Warning: Microsoft is now trying to force Windows 10 on everyone - how to avoid it

NyxVampiria said:
Look! Something new from a big company O_O Let me instantly hate on it without even trying it out :party2:

<---win10 user, I'm still alive and everything on my computer is working just as before. Nobody jumped out of my screen to put a chip in my head either.
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As GG said this is not a thread about people hating win 10 because it's new.

I actually love win10. I installed it before it even released by participating in the insider beta program. Even in beta form I didn't run in to any issues. My wife and 2 sons have upgraded to it and it's working great for them.

But even though I think Windows 10 is great I can't agree with what is described in the article. Pushing win 10 on people that don't want it by having it automatically download or just continually nagging them to upgrade isn't right.

I think it's fine to tell consumers of the option to upgrade, maybe even give a reminder or 2 and then that's it. Let people decide if or when the want to upgrade.
 
sakichop said:
As GG said this is not a thread about people hating win 10 because it's new.

I actually love win10. I installed it before it even released by participating in the insider beta program. Even in beta form I didn't run in to any issues. My wife and 2 sons have upgraded to it and it's working great for them.

But even though I think Windows 10 is great I can't agree with what is described in the article. Pushing win 10 on people that don't want it by having it automatically download or just continually nagging them to upgrade isn't right.

I think it's fine to tell consumers of the option to upgrade, maybe even give a reminder or 2 and then that's it. Let people decide if or when the want to upgrade.
Click to expand...

A unified OS makes more sense for most people. Most people on here is not most people as a whole. Windows 10 was never geared towards them. Financially, and from a support perspective, it makes more sense to do what they've done. What everyone here complaining about Win 10 needs, is Linux. Which will make people complain about compatibility or ease of use. But then the counter argument is that it's a PC. There's literally (not figuratively) billions of possible hardware configuration options. The fact that this increases and the newly released OS issues actually DECREASE as a whole per release is absolutely impressive. If you're using a more common setup such as a Lenovo or Dell setup, or even a laptop, you're probably (for the most part) having less issues than most people with Win 10, because of the more common package. If you're still unsatisfied, then move to a Mac. Everyone wants an all-you-can-eat buffet for free.
 
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sakichop said:
I think it's fine to tell consumers of the option to upgrade, maybe even give a reminder or 2 and then that's it. Let people decide if or when the want to upgrade.
Click to expand...
Very democratic! However, it's got the same problem as a purely democratic government would have: most of the people have no clue what the choice even really means. What percentage of people even know what version of Windows they are running right now? Is it even 50%? I guarantee you less than half the people out there really know what the risks/rewards are of upgrading are. It would be like asking me whether or not my shirt is still fashionable or needs to be replaced.

That policy would certainly be a good one to have in a world where far more people understood their computers well enough to make anything other than a random guess but that's not our world. It isn't exactly great to have Microsoft doing that for everybody but, unless you can find some "duly elected representatives" to make the decisions, that's what we're stuck with.
 
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NyxVampiria said:
Look! Something new from a big company O_O Let me instantly hate on it without even trying it out :party2:

<---win10 user, I'm still alive and everything on my computer is working just as before. Nobody jumped out of my screen to put a chip in my head either.
Click to expand...
Way to miss the point. If it works, great. Sometimes it doesn't.
Let's talk about facts, eh?

As someone who often upgrades to the latest and greatest for testing purposes, has upgraded machines for the company I have worked for, and has upgraded (or attempted to) several machines of my own and about 10 machines for friends and family, I have a pretty good idea about success rates.

The success rate stands at 100% for my company - but these were all newish (<2 years) high-end desktops. No tweaks required.

Of the external desktops I have worked on it stands at 100%, but only if you discount the 30% that I had to do stuff to get either obsolete video cards (e.g. Geforce 7600 ~10 years old) or wireless dongles that aren't very old to run properly. (often by just forcing the install of Win 8 drivers). A lot of the people I have done this for wouldn't have been capable of doing it themselves, and they would have been stuck with a shonky system (until I reinstalled the original Windows, of course).

Of the external laptops, my success rate stands at 60%. Of that 60%, there were several issues with touchpad drivers, but this was often fixed by rolling back to an older driver, and doing some reg massage to ensure the updated one didn't reinstall (in many cases this seems to be fixed now). A couple had issues with wireless, where they wouldn't connect until after a reboot. This was eventually fixed by changing some device settings that never had to be touched before.

