Reminder: Windows 7 really is the new XP

Back during the darkest days of Microsoft's GWX campaign, when they'd abandoned all pretense of believing in the quality of the product and offering Windows users a free upgrade, and instead started switching users' systems to Windows 10 no matter how many times they'd refused previously, it was already becoming clear that Microsoft had done lasting harm to their own brand, and to the relationship of trust and goodwill that they'd previously enjoyed with users of Windows 7.

I wasn't alone in referring to Microsoft's GWX fiasco as "upgrade-gate," or to point out the consequences with which Microsoft would have to deal for the next several years; pieces like this one, from Makeof.com, were pretty easily found at the time:

Steve Jobs famously said “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Microsoft must think this is true for Windows 10. And so its developers keep finding new ways to trick Windows 7 and 8 users into upgrading because surely they will like Windows 10 once the see it. Or they’ll just surrender.

Personally, I do like Windows 10, but I also appreciate the reasons of those who oppose the upgrade. And I think what Microsoft has been doing is deeply disturbing and unethical. Microsoft acts as if its goal for 1 billion Windows 10 users supersedes the company’s responsibility for its existing Windows customers.

This reckless battle has unintended consequences, which not only hurt Microsoft’s customers, but also its business.

From loss of trust in the Windows; to users simply turning off Windows Update to avoid the hated GWX payloads; to actual monetary costs in the form of lost time, bandwidth, and productivity; reasons abounded why Microsoft's overly-aggressive GWX push was a bad idea. And while the worst of these for Microsoft, "Home Users Will Abandon Windows," hasn't yet come to pass, there's still no sign that consumers have forgiven Microsoft for the liberties, excesses, and borderline (or actual) abuses of GWX.

Microsoft's GWX push was of a piece with Terry Myerson's Windows-centric strategy, which Microsoft has since abandoned. Two years after GWX's failure, Myerson is no longer at Microsoft; his Windows and Devices Group no longer exists, its various teams having been redistributed across other business units which, according to Microsoft, are actually the future of the company. And Windows 10 is still not as popular as Windows 7... depending on who you ask, of course.

The fallout from GWX still hasn't stopped falling, either. Every month, Microsoft delivers updates for Windows 7, and every month, the description of those updates includes the same disclaimer: "does not include windows 10 upgrade functionality." That's still necessary, more than two years after GWX; that is truly epic levels of fail.

But it actually gets worse for Microsoft.

Better slowly. than not at all...

From the notes on Windows 7 update KB2952664 [emphasis added]:

This update performs diagnostics on the Windows systems that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. The diagnostics evaluate the compatibility status of the Windows ecosystem, and help Microsoft to ensure application and device compatibility for all updates to Windows. There is no GWX or upgrade functionality contained in this update.

Well, well, well. It seems that they do learn, after all. Slowly, to be sure, and at some great cost, but they do seem to be finally getting the message.

Other good news? This month's security updates also include further patches for the exploit employed by WannaCry, and were released to Windows XP concurrently with Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, and for free, rather than after several months' delay of trying to sell expensive extended support packages to XP customers. So I guess they learned that lesson, too.

It's nice to see tacit acknowledgement from Microsoft that they and their Windows 7 users don't still have the same relationship of trust and good will that existed just two years ago, but it's also a clear sign of how seriously that relationship has deteriorated. How badly must Microsoft have fucked this up, that a note promising a clean update, i.e. with no upgrade bullshit, is even necessary? How many Windows 7 users do you think will avoid installing these updates anyway, just to be "safe?" How many of them still have Windows Update turned off completely, thanks to Microsoft's GWX abuses?

Microsoft have a long, long way to go, yet, to get back into their customers' good graces. Considering that they haven't yet actually apologized for all the bullshit they've pulled in the last couple of years, it's fair to say that you haven't even really started to make their way back. They do seem to be thinking about it, though; I just hope they learn the real lesson of their XBO-X failure, though, and start working to earn redemption before it's too late, and not after.

And this is why Microsoft's Windows 10 update regime is a bad thing...

Spotted on The Reg:

Don't install our buggy Windows 10 Creators Update, begs Microsoft
We'll give it to you when it's ready – and it is not

Aside: Ouch.

Microsoft has urged non-tech-savvy people – or anyone who just wants a stable computer – to not download and install this year's biggest revision to Windows by hand. And that's because it may well bork your machine.

It's been two weeks since Microsoft made its Creators Update available, and we were previously warned it will be a trickle-out rather than a massive rollout. Now, Redmond has urged users to stop manually fetching and installing the code, and instead wait for it to be automatically offered to your computer when it's ready.

The problem is that some systems – particularly older ones – may not be able to handle the Creators Update, Microsoft said. The US giant has been focusing on updating newer kit first, since it feels that hardware is less likely to run into difficulties, and has thus stopped offering the latest Windows 10 upgrade to computers it suspects may suffer from breakdowns.

And here I was, thinking that the Creators Update rollout was going pretty well... at least, when compared to the Anniversary Update. I guess there are more issues than I knew about, though, which is an excellent example of why users want to be able to control whether or not their systems update at all, rather than just how soon they restart afterwards. Oh, and they'd like Microsoft to have properly tested and bug-fixed the fucking things before releasing them, too, rather than using their Home users as a glorified beta-testing pool.

This may be an especially bad time for the Creators Update to have rollout issues, too, since Microsoft was hoping that the CU would inspire Windows 7 holdouts to make the switch to 10. Well, it's been a few weeks since the CU came out, and the end-of-April market share numbers are only days away, so we'll know soon enough to what extent that happened, but this kind of headline can't be helpful.

As a final aside, I'd also like to say that I love The Reg's tag line: "Biting the hand that feeds IT." I don't know how long they've been using that, having just noticed it now, but it's genius. Seriously, don't ever change.

This is why I'd like to see Cortana become an optional thing.

From PC Gamer:

Windows 10's search is a constant source of frustration

Small, unsolved issues with finding files and settings menus persist while Cortana hogs the spotlight.

Two years and two major updates later, Windows 10 is mostly the OS I want it to be. It's fast, stable, and the recent Creators Update included a lot of small changes we liked. But search—a feature I use every day—still annoys the hell out of me. The Windows 10 Creators Update did nothing to improve Windows 10's basic file system search results, which will on occasion omit program results for no obvious reason, bury its own menus, and default to searching the internet with a browser I don't use instead of surfacing one of my own files. These failings are a daily reminder that Microsoft's search priorities and my search priorities are not identical.

