I bought a new laptop PC two months ago. It came with Windows 8, but was sold as compatible with the soon-to-arrive Windows 10 operating system. After about a week of use, Microsoft invited me to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, and I jumped at the chance. So I've been running Windows 10 on my laptop PC for a couple of months now, almost from the day I bought it. Mostly, I like Windows 10. It is chock full of really nice features, and (so far) appears to be a worthy successor to Windows 7.
I do have a few objections to it, which I will enumerate here.
1. Upselling
One thing I don't like about it is I feel like it's constantly upselling, trying to get me to download or buy more and more software. It's built-in advertising. Ironically, the upselling efforts backfire with me, as I usually end up uninstalling or at least deactivating the software that is doing the upselling.
2. Bloatware in the install
Another thing I don't like about it is that the Windows 10 upgrade came with its own load of bloatware or crapware. I'm still finding all sorts of apps and programs that I really don't want, and it takes me a few minutes every time I find one, to uninstall it. I've noticed, to my annoyance, that some of them can't be uninstalled.
If you leave the bloatware on your PC, it eats up disk space, which isn't a big deal, but it also eats up memory and CPU time, and those two things matter. In addition, the bloatware may be doing things in the background that you really don't want your computer to be doing. That takes us to the next point.
3. "We're watching you ..."
A third thing that I don't like is that Windows 10, and many (if not all) of the apps that come with it, are set by default to snoop on everything you do on your computer, and phone home to report it to a cloud server somewhere. Microsoft and its minions intend to perform "data mining" on this information, or sell it to third parties who will do their own "data mining", all this so that they can "enhance your online experience." That means that they want to sell you stuff, and they're going to bombard you with slyly targeted come-ons, designed to separate you from your money. And your privacy. You need to go into the Settings menus and manually disable all of this invasion-of-privacy stuff.
4. Forced upgrades
Finally, one thing that I find irritating to the point of profanity is Microsoft's insistence on automatically downloading and installing updates to the OS and the drivers, whenever they feel like it. I don't mind Windows 10 telling me that an update is available, but I absolutely hate the way it takes over my computer when it decides it's time for the update. I wrote a couple of posts about this problem and its solutions, here and here.
Showing posts with label upgrades. Show all posts
Showing posts with label upgrades. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Dammit, Microsoft! Stop doing that!
I was working on my computer with a client today, helping him set up an account, when Windows 10 decided that it was time to install a stack of important updates, and then to reboot in order to complete the installation. It gave me no warning of what it was doing, the screen simply went black. I fought with the computer for about ten minutes, during which time it rebooted a couple of times and finally gave me a message saying that it was finishing installing the updates.
Why couldn't it tell me that earlier? Why couldn't it advise me that it had some updates to make, and ask if now was a good time to download and install them? Windows 7 used to do that.
Actually, I had to go into the Control Panel in Windows 7 and change the settings so that it would behave politely. It used to be just as rude as Windows 10.
So as soon as Windows 10 finished updating, I went into the Control Panel and changed its settings. Windows 10 won't allow me to postpone downloading the updates, but at least it will ask my permission before it iinstalls them. The Windows 10 Control Panel warned me that it was recommended that I allow Windows 10 to download and install updates whenever the hell it wanted to.
Not after today's experience, Microsoft. You locked me out of my computer for ten minutes, when I was in the middle of a critical task. You no longer get that control over me. And if you try a sneaky stunt like that again, I will stop using any Microsoft product: Windows, Office, you name it, it won't be on this computer.
UPDATE: It can be hacked to allow you to disable the automatic downloads as well. Here's how.
UPDATE 2: I followed through on my threat. This PC doesn't have MS Office on it - no Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. I'm doing just fine, thank you.
Why couldn't it tell me that earlier? Why couldn't it advise me that it had some updates to make, and ask if now was a good time to download and install them? Windows 7 used to do that.
Actually, I had to go into the Control Panel in Windows 7 and change the settings so that it would behave politely. It used to be just as rude as Windows 10.
