Windows 10 is actually a virus, discuss

[rowland al]

I seem to remember that Win95 did everything I wanted in a nice Windowish kind of way. Video, music, Office, games, email, internet. 

What have all these Windows updates really given us other than a dip in our bank balance? 

[Guest]

On 26/11/2017 at 22:40, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I'd just like something I can run all my much loved legacy Win 98 and XP applications on, which isn't XP and doesn't keep helping itself (without asking) to my expensive and limited mobile data allowance. 

Which horse should I be running, and on which course please? 

Interestingly I have noticed today that win 10 has started asking me about updates and when to schedule them e.g. tonight. It also gives me the option to postpone and ask me again tomorrow. I have not noticed this before. It's much like my Samsung Android phone has been doing for ages now, perhaps MS are listening?

[rowland al]

40 minutes ago, MJG said:

Interestingly I have noticed today that win 10 has started asking me about updates and when to schedule them e.g. tonight. It also gives me the option to postpone and ask me again tomorrow. I have not noticed this before. It's much like my Samsung Android phone has been doing for ages now, perhaps MS are listening?

Probably. My OH's Android Samsung keeps nagging for an update. You do the update then immediately it nags again.

I'm sure it's all about stealing time from us and keeping us occupied with rubbish. 

As someone else said earlier today, go for a cruise, or anything which gets you out more.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, rowland al said:

Probably. My OH's Android Samsung keeps nagging for an update. You do the update then immediately it nags again.

I'm sure it's all about stealing time from us and keeping us occupied with rubbish. 

As someone else said earlier today, go for a cruise, or anything which gets you out more.

Thats weird really weird, I have had my current Samsung phone about a year and I think it's updated twice or three times in that time at the most.

What model of phone are they using?

[Dave_P]

16 hours ago, MJG said:

Yes, Apple products are just fab aren't they?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42174168

It's awesome.  I don't even have to remember my password!

[Wanderer Vagabond]

On 11/29/2017 at 19:56, MJG said:

Same here, I had a wobbly moment tonight with Win 10 on my pc after an update when it wouldn't load my home screen and just left me with a blank black screen. After i switched off though and restarted it came back up. First time ive had an issue like that for as long as can remember.

Rather worryingly those were the symptoms I got just before one of the updates fried my laptop's last hard drive, and I've also just started to get them again. I'd also love to know what the hell these updates contain. My laptop is still pestering me to update even though I went to the local library to try to do so and after the designated free 1 hour of internet time it still hadn't finished downloading the latest update (apparently 2.25GB). It looks as though it is some load of tosh called the 'Fall Creators Update' which presumably just means that they are going to change everything around again so that I can waste my time looking for it again. My sense of humour for Windows 10 is starting to seriously falter

[rusty69]

On 27/11/2017 at 07:40, rusty69 said:

I have Lubuntu on another usb stick, so will give that a try today. Although it is a different make stick, it is from the same era as the one with mint on.

Neither are usb 3,or the netbook in-fact. 

Installed mint yesterday, which appears marginally slower than Lubuntu as expected, but good so far. 

[reg]

10 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Rather worryingly those were the symptoms I got just before one of the updates fried my laptop's last hard drive,

Ditto. 

Look out to see if windows objects to computer being disconnected from Internet, that was the next symptom I got. I think things are going on in the background to move everyone towards Microsofts next great vision of 

All way connected

Google Microsoft always connected 

Same hard drive works perfectly under linux

I think Microsoft won't be happy until we all end up with a dumb terminal connected to  Microsoft "services"  It's the future folks! But not mine

Edited December 2, 2017 by reg

[1st ade]

On 11/29/2017 at 19:42, MJG said:

I would have expected if it wasn't a genuine copy I would have been alerted when I first activated it, but I wasn't.

Could have been a licence issued by Microsoft to a large company. Company "Y" pays "X" Thousand pounds for a site licence and gets a single licence code which always authenticates.

At some point, an employee knocks off a copy and lends it to his mate. Registration works fine at first until Microsoft wake up and "About your site licence. Did you know you've got a couple of thousand employees working off site?" - Company "Y" then has to re-register (and update all the computers it really has) and MS mark the leaked activation code as bad.

[Keeping Up]

On my desktop PC the Fall Creators Update stalled after 4 hours, then downloaded again and stalled at the same point. I then told it to do a self-diagnostic which said there was a problem so I let Windows fix itself and the download finally worked. By this time I'd used over 8GB of data, the total elapsed time was 26 hours and I had wasted abuot 3 hours of my own time. Unfortunately it kept freezing, which I eventually (after another 3 hours work) discovered was a stand-off between my antivirus program (Avast) and the new improved Windows Defender' so I uninstalled Avast and now it all seems stable; apparently the new Defender is an adequate anti-virus protection at the moment.

After the update, the Micosoft Edge browser wouldn't settle down properly, and kept displaying a blank screen when it had download a page; after it had locked me out of several accounts including my Bank account I got fed up with it and downloaded the latest Firefox and it is working brilliantly for me.

