Windows 10: What You Need to Know

[STEED]

Dam..

Just have to go though them all and see what info I find, as for these new nasty KB's keep posting about them.

[Rockin Robbins]

Apparently I'm not the only one marvelling that I have to say such unbelievably outlandish things and checking my facts carefully to see if I need my tin foil hat.

Microsoft stays tightlipped as the world rages



This is big. It's important. It's either the end of Microsoft or the willing surrender of all customer rights that Americans and the rest of the world have felt entitled to up to this point. It's amazing that this farcical situation is reality and would be very difficult to overstate how predatory Microsoft's actions have been.


Trust them on Windows 10? When submarines have screen doors. An entire operating system as a trojan horse? Not only yes, but HELL yes. We live in interesting times!

[aanker]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Apparently I'm not the only one marvelling that I have to say such unbelievably outlandish things and checking my facts carefully to see if I need my tin foil hat.

Microsoft stays tightlipped as the world rages

This is big. It's important....

Thanks - good read. Keep 'em coming : ) I like the part where it says a writer on "Infoworld" wrote, "It's unlikely that Microsoft's pushing files onto Windows 7 machines."

The fact that some people were 'accidentally' changed to Win 10 by Microsoft - who claim it was not intentional, was a good read too.

Win 10 is all about 'Data Mining' on a personal level for targeted advertising, and quite possibly the NSA isn't complaining too loud about it either.

'This IS big' - my hat isn't tin foil, it's made out of a device scotch-taped onto a childhood newspaper hat.

[Rockin Robbins]

It's amazing to me the extent to which the independent computer geek press is completely drinking Microsoft's peculiar Kool-Aid. They seem willing to engage in some kind of cover-up for Microsoft's benefit.

Remember that the question is "will Microsoft survive" not "are we going to lose computing as we know it." We'll be fine whether Microsoft is looking out for our interests or someone else like Canonical does. We win no matter how this turns out. Either Microsoft has completely lost its moral bearings and dies a well deserved death, it gets new management who value and respect customers as the ones from whom all prosperity flows, this only matters to the fate of Microsoft. We're going to be just fine.

[andy_311]

I'm just pondering, I have windows 10 and got rid of some of the "spyware" that has been mentioned here or at least disabled them but am having some difficulty disabling 2 which are wsappx and runtimebroker.exe both are to do with windows store which read what apps you got on your pc and sends the info to Microsoft they can be stopped but can't be disabled permantly as the services in admin tools are grey out. anyone here know how to stop them.

[Onkel Neal]

hi Andy, maybe this will help with the runtime exe
http://www.tenforums.com/network-sha...r-process.html

[andy_311]

thank you Neal worked a treat.

[Skybird]

Microsoft has me up in full arms. With their overstepping of red lines regardign enforced updating to W10, they finally loaded up the last straw that made the camel's back break. I have started to gain the needed education on Linux to set up at least a dual boot machine, maybe even two machines, one for games and just games, and the other for Linux, surfing, and things I consider to be too sensible as if I would want have Microsoft being involved in it.

If I would speak Russian, I maybe would try to get a Russian OS.

However. These days I am more active in the forums of Kunos Simulazioni (Assetto Corsa) and Sector3 (Raceroom), and since the Kunos forums need game-account based subscription, I cannot take it for granted that most people here can get access to it. I thus quote some posts of mine in full, just copying them over.

Originally Posted by #24

Is anyone here running AC successfully on Linux, in a Virtual Machine or in any other way?

I am so pissed by the criminal and law-breaking ruthlessness by which MS tries to enforce W10 onto people who even actively set their systems to not accepting it, and now even delivers updates that install the data-kraken-functionality of W10 into W7 and W8 for busers who thought they were safe if not accepting W10 updates. Also, that the many spying channels of W10 cannot be reliably shut down and Micrsoft actively hinders people to do so by threatening technical malfunctions if they do so, or when users use to clean registry entries that help in supporting temporarily but frequently installed data extractors on the HD - and that they as aggressively push for using the cloud so that all what you do ends up on servers located in the NSA's backyard: all this pisses me big time. George Orwell's vision was naive, compared to the vision of Microsoft et.al. , they are the wet dream of the Stasi and Gestapo - and you guys even voluntarily expose yourself to it!? They really want to shove this piece of spyware down our throats NO MATTER WHAT, and for me this is finally the one last straw that breaks the camel's back. W7 will be my last OS by Microsoft, and I have started to study the needed knowledge to migrate to an alternative to Microsoft once W7 has reached the end of its usability. At least I will have two systems in the near future. One exclusively for games and nothing else, and often physically disconnected from the internet whenever the game allows to be played offline, and another platform with Linux or something. Personal data files I do no longer maintain on a computer since years already, and so my only concern left is banking, since more and more banks indicate they plan to push people for exclusive online banking usage, making offline banking more and more expensive, even taking it out of service.

