So, that sure didn't take very long...

It wasn't even two weeks ago that Microsoft ended support for Windows 7 (for all except their biggest, richest Win7 customers, that is), claiming that we would never receive another update ever again. There was even a full-screen nag screen, because of fucking course there was. Blogs and tech news sites were full of nothing except doom and gloom for Win7 users, telling us all that the sky was falling, and only Windows 10 offered any shelter.

And so, naturally, Microsoft have already announced that they'll be issuing another patch for Windows 7 in February. Huzzah!

Victory! Microsoft surrenders and PC users win

File under, "It's about fucking time," I guess.

As reported in Forbes:

Microsoft has a major announcement today: Windows 10 will no longer automatically install those big feature updates every six months. Home users can pause smaller updates, too. In fact, Windows will even let you pause updates after checking for them!

This is huge. It’s Microsoft’s biggest change in Windows strategy since the company released Windows 10. Microsoft is giving up on “Windows as a service” that is automatically updated outside of your control.

[...]

Microsoft is giving us—and PC users—a lot of what we asked for here! We said Windows wasn’t a service and Microsoft should give PC users more choice. We called for Microsoft to test updates more thoroughly than the botched October 2018 Update, which deleted some people’s files and had other bugs. We warned people not to click “Check for Updates”because Microsoft would treat you as a “seeker” and force updates on your PC before they had gone through testing. We said Home users should get more control over updates, including the ability to pause updates when desired.

Microsoft's insistence on treating Windows 10 Home users like guinea pigs was one of the most contentious issues that still plagued the OS, and was a big part of the reason that I decided to switch to Linux instead. I'm still switching to Linux instead, of course; Microsoft's belated move in the direction of what they should always have done with the OS is just too little, too late, at least for me. But for the millions of Windows 10 users who felt like they had no choice but to adopt Microsoft's new OS, or who were switched after repeatedly refusing the "upgrade," this is definitely good news.

1809 update finally released by Microsoft, along with empty promises of future change

We always knew it would come eventually; the only remaining question was the timing of the thing. Let's start with the details, as reported by ZDNet:

Microsoft has resumed the rollout of Windows 10 version 1809. The re-release of the so-called October 2018 Update comes more than five weeks after the company pulled the original installation files from its download servers and stopped its scheduled delivery through Windows Update just days after its initial debut on Oct. 2.

In a blog post, Microsoft's John Cable, the director of Program Management for Windows Servicing and Delivery, says the data-destroying bug that triggered that unprecedented decision, as well as other quality issues that emerged during the unscheduled hiatus, have been "thoroughly investigated and resolved."

Meanwhile, back in Windows 10

With Windows 10's 1809 update still M.I.A., and having had a very bad month in October, Microsoft were likely hoping to put the worst of their WaaS woes behind them. They've been busy hyping the latest 19H1 update's build and its features, and saying nothing at all about the ill-fated 1809 update, which is looking more and more like it also won't release until the first half of 2019.

But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and Microsoft's plans for Windows-as-a-Service are increasingly looking like they were poorly laid from the very start, so it should surprise nobody that Windows 10 has another issue. And, wow, is is a doozy, as reported by Gordon Kelly at Forbes:

Spotted by The Register, Microsoft’s activation servers have started accidentally downgrading expensive Windows 10 Pro systems into cheaper Windows 10 Home PCs, then invalidating their licences. Needless to say, that's a nasty financial hit (Home is $119, Pro is $199) and affected users are furious.

[...]

And it’s not just upgraders being affected. Problems with automated Windows 10 Home downgrades are being reported with fresh installs on different Windows Pro versions as well.

“Same issue on Dell computers running Windows 10 Pro 1803 that we just bought. Need to deploy to clients but they won't activate,” explained another user on Reddit.
Microsoft’s response? It’s not great.

On its official Answers page, Microsoft warns there is a “temporary issue” with the company’s activation server but has not disclosed any further details. As for users calling Microsoft’s call centres, the response is to simply wait for a fix.

Cue the expensive class-action lawsuits in 3... 2... 1...

What Microsoft should have done... but will never, ever do

In the wake of the bungled 1809 update rollout, people are already asking what Microsoft should have done differently, or could/should do differently going forward. PC World has some pretty reasonable-sounding thought on that subject:

Microsoft strives to make milestone upgrades sound as innocent and painless as possible. But as any PC enthusiast (and our Windows upgrade guides) can tell you, tinkering with the very core of your operating system carries inherent risk.

[...]

The Microsoft’s Windows 10 upgrade prompt whitewashes the severity of major updates, and doesn’t make it obvious that significant surgery will occur underneath the hood, let alone the risk that major surgery entails. It just sounds like you’ll wait a little more than usual after you reboot and get rewarded for your patience with cool new stuff. And to be fair, that’s all that happens in the vast majority of cases.

[...]

As the disastrous October 2018 Update proves, there’s enough risk present in major operating system upgrades that Microsoft needs to make users aware of it. Milestone upgrade prompts like the one cited above from the Fall Creators Update already get custom text, so all Microsoft needs to do is add “We advise backing up your data first” to it. A handful of words can prevent a heap of headaches.

