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How do they get away with it? Why do we let them?
Am running Windows 8.0 (dutifully dismissing the "update now to 8.1" messages that keep interrupting me at random intervals) and was in the middle of a long VS2013 debug session. Cleared a watch window and BAM! Screen went black, followed by "Restarting Windows...." OK, so something's gone really wrong, system restart, ho-hum not the end of the world. Next thing I know, "Keep your PC plugged in until this is done. Installing update 22 of 185..."
WTF??? The PC doesn't even know my Microsoft account details (very careful about that). Never signed up or requested auto-updates. Never requested any updates to 8.1 or anything else.
It's now up to update 49 of 185, after about 10 minutes. Would it be doing this if the machine weren't on mains power? What if I were in a meeting, or a product demo, or selling something online, or - god forbid - simply trying to get some work done? What the hell gives Microsoft the right to micro-manage my working day by taking control of MY computer when IT feels like it and "updating" it with god-only-knows what... presumably the MS spyware that is being "backwards integrated" from Win10 to previous versions.
On that point, how can any company comply with UK/EU data protection legislation when it seems we can't control what gets sent to Microsoft (including document content)...?
Thank goodness I still have this old XP laptop so I can browse CodeProject whilst twiddling my thumbs. I wonder if I can bill Microsoft for wasted time... no, I thought not... 
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Firewall out any MS IP, temporarily allow only when needed. Or keep cracked versions with all the sunshine removed.
Geek code v 3.12 {
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
}
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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The MS callbacks are "hard-coded" to the extent that they bypass the HOSTS file, and Windows Firewall will also ignore attempts to block calls to their addresses. The only option would be to implement a separate external firewall and then somehow to keep it continuously maintained with MS IP addresses - not really practical for Joe Bloggs or even most of us on CodeProject.
Interestingly, I've just spoken to the ICO about this and they are unaware of the issue. Their advice is to contact Microsoft UK and if I'm not "satisfied" with their response, to then raise a complaint with the ICO. I suggest we all do this a.s.a.p....
Update - now installing update 91 of 185... 
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Ouch (I'm a little behind as I still have Win7). Ok, cracked versions will be. Cheaper and, apparently, safer 
Geek code v 3.12 {
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
}
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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DerekTP123 wrote: On that point, how can any company comply with UK/EU data protection legislation when it seems we can't control what gets sent to Microsoft
One can't.
The future is bright, I foresee a lot of forced migrations, lots of work 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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DerekTP123 wrote: On that point, how can any company comply with UK/EU data protection legislation when it seems we can't control what gets sent to Microsoft (including document content)...?
I think that's a really good point and I live in hope that there may be some sort of class action against Microsoft to have this intrusiveness ended.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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If you keep on top of updates you wouldn't have this problem Updates are what keeps Windows (and IE etc) the most secure applications on the net. Keeping things updated to prevent the spread of viri etc is something we all need to claim responsibility for.
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: what keeps Windows (and IE etc) the most secure applications on the net
For a moment I thought this was the BJOTD topic 
Geek code v 3.12 {
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
}
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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*shrug*
Consult any independent security firm and the reality of how secure MS products are is very far from what people think, and a large part of that is auto updates.
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If I kept on top of the gumph that MS keeps trying to dump on me I'd never get ANY work done, as my PC would be continuously updating, and I'd be continuously on a learning curve trying to find out how to do things I could do perfectly well yesterday.
It's now been saying "restarting" for about 10 minutes. How long do I give it before risking a power-cycle and permanently screwing up any updates, or having to start all over...
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Some updates take longer than others. In my experience it can sometimes take about half an hour if it needs to do around 20. The first round is only have the fun though After you reboot your updated versions of some things might now trigger even more updates being required. This is just why you need to keep on top of it.
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: If you keep on top of updates you wouldn't have this problem
Mo, but you'd be facing weird problems after some updates.
Like Windows no longer being genuine. Is not something that is very dandy across a network
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Emm I Cee Kay Ee Why Ess Oh Eff Tee![^]
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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OK, so after more than an hour (after a "crash") the system is now back up. It's giving me a "welcome tour" of the "new Skype for Windows" (an update I'd been studiously avoiding for months as all reports I'd heard of the latest version were that it's a pile of crap). Bizarrely it seems to have re-opened some, but not all, of the apps I had open at crash time. On entering skype the main page says "Skype home unavailable". On another machine it now "cannot connect" to skype at all... is that just co-incidence?
Anyway, at least the system's come up and it's not "up" graded to 8.1 which I was concerned about.
Just have to wonder whether it's now sending every keystroke back to Redmond... 
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I have come to the conclusion that the longer you wait to install updates, the more likely is it they will get installed at the most inconvenient time possible.
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DerekTP123 wrote: On that point, how can any company comply with UK/EU data protection legislation when it seems we can't control what gets sent to Microsoft (including document content)...?
You couldn't if that were true. However, it isn't. If it were the EU would have been way ahead of you in noticing the breach. There's nothing they love better than screwing money out of big computing companies on the flimisest pretence.
And just as the length of the update is clearly a problem of your own manufacture so I suspect was triggering it (albeit accidentally). In 8 (really?) you would be given a notification of the need to restart to finish installation of updates even if they were auto-updates with the choice of whether to continue working or complete the update process.
I realise that mere facts are probably not welcome to you and your fellow bandwagoners, depriving you of a good rant at the company whose OS you chose/choose to work with, but I am not alone in getting a headache which even the news of River Song's return to Dr Who cannot cure from all this irrational shouting and carrying on.