[...] When I want to set up a task to complete, I use Asana. When I want to send an email, I use Gmail in my browser. I think the real problem is less being old fashioned, and more that I already have specialized tools or preferences for doing the kinds of tasks Cortana can handle, and I don't solve most of those problem with Microsoft services.

When I hit the Windows key and start typing, there's one thing I want Microsoft's help with: getting to my files as quickly as possible. Windows 10 has some problems with that.

This, in a nutshell, is why half of PC users, and over half of Windows users, are still using Windows 7.  

Microsoft wants to be in control of every aspect of your PC use, from your choice of OS, to updating your OS, to buying the software, to accessing your own damn data. They want to be Apple, serving apps to a captive marketplace with them taking a cut of every single program installation; and they want to be Google, replacing your browser of choice with their own, and using Bing for fucking everything, even though nobody uses Bing outside of Microsoft's employees; and they want to be Amazon, skimming a little more off the top by storing your data on their cloud-based OneDrive service, and selling you extra storage space when your OneDrive is full, in spite of the fact that your Terabyte-sized hard drive almost certainly isn't. 

And, you know what? I understand that. I understand why Microsoft would love to leverage their dominance on desktop and laptop PCs into market share dominance of the cloud-based businesses that they hadn't cared about until companies like Google, and Apple, and Amazon all started challenging (or surpassing) their market cap. I get it. I really, really do Get It. I just don't care.

Here's the thing: Microsoft having missed the boat on web search, or mobile computing, or cloud-based server and storage services? Those are Microsoft's problems. They're not our problems, and I personally don't give a flying fuck about any of them. Microsoft keep trying to make their problems into our problems, and I hate that. Seriously, there are very few things that will piss me off faster, almost none of which are things that I come across on regular basis. 

And Microsoft just keep doing this, shoving all things Windows 10 under users' noses at every opportunity, over and over again as if we haven't been refusing Windows 10, by which I mean actively avoiding the fucking thing, for nearly two years now. We can't ignore their shit, and we can't forget their shit, because they won't let us.

Seriously, Microsoft, how can we ever start to miss you, if you never fucking leave us alone?

Microsoft re-issues "zombie" patch KB3150513... for the tenth time!

I love InfoWorld's tagline for this article:

It won't die! Microsoft is pushing its 10th refresh of the hated 'upgrade enabling' patch to every version of Windows

That's right, it's baaaack!

Microsoft has issued the KB 3150513 patch 10 times in the past year. Each time it appears without notification or warning: There’s no entry on the Windows Update list or Windows 10 Update list, but it pushed out the Automatic Update chute nonetheless.

It's being pushed onto Windows 7, 8, 8.1, Windows 10 1511, and now 1607 systems. You don’t want it.

[...] I discussed this topic last month, and as best I can tell, nothing has changed. As AskWoody Lounger abbodi86 summarized:

Both KB 2952664 and KB 3150513 are only needed for upgrading to Windows 10; they have nothing useful for current Windows 7 users (well, except providing Microsoft with Appraiser statistics)

If you want to upgrade your current system to Windows 10 Creators Update, you might want to consider installing the patch. If you don’t, there are better ways to waste your time.

Don’t bother hiding it. History has shown that it’ll only appear again. Ignore it and maybe it’ll go away.

They just won't take an effing hint, will they?

Here's the thing; people that haven't switched yet aren't just procrastinating. It's not like we don't know that Windows 10 is available, or that we can still upgrade for free if we want to, or that Microsoft would really, really like us to switch. We've chosen to stay with our existing operating systems; in fact, given how hard Microsoft were pushing Windows 10 during the latter part of the official GWX campaign, most of us had to take active steps to avoid being switched in spite of our clearly and repeatedly expressed preference on the matter.

We don't want Windows 10. We don't care that you're still giving it away; we already know, for a fact, that the shit ain't really free. And every time you "helpfully" re-add an update that we've already refused multiple times to our Update queues, disregarding our clearly and repeatedly expressed choices in the process, it just makes us even less likely to switch... ever. It further erodes the little trust and goodwill that we might still be harbouring; after all, how do you trust somebody, or feel good about somebody, when they clearly refuse to respect anything that you tell them?

Look, I get it. Microsoft's strategic plans don't work unless they can push Windows 10 adoption to a tipping point, a share of the market large enough that the adoption rate inspires others to also adopt their new OS, and inspires developers to develop natively for the Universal Windows Platform as a result. Microsoft need that, badly. I get it. I just don't give a shit.

Allow me to turn the data collection off completely, allow me to turn Cortana off completely, allow me to (simply & easily) turn the advertising off completely, and for fuck's sake, stop pushing me. Start showing some respect, and maybe, maybe, we can talk. Short of that, though, Microsoft are out of luck... until 2020 at the very least, unless my current PC literally melts down in the meantime, something which shows no sign of being anywhere near happening.

In the meantime, I'm leaving Never10 installed, and if you're wanting Microsoft's "helpful" upgrading app to stop pestering you to change operating systems, then so should you.

Microsoft's class action woes aren't over yet.

Class action lawsuits take a long time to really get going, so we can probably expect to see more of these trickling out of courts all over the place for years to come. Because some other folks out there also aren't intending to let Microsoft reap rewards for bad behaviour.

From The Reg:

Three people in Illinois have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming that its Windows 10 update destroyed their data and damaged their computers.

The complaint [PDF], filed in Chicago's US District Court on Thursday, charges that Microsoft Windows 10 is a defective product and that its maker failed to provide adequate warning about the potential risks posed by Windows 10 installation – specifically system stability and data loss.

Microsoft "failed to exercise reasonable care in designing, formulating, and manufacturing the Windows 10 upgrade and placing it into the stream of commerce," the complaint claims. "As a result of its failure to exercise reasonable care, [the company] distributed an operating system that was liable to cause loss of data or damage to hardware."

The attorneys representing the trio are seeking to have the case certified as a class action that includes every person in the US who upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 and suffered data loss or damage to software or hardware within 30 days of installation. They claim there are hundreds or thousands of affected individuals.

Microsoft have, of course, bundled some changes into the upcoming Creators Update which will allow users to delay restarting after an update, but that doesn't undo the damage they've already done, or make them any less legally liable for it. They're also banging the "Windows 10 was optional" drum as loudly as they can, even though they'd done everything they could to remove all choice from the update process, in ways that even they admitted went too far, an argument that has cost them at least one decision already. 

Yeah.... good luck with that, Microsoft.

It's not like nobody saw this coming, either, and there's probably more of the same on the way, thanks to yet another recent bad decision: auto-downloading updates over metered connections, regardless of what that might cost the user at the other end. As Gordon Kelly at Forbes put it, "if a user finds they face a larger Internet bill because Windows 10 decided their ethernet card driver (or graphics card driver which can be several hundred megabytes) was essential to update on the last day of the month, I expect Microsoft will face a flurry of complaints. Or even a class action lawsuit. And the costs could be dangerously expensive if you’re using your computer abroad on a roaming network."

