KB3035583 and some others came back on the list after hiding them! Good job I keep a note book to jot down the info. Same here with me I only use MS Office 2003 and some time in Oct/Nov they offered me updates for Office 2007 and 2010...Nah I passed up on them.

So after some time using Win 10, I'm finding it's not so much that they've hidden user controls, but that they've changed how to access them. Granted, I don't play with the registries, but disabling startup items, removing junk programs every vendor wants to bundle, er burden, you with, etc., really pretty much everything I ever did using Xp and Win 7 is still available.

Very recommendable read.

LINK - Microsoft walks a thin line

The author does not hide his highly sceptical attitude, but nevertheless does a very good in trying to stay objective and fair.

And as he said: at the core of the issue, it is about trust, and whether you think Microsoft has deserved to be trusted any longer, or has nullified any reason for being trusted. My answer was, and still is, and will remain to be: No, it does not deserve to be trusted.

I tend to agree with what a reader named Frank posted in the comments on this blog entry: LINK

I hate regulation, and since I am also hostile to the idea and concept of modern states, it gives me even more troubles. But the need to install limits on what companies like MS can do without being called to order, should be obvious by now. Since states themselves are heavily engaged in and interested in constant surveillance of all and everybody, I doubt they are the instance that can be trusted to set up such regulation without violating it heavily themselves. No matter what, I think the most realistic scenario thus will be that we will sink deeper and deeper into the surveillance state, and that our young ones will be educated and trained to find nothing suspicious about it. And people arguing against it one day will be seen as suspicious and as a danger to the public like having no debts and no credit cards already today raises your suspectability of being a terrorist and can automatically put you on a terror suspect list (we learned about that mechanism that after 9/11).

Advise? Say No. Do not use all the latest tech stuff. Use alternatives, and if no alternatives are available, say No to using it at all.

Life without all this was possible until just a few years ago. Its no essential stuff. Not at all. All it takes is determination to not accept tempting "compromises" that get YOU sold, and the readiness of confronting offices and services that will be irritated if you do not play by the common rules of embracing all surveillance technology whole-heartly and "voluntarily". You will run into conflicts if you do not play by these rules in full. Have the nobleness and grandeur to fight them.

Else you may one day wake up in a state where resisting them will bring you into prison. Or will cost you your life. States are the coldest of all monsters - all states, without a single exception.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01...grade_blocker/

:hmmm:

The basic problem remaisn, Steed. You need to trust MS to not alter the registry settings themselves so to allow them to install their stuff. And they already have demonstrated that they altered repeatedly computer settings set by the user, to re-enable the system to receive the GWX stuff. And I already have reported that they use not just the officially documented communication ports and services to transport their GWX stuff.

Why basing on their good will to now play by the rules (why asusming that suddenly they will do that...???), and giving up the sovereignty of yours to control the system by your own demands and conditions? ;) Don'T trust them, leave the control where it belongs: with you.

Also, the installing of W10 tracking elements into W7 and W8 environments does not get stopped and hindered by that article's tip. And that is part of the problem, isn't it: that some of the critical software profiling and surveilling the user, that originally had been designed for W10 once, now is additionally reverse-injected into W7 and W8 installations as well.

And that is what the bulk of the discussion about W10 is about, isn't it.

Windows 10 versus 8
 

I have to say that I prefer Win 10 over 8, and not just because of the start screen fiasco. I think Microsoft realized they had made a mistake by trying to compete with Android as touch screen tablets looked like they were going to take over the laptop market. I think that cooler heads prevailed and they negative comments and feedback must have been way greater than they thought it would be. If you look back at Microsoft's history they have got it wrong bigtime on a number of things, did anyone read Bill Gates book 'The Road Ahead'?. In it he says that he doesn't think that the internet is going to be very big or important in the future!!!!.

The important quote in the article Skybird references above:
Note how Woody doesn't ask you to believe him. Woody always supports every position with a link and gives you the means to check it out yourself. The Windows apologists never support their statements with evidence. They demand that you believe them on their own authority, whatever they say about how responsible, truthful and straightforward Microsoft is. The truth can withstand scrutiny, because scrutiny reinforces truth. Falsehood avoids the light because the light would reveal the bankruptcy of their position.

But I am curious about one thing, Skybird. You said
That sounds very American. At least it sounds like America used to be before the ascendancy of the left. Folks, Skybird lives in a country with the highest cultural, social, artistic, accomplishments. German culture is the pinacle of Western Civilization. But people in Germany DID wake up in a state (their own!) where resisting "reasonable requirements" of the state brought many to prison and death.

The very fact that it happened in Germany is absolute proof that none of us are free from that possibility. We may think we live in a moral and honest society, and we may even be there for the time being. But Germany proves that is not a permanent state of affairs.

Without warning, or with warning that we ignore, our governments, our corporations, our labor unions, or any combination of them can go to the dark side and we are only as safe as how strongly we protected our privacy during the "good times."