So that leaves a 40% mix of laptops, none especially old (in fact the oldest one, 8 years old, only had touchpad and wireless problems I could deal with), that either failed to boot, or booted into something useless, or did either of those a couple of months down the track after a major update.
In a couple of cases this appeared to be Windows 10 doing something to the UEFI partition. (These were Toshibas that have an especially crappy UEFI setup, so probably that's Toshiba's fault). Welcome to an unusable system - a blinking white cursor.This is shit that is not recoverable from, other than reapplying the image that you (hopefully) made before trying the upgrade.
The others - not sure. Drivers or something bad enough to make the machine unbootable.

A couple borked during install, but managed to automatically roll back. (Unfortunately they have "accidentally" been upgrade-attempted a couple of times - this can be annoying)

Apologies for the wall of text.

TLDR version: sometimes there are good reasons why you don't want to upgrade, leaving aside the fact that you might like what you're currently using.
 
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Shagnak said:
Welcome to an unusable system - a blinking white cursor.This is shit that is not recoverable from, other than reapplying the image that you (hopefully) made before trying the upgrade.
Click to expand...

And this might happen if Microsoft's force to Win10 gets through - one does never know.

"Oh, we can't be sued, because it was your decision after all ! We only applied the necessary … pointers … to what you just might be doing …"
 
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Since Linux was mentioned, I'd just say that the final pieces the Linux desktop has needed are falling into place this year. Linux has always been most suited as a server system, and, relatively speaking, the desktop has been a side project. It's been very usable for years, but it has always been assembled from slightly clunky parts, with the joins often showing.

With Wayland replacing X as the display server, Vulkan for streamlined graphics drivers, and the XDG project to simplify the way apps are distributed, it's taking a big leap forward this year. With a bit of self assembly, it's already possible to put together a desktop that is much faster and nicer to use than Windows or OSX, IMO.
 
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Shagnak said:
Way to miss the point. If it works, great. Sometimes it doesn't.
Let's talk about facts, eh?

As someone who often upgrades to the latest and greatest for testing purposes, has upgraded machines for the company I have worked for, and has upgraded (or attempted to) several machines of my own and about 10 machines for friends and family, I have a pretty good idea about success rates.

The success rate stands at 100% for my company - but these were all newish (<2 years) high-end desktops. No tweaks required.

Of the external desktops I have worked on it stands at 100%, but only if you discount the 30% that I had to do stuff to get either obsolete video cards (e.g. Geforce 7600 ~10 years old) or wireless dongles that aren't very old to run properly. (often by just forcing the install of Win 8 drivers). A lot of the people I have done this for wouldn't have been capable of doing it themselves, and they would have been stuck with a shonky system (until I reinstalled the original Windows, of course).

Of the external laptops, my success rate stands at 60%. Of that 60%, there were several issues with touchpad drivers, but this was often fixed by rolling back to an older driver, and doing some reg massage to ensure the updated one didn't reinstall (in many cases this seems to be fixed now). A couple had issues with wireless, where they wouldn't connect until after a reboot. This was eventually fixed by changing some device settings that never had to be touched before.

So that leaves a 40% mix of laptops, none especially old (in fact the oldest one, 8 years old, only had touchpad and wireless problems I could deal with), that either failed to boot, or booted into something useless, or did either of those a couple of months down the track after a major update.
In a couple of cases this appeared to be Windows 10 doing something to the UEFI partition. (These were Toshibas that have an especially crappy UEFI setup, so probably that's Toshiba's fault). Welcome to an unusable system - a blinking white cursor.This is shit that is not recoverable from, other than reapplying the image that you (hopefully) made before trying the upgrade.
The others - not sure. Drivers or something bad enough to make the machine unbootable.

A couple borked during install, but managed to automatically roll back. (Unfortunately they have "accidentally" been upgrade-attempted a couple of times - this can be annoying)

Apologies for the wall of text.

TLDR version: sometimes there are good reasons why you don't want to upgrade, leaving aside the fact that you might like what you're currently using.
Click to expand...

Yes, I had people calling me in panic saying their computer doesn't work very well, they can't play their old games and a lot of other things. Turns out they clicked yes on the upgrade button.... they had no idea what it meant, but MS made it "sound" good. For technical people who understand this stuff very well, it might be fine, and we can even install hacks to get rid of the crap MS is doing. But for people who don't know that much about computer and bought a laptop with everything pre-installed, a unwanted updated could end up as a disaster, especially if they are old people without much income.
 
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Yes, that's the key point - it doesn't matter how good your software and your upgrade system, one cannot expect an OS upgrade on a wide scale without a significant number of problematic cases. Upgrading is choice that should be carefully planned for, with appropriate backups and time allowed for disruption. Imagine rolling out an OS update just in one company - unless you're nuts, you put in place a very careful plan, with a support department ready to get busy on the ground.

To attempt to push an OS upgrade on a global scale, as if it were a simple one-click operation, is, at best, unprofessional.
 
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