10-04-2020, 07:38 PM
I'm sure many will recall a year before Windows 10 was no longer freely available, except through special application, that Microsoft was trying to "force" Windows 7 users to upgrade to Windows 10 through automatic updates. There were a number of Windows 7 users who were caught in this. I was nearly caught, but since I'm by nature suspicious, thankfully got out of it in time. I then immediately changed my updates from "automatic" to "let me choose". And even then I caught Microsoft being sneaky, by recreating different updates with the same objective to force users to upgrade catching unsuspecting users who thought this update had been disabled. I found that I had to research the updates that were manually loaded as of course Microsoft deliberately make the headings of the updates as vague as possible to hide its sins - some are genuine updates of course and very necessary to install - but when I took charge of the updates to figure out if I really needed them, I noticed there were quite a number of updates that were not applicable to Windows 7 nor of any use to me. For example one of the updates forced installation of MS Defender - that is not for Windows 7.
Any way, long story short, my brother in law - who isn't particularly fond of computers and who is on Windows 8.1 has automatic updates enabled. His desktop computer bit the dust, so he then had to move from Windows 7 with no updates, to Windows 8.1 with automatic updates on a spare laptop. A few days back he had an update that forced an installation of MS Edge Browser on his laptop without giving him a choice in the matter. It happened during a LONG and frustrating wait, while a number of updates were being installed. So there was this wait and not knowing what was happening that was stressful in its own right (like what's up with this laptop am I doing something wrong?) and then this new browser that appeared from nowhere directly after the updates had been completed and asking all kinds of questions - such as making it the primary browser. Sneaky? And stressful!
I then went to Google and was happy to learn that there are many many anti-automatic-update frustrated users who have written tutorials of work arounds. Even a tutorial by Microsoft who must have wisened up to how frustrating it is to have updates happening while you are in a hurry to work on a project. It is completely counter-productive. What is particularly thrilling, and I'm not sure how true this is, but Microsoft allows newer versions of Windows 10 Home to postpone updates to a later date (I thought one could only do this with Windows 10 Professional?). Looks like for 35 days. But it won't allow you to increase this number of days, one has to install the updates first, before one can pause the updates again.
There are other lesser secure tutorials that has to do with modifications of the Windows registry to disable the updates. But hopefully Microsoft is getting the message so that by the time I get to Windows 10 or 11, there will be a "let me choose" choice again. Or is this wishful thinking?
Any way, long story short, my brother in law - who isn't particularly fond of computers and who is on Windows 8.1 has automatic updates enabled. His desktop computer bit the dust, so he then had to move from Windows 7 with no updates, to Windows 8.1 with automatic updates on a spare laptop. A few days back he had an update that forced an installation of MS Edge Browser on his laptop without giving him a choice in the matter. It happened during a LONG and frustrating wait, while a number of updates were being installed. So there was this wait and not knowing what was happening that was stressful in its own right (like what's up with this laptop am I doing something wrong?) and then this new browser that appeared from nowhere directly after the updates had been completed and asking all kinds of questions - such as making it the primary browser. Sneaky? And stressful!
I then went to Google and was happy to learn that there are many many anti-automatic-update frustrated users who have written tutorials of work arounds. Even a tutorial by Microsoft who must have wisened up to how frustrating it is to have updates happening while you are in a hurry to work on a project. It is completely counter-productive. What is particularly thrilling, and I'm not sure how true this is, but Microsoft allows newer versions of Windows 10 Home to postpone updates to a later date (I thought one could only do this with Windows 10 Professional?). Looks like for 35 days. But it won't allow you to increase this number of days, one has to install the updates first, before one can pause the updates again.
There are other lesser secure tutorials that has to do with modifications of the Windows registry to disable the updates. But hopefully Microsoft is getting the message so that by the time I get to Windows 10 or 11, there will be a "let me choose" choice again. Or is this wishful thinking?