to convince users to finally upgrade.

You see, Microsoft has a habit of biting Windows users in the backside, so many have become weary about upgrading to its latest releases. Even if they get good reviews, there’s always a fear something will be missing, things will break, or performance will take a hit.

[...]

The chart below from Statista shows that although Windows 10 managed to overtake Windows 8/8.1 back in February, it still hasn’t grabbed a 20 percent share of the market yet. Meanwhile, Windows XP still holds onto more than 40 percent.

In comparison, Apple’s latest release, El Capitan, was installed on almost 45 percent of compatible Macs four months after making its debut — and believe it or not, that’s slow growth compared to previous OS X upgrades.

[...]

On July 29, Microsoft free upgrade to Windows 10 will end, and it’ll cost $119. At which point, users are even less likely to upgrade, and adoption will become even slower.

Interestingly, Bell really likes Windows 10 itself (which he describes as "actually very good"), which is a little surprising for a site that's more about MacOS computers, but still manages to highlight the big problem that MS have here -- the trust and goodwill that they enjoyed after XP (i.e. before Vista), or even after Windows 7 (and before Windows 8) is mostly just not there anymore, and their heavy-handed approach, with its anti-consumer UWP and telemetry "features," does not look like it's winning those hearts and minds back over.

Others have noticed, too, like Eugene Kim at Business Insider:

Microsoft has been running a rather aggressive campaign to get people to take advantage of its Windows 10 free upgrade, constantly throwing pop-up ads at random moments. There's even a word for it: nagware.

But so far, the campaign hasn't seen the runaway success Microsoft may have been hoping for. As this chart by Statista shows [Ed: it's the same chart], Windows 10 just surpassed the market share of Windows 8/8.1, which was poorly received, and still lags behind the user base of Windows 7 by a wide margin.

When people coin a term like "nagware" to describe your latest product offering... well, let's just say that it probably ain't a good thing.

On a positive note, though, Windows 10 will continue to be a free upgrade for some people, even after July. From PC World:

Microsoft plans to end its one-year free upgrade program on July 29, after which Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users will have to pay for the privilege of using Windows 10. But that deadline will not apply to users of technologies designed for disabilities, Microsoft said in a blog post.

“We are continuing to deliver on our previously shared vision for accessibility for Windows 10 and we are committed to ensuring that users of assistive technologies have the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 10 for free as we do so,” Daniel Hubbell, a Microsoft accessibility technical evangelist, wrote.

[...]

Examples of assistive technologies in Windows 10 include Narrator, a screen-reader app that vocalizes text; Magnifier, a digital magnifying glass for those with poor vision; and Speech Recognition, which allows you to control your PC using your voice alone. Microsoft also lists a number of certified third-party assistive accessories, including literacy software and Braille keyboards.

It's unclear just how MS will go about figuring out who's using "assistive" devices or software. I know a few people who have serious RSI/carpal tunnel or arthritis, though, for whom Windows 10's voice command feature (a.k.a. Cortana) would be a boon, so this could be good for them, and it marks the first positive news about Windows 10 upgrading that I've seen in a long time. Baby steps, maybe?

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney still opposes Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform, loves VR maybe a little too much

From VentureBeat:

GamesBeat: I went to Microsoft Build this year. At least three executives, including the CEO (and Xbox head Phil Spencer), talked about openness. Did they not have quite what you were looking for?

Sweeney: Onstage at Build, Phil Spencer said the Xbox is an open platform. Which surprises me, because you have to get your game concept approved before you start developing it. Then you have to get every update approved. Microsoft has absolute control. You don’t know who your customers are. They sell your game through their store. It’s not your platform. It’s just propaganda mode at that point.

[...]

GamesBeat: What has some of the reaction been like for you?

Sweeney: A huge number of developers share the sentiment, but most of them don’t want to take on a $400 billion corporation. I’ve been told it’s a bad idea. But everybody hears this. What we’re seeing right now is that nobody is adopting UWP except for a small number of developers that Microsoft is paying to adopt UWP. The same goes for the Windows Store in Windows 8.1. It’s a dump for ports of Android games to Windows that Microsoft has paid for. If you search for “GTA” in the Windows store, there’s this mobile GTA game. Where is GTA? It’s the number one game on the PC of all time, and it’s not there.

[...]

With Windows, Microsoft has given itself the ability to force patch updates without your authorization. It will just update itself and you can’t do anything about it. They can change the rules of the game at any time. They call it “sideloading” now, because other stores aren’t official, and they’ve launched the operating system with that disabled. They forced a patch to enable it.

They say a lot about openness, but they want us to play this game by porting all our apps to this new platform and they’re not telling us what the rules are. They reserve the right to change the rules. I don’t think they’re going to change them in our favor. That’s my fear.

The whole thing is a pretty good read, so I recommend that you check it out, even though his take on VR is rather... pollyannaish:

GamesBeat: The game market is divided between mobile, PC, and console. How do you expect that split to change in the next decade?

GamesBeat: It’s funny how this has evolved. You start out with a PC that has a pretty big monitor and then we went down to these handheld devices. We reset expectations back to the 1990s with 2D sprite-based games. It was a weird inversion for the game industry. But the opposite trend is starting to happen now with AR and VR.

If you look at a PC monitor, it takes up about 30 degrees of your field of view. A smartphone is maybe 15 degrees, which is a much more limited experience. VR and AR are filling your entire field of view with an immersive experience. It’ll lead to a much more visceral, believable experience. That will be the most innovative platform ever launched. We’re going to reinvent user interface paradigms, game paradigms. Movies, and the format and technology powering movies, will be completely reinvented around these new media.