Microsoft's coercion yields predictable response.

It looks like Microsoft's move to block Windows 7 and 8 users from running software they paid for, on the hardware of their choosing, is reaping a predictable harvest of bad PR.

First, Forbes:

Microsoft Admits Forcing More Users Onto Windows 10

Microsoft is blocking Windows 7 and 8 updates on Intel's seventh generation Core i3, i5 and i7 (Kaby Lake), AMD's Ryzen (Bristol Ridge) and Qualcomm's 8996 processors. Devices powered by these processors must update to Windows 10 in order to receive updates from Microsoft.

[...]

Responding to a request on the subject, a spokesperson said "As new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon".

[...]

However, there is something going on here I don't like. While it's certainly true that Microsoft will optimise Windows 10 continually, it doesn't need to pull support for Windows Updates on new processors. It is still, however it's spun, trying to get a greater number of people off Windows 7 and 8 and onto Windows 10. I understand the business objective, I'm just not fond of being held hostage over updates.

What's more, the wording is clear that this will be an ongoing thing. Of course Microsoft pledged that it would put an end big numeric updates to Windows. There will be, it says, no Windows 11. But instead users will be updated to new versions of what I expect will become simply "Windows" in the future. But what that does also mean is that if there are additional things added to Windows that you dislike, you won't have any option to use an old version of Windows instead. While there will be user benefits to this strategy, it also means that Microsoft is taking away a measure of control from users.

[...]

So I get where Microsoft is going with this. For many, Windows 10 will be their OS of choice anyway. But for others the whole thing will leave a new sour taste in their mouths. You can read the company's justification in detail on its Windows Experience blog.

So, it's not a bug: this is the intended result of changes that Microsoft is making to Windows 7 & 8. And Forbes is a big enough platform that others are picking this up and running with it, with Gizmodo, Express.co.uk, Financial Express, and Business Standard all reporting the story, and not positively.

Express.co.uk wins the most lurid headline award:

Windows 10 shock - users rage as Microsoft blocks THIS popular software

MICROSOFT criticised for stopping users running preferred software on new Windows PCs.

While Gizmodo offered perhaps the most practical take, with a possible workaround for Microsoft's latest BS:

It's not outside the realms of possibility that someone will cook up a workaround, if you want to persist with a pre-Windows 10 platform. If you can't wait, it should be possible to use a program such as WSUS to grab updates manually.

But it's coverage in the likes of Forbes, Financial Express, and Business Standard that could prove the most problematic for Microsoft, because those are publications that Microsoft's highly-sought-after Enterprise customers could be reading, and paying heed to. Microsoft are already having trouble convincing these customers to adopt Windows 10, and this latest bit of flat-out coercion is unlikely to help. Darth Microsoft altering the deal yet again isn't a good look, when you're trying to convince prospective customers to enter into a long-time deal with them.

Hats off to Microsoft! They started the week by winning some good PR for not-really fixing Windows 10 Updates, and ended it by proving Tim Sweeney right, actually breaking Windows 7 in order for force users to make the OS switch that they're clearly not intending to make, anytime soon. They started by looking like they actually were listening to their customers, and ended up looking rather cartoonishly villainous. Well done, Redmond! GG.

UPDATE:

Like a bad rash, the bad PR continues to spread, including this piece on Hot Hardware:

Microsoft Apparently Ramping Up Heavy-Handed Tactics To Force Windows 10 Migrations

The clock is ticking for users holding out on Windows 7 and 8. For starters, Microsoft is blocking Windows 7 and 8 updates for Intel's seventh generation Core i3, i5 and i7 (Kaby Lake), AMD's Ryzen (Bristol Ridge) and Qualcomm's 8996 processors. The low-level Vulkan API will also not be supporting multiple GPUs on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and users will need to update to Windows 10 in order to support SLI or CrossFire with Vulkan.

Microsoft’s main argument is that this lack of updates will help them to focus on the deep integration between Windows and new silicon generations. Windows 7 was designed nearly a decade ago before the introduction of x86/x64 SOCs. Windows 7 is unable to run on any modern silicon without device drivers and firmware emulating Windows 7’s expectations for interrupt processing, bus support, and power states. According to Microsoft, “redesigning Windows 7 subsystems to embrace new generations of silicon would introduce churn into the Windows 7 code base” and break the company's commitment to security and stability.

This is the first time I've seen anyone connect the Ryzen/Kaby Lake story with the Vulkan story, but it's an obvious connection. As I blogged before, once Microsoft start blocking updates depending on your installed hardware, there's nothing stopping them from doing it for any installed hardware. It would go a long way to explaining why the Kronos Group isn't enabling full functionality for Vulkan on Windows 7 & 8, too -- they may not be able to, if Microsoft is breaking the earlier OS in a bid to force migration to Windows 10.

"Windows 10's Update is a terrible piece of software"

That's a quote from Alexsander Stukov, an software engineer who spends days running stress tests and cloning virtual machines, whose testimonial is just one of several from this piece by Sean Hollister @ c|net:

Maybe you're delivering a presentation to a huge audience. Maybe you're taking an online test. Maybe you just need to get some work done on a tight deadline.

Windows doesn't care.

Windows will take control of your computer, force-feed it updates, and flip the reset switch automatically -- and there's not a damn thing you can do about it, once it gets started.

If you haven't saved your work, it's gone. Your browser tabs are toast. And don't expect to use your computer again soon; depending on the speed of your drive and the size of the update, it could be anywhere from 10 minutes to well over an hour before your PC is ready for work.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the single worst thing about Windows. It's only gotten worse in Windows 10. And when I poked around Microsoft, the overarching message I received was that Microsoft has no interest in fixing it.

[...]

I know what you're thinking: "How many times do you have to get burned before you get a Mac?" Or maybe a Chromebook. Or even an iPad with a keyboard cover -- anything but a Windows machine that can just spontaneously restart while you're in the middle of mission-critical work.

That's pretty much the direction I've been leaning in recent months. And after hinting there might be a MacBook purchase in my immediate future, I asked a Microsoft spokesperson if the company was doing anything about forced updates.