That sounds pretty reasonable. Hell, it is pretty reasonable. It's also never going to happen, because Microsoft's future plans all rely on Windows 10 being delivered as a service, and on pushing cloud versions of everything on users who have been reluctant to adopt them.

WX 1809 update negligence gets worse

So, do you remember that "bug" in the 1809 update, that finally prompted Microsoft to pull it yesterday? Well, here's the thing about that... funny story... it's not new. As reported by ZDNet:

As ZDNet reported yesterday, the Windows 10 October 2018 version 1809 upgrade hasn't gone well for a bunch of users who lost documents and photos after updating.

What's worse, it appears that Microsoft may have let this bug slip through testing with Windows Insiders during the preview of Windows 10 version 1809.

As noted by MSPoweruser, Windows insiders hit the exact same snag during Microsoft's preview phase of the Windows 10 version 1809 when updating from version 1803.

For some unknown reason, moving up to Windows 10 version 1809 may delete all the files in user folders. The folders remain, but the files within them are gone, leaving users in potentially a worse pickle than ransomware victims experience.

WX's spring update was delayed from its originally planned April launch into May by an unspecified-but-serious issue, but Microsoft never did say what the issue was. Apparently this was the issue, and it's certainly enough of an issue to have justified the delay of the 1803 update's rollout. The fact that WX still has this issue, though, and that Microsoft didn't think it important enough to delay the 1809 update's rollout, elevates this from incompetence to malice. It's simply mind-blowing.

And the only defense against this happening to you, both with this update and with and and all future updates, is Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service, which is not free if you need to back up more than 50GB of data. It's as if Microsoft is engaged in a low-key shakedown of the entire WX user base. Holy ransomware, Batman! Except this ransomware is your OS, and thus can't be avoided.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'm not alone in saying it: I don't care if it comes from Microsoft, Windows 10 is malware.

Windows 10 update pulled by Microsoft

In a completely uncharacteristic move, Microsoft has done an abrupt 180° on their aggressive Windows 10 update regime, announcing that they were pulling an October update which was deleting users' files. This is a marked contrast to their approach to the spring update, which was causing no end of problems for users but which Microsoft kept on rolling out, anyway; I guess a full day of headlines about their data-destroying update was finally enough to make them blink.

Windows Latest appears to the first site reporting on Microsoft's confirmation of the move:

Windows 10 October 2018 Update was released on October 2 and some users reported that the update is deleting their files and document. Today, Microsoft updated the Windows 10 download page and the company has removed the ISO files and Media Creation Tool no longer downloads Windows 10 version 1809.

[...]

When you will visit the Windows 10 download page, you’ll be greeted with old “Windows 10 April 2018 Update” heading. Upon checking, we discovered that Microsoft has also removed the ISO links and the Media Creation Tool is not downloading the October 2018 Update (version 1809) anymore, at least on your end.

[...]

“We have paused the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) for all users as we investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating,” explains Microsoft in a support document.

The support document itself is a terse bit of understatement:

We have paused the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) for all users as we investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.

Those are the facts. Now let's get real about them.

1. Microsoft's support document note does its best to downplay the problem, but bearing in mind that they kept rolling out the spring update in spite of widespread reports of significant issues with it, I think we can safely assume that there was nothing "isolated" about this problem. They would not have stopped the rollout for anything other than a major issue with the potential for widespread liability.
2. Users were not reporting "some" missing files; they were reporting the loss of everything not backed up to Microsoft's OneDrive service, specifically. For those that were affected by the issue, the loss of data was total, with no absolutely no way to recover the lost data.
3. Microsoft has not issued any other statement about this issue so far, and have not yet attempted to explain why an otherwise routine OS update would be designed to delete users' files for any reason whatsoever.

Remember those class actions lawsuits that I predicted yesterday? I'm standing by that prediction. We won't hear anything about them until next week at the earliest, so the class action land speed record set after the recent Facebook data breach is safe for now, but I'm fairly certain that enough people were affected, and their losses significant enough, for lawsuits to be an inevitable thing.

Don't get me wrong; I think that Microsoft's decision to pull this update was absolutely the right call. To ignore the harm that they were clearly causing by pushing this update to users (who, once again, cannot refuse it, at least if they're running Windows 10 Home) would have been indefensible. The fact that reversed course to stop the rollout of an update which was causing untold amounts of damage to users is a good thing; it doesn't, however, excuse the fact that this made its way into the update in the first place. That still needs an explanation; I'll be watching with interest to see if we ever get one from Redmond.

Windows 10 update deletes users' locally stored data permanently, because fuck you

This sort of bullshit is exactly why I'm still on Windows 7:

Microsoft this week kicked off the Windows 10 1809 rollout, and now some users have found the update is wiping important files, including photos and music, reports MSPoweruser.

Several early adopters of the Windows 10 1809 update have reported vanishing file problems on Reddit, Twitter and Microsoft's Community forum.

One poor Windows 10 1809 user, Robert Ziko, claims to have lost 220GB of data after updating.