The world is a mental asylum, and it turns worse every month.

So again my question: is there any example of anyone who successfully runs AC on a non-Windows system? Offline, of course, considering Steam. Can it be technically done, via VM or in any other fashion?

P.S. Before you call me a conspiration theorist, google for the problem of enforced W10 migration and according updates that cannot be deinstalled, or reinstall themselves even if you ban them from doing so. Its no joke, and it is no minor nuisance. Microsoft takes very aggressive and deliberate actions here to get its way and make people want what MS thinks they should and must and have to want. Its about profling, the crystal clear consumer, marketing and advertising, selling profiles and making profits with that, and obeyiond the NSA that sues trhe global spreaidng of Microsoft software as one opf its major tools to enforce access to where ever it wants and to whomever it wants. In the main its business - and YOU and all your private life is the item that gets traded.

Also keep in mind that W10 enforces the ordinary user to accept all Windows updates that Microsoft labels in all its wisdom and reasonability as "important" , you can no longer delay them, chose, deselect some, get some research done before installing a critical one, and so on. If you ever had installed faulty Windows Updates and ran into a busy day while trying to repair the damage (happend twice to me, since then Auto Updates are switched off on my system), you might see why I have an issue with that.You are completely at their mercy - and thy have repeatedly demonstrated in the past that they are neither pefect, nor inerrant. If the bring a faulty or dangerous update out, you cannot escape to get tackled by it, it is like a firewall being forced to switch itself off so that hackers can have their easy fun with you.

(...)

Originally Posted by #27

Those who cannot value freedom, will carelessly trade it away. And I think they even do not deserve freedom, it is pearls before the swines. When they have lost it, they will care for it. But then it is too late.

Its about your data on your for example health, food habits, private things you give away - being out there and being a wanted treasury for employers. Insurances. Government offices. And they will go after it, no matter what some naive laws and rules say.

Every data that can be used against you one day, will be used against you. The sky is the limit. Compared to that, targetted advertisement bombing and overwatching your consuming habits and movement patterns, all this automatically, stored forever, beyond your control is just an annoyance. But annoying it is nevertheless. Once you do not get a job, or are rejected by an insurance, and are not given a desperately needed credit - maybe that then will make you think instead of giggling. What technically can be done, will be done - that is something like a natural law in progress and future'S development. First illegally maybe, and then it will get legalised afterwards. But getting done it will be, no matter what.

Would anyone of you not mind if cameras and microphones get installed in your flat? Oh wait, I forgot many people watch container TV a la Big Brother and voluntarily post themselves half naked in "social media". Okay. My fault. How could I ever come to care or worry...

(...)
And the one I am really after when replying in here at Subsim:

Originally Posted by #42

Sorry for returning to it once more, but this is not really unimportant: 4-5 days ago (I learned just today) thousands of users in the US have been assaulted (there is no other word for it) by a Windows Update that changed registry entries once again (even one that is deliberately left by a third-party tool designed to prevent GWX-driven update launch)and ended by leaving these users with only the choice to accept the update or a deadlocked system. Microsoft calls this, like several of its other attacks before, a "mistake", a mishap and error, claiming it was unintentional. But you see, Microsoft happens to suffer so many mistakes recently, all of them opportunistically chosen, it seems, all of them helping Microsoft to get its way, and bypassing user's rejection of W10. The excuse made, that is was just due to an error, is not believable. Its bullying by them, plain and simple.

BTW, GWX means "Get Windows X" (not to be mistaken with the mod for Silent Hunter). If you have an icon named like this on your system but do not intend to go with W10 right now, your alarm bells should now ring DEFCON-1 and you should realise that you already are in the decisive last battle of the war - and that you can still prevent W10 is no certainty any more from here on.

I recommend this reading which includes a link to said tool - it must be run EVERY time you have activated and run Windows Updates, since Microsoft just has demonstrated to have full access to your computer and being able to alter its registry entries in any way they want.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/29...pgrade-block-settings-are-still-in-force.html

Then google a bit by using this search string "Windows 10 enforced update"

Finally, follow the advise here:

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/04/17/how...ndows-7-and-8/

Note that Microsoft deliberately attacks tips and routines like described here, you may find that some of the updates mentioned for deletion cannot be deleted on your system anymore. In this case, find and download an old tool called "XPantispy", a reliable and classic tool whose author already thought he would go as a pensioner, but is so angry about Microsoft'S crossing of red lines that he has announced to update it after years of hybernation and to make it fit to easily clo9se all those privacy holes in the registry that W10 leaves users vulnerable to. By using that tool, seal your system off and switch off all channels by which the OS contacts the web automatically, from Windows Updates over error notifications to time synchronization - EVERYTHING. Make those settings a profile. Then try to deinstall the critical updates again, reboot, and see whether they are gone. For me, they were gone this way. And only in this way.