I was at the same time struggling with my old laptop which is on XP, and which I keep running solely because I use FrontPage to maintain my website files. That turned out (after several ore hours of frustration and restarts) to be also the Avast Antivirus program, which hd updated itself to a new version which actually used all the laptop's memory and more, so that nothing at all could run properly. So I had to unnistall Avast from there too, which wsn't easy because every time I rebooted, Avast warned me that a virus had attempted an uninstall, and then it reinstalled irtself; luckily that machine never ctually has to connect  o the internet (it uploads any website pages via my desktop PC).

In a few days I'd spent almost 12 hours fuming over computers that wouldn't perform simple tasks for me, and very nearly threw them out of the pram.

[rowland al]

15 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

On my desktop PC the Fall Creators Update stalled after 4 hours, then downloaded again and stalled at the same point. I then told it to do a self-diagnostic which said there was a problem so I let Windows fix itself and the download finally worked. By this time I'd used over 8GB of data, the total elapsed time was 26 hours and I had wasted abuot 3 hours of my own time. Unfortunately it kept freezing, which I eventually (after another 3 hours work) discovered was a stand-off between my antivirus program (Avast) and the new improved Windows Defender' so I uninstalled Avast and now it all seems stable; apparently the new Defender is an adequate anti-virus protection at the moment.

After the update, the Micosoft Edge browser wouldn't settle down properly, and kept displaying a blank screen when it had download a page; after it had locked me out of several accounts including my Bank account I got fed up with it and downloaded the latest Firefox and it is working brilliantly for me.

I was at the same time struggling with my old laptop which is on XP, and which I keep running solely because I use FrontPage to maintain my website files. That turned out (after several ore hours of frustration and restarts) to be also the Avast Antivirus program, which hd updated itself to a new version which actually used all the laptop's memory and more, so that nothing at all could run properly. So I had to unnistall Avast from there too, which wsn't easy because every time I rebooted, Avast warned me that a virus had attempted an uninstall, and then it reinstalled irtself; luckily that machine never ctually has to connect  o the internet (it uploads any website pages via my desktop PC).

In a few days I'd spent almost 12 hours fuming over computers that wouldn't perform simple tasks for me, and very nearly threw them out of the pram.

It's a waste of life isn't it?

[Keeping Up]

On 11/09/2017 at 01:19, Mikexx said:

Have a look at:

  http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualbox/overview/index.html

This allows an independent machine to run inside another. If you have 64 bit Windows 7 for instance you can run a virtual box for 32bit XP.

Its also free. All you need is the Win XP install disk, and of course the license number. Not so sure about Win98, but don't see why not. Why Win95, its about the most buggy Windows ever!

 

That's really useful.I've just installed a virtual XP machine on my Windows 10 desktop, with no difficulty.

I assume that the firewall and the Windows Defender running on the Host machine, will protect the Virtual machine too?

[Guest]

Bluddy Fail Creators update has killed my ability to print and scan on my rather old Epson inkjet this morning.

Googling tells me I am not alone!! - a faff about later located a patch and I'm sorted, but it took a bit of sorting and a degree of computer savvy to locate and install the right one.

I wonder how many have given up and gone out and bought a new printer or asked for one from Santa???? 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, 1st ade said:

Could have been a licence issued by Microsoft to a large company. Company "Y" pays "X" Thousand pounds for a site licence and gets a single licence code which always authenticates.

At some point, an employee knocks off a copy and lends it to his mate. Registration works fine at first until Microsoft wake up and "About your site licence. Did you know you've got a couple of thousand employees working off site?" - Company "Y" then has to re-register (and update all the computers it really has) and MS mark the leaked activation code as bad.

Another suggestion I received elsewhere was that it was amongst a batch that was 'misappropriated' from a wholesaler or retailer and once discovered and the batch identified a whole load were marked as 'non genuine' and when I updated it was flagged as such. No idea if that is true, liley or possible TBH.

[Richard West]

3 hours ago, Keeping Up said:

I assume that the firewall and the Windows Defender running on the Host machine, will protect the Virtual machine too?

I don't think it will. I've had viruses on a Windows virtual machine running under Linux.

[Ratkatcher]

Reading the 'Fall Creators Update' mentioned above makes me wonder if any of the folk installing it know of a 'new' feature in this update labelled 'Network Protection' - from MS Technet Website:

Network protection – prevents users from using any application to access dangerous domains that may host phishing scams, exploits, or other malicious content

Maybe I am being too cynical in thinking 'or any other network Microsoft wouldn't like you to visit' as the filtering is done automatically (I'll have to download it to see the end result) and not selected by the user - nor is it mentioned if this service can be disabled.

For anyone feeling like going back to Win 7 pro, licenses can be bought from Software Geeks for not a lot of dosh as they 'recycle' licenses no longer in use from the EU quite legally   - which I am certain that MS hates as it was an EU Ruling forcing their hand

I can also provide a link to downloading a W7 pro .iso image (completely unmolested) as originally available on the Digital River website until MS decided that it was way too useful to users!