"I have just updated my windows using the October update (10, version 1809). It deleted all my files of 23 years in amount of 220GB. This is unbelievable, I have been using Microsoft products since 1995 and nothing like that ever happened to me," he wrote on Microsoft's user forum.

"Files were located at C:/Users/rober/Documents/. This location is still present, with no files. All files deleted."

Fortunately, he did back up his system two months ago and was able to restore those deleted files, but lost everything since that snapshot. Rolling back to an earlier build also did not restore the deleted files.

As noted by one Windows 10 user on Twitter, documents saved in the user directory and not OneDrive will be deleted.

This is simply not acceptable. I don't care how badly Microsoft want people to switch to OneDrive, deleting their data because they haven't done so is abusive.

There is absolutely no reason why a routine OS update would need to automatically delete anything to save hard drive space, in an age of terabyte hard drives; even if that were reasonable, deleting data that was saved in users' document folders is ridiculous. Deleting their temp files and their internet cache is still something which you shouldn't do without asking first, but in what parallel universe does it make sense to delete the contents of a user's deliberately saved files folder (but not the folder itself), and then wipe the recycle bin so that the files can't be recovered?

Count on it, the class action lawsuits are coming; people who lost weeks or months of work as a result as the result of an update that they can't delay or refuse (the other part of the bullshit, here) should absolutely be seeking compensation for those damages. Microsoft are still talking about wanting to win back consumers, but bullshit like this is unlikely to help their cause.

They're not going to make it...

Since I haven't been watching the monthly market share numbers as intently as I used to, I really didn't have the correct context in which to place this bit of news when it was first posted last week:

With the Windows 7 end-of-support clock slowly winding down to January 14, 2020, Microsoft is announcing it will offer, for a fee, continuing security updates for the product through January 2023. This isn't the first time Microsoft has done this for a version of Windows, but it may be the first time it has been so public about its plans to do so.

Windows 7 still has a large share of the overall Windows market, especially among business customers. Moving off older versions of Windows is a slow process, even with advance planning, for companies with multiple thousands of Windows desktop machines.

The paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) will be sold on a per-device basis, with the price increasing each year. These ESUs will be available to any Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise users with volume-licensing agreements, and those with Windows Software Assurance and/or Windows 10 Enterprise or Education subscriptions will get a discount. Office 365 ProPlus will continue to work on devices with Windows 7 Extended Security Updates through January 2023.

[...]

This time around, the ESU program is being run out of Microsoft's Volume Licensing Unit and Core Windows Engineering "is producing these updates like a product," [Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of Microsoft 365] explained.

"We want to encourage people to get off Windows 7, but we want to make it more than something punitive," he said.

This was the second move that Microsoft made in a direction of accommodating the "slow process" of operating system migration at scale; they also announced that they're slowing the pace of forced Windows 10 updates, which was another pain point for Enterprise customers.

Some businesses have complained that they need more time and flexibility to update Windows 10, and IT admins are tasked with ensure apps work with the latest update. Microsoft is releasing new cloud-based tools to ease app compatibility testing, and the company is also giving IT admins more time to update. All currently supported feature updates of Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions will be supported for 30 months from their current release. The existing policy is 18 months, so this bump brings support closer to what IT admins were used to in the Windows 7 and earlier days.

Interesting, yes? Now for the context: Windows 7 (W7) doesn't just have a large share of the market. W7 still has over forty percent of the market, according to the latest numbers from NetMarketShare.

More of what consumers don't want...

Oh, Microsoft. What are we supposed to do with you, when you do shit like this:

For over 30 years, we’ve thought of PCs primarily as Windows machines, which we owned and controlled. That’s about to change forever [...] Microsoft is getting ready to replace Windows 10 with the Microsoft Managed Desktop. This will be a “desktop-as-a-service” (DaaS) offering. Instead of owning Windows, you’ll “rent” it by the month.

DaaS for Windows isn’t new [but] Microsoft Managed Desktop is a new take. It avoids the latency problem of the older Windows DaaS offerings by keeping the bulk of the operating system on your PC [b]ut you’ll no longer be in charge of your Windows PC. Instead, it will be automatically provisioned and patched for you by Microsoft.

[...]

Windows patching was always chancy, but with Windows 10 you’re more likely to have trouble when you patch than you are to avoid problems. [...] So, with this track record, do you want to pay good money to let Microsoft maintain your desktops for you? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Nonetheless, DaaS Windows is coming. Microsoft has been getting away from the old-style desktop model for years now. Just look at Office. Microsoft would much rather have you rent Office via Office 365 than buy Microsoft Office and use it for years.

Do you remember the last time Microsoft tried to take users' desktops away, and how well badly that went? Or maybe you remember last week, when Microsoft said that they wanted to win back consumers?

Guess what consumers emphatically don't want? If you guessed that consumers really, really, really don't want to lease Windows from Microsoft in perpetuity, while Redmond remotely control everything about their desktops, then give yourself a no-prize, because you're exactly right.

