Hello roboticus,

<rant>

Yeah, this hits a sore spot for me at the moment. At home we have 2 boxes running Windows 8.1. Never really used Windows 7, and 8.1 is a big improvement over Vista; also I don’t use the UI; so 8.1 has been a big step up. Mostly.

Last November, Windows Update stopped working. I Googled and Googled, and — over the course of months — must have tried just about every recommended fix known to the Internet. Except reinstalling Windows, which I just couldn’t bring myself to do, as even a non-destructive reinstall would lose all my carefully installed applications.

Then, a bit over 3 weeks ago, Windows Update just started working again. Great! So I installed all the updates (except the Microsoft Office File Validation Add-in, which I distrust). The updates included KB3035583, which advertises itself within Windows Update as follows:

Install this update to resolve issues in Windows.

(See this useful site.) But it actually installs GWX.exe, the Windows 10 upgrader, which puts an icon in the system tray and periodically issues reminders to upgrade to Windows 10.

No problem, I thought, I can live with that. The box I use has Windows Updates set to “Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.” But... I forgot about the other box, which was set to the default, “Install updates automatically.” Big mistake. A week ago today, out of the blue, we got an email from our ISP (wireless broadband) advising that we’d used a sizeable chunk of our monthly data quota. After much head scratching, it finally turned out that Windows Update, without being asked, had gone ahead and downloaded the Windows 10 upgrade — all 3 GB of it! — and then told us ... nothing. Only hours later did the message show up in Windows Update history: Windows 10 upgrade failed.

Anyway, reading the reviews, it seems that Windows 10 might be a significant improvement over Windows 8.1. Not that I'll be finding out, though. Luckily, before I allowed my box to upgrade to Windows 10, I stumbled across something: Apparently Windows 10 is going to *force* autoupdates--no compromises.

That was my reading too, and why I don’t currently intend to touch Windows 10 with the proverbial 10-foot pole. (Unless M$ changes its policy and guarantees that all updates will be optional.) In the meantime we’ve still got 6 days to go before our monthly download quota refreshes, and precious little data remaining. All for an upgrade that we didn’t want, didn’t ask for, didn’t authorise — and which didn’t even work, anyway (fortunately)!

Not happy, M$.

</rant>

Update: In case anyone else is in the same position, here’s what I’ve done:

Thanks for listening, :-)

Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum Iustus alius egestas vitae, eros Piratica,

In reply to Re: OT: Sigh ... Windows 10 by Athanasius
in thread OT: Sigh ... Windows 10 by roboticus

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