Here's the statement I got:

Once a machine is upgraded to Windows 10, it will remain current through Windows Update for the supported lifetime of the device, with safety and security, productivity, and entertainment value over time. This is what we mean when we talk about delivering Windows as a service, and it is one of our core inspirations for Windows 10. We'll keep listening to our customers, improving the experience month after month. Windows 10 is an operating system that will run on a range of devices -- from Xbox to PCs, phones to tablets and tiny gadgets -- all of which are connected and kept up-to-date by Windows Update. Both enterprises and consumers benefit. The optimum way to ensure our customers are running the best Windows is to get them the latest updates for Windows 10. Delivering Windows 10 as a service means we can offer ongoing security updates, new features and capabilities - we'd like to make sure people can get access to the latest Windows 10 updates as soon as they are available.

In other words, Microsoft thinks it's super important that you get the updates. "Auto-restarts" are a feature, not a bug.

In fact, Microsoft has been actively getting rid of ways to keep users from disabling automatic updates: in Windows 10 Pro and above, you used to be able to do that from the Group Policy tool. As of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, though, that option is gone. (You can still schedule a restart, but it involves doing a lot of work to change the annoying "ready or not, here it comes" default.)

And while the next version of Windows will let you stave off updates for a 35-day period (if you paid extra for a Pro, Enterprise or Education-grade copy of Windows, which sounds like a moderate form of blackmail), my understanding is that even those versions won't let you cancel an update that's already been delayed and is now about to occur.

In other words: you'll be helplessly watching your computer turn itself off, just the same as usual.

[...]

I think it's time we send Microsoft a message that this isn't okay -- that the computers we bought and paid for with our hard-earned dollars are ours to use whenever we want, not just when Microsoft says so. I need a reliable PC, a computer that's ready for action whenever I need to report on a story, jot down notes from an interview, or liveblog a keynote. Share this story if you feel the same.

There's got to be a better way of handling these updates. Perhaps by automatically installing them when a PC and its owner are both asleep? That's what college freshman Alexandria Seabrook suggested, right after she told me how furious she was with her Windows machine. Or maybe Microsoft could take a page out of the Apple and Android playbooks and let users decide when to update.

I generally like Windows. But if I can't find a Windows PC that's always ready for work, my next computer will be a Mac.

Have a said recently, how glad I am to have dodged this particular bullet by staying with Windows 7? Because I am. Because this is some bullshit, and it's been a "feature" of Windows 10 from the get-go, meaning Home users (i.e. the "free" version) have always been hit first and worst by it, with no end in sight. The only way to get even a little relief is to cough up some cash.

"Fuck you, pay me." Paulie would be proud of Microsoft.

Microsoft have caught a bit of a break in the form of Apple's post-Jobs stumbling, which has seen them imitating the worst aspects of the Microsoft playbook while rolling out their latest iteration of MacOS, or MacBooks which lack most of the ports that people actually use, but MS shouldn't be feeling too comfortable, here. Faced with a business plan that feels like something from Goodfellas, and a product that users find frustrating, at minimum, to actually live with, a lot of current Windows users might still find themselves choosing Mac or Linux for their next PCs.

Microsoft's anti-competitive bullshittery not limited to Edge

From Softpedia:

Microsoft is working at full speed on getting the Windows 10 Creators Update ready for the public launch, but according to a new discussion on reddit, the company might have made a change that many users didn’t actually expect.

A post that went live this morning reveals that the uninstall option is no longer available for some apps that come pre-loaded with Windows 10 even though the same option was there before the latest Creators Update builds.

User jantari reveals that he can no longer uninstall many of the pre-loaded Microsoft apps with a right-click in the Start menu because the “Uninstall” option is no longer there, while in the Apps & Features section of the Settings app, the same “Uninstall” button is grayed out and cannot be clicked.

Other users who responded to this thread confirm that the uninstall option is gone and many of the apps that are part of build 15014 can no longer be removed.

It wasn't that long ago that Microsoft were making news by adding the ability to remove, and keep removed, these same pre-loaded apps (because Win10's Update kept reinstalling them), but it looks like they're backsliding. Because fuck you, and what you may or may not want installed on your PC; if you've installed Windows 10, then as far as Microsoft are concerned, it really isn't your PC anymore. Also, who wants to bet that pricier versions of the OS will include the ability to uninstall these pre-loaded apps?

Linux is looking more attractive all the time.

Microsoft needs to stop scaremongering on WIndows 7

Microsoft spent years convincing PC users that Windows 7 was safe as houses. Now that Windows 10 is out, however, they want to scare people into switching to their new operating system by claiming that Windows 7 really isn't as safe as they've always claimed it to be. That's... awkward, to put it mildly.

From Softpedia:

Windows 10 is now running on more than 20 percent of the world’s desktop computers, and yet, Microsoft’s bigger challenge isn’t necessarily to boost the market share of its latest operating system, but to convince those on Windows 7 to upgrade.

Even with Windows 10 on the market, Windows 7 continues to be the preferred desktop operating system across the world, and third-party data shows that it’s still close to 50 percent market share.

With Windows 7 support coming to an end in 3 years, Microsoft is well aware that it could very well experience another Windows XP moment when users might refuse to upgrade despite the obvious security risks.

So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Microsoft has already started the offensive against Windows 7, with a blog post published by the German subsidiary of the software giant pointing to the setbacks of this old operating system as compared to Windows 10.

Here's the thing: with Windows 7 users firmly convinced (by years of Microsoft's claims about that operating system's security) that Win7 is just fine if kept up to date, and Microsoft committed to keeping it up to date until 2020, there's very little chance of those same users believing that they really have to switch after all, for their own good. If Microsoft had made this pitch a year and a half ago, i.e. before pissing away all the trust and goodwill that they'd spent years building with their PC user base, then this might have worked, but GWX happened, and now can't be made to un-happen. 

Bottom line: Users who weren't convinced enough of Windows 10's security superiority to switch OSes for free are almost certainly not going to switch now that switching will cost them, and unlikely to believe anything Microsoft says to scare them into switching. Microsoft just don't have much credibility left with Windows 7 & 8 users, which is why we didn't switch to Windows 10 during their GWX campaign, and they haven't done nearly enough to win back our trust and good will since the GWX push ended. Until they do, I think Microsoft can expect their transparent scaremongering to yield little, if anything, by way of results.

Give Windows 10 Home users the right to opt out of data collection entirely, give Windows 10 Home users the right to update their PCs on their own schedule, and make new features that, e.g., tap users' webcams to monitor whether they're at the keyboard something that users have to opt into, rather than out of... do all that, and give current Windows 7 users some sort of incentive package to want to switch OSes, and maybe they'll consider switching. But with Windows 10 Home coming laden with a bunch of Big Brother corporate bullshit and a US$150 price tag, Microsoft shouldn't be expecting too many takers.