Windows 8 flopped hard because Microsoft tried to take users' desktops away, and now, here they are, only 7 years later, plotting to do exactly the same thing all over again, all while lamenting that they can't figure out what consumers really want.

I tell you, Linux is looking better and better all the time...

Updating your OS: Windows 10 VS Ubuntu Or, what consumers really want.

Last week, when Microsoft announced that they were upgrading Windows 10 Update with AI to make it suck less, I wasn't sure what to think about it. I mean, it is an instance of Microsoft at least trying to fix something that Windows 10 users have been complaining about for two and a half years, but the actual announcement was somehow... underwhelming. I felt nothing; no joy, no satisfaction, no anger, no disappointment, just... nothing. And I didn't know why.

I experienced the same lack of feeling when Microsoft announced that they planned to win back consumers, having done so much over the last decade to lose those consumers in the first place. This should also have been good news, right? I mean, it seemed to indicate some awareness on Microsoft's part that it was their fault that consumers didn't care about Microsoft anymore. And yet... I felt nothing.

Maybe it was the name? As a PC gamer who'd spent the last year watching AAA gaming companies' attempts to turn everything they made into a "live service," Modern Life Services just sounded like so many horribly empty PR buzzwords. But I couldn't feel outraged about it. Once again, I was utterly unmoved, and couldn't put my finger on exactly why I was so unmoved.

And then I came across an interesting article by Jason Evangelho at Forbes which brought it all into focus for me. He was writing about OS updates, as it turns out, but not Windows 10 updates, though; no, sir, Señor Evangelho doesn't suffer through those anymore. He's decamped to the Ubuntu Linux camp, you see:

Updates on both Windows and Ubuntu come in many forms. You have security updates, feature updates and software updates among others. If you’re someone who’s ever entertained the idea of ditching Windows for Linux, chances are Windows’ aggressive update behavior is a primary reason.

Microsoft’s system update policy has reached a point where its implementing artificial intelligence to guess when a user is away from their PC so that Windows can reboot and apply the latest updates. When I wrote about that so many people said “hey, what about just letting the human in front of the PC make that choice?”

And just like that, it all made sense. Yeah, I said to my self, fuck yeah. That was my reaction, too.

Because that had been my reaction; I remember thinking almost exactly that, in passing, and I'm not even on Windows 10. If Microsoft are so big on winning back consumers, I asked myself, why don't they make Windows 10, their flagship product, the one Microsoft product that almost everyone uses, more user-friendly? Not by experimenting with over-complicated AI, which they'd be doing anyway because AI and "intelligent edge" are the focus of their post-Windows corporate strategy, but through the simple, pro-consumer expedient of giving control of their PCs back to Windows' users?

And the more I read of Evangelho's description of the Ubuntu updating experience, the clearer it became:

Editorializing

Offered for your consideration, two different headlines about the same story.

Start with this headline from the normally quite sober WCCFTech:

Microsoft Promises, Microsoft Delivers! Windows Installation Time Reduced to 30 Minutes

compare it to Gizmodo UK's headline about the same announcement:

Windows Has a Plan to Make Its Update System a Little Less Garbage

and marvel at the power of editorial direction. The same phenomenon can be seen at work in the articles themselves.

Thanks, but I’m still saying no to Windows 10

This article, by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at Tech World, really tickled my fancy this morning:

I’ve been hearing a lot from friends recently about how Windows 10 is the best Windows ever and people would be stupid not to switch. These being friends, I don’t want to be rude, but — cough, ahem — I don’t buy it.

Is security your No. 1 concern? Well, Windows 10 is no more secure than Windows 7 — which is to say it is a profoundly insecure operating system. There have been a lot of serious Windows security patches in the last year, and Windows 10 had all the same problems as Windows 7.

[...]

I also wouldn’t care to be “upgraded” against my will, as happened to Windows 10 users who had toggled what they needed to toggle to tell Microsoft, “Please don’t move me from Windows 10 1703, Windows 10 Fall Update, to 1709, Fall Creators Update.” As my colleague Woody Leonhard points out, this happened via Windows Update with the November patches, when there were “so many issues with this month’s security patches that it’s hard to decide where to begin.”

By the way, I want it on record that I don’t want Windows 10’s rapid release cadence, with its short-lived support timelines. Two major upgrades — or service patches, as I still think of them — a year is one too many. I can’t make sure everything works with a significant update every six months. I don’t know anyone who can.

[...]

What it all adds up to is that, while Windows 10 is certainly a good operating system, it’s far from great. For the time being, I’m sticking with Windows 7 on my Windows machines, and I recommend you do too. I know what to expect from Windows 7, but with Windows 10, every new forced update is a roll of the dice.

Great stuff, and well worth a read, so go give the man some clicks. And if you haven't switch from Windows 7 to 10 yet, either... well, I also recommend that you don't. I haven't, and still don't plan to. Not unless Microsoft get a handle on their anti-consumer bullshit, anyway, which doesn't look like it's going to be happening anytime soon.

