[aprssig] Latest updates on Windows 10 Hard-sell Tactics Aimed At Win 7 & 8 Users

[Stephen H. Smith]

[This is a shortened version of the page located on my website at: 
<http://WA8LMF.net/Windows10-Info> .  This page is constantly being updated as 
news breaks. ]

Since I last posted on this issue, Microsoft has ratcheted up the hard-sell 
tactics to an even more outrageous level, including forcibly overriding 
user-installed registry settings to opt-out of the forced download of Windows 10.
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Windows 10 Information
Read This Before Installing Windows 10
(or even if you don't want to)
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Microsoft is currently engaged in an unprecedented hard-sell campaign to push 
rapid adoption of Windows 10 by existing users of Win 7 and 8.     This 
includes a series of nagware popups urging you to “Get Windows 10” being 
stealth installed on Window 7 and 8 devices in the guise of bug fixes and 
security updates by Windows Update.    [MS refers to this campaign as "GWX"; 
short for "Get Windows X" where "X" is Roman numeral "10".]

(This is part of a desperate attempt by MS to catch up with Apple and Android 
in the mobile device market by creating a large installed base of a desktop OS 
capable of running smartphone/tablet-style "apps" sold through an app store. So 
far developers have been overwhelmingly uninterested in writing apps for the 
Windows Phone "Android wanna-be" because of it's tiny market share. MS's 
objective is to seed the market for "apps" by forcing Win 10 onto a 
billion-plus devices within two years. This is also why they are trying to give 
away the Win 10 upgrade for free.)

More recently, Microsoft has actually been stealth-downloading gigabytes of 
install files (actually an image of the complete Win 10 install DVD) for 
Windows 10 onto Win7 and Win8 systems without warning or permission. (This can 
completely fill up the remaining free space on low-end Windows 8.1 tablets with 
1 or 2 GB of flash memory, rendering them essentially unusable.)  In a few 
instances, MS has actually launched the Win 10 install without warning or 
permission.

Further, MS is now stealth-installing the privacy-invading "telemetry modules" 
(a.ka. spyware) from Windows 10 into Windows 7 and 8.x systems via Windows 
Update under the double-think euphemism of Customer Experience Improvement 
Program a.k.a. "CEIP".

Most recently, Microsoft has been forcibly resetting the user-set "System 
Policy" registry flag "DisableOSUpgrade"=True" (which is supposed to prevent 
the downloading of the Get Windows 10 nagware and DVD image) to "False" via 
mislabled "security updates" from Windows Update.

Reportedly, MS will ratchet up the hard-sell early in 2016 by reclassifying the 
Get Windows 10 nagware from being an "optional" update to a "critical" or 
"important" one in Windows Update, and attempt to launch the upgrade install 
automatically.
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Win 10 is the last discrete version of Windows ever.

 From now on, it will be continually and endlessly changing with silent FORCED 
updates done without your knowledge or consent. Unlike previous versions of 
Windows, where Window Update would present a list of patches and let you pick 
and choose which ones to apply (and undo if they caused problems), Win 10 just 
silently forces changes into your system.

This would be great --IF-- MS didn't have such a horrible record of botched 
updates.  In just the FIRST week of Win 10 release, there have been three major 
screwups that have bricked just-installed Win 10 installations. One driver 
update for certain video chips locked machines into endless reboots, and one 
totally killed many machines rendering them unable to boot at all.

This continual unannounced changing of Win 10 means you are dealing with an 
unknown endlessly moving target.  Just because programs and device drivers 
worked today, there is no assurance they will work tomorrow, next week or next 
month, due to the endless stealth updates.


For hams, this is going to be especially significant, because much ham software 
hasn't changed significantly since the XP era of the mid-to late 2000's. Sooner 
or later some unknown update will start breaking these elderly programs, with 
no recourse to uninstall the offending patch (if you can even identify it).
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Windows 10 has escalated invasion of privacy and user data-mining to an 
unprecedented level.  Win 10 is far more "cloud-oriented" than previous 
versions of Windows.

As part of this, it's embedded "telemetry" reports practically everything you 
do, every program you run, every file you open back to the MS mother ship for 
analysis and marketing purposes. It shares your WiFi passwords with friends on 
your contact list. It contains hooks to pop up ads in the middle of LOCALLY 
RUNNING programs. It attempts to default file saves of local programs to 
Microsoft's cloud, rather than to your own hard disk.    It ignores entries in 
the Windows HOSTS file aimed at blocking unwanted communications to specific 
URLs.   MS has taken it upon itself to scan your local files to determine which 
of your BitTorrent downloads and installed programs are "illegal".

The “telemetry” modules “phone home” to dozens of domains at Microsoft. 
[Full list on my website.]

Download tools & info to remove the unwanted Get Windows 10 nagware and 
installer (and to immunize your system from repeated attempts to re-download 
it)  from my website at:  <http://WA8LMF.net> .  Click on the Windows 10 Info 
link at the top of my homepage.
__________________________________________

Stephen H. Smith    wa8lmf (at) aol.com
Skype:        WA8LMF
EchoLink:  Node #  14400  [Think bottom of the 2-meter band]
Home Page:          http://wa8lmf.net

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