[Mikexx]

3 hours ago, Keeping Up said:

That's really useful.I've just installed a virtual XP machine on my Windows 10 desktop, with no difficulty.

I assume that the firewall and the Windows Defender running on the Host machine, will protect the Virtual machine too?

In essence its a new machine and, I think, it even has its own IP address.

I doubt Defender will scan the files of the virtual machine which resident are resident on the host machine.

The XP firewall will work, as will yours on the host machine. However they will be on the local network where firewall rules are more relaxed than WAN access.

I use them as a means of having a clean install so I can check my own software will work on a native machine.

[reg]

Worth reading the user comments on this site. 

https://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html

 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

12 hours ago, reg said:

Ditto. 

Look out to see if windows objects to computer being disconnected from Internet, that was the next symptom I got. I think things are going on in the background to move everyone towards Microsofts next great vision of 

All way connected

Google Microsoft always connected 

Same hard drive works perfectly under linux

I think Microsoft won't be happy until we all end up with a dumb terminal connected to  Microsoft "services"  It's the future folks! But not mine

I'm now starting to give serious thought to Linux, how easy is it to install?

When the windows update fried my last HDD I basically lost access to a whole load of things that I have now only recently regained access to (one of which cost me money). I had Office installed on the old hard drive and after it went I then realised that the only MS Office option is Office 365 which I do not want since it will just eat up my metered allowance to no real benefit. I've managed to re-access my old Office files though WPS Writer, although I've got to put up with adverts if connected to the internet, but I can live with that.

It is all very well for Microsoft to have some great vision of being always connected provided they are going to pay my metered internet bills. The rate for internet access outside of my monthly allowance is £10 per Gb, it is only by chance that I haven't been hit with significant bills with the Windows updates that i don't really want. Had they helped themselves to the 5Gb of data that the updates after I had installed the new SDD at the end of the monthly charging cycle I could have been £50 out of pocket.

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I'm now starting to give serious thought to Linux, how easy is it to install?

When the windows update fried my last HDD I basically lost access to a whole load of things that I have now only recently regained access to (one of which cost me money). I had Office installed on the old hard drive and after it went I then realised that the only MS Office option is Office 365 which I do not want since it will just eat up my metered allowance to no real benefit. I've managed to re-access my old Office files though WPS Writer, although I've got to put up with adverts if connected to the internet, but I can live with that.

It is all very well for Microsoft to have some great vision of being always connected provided they are going to pay my metered internet bills. The rate for internet access outside of my monthly allowance is £10 per Gb, it is only by chance that I haven't been hit with significant bills with the Windows updates that i don't really want. Had they helped themselves to the 5Gb of data that the updates after I had installed the new SDD at the end of the monthly charging cycle I could have been £50 out of pocket.

Why do you think MS office or wps are your only 'office' options? I haven't used MS office since I retired 6 years ago. And there is no need to suffer ads. either.

[WotEver]

10 hours ago, 1st ade said:

Could have been a licence issued by Microsoft to a large company. Company "Y" pays "X" Thousand pounds for a site licence and gets a single licence code which always authenticates.

At some point, an employee knocks off a copy and lends it to his mate. Registration works fine at first until Microsoft wake up and "About your site licence. Did you know you've got a couple of thousand employees working off site?" - Company "Y" then has to re-register (and update all the computers it really has) and MS mark the leaked activation code as bad.

But he said it was a hologram disk with the activation sticker. 

10 hours ago, Keeping Up said:

In a few days I'd spent almost 12 hours fuming over computers that wouldn't perform simple tasks for me, and very nearly threw them out of the pram.

Been there, done that 

[MtB]

I have wasted away whole weekends many times over making Windows machine work again. 

I too have more or less decide to jump ship, but which way to jump? Linux or Apple? I'm tending towards the probably less steep but still massive learning curve of Apple at the moment.

[rowland al]

I wonder sometimes whether most people would be better off just using an Android or Apple pad. If the screen size is an issue you can render the display to a TV via WiFi. 

[MtB]

On 03/12/2017 at 00:00, rowland al said:

I wonder sometimes whether most people would be better off just using an Android or Apple pad. If the screen size is an issue you can render the display to a TV via WiFi. 

 

Probably true for the vast majority of retail buyers.

I bought a cheap Win 10 notebook the other day and I am shocked at how 'entertainment' oriented it is. I use my machines for web browsing, form design and printing, website development, listening to music, and reading PDF files. Not much else. This Win 10 machine seems very unsuited to my needs.

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

I have wasted away whole weekends many times over making Windows machine work again. 

I too have more or less decide to jump ship, but which way to jump? Linux or Apple? I'm tending towards the probably less steep but still massive learning curve of Apple at the moment.

How deep are your pockets? If very deep then Apple is the way to go.

Linux is great if you don't mind tweaking and fiddling about to get things like printers, scanners and external drives working.

If you want a compromise between affordability of Linux (free) and the expense of usability with the minimal hassle of Apple (expensive) then the choice is obvious.

Windows.