Microsoft back off WaaS by a tiny baby step

I guess it's a day for big corporations taking baby steps away from their own bullshit, because Microsoft are doing it, too. As reported by Computer World:

Microsoft has reversed the retirement of Windows 10 version 1511, extending support for the 2015 feature upgrade by six months for commercial customers.

"To help some early enterprise adopters that are still finishing their transition to Windows as a service, we will be providing a supplemental servicing package for Windows 10, version 1511, for an additional six months, until April 2018," said Michael Niehaus, director of product marketing for Windows, in a post to a company blog.

[...]

Under its Windows-as-a-service (WaaS) model, Microsoft releases two feature upgrades annually at six-month intervals, and then supports each upgrade for 18 months. However, 1511 was given a 23-month support lifecycle, with the additional time arising from an arcane rule Microsoft implemented but later discarded; it would not retire an upgrade before six months had passed from the most recent upgrade's release.

With the extension, Windows 10 Enterprise 1511 and Education 1511 get a total of 29 months of support, nearly as long a stretch as the historical intervals between major pre-0 versions of the OS, such as the 36 months between Windows 7 and Windows 8, or the 34 months between Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Ironically, the successor to 1511, the mid-2016 feature upgrade designated 1607, will now, absent another Microsoft intervention, exit support in March 2018, before its predecessor. That's not how it's supposed to work.

It turns out that big corporations with thousands of PCs to keep up-to-date simply can't manage multiple major OS update cycles per year, every year, especially since Windows 10's updates have a tendency to "break" older hardware. Which means that the Windows-As-A-Service business might just be completely unworkable in the longer term, something that critics like Paul Thurrott have been saying almost from the start. Even the likes of Gartner are having trouble spinning this one.

Again, quoting CW:

"What's been a surprise is how adamant Microsoft has been about this cadence," said Michael Silver, an analyst with Gartner, of the every-six-month release tempo and the 18-month support window. "What's not a surprise is that organizations have been telling us that they can't do multiple updates in a year. They're worried about falling off support from [Windows 10] 1511 or even 1607 after that."

It's virtually certain that Microsoft extended 1511's support because its most important customers - corporations - told the company that they weren't able to make the Oct. 10, 2017, deadline. Niehaus did not specifically cite feedback, as Microsoft usually does, for the decision, but that was probably the trigger.

"The support extension really isn't much of a surprise," echoed Stephen Kleynhans, also of Gartner, in an email reply to questions. "Microsoft is still tinkering with the details of the servicing model to make it work for more enterprises ... working the kinks out."

Whether "working the kinks out" involves reducing the number of major feature updates remains to be seen, but with editions of 1511 getting support (for those that pay for it, natch) extended beyond 1607's support window, it's a fair bet that at least some editions of 1607 will get their support windows extended, too. Which means that Microsoft's cost of maintaining all those old Windows editions will continue to rise, even as Windows 10 adoption remain lacklustre. Which is pretty much the opposite of Microsoft's stated goals for WaaS. GG, Microsoft! Well played.

Still... not one but two big corporations backing off from unpopular policy positions on the same  morning, both of them in response to consumers' mostly-negative feedback? I'll take it. Put another mark in the "win" column, folks.

Microsoft just never, ever learn...

Le sigh.

From ZDNet:

Microsoft's update servers began pushing out a mysterious new app recently, and the unexpected arrival is stirring up suspicion and anger among some Windows 10 users.
The new app is called Photos Add-on, and its entry in the Windows Store offers few clues about what it is or does.

[...]

More than 70 percent of the early reviews have given the mystery add-on a 1 star rating, with reviewers adding comments like these:

• Installed without permissionI didn't ask for this, I didn't approve this, I didn't even know you were planning on installing this. When will you get it that people don't want YOU to decide what gets installed on MY computer. Stop it already.
• Forced installNot cool, MS.
• Don't install without askingI have no idea what this even does. Why do I have it and why didn't I have a choice?

[...]

Ginny Caughey, a developer with deep experience in UWP apps, notes that this is "not something to worry about - just an add-on to an app that comes with the OS."

She's right, which is why this roll-out is so frustrating. It's yet another example of an unforced error on Microsoft's part. Even a tiny amount of documentation in the listing for this add-on would have tamped down the suspicion. Instead, they've provided fresh fuel for conspiracy theorists.

I guess that it's really hard to break the anti-consumer monopolistic habit, once you're started down the dark path? Seriously, is someone in Redmond planning to learn from their many, many mistakes?

Users fix Windows 7 & 8.1 updates again, after Microsoft deliberately breaks them [UPDATED!]

In the absence of TRON, it seems the users can, and will, fight for themselves.

From BleepingComputer:

GitHub user Zeffy has created a patch that removes a limitation that Microsoft imposed on users of 7th generation processors, a limit that prevents users from receiving Windows updates if they still use Windows 7 and 8.1.

This limitation was delivered through Windows Update KB4012218 (March 2017 Patch Tuesday) and has made many owners of Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Bristol Ridge CPUs very angry last week, as they weren't able to install any Windows updates.

[...] When the April 2017 Patch Tuesday came around last week, GitHub user Zeffy finally had the chance to test four batch scripts he created in March, after the release of KB4012218.