Users beg Microsoft to end its Windows 10 update experiments

Did I mention yet, that Windows 10's update regime is terrible?

From Windows Report:

Oops, Microsoft did it again! The Redmond giant rolled out Windows 10 KB3201845 to the general public a few days ago, but many users complain that the company didn’t thoroughly test the update. As a result, KB3201845 brings more issues than it fixes.

As a quick reminder, the latest Windows 10 update makes computers unusable and kills various Microsoft and third-party apps. Moreover, uninstalling the update doesn’t solve this problem. Users report they are experiencing the same bugs even after removing KB3201845.

Unfortunately, it appears that KB3201845 clings to Windows 10 computers like a leech. Since this update is downloaded and installed automatically, oftentimes it comes back after users remove it.

We noticed another interesting trend related to KB3201845’s deployment. Windows 10 users are simply tired of Microsoft’s update experiments. This is not the first time that a Windows 10 update breaks users’ computers. However, we hardly recall any other time when users have been so angry with Microsoft.

[...]

In a nutshell, regular Windows 10 users feel that Microsoft is conducting experiments on their computers. Many users complain that the company is pushing too many unpolished updates lately: “What is Microsoft doing? Do they release updates without testing?”

Users also feel that Microsoft is forcing these updates on them by removing all options to block updates. It’s worth mentioning that many users who installed KB3201845 report the update keeps coming back, even after they uninstalled it.

[...]

Microsoft has yet to issue any comments on this situation. Actually, the company’s silence is one of the most annoying things for users. Microsoft’s forum has been flooded with KB3201845-related threads, yet there is no official answer available yet.

This is a show-stopping bug, and one that Microsoft won't even acknowledge, let alone talk about a fix for. That would be bad enough, if it were the only Windows 10 Update-related problem in circulation right now. 

So, of course, it isn't the only show-stopping bug in circulation right now.

From The Reg:

With more and more Windows 10 users losing internet and network connectivity – thanks to a dodgy software update that broke DHCP – you'd have thought Redmond would be on the ball with a cunning fix. Sadly not: the only official advice is to go away and reboot your PC.

“Some customers have reported difficulties connecting to the Internet, and instructions on how to address this are posted here in our help forum,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Reg.

The Redmond spinner would not reveal which Windows Update patch is at fault – and it's hard for us or anyone to tell from the online documentation because Microsoft is deliberately vague about the contents of its updates.

The robotic response simply advises people to reboot the PC and try again, and includes a how-to guide of which buttons to press. Holding down shift while shutting down forces a clean restart may clear the problem. If that fails, there are a lot of drivers to reinstall, firewalls to be reconfigured and wireless reports to be found – which is all a bit complex for someone who needs instructions on how to reboot their PC.

And also unnecessary and unreliable. Rebooting doesn't always correct the problem. A better solution, for now, is to use static IP addresses. Alternatively, you can run the commands in this article to restart gummed-up components in the operating system's networking stack.

[...]

In an ideal world, Microsoft would identify and name the patch that is causing the upset, users could take it off their systems, and everyone's happy. But Microsoft is either unwilling or unable to give out that information.

Did I mention how thrilled I was, that Microsoft was bringing Windows 10's broken Update regime to Windows 7 & 8? Because I'm not. At all.

Which brings me to the one good(ish) piece of news: apparently Redmond is walking back the decision to bring Windows 10's broken update regime to Windows 7 & 8! Well... kinda.

From Forbes:

Microsoft has made a major improvement to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. In a blog post titled “Update to Supersedence Behaviour for Security Only and Security Monthly Quality Rollup Updates,” Microsoft field engineer Scott Breen said:

"Based on feedback, the team has updated the supersedence relationship of updates so that Security Only updates are not superseded. In addition, the logic of the updates has been modified so that if the Monthly Quality update is installed (which contains the security updates), the security update will not be applicable. This allows organisations managing updates via WSUS or Configuration Manager to:

• "Selectively install Security Only updates at any time
• "Periodically deploy the Security Monthly Quality Rollup and only deploy the Security Only updates since then, and;
• "More easily monitor software update compliance using Configuration Manager or WSUS."

Forbes contributor Gordon Kelly pointed out that this change puts an end to the accept all / reject all policy of the patches, meaning users would be able to accept the latest security updates without having to download anything else. Interestingly, this is how Windows 7 and Windows 8 used to work before Microsoft forced the Windows 10 upgrade. The return of the ability to selectively install Security Only updates is definitely welcomed!

All of this comes at a time when Microsoft is trying to sell Windows 10 as ready for enterprise deployment, and when it desperately needs large corporate customers to start switching to Windows 10. 

Hmmm... Show-stopping bugs that break your applications, both 3rd party and Microsoft's own, and also break internet and network connectivity (because who needs that for business these days), combined with changes that restore superior Windows Update functionality to Windows' older versions? Sold! (Not.)

Time will tell what sort of impact this has on Windows 10's 2017 rate of enterprise adoption, or to consumers' opinion of Windows 10, and of Microsoft generally. But it does keep Win10's Anniversary Update's streak of bad press coverage alive, and further undermine the trust and goodwill of customers whose trust and goodwill was badly bruised, if not killed outright, by the debacle of Microsoft's GWX campaign, and comes at a time when Microsoft are trying to put all the bad press behind them and move on.

Windows 10 can auto-remove software without asking you first.

This one is totally obvious, really, if you've thought about it.

Logically, if Windows Update can re-add bloatware apps that you'd deliberately removed, then it has to be able to remove apps that you'd deliberately added, too; it's exactly the same problem that Amazon's Kindles have run into before, with users losing access to books that they'd already paid for, if Amazon decides to de-list the book from their available ebook catalogue.

Makes sense, right? A horrible sort of sense, in which the things you "buy" aren't so much bought as rented, and can be denied to you at any time,  but sense nonetheless. This is the entire point of Software as a Service (SaaS). The idea is that you'll never buy software again; instead, you'll pay for licences to use the software, for so long as the company that you paid for that licence deign to continue allowing you the access for which you've paid.

Remember when Microsoft had "side-loading" disabled by default in Windows 10? Remember how virulent the reaction was to that, and how quickly Microsoft backtracked, even though they've mostly ignored user feedback about every other aspect of Windows 10? This was why that happened.

SaaS is not without advantages, and Steam has proven pretty conclusively that consumers will happily embrace SaaS if it's presented and managed properly, but SaaS also comes with a lot of downside, and Windows users insisted so loudly on retaining alternatives to SaaS (aka the Windows Store) that Microsoft ended up giving it to them.

So, given all of that, why exactly is Jack Lloyd of The American Genius so gobsmacked to discover that your Win10/UWP apps can be removed from your system without your prior consent by Microsoft's fiat?