Skybird has a unique perspective because of where he lives. But we are all vulnerable to such a malfunction of human decency, no matter where we live or what kind of government we live under. Ignore him at your peril.

And remember, trust must be earned, not given out by default. Microsoft, by its nefarious actions of late, changing privacy settings, renaming surveillance "services," reissuing Get Windows 10 (GWX) nagware six separate times, collecting information after all settings they make available are turned off, a lack of transparency about exactly what information is collected and how it is used, has actually earned our MISTRUST. The articles already referenced, here, here and here support each and every contention I make here. It's time to be on your guard and protect your sovereignty over your private property.

Your view of Germany, the contemporary Germany, sounds quite idealised, Robbins. It isn'T that culturally enobled over here anymore. It all slides, and is in steep decline. One could even say: its a mess.

I remind of some of the mechanism to project power and influence that Philip K. Dick described in many of his novels. I do not mean the robots stuff and drugs and alien stuff, but the structures of the future state he described the US to have turned into. These mechanism work via media, brainwashing, psychologic control, and somethign that reminds a lot of collectivism and mind police as we have seen in Stalinist and socialist regimes in the past, as well as voluntary self-control of the masses today - that we call "political correctness" nowadays.

If anything, then I think Germany/Germans should see it in the way you said I would, because of German history and European history, yes. But it is very much unwelcomed to do so, and easily gets you turned into a social pariah, a witch that get chased through the media. Germany is only a shadow of what you described it to be. Maybe not easy to see from the outside.

Well, the political threads are in GT forum, aren't they.

Just saying.

One can allow a private company the immense potential power that private informaiton about yourself inevitably means, and hope and trust them to not abuse them. Yes, one can do that. The question is how reasonable that is to do, and what speaks for them not abusing their position - when it is truth in what they say: that "business is war".

I think it is clever not to depend on their good will and promises (which they already have broken so many times), but to prevent them in the first from gaining a position where they could plan such abuse. The idea behind it is the same why you lock the housedoor behind you when leaving. You could trust that nobody will get in and steal your things if you leave it wide open, yes you can, and call that your optimistic nature or friendly personality that sends smiles into the world to make it a better place.

But is that sensible...? :stare:

There is a German proverb: Vertrauen ist gut. Kontrolle ist besser. Translates into: Trust is kind. Control is better.

Don't trust Microsoft. The product they sell - is YOU. And who knows to what degree the US government is behind it. MS software running on systems in all world, last but not least means: MS has a foot in the door, they know their baby, they know their OS, believe it. And the NSA has a step in the door of MS. MS must obey American legislation.

Add one and one together.

My W7 installation still is tight and sealed and gets no updates and contacts to MS servers at all (as far as I could figure it out). And it will stay that way, without any plan or intention to change that. Trust in MS is as dead as "dead" can mean.

Welcome aboard!
 

All set for Malware Spyware Nagware Tuesday? :damn: NO :down:

Latest:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/302...html?nsdr=true

I'm happy that I must not worry about that anymore.

One thing is interesting, too. Since I have isolated my Windows gaming partition on HD1 as much as possible - by my limited knowledge - from the web, it fragmentises MUCH slower, and defragmentation works much faster, and can be run less often.

I have noticed something odd, since turning off the updates and do not check I have been seeing large error reports, some of them are to with something locked up so what but a lot of them show failed to install. I checked the dates and nothing shows up on those days except one date when I was doing a manual update for MS updates, its like something is trying to install itself but can not. I am wondering is this MS trying to download something on me but due to the fact I switched off auto updates can not get though? :hmm2:

Will keep a eye on this.

No problem here Steed - yet....

I check for updates late in the month, Auto updates off, Win 7 64 Home Premium and Office 2003. You can see those I did and didn't install from last month:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...&postcount=561

The month before we both installed the .NET updates and not much else.

That's my status. I am interested in RRobbins walk-through - Skybirds too, getting SH4 & SHCE running (also the forums) and learn about Linux with Win 7, however I hope that's in the distant future.

I don't see it as yet as a problem more of a mystery, every so often the action centre shows a report under the security section. A percentage of it I can dismiss like Internet froze or crashed so what but since turning off the auto updates I see failed to install on such a day. I deleted the report but the next time it pops up I shall put some info up.

Use this.

http://xp-antispy.org/en/download/#

Chose the English download.

I do not know whether the interface then is given in English, if it still is in German, find a colleague, friend, buddy, who understands a a bit of German, and who can talk you thorugh all options. You want to switch most of them to "locked" anyway.

The tool does not install, and can be run from just the location where you drop its folder.

It is in pricple nothign else but a GUI for editing many registry settings that you do not need to edit manually then via regedit. You can establish profiles, too: one for having your system locked with maximum security (=isolated), and one with loosend settings to allow checking for updates.

It is old and originally was done for XP, but I can testify that it works smooth and reliable under W7x64 Pro that I use. In German-tongued user communities, it is a classic and quite famous.