It’s not going to happen instantly. How many VR headsets are out there now at the high end? Only 30,000 or 40,000. But that number will double, triple, or quadruple every year to a point where there might be 250 million units in seven years. Then augmented reality will come in, which is a harder technology to implement, but much more fundamental. Imagine reducing VR to the form factor of a pair of sunglasses and having a pervasive entertainment device that has all the power of a high-end PC and the convenience of a smartphone or beyond.

That’s going to be revolutionary. It’ll bring gaming to billions of users. And not just gaming in the sense of playing little smartphone games in front of you, but fully immersive, high-end, visceral gaming.

Yes, Tim Sweeney -- a VR or AR headset that's as small and light as a pair of sunglasses, paired with a PC that packs all the power of a present-day gaming destop into a smartphone's form-factor, while also reinventing all the UI paradigms... well, that would be revolutionary. There's no sign that it's anywhere near happening, though -- nobody has anything remotely like this sci-fi future even in development, so saying that this is the near future (<10 years) of the games industry (or any industry) is pure bollocks.

Also... VR doubling the number of headsets circulation every year for seven years? No. Not unless bot the price point and the system requirements for it come down, and I mean by a lot. Right now, it's a $2000 buy-in ($500 or so for your headset of choice, and $1500 for a PC that can drive the thing, actual VR controllers not included) for a piece of display tech that just isn't useful for very much.

Microsoft is breaking Windows 7 to push Windows 10

How is it possible that Microsoft's behaviour keeps getting worse?

Microsoft has made a change to an update for Windows 7 that can prevent certain systems from booting. While you might expect me to say, "good news, the software giant has fixed the problem", in fact what Microsoft has done is switch the update from "optional", to "recommended". So, on some systems, it will now install, and break Windows 7 automatically.

There is good news though, and that’s you can solve the problem and get your computer working again by (can you guess?) upgrading to Windows 10. Hooray!

[...]

As Microsoft explains:

After you install update 3133977 on a Windows 7 x64-based system that includes an ASUS-based main board, the system does not start, and it generates a Secure Boot error on the ASUS BIOS screen. This problem occurs because ASUS allowed the main board to enable the Secure Boot process even though Windows 7 does not support this feature.

Thankfully, ASUS has a solution to the problem, which you can read about here.

Microsoft also has a solution:

The Secure Boot feature is supported in Windows 10. To learn more about the security advantages of this feature and about the upgrade path from Windows 7 to Windows 10, go to the following Windows website [...]

We seem to be to reaching that point, where words truly do fail to really convey the true depth and stench of the shit that Microsoft is shovelling. Do they even remember what customers are? Or why customers might be important? Or are their heads so firmly buried in their stats and up their own asses that they really can't see anymore just how egregious their behaviour has become, or how much damage they're doing to the trust and goodwill that Windows customers used to have for their OS?

I'm not someone who normally allows hate any kind of space in my life; I do my best to love even people with whom I have disagreements, to see the perspective and humanity even of people who have behaved badly. You know: hate the sin, not the sinner?

But I'll admit it: I really am starting to hate Microsoft, along with everything they stand for, and everything they make and do. I don't even care anymore what Windows 10's feature are; I won't be switching. Not for free, and not for $120 (or $200). Not ever. If that means that I have to change the way I live my life, and game, and use technology, then that's what it means, but I have no intention of ever again supporting Microsoft with my business.

Windows 10 free upgrade to end soon

I wonder if they'll still be auto-upgrading people, even after upgrades cost $119.00 each?

The free upgrade offer to Windows 10 was a first for Microsoft, helping people upgrade faster than ever before. And time is running out. The free upgrade offer will end on July 29 and we want to make sure you don’t miss out. After July 29^th, you’ll be able to continue to get Windows 10 on a new device, or purchase a full version of Windows 10 Home for $119.

[...]

If you’ve already upgraded to Windows 10 – thank you. If you haven’t upgraded yet – we hope you’ll consider upgrading today.

I haven't; I wasn't planning to, even as a free upgrade; and I definitely won't at $120, unless there's some serious value for me in there, rather than most of the value flowing in Microsoft's direction. If MS's heavy-handedly forcing it down our throats didn't work, I wonder why they think a "hard sell" approach will win them any greater trust and goodwill?

But wait... it gets worse! Because even if you shell out $200 for Windows 10 Pro, which is supposed to let you control what Windows 10 is doing, you won't be able to control what Windows 10 is doing:

Up until a month ago, admins could use Group Policy to shut off employees' access to Windows Store if they were running Windows 10 Pro. Controlling this access is a requirement for some businesses.

But last month, Microsoft changed that option, claiming that Store access was required for all versions of Windows 10 except Enterprise and Education "by design." (Thanks to @SwitftonSecurity for the heads up.)

[...]

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the change, noting that businesses who need to shut off Store access have no recourse other than Windows 10 Enterprise.

Yes, Windows 10 really will do whatever the fuck Microsoft want it to do, regardless of what you want it do, or what you've paid to control what it does, and it's pretty clear that what MS mostly want it to do is drain a never-ending stream of cash from user's pockets, whether in the form of its UWP app store, or in the form of "optional" upgrades that mostly reduce the shittiness of the experience, rather than providing actual value to the consumer.

Did I mention that my summer project is a dual-boot Window 7 & Linux/SteamOS gaming rig? Seriously, I'm really looking forward to being out from under MS's boot heels, here.