Given the widespread nature of Windows 10, it’s easy to see why so many consumers have it installed across their devices. If, however, you are one of the six or seven people who haven’t yet downloaded Windows 10, perhaps you should hold off—a recent development has shown that the pesky OS will remove and reconfigure your programs and files without authorization.

[...]

Common issues so far have ranged anywhere from resetting quick actions to defaults, to changing the actual location of custom files. Windows 10 has also been accused of removing various programs and drivers—none of which are essential, of course, but most of which are user-installed and thereby user-preferred.

Although the aforementioned resets and migrations are admittedly no more than a mild irritant in the long run, some Windows 10 alterations are more detrimental. If you use AVG—also known as the “I swear I’ll buy the full program next time” simulator — Windows 10 is liable to decide that the popular antivirus program’s services aren’t good enough for you.

Obviously, having your antivirus program deleted without warning comes with a bounty of potentially harmful side effects, and while Windows 10 does replace AVG with its own preferred suite, the resulting compatibility shift may still create holes in your defense.

[...]

As a computer owner, you should be able to depend on your PC performing basic maintenance and updates autonomously without having to worry about extraneous or unauthorized system overhauls. When operating systems take too much initiative, it can feel like an invasion; as such, Windows 10 makes for an uneasy partner in the PC world.

I can agree with Jack Lloyd that Windows' betrayal of user trust is easily its worst offense, and worse than any of its myriad technical issues, but none of this is news. Critics of Windows 10 have been pointing out all of these issues for well over a year now.

Welcome to the party, Jack! I guess it's better you arrive late than never, but a lot of people who switched to Windows 10 on the strength of breathless hype from tech bloggers just like you are probably thinking that they'd have loved for your "come to Jesus" moment to have happened a long time ago.

(By the way, some of those resets and migrations were a lot more than a mild irritant. Just saying.)

Yes, users should be able to depend on their OS to peform basic maintenance and updated without having to worry about it rolling back their privacy settings to the factory defaults, or installing and uninstalling software on their systems without their knowledge or consent, or gathering a ton of their metadata and transmitting it somewhere in the cloud, with no ability for those users to opt out. 

Hell, users should have been given a meaningful choice about whether or not to install the damn OS in the first place, but that didn't happen, either; the fact that so many users are still using Windows 7 and 8 speaks strongly to how many users went to a lot of trouble to avoid "upgrading."

Yes, the betrayal of their customers' trust is the worst sin that Microsoft committed during their heavy-handed GWX campaign, and one they still haven't repented of, confessed to, or atoned for; its stench will be lingering on everything that Microsoft do for a long, long time. It takes a long time to build a relationship of trust, and very little time to undermine it completely; rebuilding such a relationship, though, is a lot harder than building it in the first place.

Microsoft have recently announced that a future update will turn off their ability to reinstalled removed bloatware via Windows Update; perhaps that same update will address the issue of Update removing software from your system that you'd chosen to install. Of course, the problem with turning it off via Update is that they can always decide to turn it back on later, when the heat is off and they feel they can get away with it, because the functionality is built into the OS.

Microsoft's crisis of confusion

While writing my previous blog post, I found my way to another op/ed by John Brandon at Computer World, which is also well worth a read:

Microsoft is a gargantuan company.

They have 114,000 employees. They make a popular gaming console, the only viable operating system used by more people than anyone by far, and have their toes dipped in every conceivable market segment, from consumer chatbots to social media for business. There’s no question the company competes easily with Apple and Google for the top crown of all technology, assuming you can forgive them for Windows 8.

Yet, they have a major problem in the age of immediate access from anywhere. Bowing out of the smartphone market is not as troubling as a much more serious issue related to usability: Microsoft has a crisis of confusion.

Here’s a good example. Let’s say you want to play the game Gears of War 4 on your PC. Anyone who pre-ordered the game for Xbox One can play starting today, and Play Anywhere means you can download the game on Windows for free. But where do you find it? You can search using the Xbox app, but that doesn’t work. You can try going to Microsoft.com or Xbox.com and checking there, but that doesn’t work, either. In fact, the only way to find the game is through a rat’s nest. You have to go to the Windows store app, login with your Xbox account (not your Windows account), and then click a tiny avatar icon. (By the way, this icon is for Windows, not for Xbox.) There’s an option called My Library in that menu, but it’s not a tab on the main screen. Then, you have to select all apps, because only a few are listed. Finally, you find the game.

[...]

This maze of confusion is just as startling if you try to figure out how to use a new app like Microsoft MyAnalytics, which is designed for personal productivity data. Hashtag irony. It doesn’t help at all that the name used to be Delve Analytics. How do you get the app? Don’t ask me, I have no idea. It’s included for free in something called the Office 365 E5 plan and in the Office 365 enterprise suite. I’m pretty sure Office 365 is an estimate on the number of days you need to allocate to figuring this all out.

[...]

It makes me wonder if anyone at Microsoft ever thinks about making the ecosystem work better. In other words, more like the one for Apple and Google. If I own Gears of War 4, and if the price includes dual platform support on Windows and Xbox, I shouldn’t have to figure out which icons to click. For a massive, iconic company like Microsoft to stay massive and iconic in the coming age of immediate mobile access, they will have to figure out how to make this work smoother. On a desktop, you click around until you find the right option. On a mobile device while you’re waiting for an Uber to show up, you don’t have time. Things either work right away or you move on.

Microsoft, are you listening?

No, John Brandon, I don't think they are. In fact, I think that all of Microsoft's problems in the last year can be explained up by Microsoft not listening: not to users' privacy concerns about Windows 10; nor to users' clearly and often-expressed wishes to not upgrade to Windows 10 in the first place; nor to users' desires to control their PCs' privacy settings and update cycle; nor to users' desire to install updates individually, rather than in a single, monthly, inadequately-tested and bug-ridden lump.

Microsoft is a gargantuan company, and they clearly think that being that large means that they can do whatever the fuck they want, regardless of what their customers want or need. Only time will tell whether or not they're right about that; whether or not they really are too big to actually fail. As someone who's been actively rooting for them to fail for months, now, I'm hoping that Microsoft are wrong about this; I'm hoping that their cavalier attitude towards what their customers are clearly telling them results in more lost market share for their flagship product. Either way, we'll know in a few weeks.

I do need to correct Mr. Brandon on one point: Microsoft may make the most viable desktop (and laptop) OS, but they don't make the OS "used by more people than anyone by far." Since 2015, Google's Android has had the largest installed base of all operating systems (OS) of any kind; it's been the best selling OS on tablets since 2013, and it's dominant by every metric on smartphones. As Brandon himself notes, the mobile market counts, and Microsoft isn't even a player there, let alone the dominant player.