Next, you need to check whether the several GB-heavy hidden W10 isntallation f iles already have infiltrated lyur system without your knowledge. Make sure that hidden folders are being displayed, then have a system search for $Windows.~BT. On my W7x64 OS, the place it showed up in was in the Windows folder, other users said they found it at the root of their drive c:\ You need Admin rights to delete it. - Interesting: I NEVER gave consent to get lined up in queue and get a copy of W10 "reserved", never, nowhere. Still I got this junk forced onto my HD in the background, without any notification. I love it when I delivered something that I enver wanted, and aft5erwards getting told that they are just doing what I told them what I want. The arrogance of getting told this lie into my face, is infuriating.

Next, reboot, use a standard profile in XPantispy that opens Windows Updates again, switch off automatic update search, switch off that optional recommended updates get installed just like security updates, and laucnh the search process ,anually (ALWAYS do that manually, ALWAYS!). The critical updates probably pop up again. Rightclick on them, and then chose them for being supressed in any further update search runs. If no security updates need to be done, break off here, and then chose the XPantispy rifle that seals your system again, shutting down the Windows Update Routine alltogether.

This compares to not leaving your front door open and hoping that no bad guy sneaks in but only the good guys do, but to keep it closed and locked and only open it manually at a time of your chosing, with you beign on your guard and overwatching the scene and process. W10 standard ediitons makes htis impossible, btw. You get all updates enforced onto you immediately whenever the wise super mind in Redmont decides that you should get it. Of course they claim its for your own good and that it is about making the world a safer place and blah and blöah and bölah.What it really is about is making you even more defenseless to them.

---
For IT professionals and thos eusing comouters for a living, rejecting W10 right now has some more validity than "just" privacy concerns and being pissed about Microsoft no longer just being enthusiastic in advertising its OS, but clearly overstepping red lines and getting away with it, you may consider these arguments as well:

WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS PROGRAM?
I use my main desktop PC for music production, and at the moment some applications and hardware that are critical to my work either have known compatibility issues with, or flat-out don't work in Windows 10- so I'm sticking with Windows 7 until I'm reasonably confident my stuff will still function correctly after I upgrade. While I don't have any general negative opinions on Microsoft or Windows 10, I found the Get Windows 10 app's relentless upgrade reminders absolutely infuriating because there was no obvious way to stop them. Of course I found some solutions online (of wildly varying complexity and efficacy), but I had a bigger problem...

You see, I also had a lot of friends and family with Windows 7 and Windows 8 on their computers who were also continually pestered by the Get Windows 10 app- and I wanted to give them a solution that was literally so easy my mom could do it. None of the tutorials I'd seen about how to deal with the app are what I'd consider novice-friendly, whereas GWX Control Panel is a one-click solution.

Maybe my recipe list is not the best-structured out there, but you should be able to find just any other, any better, if just playing with search terms yourself and setting time-limits for results of not longer than one year. Its a very hot topic out there, practically every tech magazine and blog writes about it. Since April last year.

Hope one day somebody will hack a predator drone and make it bomb the MS HQ at Redmont, flattening it. It took me years to overcome my laziness and comfortable easiness, but Microsoft has finally succeeded in making even lazy me turning my back on them. I'm done with them. Congrats, MS! I think never before have you managed to make yourself so many new hostile new "friends" in such a short period of time. Hide and rot in that dark hole where the sun never shines.

[Skybird]

P.S. Another nice thing is that recently we learned that the criticised privacy intrusion routines and data-krakening things that W10 does (and that not all can be switched off via options available to the user via the OS interface), now are being delivered to W8 and W7 users as well, dressed as unsuspicious ordinary Windows Updates. Nice move there, MS, all inhibitions have gone amiss.

[Fubar2Niner]

Originally Posted by Skybird

P.S. Another nice thing is that recently we learned that the criticised privacy intrusion routines and data-krakening things that W10 does (and that not all can be switched off via options available to the user via the OS interface), now are being delivered to W8 and W7 users as well, dressed as unsuspicious ordinary Windows Updates. Nice move there, MS, all inhibitions have gone amiss.

Any info on the KB numbers Skybird?

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Fubar2Niner

Any info on the KB numbers Skybird?

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

This thread has some of those nasty KB numbers mentioned. I have turned off my auto updates out right and do it all manually now. I was angry at MS dumping that sodding Win10 BT folder on my system without telling me and their sodding pest pop ups "It's in your best interest to upgrade to Win10" clear off I will make my own mind up which I did. Got rid their win10 nagware/spyware and as I may have said here once my PC comes to the end I will not be buying another Windows system no way.