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Regarding the privacy issues... Having spent half an hour or so reading some of the FAQs on the MS site (i.e. half an hour more than 99.99% of users will ever do), it's far from clear what data is sent to MS and whether it is definitively possible to stop it (other than disabling all network connectivity). Best Practice at least, if not legislation, requires that a data subject should be able to understand what data is collected and how it is used, and on that point alone MS fails miserably. Perhaps you'd be so good as to enumerate the steps a novice Windows10 user - with confidential info on their system - needs to make to prevent Windows sending keystrokes, text, handwriting, speech, images and other potential confidential data back to Microsoft. Such a summary would be extremely useful and, if it's not possible to provide, rather confirms my fears.
Regarding my unfortunate and unrequested "update"... It's absolutely true that the length of update was a result of my deliberately choosing to eschew many of the system "upgrades" MS try to push at me. Suspect what you like, I'm quite sure I never requested - or gave permission - for Windows Update to make changes, and certainly not at that point. As I say, in the middle of a VS2013 debug session the machine crashed; on restart it went into the update process without giving any option of cancelling or delaying. This is just bad UX design, regardless of whether there's 1 update or 100 to apply. Previous versions of Windows have allowed more control and transparency over the process, and removing this control - just as in the "dumbing down" of windows "apps" - is a retrograde step. Yes, I'm using Win 8 rather than 8.1 for a number of good reasons. Call me old-fashioned (I'll take it as a compliment) but I take the approach of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". There are scores of updates to Windows updating components I have never used and never will. I don't want my bandwidth and harddrive taken up with irrelevant stuff I don't want or need, all introducing instability and risk. If there are bugs in software I use, I will update those components. I appreciate a large proportion of the "fixes" are security-related, but again we all live with risk in the real world and are (generally speaking) free to choose the level of risk we expose ourselves to. When a car is recalled for a potentially dangerous flaw, the customer is invited to bring the vehicle in for upgrade at a time of their choosing. You don't see Toyota staff car-jacking vehicles and depriving their owners of their liberty by dragging them off to be fixed when it suits them.
Whilst the title of this post can be construed as shouting, I don't agree with you that it's irrational. I've been working with Microsoft software since the late 1980s and as such the majority of my professional experience is with it. I'm not in a position to abandon it lightly, though stupidities like today's farce means I am very much less likely to make personal purchases of Windows-based devices in the future. It is also rapidly accelerating my move toward retirement. The rot set in with Win95 when they moved from File Manager to Windows Explorer. That echoed a move away from the user being in control and made Windows a vast, unmapped jungle through which the user had to explore rather than manage. Of course I recognise that Win10 is incomparably "better" in very many ways than Windows 3.11, but it is also, in very many ways, very much worse too.
Hope your headache gets better soon. 
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The first thing I'd have to say is that there is a lot of talk about information being sent to Microsoft but of course that is an extremely disingenuous way of putting it. Data is synched with your Microsoft account. This does not mean that Microsoft has direct access to it. This arrangement has been perfectly acceptable (one assumes) to people using Googlemail or any other online email client, users of the Cloud, and so on so it's a little difficult to see why everybody's getting so het up about it now that MS is doing the same. (Well I say now, Office 365, One Note and the like have been doing this for some time).
However if you simply cannot bring yourself to believe that Microsoft doesn't have a team of people sitting around reading your documents then there is a very simple solution. Don't sign in with your Microsoft account. Retain your local account when you upgrade or create a new one and use it exclusively. It does mean you can't use Cortana, OneNote and so on but presumably you wouldn't want to anyway if you're worried about confidentiality. I can't remember offhand the specific point during the upgrade at which you tick the boxes to get this arrangement but the option is definitely there (despite what some people have said in this here forum). If you don't spot it, however, it's easily 'mended' (Settings > Accounts). That's really all there is to it.
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Thanks for the clarification. As mentioned in my original posting, I don't associate my Microsoft account with my Windows installation, and would choose to continue that way. I'm a little sceptical that even so, Win10 will not post data back to MS - it may not be directly associated with me personally, but even in terms of usage data may include sensitive info. I think it's pushing it a bit to say that "synching with your MS account" doesn't mean that MS doesn't have direct access to it. Unless the implication is that storage of MS account data is outsourced, which makes things even worse really. I don't suppose for a moment that MS would have a team of people sitting around... but that's obviously not the issue. The issue is that if that data is being sent over any network, and stored anywhere, then there is the potential for it to be intercepted/stolen/abused. You will argue that I have that data on my local PC (and yes, I don't take all the latest security updates), but the difference there is that I am the one responsible for managing the security of that data. If it's sent - without my full knowledge and agreement - to a 3rd party (MS or someone else) then I am no longer accountable for its security. That breaks the trust between me and, for example, my clients.
Using Googlemail or other cloud services is rather different since the nature of the service is clear - the data is being sent and stored elsewhere. *IF* it is true that Win10 "silently" passes info over the network, regardless of where to, that is not an obvious and inherent part of using the operating system.
Anyhow, I do appreciate your response and it is at least a little reassuring that the option to install and use Win10 without the need to associate it with a Microsoft account is still there.
Cheers!
(Still not planning on installing it, though  )
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Movie Quote Of The Day
We never discussed the possibility of a retainer.
Which movie?
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Rambo XIVXXIIIXVIX : Discussion Gun
Rules for the FOSW ![ ^]
if(this.signature != "")
{
MessageBox.Show("This is my signature: " + Environment.NewLine + signature);
}
else
{
MessageBox.Show("404-Signature not found");
}
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Better than my "Overbit, the movie"
Mongo: Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
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Ugh, I don't remember. It's either Killer Bees or Meet Joe Black but I can't remember!
Geek code v 3.12 {
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
}
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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