So as soon as Windows 10 finished updating, I went into the Control Panel and changed its settings. Windows 10 won't allow me to postpone downloading the updates, but at least it will ask my permission before it iinstalls them. The Windows 10 Control Panel warned me that it was recommended that I allow Windows 10 to download and install updates whenever the hell it wanted to.
Not after today's experience, Microsoft. You locked me out of my computer for ten minutes, when I was in the middle of a critical task. You no longer get that control over me. And if you try a sneaky stunt like that again, I will stop using any Microsoft product: Windows, Office, you name it, it won't be on this computer.
UPDATE: It can be hacked to allow you to disable the automatic downloads as well. Here's how.
UPDATE 2: I followed through on my threat. This PC doesn't have MS Office on it - no Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. I'm doing just fine, thank you.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
I hate Microsoft's Click-to-Run.
For the record, I hate Click-to-Run.
I bought Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student Edition two years ago. Taking advantage of the diskless download bargain prices, I bought just the product key and downloaded the bits, direct from Microsoft.
The thing ran fine, as far as I can tell, until this morning. This morning I really, really needed to type up some meeting agendas in a hurry. First, when I tried to open Word, it was very slow. It flashed a dialogue box at me that said something about Click-to-Run, which I didn't remember installing or activating, and the only option on the dialogue box was "OK". SO I clicked OK.
Once I was inside Word, every time I tried to do anything like open a recent file, or Save As ..., a message balloon appeared on the status bar, saying: "Microsoft Office is installing the required upgrades" and "Your office application may be unresponsive during this blahblah."
It turns out that Click-to-Run is meant for users on a broadband network, to get constant, unattended upgrades of their software. This is Microsoft taking control of my computer again. It makes no sense for a "Home and Student" computer to have this feature enabled by default. A corporate or office computer, perhaps, where a broadband connection can be assumed, but not home or student.
And there's no way to disable Click-to-Run. If you installed the software by clicking on the Download button, you've got it. The alternative to Click-to-Run is to install Office using the old-fashioned MSI installation package, and allow Office to inform you once it knows an upgrade is available. But Microsoft has very carefully hidden the MSI package so it's difficult to find.
I am following the instructions on http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/click-to-run-switch-to-using-an-msi-based-office-edition-HA101850538.aspx to delete my Click-to-Run version, but the MSI version is not there, in spite of what the instructions say.
If this doesn't work, and if I can't find an MSI package, I'm ready to dump MS Office and go with LibreOffice or OpenOffice. Microsoft loses again.
I bought Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student Edition two years ago. Taking advantage of the diskless download bargain prices, I bought just the product key and downloaded the bits, direct from Microsoft.
The thing ran fine, as far as I can tell, until this morning. This morning I really, really needed to type up some meeting agendas in a hurry. First, when I tried to open Word, it was very slow. It flashed a dialogue box at me that said something about Click-to-Run, which I didn't remember installing or activating, and the only option on the dialogue box was "OK". SO I clicked OK.
Once I was inside Word, every time I tried to do anything like open a recent file, or Save As ..., a message balloon appeared on the status bar, saying: "Microsoft Office is installing the required upgrades" and "Your office application may be unresponsive during this blahblah."
It turns out that Click-to-Run is meant for users on a broadband network, to get constant, unattended upgrades of their software. This is Microsoft taking control of my computer again. It makes no sense for a "Home and Student" computer to have this feature enabled by default. A corporate or office computer, perhaps, where a broadband connection can be assumed, but not home or student.
And there's no way to disable Click-to-Run. If you installed the software by clicking on the Download button, you've got it. The alternative to Click-to-Run is to install Office using the old-fashioned MSI installation package, and allow Office to inform you once it knows an upgrade is available. But Microsoft has very carefully hidden the MSI package so it's difficult to find.
I am following the instructions on http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/click-to-run-switch-to-using-an-msi-based-office-edition-HA101850538.aspx to delete my Click-to-Run version, but the MSI version is not there, in spite of what the instructions say.
If this doesn't work, and if I can't find an MSI package, I'm ready to dump MS Office and go with LibreOffice or OpenOffice. Microsoft loses again.
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