[Fubar2Niner]

Originally Posted by STEED

This thread has some of those nasty KB numbers mentioned. I have turned off my auto updates out right and do it all manually now. I was angry at MS dumping that sodding Win10 BT folder on my system without telling me and their sodding pest pop ups "It's in your best interest to upgrade to Win10" clear off I will make my own mind up which I did. Got rid their win10 nagware/spyware and as I may have said here once my PC comes to the end I will not be buying another Windows system no way.

Yep done and done STEED, I also choose which to u/d, but this sounds like a new 'threat' from MS. Any extra info about hidden crap is always welcome mate.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Fubar2Niner

Yep done and done STEED, I also choose which to u/d, but this sounds like a new 'threat' from MS.

The more they get pushy and nasty their true colour's will be all to see.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Fubar2Niner

Any info on the KB numbers Skybird?

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

For W7, the new threat seems to include KB 3068708, KB3022345, KB3075249, and KB3080149. I do not have the links to the sites on these anymore, sorry. But Google is your friend.

The older threat is (for W7) KB2952664 (which really can be a pest to remove, it seems to be linked to having tried early installation of W8 on W7 systems already), and then KB3021917, and KB3035583.

I made notes on these in my tiny black book of codes and passwords, but without further explanation, so I cannot tell you exactly what they eahc do,m but when I read about it, these were the ones that were quoted time and again.

KB2952664 seems to have been released by MS severla times in variedf forms, so that an early blocking of this KB number by the user was ignored and got the later version installed. You may need to uninstall it uzp to 5 times. For some, even this did not help.

POleas enote that the siuaiton is extremely difficult and complex, and that there is not one all-cases-included guaranteed fail-safe method to get rid of all this. Many people learn that they cannot get rid of it at all.

For Windows 8 users, it is other updates. One of the links I gave in the quoted original posting, does list some of them, and lists the W7 codes, too.

I have read ten days or two weeks ago on a German tech site , that after a blazing start, W10 distribution has stalled and stagnated. MS was extremely, overly aggressive with W10 from all beginning on, also its super-aggressive pushing of people to use cloud servers and that way expose themselves even further to US server storage and all the risks related to that. If the reports on stagnating W10 distributions are correct, this brutality by MS trying to bully its way through user's lines of resistance, may be a sign of growing desperation. Who cares. A company not listening to people since years and years, instead expecting that people have to want what for the sake of Microsoft's interest people should need to want, does not deserve success or acceptance.

In my opinion, honestly said, they are a case for the state attorney. Parts of what they try in stunts and infiltration tactics, crosses the red line to fraud and coercion (as a legal term).

I strictly recommend now to have all channels to Microsoft shut down and locked, and run Windows Update NEVER in automatic mode, but to manually open the needed service for it, manually search for updates, carefully checking the KB numbers for suspicious candidates, and not before then allow the rest to install. I recommend to completely pass on ALL just optional or recomme3nded updates. Do not use automatic updates anymore. Well, I said what is to be said in the third quoted post.

Have a delay between rerlease of updates every second Tuesday in the month, and the time you install them. Let some weeks pass, 3-4 weeks, so that the tech gurus have time to stumble over and release information on any new traps MS sets up for the unaware user.

Whats more: do not buy Microsoft products anymore, and do not use their tools and services. Boycott them. Sometimes that is uncomfortable, for example Microsoft Word still is the better word editor than Open Office (not very ergonomic interface) or Libre Office (not as powerful), and still: do not surrender this trump card to them - by supporting them by supporting their software. There are useful alternatives to practically every Microsoft software out there.

Another thing that one should worry about when supporting W10: Microsoft planning to close the app market for third party distributors. They are in the powerful seat needed to do that right now already, the only thing that holds them back is corporation customers, and the fear of a public uproar over this then-monopoly. Does this not make you frown?

P.S., Fubar, I think it is possible that I messed up my memory there. The 4 KB numbers I gave you could be related to not the newest threat that you asked about, but to the already known one as well. Sorry. Fact is I no longer know it exactly, I'm not certain. I kept no written explanations on the numbers, just the numbers themselves, in case I reinstall W7 again one day (hope this even works anymore !?).

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

I've been getting that frackin' GWX.exe crap for sometime now in the form of KB3035583. I uninstalled the update only to have Dicrosoft (what I call Microsoft now), ninja install the same KB3035583 update again even after I blocked it. I honestly don't know what the hell the execs at Microsoft where smoking when they came up with this over the top agro marketing campaign to get people to either switch to or buy Win10. They never did that with Win7 or 8, so why do it with Win10? I think Microsoft is really shooting themselves in the foot with this idea and what's the point of forcing consumers to "upgrade from a previous OS that are still fairly new and aren't total bugfests, I mean Win7 isn't perfect but it was a good replacement for XP while Win10 sounds like a repackaged version of Vista.