Brandon's entire piece is still well worth reading, though, so go give the man some clicks.

Windows 10 runs again — but for how long?

Interesting op/ed by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at ComputerWorld:

Almost a week after some Windows 10 PCs got trapped in reboot hell, Microsoft finally issued a patch — make that “a kludge of a script” — to finally enable affected Windows 10 users to get their machines working again.

The fix, “Windows 10 1607 Script fix to unblock update for Windows Insiders,” doesn’t explain what’s going on. It does work, however.

That’s nice. I’m glad that my Windows 10 PC is up and running again. Thanks.

I’d still like to know what the heck happened. The note that accompanied news of the fix wasn’t exactly informative. It reads:

We became aware of an issue with the recent Windows 10 cumulative update that impacted a small number of customers in the Windows Insider Program that were running a previous build of the OS. We have created a solution to resolve this issue.

Small? One thread on the Microsoft forums currently has 383 replies. On most online groups I’ve known and run over the years, only one in a hundred people actively comment. If that ratio holds true, that’s 38,000-plus users.

That’s not many out of tens of millions of users, perhaps, but it’s still too many for a showstopping bug.

The issue, apparently, was a scheduled task that Windows Update added to users' PCs, meant to save XBox Live games. The problem is that it runs in the background even if (like Mr. Vaughan-Nichols) you don't have any XBox Live games to save, and haven't played an XBox Live game in years. Microsoft enabled a total system failure by way of an obscure registry entry for a program that most users will never have used, and don't intend to use, all in the name of integrating XBox Live with Windows 10.

Even worse, the workaround wasn't actually developed by Microsoft (credit apparently belongs to a Windows 10 Insider by the name of Dr. Peter Farquhasson), and it can't be installed via Windows Update -- users must revert to an older, still-working version of the OS, and then execute the script. This, in Microsoft's brave new Windows 10 world, is what progress looks like.

Have I mentioned today, how very glad I am, that I didn't "upgrade" to this mess?

Vaughan-Nichols has a couple of ideas about how Microsoft could have avoided this problem, beginning with better quality assurance. "Even as Microsoft has gotten much better with its server and cloud offerings," he writes, "Windows seems to be taking second place and becoming second rate," issues which apparently still extend to the Windows 10 Store.

Also, he writes,

It might also have been helpful if Microsoft still let you install only those patches you need rather than one large blob of updates. It’s bad enough that Microsoft has made this the default update system for Windows 10, but it is also bringing the rollup patch model to Windows 7, 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 and Server 2012 R2, starting on Oct. 11.

This is going to be so much fun!

Yeah. I'm thrilled. Can you tell how thrilled I am?

As Vaughan-Nichols concludes, "Windows has been fixed — sort of — now. But, it’s only a matter of time before it breaks again." Given how terribly Microsoft has handled absolutely everything about Windows 10's maintenance so far, starting with the Anniversary Update itself and continuing through every patch since, I have a strong feeling that he's right about that. And it isn't just Windows 10 users who will be affected by their incompetence; with this same broken update regimen coming to Windows 7 and 8, too, this is going to affect every Windows user.

GG, Microsoft. That's some next-level end game.

Linux is looking like a better idea with each passing day. Did I mention that I've bought a 2nd hard drive, specifically for use as a Linux partition? Now I just have to get off my lazy ass and install the damn thing... and then install Linux on the damn thing. I don't think I'm the only one, either, who's contemplating making that shift.

Microsoft will finally allow you to remove unwanted Windows 10 apps once and for all

File under "it's about damn time."

From TNW:

Windows 10 ships with a whole bunch of apps that you almost definitely don’t want. Mail, for example, is a pretty crappy email client. Likewise, odds are high that you don’t care about Groove Music, given that Spotify is a thing.

Until recently, it was impossible to remove these unwanted apps. They just sat there, unused and occupying space that could be used for other things. But an upcoming update to Windows 10 – build 14936 – will allow you to uninstall them once and for all.

You can ditch Mail and Calendar, Calculator, Groove Music, Maps, and Weather. Unfortunately Alarm & Clock, Camera, Cortana, Messaging, and others are here to stay.

[...]

If this sounds familiar, it’s likely because the latest update to Apple’s iOS allows you to delete the default apps you likely don’t care about, like Stocks.

The fact that Microsoft's unwanted apps would reinstall themselves after users had removed them was a significant annoyance; this fix is long overdue, and looks to be a sign that Microsoft might just be starting to actually listen to their customers again, which would be good news. 

Even better, it's only one of two such signs. From ET's CIO.com:

Six days after Microsoft received reports of a cumulative update that failed to install on some computers, the company has now released a "fix-it" tool.

[...]

"If you are among the affected users, you can download and run the script to unblock the update and resume normal Windows 10 operation," the report added.

This is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it's a much faster response from Microsoft than was seen after the Anniversary Update itself caused so many problems at launch. For another thing, it's an update that isn't being made to wait on Microsoft's "cumulative updates only" timetable, instead being rolled out as soon as it was ready, to fix a problem that was actually created by the previous CU. Again, good news if it's the start of a trend, although it bears mentioning that this is the way that they used to do business prior to Windows 10, so it's not so much a new thing as a return to form.

Now, if only Microsoft would start listening to their customers on the subject of privacy.... but I guess we'll have to see what comes of CNIL's regulatory action for that answer.

UPDATE: Nope... Looks like it's still broken.

Steam stats also show a drop in Windows 10 usage share

Even as Windows 10 has struggled to gain market share in spite of being free, gains which have slowed to a crawl since the free upgrade offer ended, the one bright spot on the Windows 10 horizon has been gaming. Microsoft's XBox One also runs Windows 10, after all, and the Play Anywhere initiative is largely regarded as consumer-friendly. With DX12 graphics cards slowly coming on the market, the idea that gamers would embrace Windows 10 seemed to be backed by Steam's own statistics, which shows more than half of Valve's customers having made the switch -- a far higher rate than is seen in any other market.

But that was then, and this is now, and Steam's latest numbers show Win10 losing ground with gamers, too.

From MSPowerUser:

We reported yesterday on a small drop in Windows 10 usage share, as reported by NetMarketShare, from 22.99% to 22.53%.
Now new market share numbers from Steam has also shown a drop, from 48.95% of Steam users to 48.90%, a 0.05% drop.

In the case of Steam, there was an increase of 0.1% usage share of Windows 8.1, suggesting some gamers have been rolling back to an older version of the OS, now the free upgrade period has passed.