His scripts worked as intended by patching Windows DLL files, skipping the CPU version check, and delivering updates to Windows 7 and 8.1 computers running 7th generation CPUs.

Huzzah! Now users of PCs with 7th generation processors can run whatever software they fucking well please on them, which is as it should be. Microsoft does not have the right to tell you how you'll use the PCs that you own, and the fact that they've now failed to do so gives me feelings of satisfaction.

My hat is off to you, Zeffy! Today, you are a hero.

UPDATE!

It looks like this development is starting to gain some more much-deserved attention, like this piece from ExtremeTech:

It should be hard for Microsoft to make any more mistakes with its Windows 10 push, but it keeps finding new ways. After nagging everyone incessantly about upgrading, updating computers without asking, and making Windows 10 patches mandatory, Microsoft has started disallowing Windows 7 and 8.1 updates on machines running the latest hardware. One developer has had enough, and is releasing a patch to help users get around this artificial blockade.

The unofficial patch from a developer calling him or herself ‘Zeffy’ on GitHub targets those running very new CPUs on older versions of Windows. Windows 7 and 8 are still supported with updates, but Microsoft has started blocking non-security updates for systems that run Intel 7th-Generation Kaby Lake processors, AMD “Bristol Ridge” Rizen chips, or the Qualcomm 8996 (Snapdragon 820 and 821) SoC.

[...] The Zeffy patch goes after a change Microsoft introduced in March that identifies the system’s CPU. As the changelog explained at the time, the patch “Enabled detection of processor generation and hardware support when PC tries to scan or download updates through Windows Update.” Zeffy is very clear on his dislike for Windows 10 when he calls this “essentially a giant middle finger to anyone who dare not ‘upgrade’ to the steaming pile of garbage known as Windows 10.”

Well said, Zeffy. Well said.

Q: Is it time for Microsoft to rethink Windows 10?

Spoiler alert! The answer is, "Yes." Yes, it is.

Wayne Williams at Betanews has a more detailed answer, though:

It’s easy to understand why Microsoft took the decision to take Windows 8 in a new direction. PC sales were falling, and people were transitioning to iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. Microsoft felt it needed to do something radical to remain relevant in this changing world, and an operating system that could run on PCs, tablets, and smartphones seemed like a smart move.

The problem, of course, is the Start menu-less Windows 8 was too radical an approach for PC owners -- the bulk of Windows users -- and the OS itself was simply too half baked. There were too few decent non-PC devices around, and Microsoft had to build a Windows Store from scratch -- not easy.

Fast forward to 2015, and Microsoft brings out Windows 10. On paper, this had everything going for it. It was replacing a disliked predecessor, it offered what seemed like the best features of Windows 8.x combined with the best features of Windows 7, and it was free. What was not to like? Plus, like Windows 8.x, it could run on PCs, tablets and phones.

But Windows 10 hasn’t been the sure fire hit it was expected to be. It will be on 1 billion devices by 2018, Microsoft crowed. But even forcing users to upgrade to it didn’t get the OS any nearer to hitting that magical number. Windows 10 has a market share of around 25 percent now, which isn’t bad, except that’s half of what Windows 7 has, and people have stopped upgrading.

Williams then goes on to discuss why people have stopped upgrading in more detail, basically boiling it down to two main issues.

First, and apparently foremost, is Windows 10's focus on apps:

And here’s the biggest problem with apps -- they’re now universal, and designed to run on any device running Windows -- PCs, tablets, smartphones -- but who has a Windows smartphone these days? Pretty much no one. The whole point of Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps is you can install them on any Windows device you own, but if you only own a PC they why would you want to install an app when you could install a more powerful program, and enjoy greater choice?

Second, mentioned only in passing, is the non-stop advertising:

The main issue people are -- rightly -- hating on in Windows 10 at the moment is the adverts that Microsoft has peppered the OS with. These, for the most part, are to push apps, but I doubt the Windows Store has enjoyed a huge uptick in downloads as a result of them -- it’s just another annoyance Windows 10 users have to put up with.

Weirdly, Williams spends several paragraphs discussing the problem of apps, and only one talking about the adverts. Yes, both the Universal Windows Platform's anti-consumer approach, and the relentless drive by to monetize their Windows user base in any way they possibly can, are problems. But I think they miss the point, somewhat. These things are problematic, in and of themselves, but they're not the root of the problems; they're symptoms of more serious underlying issues.

Microsoft's entire approach to a Windows user base that has thrived on choice and freedom is to limit choices wherever possible, and coerce users when they can into behaving in ways that benefit Microsoft as a corporate entity. Only when the backlash has proved too intense has Microsoft backed off on these two strategic imperatives, and they never back off for long. 

That's why the Creators Update will once again include a setting that allows users to block the installation of Win32 software -- something which has been built into Windows 10 from the beginning, and which was initially turned on by default until the PR backlash forced Microsoft to back down.