It cures many vulnerabilities that were acutal back then, but also some that are still actual under W7. And it seals quite a few background tasks connecting to Ms servers that are not the Windows Update Server.

You do not want to just switch off Windows Updates only. You want to switch off as many - if possible: ALL - connections to MS servers.

---

Latest readings appeared as indicative to me that maybe it helps to not have updated to Explorer 11 to avoid getting certain GWX-related updates shuffled onto your rig. Since I did not use Explorer 11 anyway, I did not update Explorer to version 11. Cannot say with certainty if that is a valid finding, however.

Since I ran xp-antispy, the level of HD activity has significantly toned down when I run the gaming partititon.

---

Never had any error messages like you, Steed. Maybe you did some tricks to your installation that created dependencies, before you started to lock it up somewhat...?

BTW, I wrote Woody a mail, asking whether he knows of or thinks that Microsoft could consider switching off activation servers for newly installed W7. He replied that he does not see that coming in the next five years or so - and that he thinks in five years Windows will not play a big role anymore anyway. For the time being and the years to come, my gaming seems to be safe. New games needing W10, I will not consider to buy.

I think he is right. There seems to be a big rush towards Linux Mint and other Ubuntu distributions currently. The aggressiveness of Microsoft may be a sign of their arrogance. But it could also be a sign of despair. In some months, the "free" W10 update Window willö end, and then people will need to pay money for this malware garbage. As I see it, W10 has had its greatest level of popularity already behind it. Until that "free update" time-window ends, MS will probably continue to go berserk.

And I learned that some of the games I currently have installed via Steam - are available to be installed under Linux as well, amongst them ETS2 and Tennis Ellbow, which i frequently use.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/302...html?nsdr=true

"
Over the weekend, a barrage of tests proved what many of you had feared: Even if you use the Microsoft-sanctioned DisableGWX and DisableOSUpgrade registry settings, the KB 3035583 patch still installs all of the Get Windows 10 nagware. GWX and all of its components sit there, hidden, running in the background even if you can't see the Get Windows 10 icon in the system tray.
Microsoft's most-reviled patch for Windows 7 and 8.1 isn't going away anytime soon.
"


One cannot repeat it often enough. There is no, zero, rien, kein reason to trust those privacy options that MS underhandingly laid out before your eyes.
You belíeve them only because you want to make yourself falling for the comfortable illusion.

My recommendation stands: DO NEVER USE WINDOWs UPDATE even if you freshly install Windows 7. Afwetr installing, immediately switch off and seal the system'S connections to ANY MS server. Then run an archive of SP1 updates and an archive of Windows updates since SP! that you have previously downloaded and saved to DVD. Before installing their many inlcuded updates, check them for the critical KB numbers - as once agai n listed in the above article - and untick them, so that they never get installed at all. Then activate Windows, but still make sure that Windows Updates are not allowed. Do not turn on "inform but do not install", sinc e this already establishes a link to MS servers. Always, from first installation minute on, have Windows update switched OFF. And never, NEVER, turn it on again. Do not care for updating your Win7. By now, it doe snot get quality improvements anymore, it gets not further worked on. Half of the updates in past months were related to trying to infiltrate with GWX and W10 update advertising, not to W7-relevant updating.

Of course, this should also be clear by now, but I repeat it just to be safe: this provides you with a W7 environment that you should only use for game-laucnhging and FOPR NOTHING ELSE, do not use it as as your usual working environment, do not use it for surfing. For that, you need an alternative OS on a second HD, like Linux.

Looks like I got all worked up for nothing just checked no updates! Or have I got the wrong Tuesday? :hmmm:

You can see my video of SH4 running really well on Ubuntu Linux. I haven't installed U-Boat Missions yet because I'll have to go through the begging Ubi for permission to use the add-on I purchased process. I should do that and then post a complete tutorial.

I can't notice any difference between how SH4 runs on Linux from Windows 7. There is no "unfortunately" to the fact that I'm running it in Linux.

Now some don't like Ubuntu. But they are mostly running derivatives of Ubuntu or Debian. Linux Mint, Peppermint Linux, Elementary OS, and a couple dozen others are completely compatible with Ubuntu. There are a bunch of people who down Ubuntu and use Mint. They ignore the fact that Mint is essentially Ubuntu with a different GUI and they can't agree on whether to use Cinnamon or MATE. And they have XFCE and KDE editions now as well. The fact is you can take any of the Ubuntu family Linux installations and install the Unity, Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, MATE, LXDE, OpenBox or even other GUIs to be selectable at boot-up or log-on.

It as if you could actually have Windows 10, but were able to pick the Windows 3.11, Windows 98SE, Windows XP, Windows 7 or Windows 8 GUI to work with any time you wanted. Linux is SO FAR ahead of Windows on implementing user choice. They know what an operating system is. Microsoft has entirely forgotten.