Once again, it needs to be said that we're talking about small changes, here. It would be especially odd for the massively unpopular Windows 8 to be gaining market share, for example, rather than the much more common Windows 7, and the variations we're seeing in September's numbers could simply be statistical noise, both here and for the overall OS market share results that NetMarketShare posted yesterday.

One thing seems pretty clear, though; while Windows 10 may not yet be losing enough market share to suggest any large-scale retreat to older, more stable platforms, it's not gaining anything, either... and Microsoft really, really need for Windows 10 to continue posting significant gains.

Gamers are used to being shit on by the big corporations with which they have dealings, and most of the comments that I've seen from people that made the switch were more of the "they're going to force it on my anyway, so I may as well get it over with" variety, and less a matter of genuine excitement about the new OS or its features. Gamers mostly roll with the punches when big companies behave badly, and nearly half of them rolled with the punch that was GWX, but even among gamers, Windows 10 didn't achieve 50% adoption, and it hasn't made any progress since the GWX campaign ended. 

With DX12 getting a serious competitor in Vulkan (which is being backed by both AMD and Valve), and with Valve also taking a more active interest in bolstering its competitive advantages over the Windows Store, I doubt that anyone at Redmond will see these latest Steam stats as good news. With Windows' Update woes continuing, I'm not expecting the momentum to shift significantly in Win10's direction for October, either; if anything, I expect to see more gains in user share for older OSes, as users continue to roll back to platforms that are fully baked, or just take advantage of the last opportunities to buy PC with Windows 7 or 8 pre-installed.

Windows 10 lost market share to Windows 7 in September

I was expecting Windows 10's update problems and privacy issues to have an impact on its market share. With adoption by home users slowing after the end of Microsoft's free "upgrade" offer, and with adoption by business of Pro and Enterprise versions also reported to be lacklustre, I was expecting Win10 to gain basically nothing in terms of market share; maybe there would be a slight uptick for Win10 as the market shares of Win8 and XP continue to decline, but I expected that Win7 would continue to be #1, with a market share number that was basically unchanged from August.

Well, NetMarketShare's latest desktop OS market share numbers are now posted, and Win8 and WinXP both showed the expected slight downticks, while Win7 remained the #1 desktop OS, but that's the end of the list of my met expectations. Because Win10's market share actually ticked down in September, from 22.99% to 22.53%, while Win7's share rose from 47.25% to 48.27%. Linux also gained a bit, rising from 2.11% to 2.23%.

For the record, this was August: 

And this is September: 

BetaNews' reaction to this was... priceless, really:

WTF? Windows 10 now actually losing market share

By Wayne Williams

It was expected, that once Windows 10 stopped being free, upgrades would slow significantly. That turned out not to be the case last month when NetMarketShare’s usage figures showed it, rather surprisingly, to be business as usual. Growth in August was no different from growth in previous months, although I speculated it might have been buoyed by sales of new back to school PCs.

In September though, according to NetMarketShare, Windows 10 didn’t just show slower growth, it actually went into reverse gear and lost usage share. Yes, you read that right.

According to the figures, Windows 10 went from 22.99 percent globally, to 22.53 percent, a drop of 0.46 percentage points. It’s important to remember that NetMarketShare measures usage (people actually using the operating system, rather than having it installed), and that isn’t a precise science. Even so, Windows 10 losing share is a big surprise. When Windows 8.x did it two years ago, it came after months of dwindling growth. Here, NetMarketShare is showing us a healthy growing operating system coming to a dramatic and sudden stop, and then actually rolling backwards a bit. Are the figures to be believed?

Well, while it wouldn’t be the first time that NetMarketShare has released usage numbers and then revised them a few days later, rival usage share monitoring firm StatCounter has similar findings.

Remember earlier this week, when Microsoft announced that Windows 10 was now running installed on over 400 million devices, a claim which I described as lying with statistics? There's a reason why I reacted that way.

"Microsoft Delivers Yet Another Broken Windows 10 Update"

I tried to come up with my own pithy title for this post, but the headline from this Thurrott.com article really speaks for itself:

This week, Microsoft pushed out another cumulative update and reports of installation problems are widespread. While I don’t know how many users are impacted, based on comments sent to me, it’s certainly widespread enough that this is well beyond an isolated issue.

The update that is causing the problem, KB3194496, is not installing correctly for users. The update, when it does fail, is causing some machines to restart, often multiple times, as Windows 10 attempts to remove the failed update. Worse, after a restart, the file will attempt to install again resulting in the loop of failed install, reboot, re-install and failure again.

[...]

Microsoft is pushing the idea that you should always patch your machine on the day the update is released as they often release security patches that fix vulnerabilities. But, until the company can get a handle on their quality control issues, such as the Anniversary update breaking millions of webcams, it feels like every time you run Windows update you are rolling the dice.

That's not the only problem with KB3194496, either. From Windows Report:

Microsoft recently pushed KB3194496 to the general public, bringing a series of important bug fixes. We expected this cumulative update to become available on Patch Tuesday, but it appears Microsoft considered the update was stable enough to be rolled out to all Windows 10 users.

Maybe it would have been better if Microsoft had waited a bit longer. In this manner, the company would have had the chance to gather thorough user feedback and patch eventual issues. As a quick reminder, update KB3194496 was pushed to the Windows 10 public channel just one day after it had become available for Release Preview and Slow Ring Insiders.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps due to Microsoft’s haste, cumulative update KB3194496 brings issues of its own. Users have reported KB3194496 is breaking mouse and keyboard functionality. More specifically, they can’t use the mouse and the keyboard buttons don’t respond.

Really, what does one even say, at this point? "Microsoft, get your shit together?" "Redmond, pull your heads out of your asses?" "See you in court, Mr. Nadella?" Is there actually a limit to the number of times that Microsoft can fuck up in basically the same way, or do they plan to keep this up indefinitely?

Questions abound; answers do not appear to be forthcoming. Have I mentioned today, just how glad I am to have refused to "upgrade" to Windows 10?

Tomorrow is the first of the month, which is when I'll find out if NetMarketShare post the new desktop OS market share numbers on the 1st of every month, or just the 1st weekday of each month, but all reports point to Windows 10 adoption slowing sharply (what with Microsoft not giving it away quite so freely, anymore), and Win10 Pro and Enterprise versions being slow to take off, also. I'm no prophet, but I feel like I'm on safe ground in predicting that Windows 10's market will, once again, not have increased dramatically over August's number. Given what a mess the product is, right now, why would anyone want to switch, who doesn't have to?

Good job, Microsoft. Well done, you.