That's why the Creators Update will once again be auto-downloading itself, even over metered connections, long after Microsoft apologized for doing that, and appeared to reverse course, after terrible PR forced them to admit that there were problems with the practice they hadn't considered. Apparently, they've reconsidered, and now think the practice is just fine. This, in an update which also allows users to postpone restarting after updates are installed, something else they had to implement because of terrible PR.

The major underlying issues here are trust, and choice. When Microsoft altered the behaviour of the "close window" button to force Windows 10 upgrades, it undermined trust, just as discovering that Windows 10 includes a built-in keylogger, again enabled by default, undermines trust. 

Removing the option to disable Cortana, even though Cortana monitors everything the user does and uses cloud-based services to perform even local hard drive searches, limits choice and undermines trust, as does locking Cortana to Edge and Bing, a combination of software and service that the market has resolutely refused to use when offered the choice.

Pushing ads through the OS, a behaviour that's seen in no other operating system, undermines trust, even as it attempts to influence users' choices.

Every time Microsoft denies security updates to people running Windows 7 on 6th generation SkyLake CPUs, it undermines both choice and trust... choice, because people who've bought and paid for Windows 7 explicitly have the right to run it on any one PC of their choosing, and trust, because Microsoft are now violating that agreement to unilaterally force users onto a new product that those users have repeatedly refused.

This is why people aren't switching to Windows 10 anymore, even though they can still do so for free, something which we're all supposed to pretend is some sort of secret even through everybody already knows who cares to know. They don't trust Microsoft to treat them and their choices with any kind of respect at all; they don't trust Microsoft not to spy on them; they don't trust Microsoft to keep their own given word. Darth Microsoft have altered the deal one too many times, now, going back to bad practices again and again, for anything they say to be believable anymore.

Does Microsoft need to rethink their Windows 10 strategy? Yes. Yes, they do. Desperately. Now would be a good time; in fact, they may already have left it too late. 

They need to change course, here. But will they? Probably not unless and until they're forced to. 

Microsoft to finally start giving users what they want

With Windows 10 stagnant, Windows 7 users digging in deeper while growing in numbers, and even PC gamers apparently abandoning the new OS for the eight-year-old one, it seems that Microsoft have finally decided to acknowledge the obvious, and start giving consumers what they want. Kinda.

From Gordon Kelly at Forbes:

In a new official blog post Microsoft has admitted Windows 10 needs to improve in these areas and that significant changes are on the way:

“Prior to the Creators Update, Windows 10 made most of the decisions for you regarding when updates would be installed and didn’t provide ways to tailor the timing to your specific needs,” explained John Cable, Microsoft Director of Program Management within the Windows Servicing and Delivery (WSD) team. “What we heard back most explicitly was that you want more control over when Windows 10 installs updates. We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time.”

[...]

Cable’s solution? With the Windows 10 Creators Update (coming next month) users will get far more options:

“For example, you can specify exactly when you want an update to occur (including the ability to reschedule an update if your original choice ends up being less convenient than expected), or ‘hit the snooze button.’ The ‘snooze’ capability allows you to pause the update process completely for three days when you need uninterrupted time on your device. In addition, we are widening the ‘Active Hours’ time so Windows doesn’t install an update at times when you want your device to be ready to use.”

[...]

But the Microsoft confessions don’t stop there. In the same blog post Michael Fortin, CVP of Windows and Devices Group Core Quality, also stressed that “new privacy-centric features [are] coming in the Creators Update. This new functionality will make it easier to choose the privacy and diagnostic data collection settings that are best for you.”

Was it just yesterday that I was asking when Microsoft would start correcting course on their Windows 10 bullshit? Apparently these changes will be available to Home users, too, which is another change: previously, this sort of control, however limited, was limited to users with Pro and higher licences.

Kelly notes, and I agree, that this is really just a good first step, and that Microsoft still need to do a lot more, on both fronts, if they want to lure users from Windows 7 to Windows 10. He also asks the obvious question: why now?

Again it’s commendable but this sort of control really should have been in from the start. And what motivated all these about-turns? Cynics will point to the stagnation of Windows 10 adoption since Microsoft began charging for upgrades, but those more forgiving will at least be pleased to see the platform slowly heading in the right direction.

Yes, the high cost of moving to Windows 10 just got a little lower…

Yes, the cost of moving to Windows 10 is ever so slightly lower now. Is it low enough to convince deeply dug in Windows 7 users to make the switch? 

Somehow, I doubt it. 

More than a year and half after launch, over six months after the official end of Windows 10's free giveaway period (although unofficially you can still get Windows 10 for free, if you want to), and after at least a year of unrelentingly bad PR resulting from their own anti-consumer bullshit, I suspect that Microsoft will need to do a lot more than these half-measure to repair the damage done to the relationship with their long-time customers.

So, what do Microsoft need to do?

1. Telemetry needs to be something users can opt out of, completely. After a year and a half of harvesting users' metadata and sharing it with third parties, and without telling us what data they were collecting, why they were collecting that data, specifically, where they were sending it, or who they were sharing it with, there is zero trust on this issue. Ideally, telemetry would be opt-in, and turned off by default, even for Home users.
2. Updates must revert from the current "roll-up" bullshit to the itemized list they used to be, complete with descriptive Knowledge Base articles on each included update item, so that users know what Microsoft is installing on their systems and why. Updates also need to stop reinstalling Microsoft's own bloatware that users had uninstalled, and they need to stop resetting users' privacy and security settings without users' knowledge and explicit consent. Any changes that Microsoft want to make to users' settings as part of an update need to be explained. 
• Also, stop adding the "compatibility" updates (KB 2952664, KB 2976978, KB 2977759, etc.) to Windows 7's update queue. Windows 7 users are using Windows 7 because they do not want to switch to Windows 10, and given how aggressive the GWX campaign was, it's taken no small amount of effort to avoid being switched over. These users aren't just procrastinating, they're actively saying "no!" Take a fucking hint, already, and stop pushing.
3. Cortana must revert to something that users can turn off, if they don't want to use the service. I don't care that Microsoft think this is the big marquee feature of Windows 10. The numbers don't lie; Cortana is not enough to sell Windows 10, and its big-brotherly omnipresence may be keeping users away. 
• Cortana also needs to be able to work with Google and Chrome, rather than being locked to Bing and Edge. Nobody likes Bing, and nobody uses Edge, and it's time to stop trying to make "fetch" happen.
4. Speaking of, which, Microsoft need to stop pushing Edge and Bing on users who have clearly expressed a preference for a competing product, and to stop pushing the Windows Store and the Universal Windows Platform. No more scare-mongering from the start menu or tool bar, and no more pushing Microsoft-branded extensions and add-ons for Chrome from the start menu or tool bar, either.
• It would also help if Microsoft fixed their fucking browser, but that's a secondary issue; more than anything else, Microsoft need to start respecting users' choices, here.
5. The same applies with the Windows 10 Store. Does anybody really believe that Microsoft wanting to lock out Win32 apps and restrict users to the Windows Store is about bloatware? Build a better store, advertise it outside of the OS itself, and maybe the customers will come. But stop trying to push us to your broken storefront. The market has clearly spoken, on this one. Seriously, stop trying to make "fetch" happen.

That's really what all of these points boil down to: respect for Windows' users, respect for their clearly and repeatedly expressed choices and preferences, respect for the fact that PC users clearly intend to go on owning their own machines, and controlling what gets installed on them (and when, from where, and by whom).

Microsoft have been desperate to change the paradigm of Windows from an open, user-controlled one, into a walled garden: a closed ecosystem where control resides exclusively with Microsoft, where the entire PC software marketplace is transmuted into an iPhone-style App Store, and where users will do what Microsoft say, how they say, when they say it. Windows 8 was based around this walled garden approach, and PC users avoided it like the plague. Windows 10 softened the messaging a bit, but its central design philosophy was identical to Windows 8's, and users have clearly rejected it again. 

Microsoft need to recognize that simple reality, and turn Windows 10 into the user-controlled experience that PC users are clearly demanding, and on which they're clearly unwilling to compromise. This latest move looks to be a promising baby step in the right direction, but that's only meaningful if they follow it up with more steps. If this is the only step they're planning to take, if they're just trying to figure out what the absolute minimum is that they can get away with doing, then it's not going to be enough.

Google researchers reveal another unpatched IE/Edge vulnerability

Microsoft want Windows 10 users to switch from Chrome to Edge. They've tried bribing users into switching, and bullying users into switching, but they've ended up losing so much market share that Edge not only has fewer users than Chrome, it also has fewer users than Firefox:



Well, if Microsoft are looking for advice, I have a new thing that they might want to try, which might help them attract users to their shiny new browser: they can fix the fucking thing. Because right now, it's apparently full of unpatched security vulnerabilities -- something of an embarrassment, considering that everything about Windows 10 is supposed to be the most secure ever.

From BleepingComputer:

Google has gone public with details of a second unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft products, this time in Edge and Internet Explorer, after last week they've published details about a bug in the Windows GDI (Graphics Device Interface) component.

At the time of writing, the bug remains unpatched after Microsoft canceled February's Patch Tuesday security updates, citing a "last minute issue."

[...]

The bug, discovered by Google Project Zero researcher Ivan Fratric, is tracked by the CVE-2017-0037 identifier and is a type confusion, a kind of security flaw that can allow an attacker to execute code on the affected machine, and take over a device.

Details about CVE-2017-0037 are available in Google's bug report, along with proof-of-concept code. The PoC code causes a crash of the exploited browser, but depending on the attacker's skill level, more dangerous exploits could be built.

Fratric found the bug at the end of November and disclosed it today after the 90-day deadline Google provides to affected companies had expired.

Oops.

In the past, this is the sort of issue that Microsoft would have fixed quickly, and quietly patched as soon as the patch was ready, but patches are now a once-monthly event... something which we now know, for sure, includes unpatched security flaws in their products. Not exactly the way I'd go about (re)building consumer confidence in my new OS or web browser, but what do I know? I'm just a consumer.

I'll tell you what I do know, though. I know that I won't be switching to Windows 10, or to Edge, anytime soon. Sort out your shit, Microsoft.