
Forced Windows 10 Upgrade Shuts Down PC Used by Anti-Poaching Rangers in Africa - gooserock
http://news.softpedia.com/news/forced-windows-10-upgrade-shuts-down-pc-used-by-anti-poaching-rangers-in-africa-504861.shtml
======
userbinator
The amount of churn in the computer industry is staggering and the upgrade
treadmill is a huge waste of resources to many, but I suppose it's the only
way for them to continue making a profit. Personally, I think Windows as an OS
reached its pinnacle sometime around the XP timeframe; since then it has
mostly been frustrating UI changes and feature removals, "security" features
designed to lock down your PC _against_ you and instead follow the commands of
some corporate entity, and massive amounts of data collection. Incidentally,
that timeframe coincides with the rise of file sharing, and while the Internet
certainly wasn't very safe or secure back then, it was an era of relative
freedom.

I was quite disgusted when I saw that Windows 10's start menu contains
_adverts_ ; maybe Microsoft realised that the average user would likely
install adware themselves anyway, so they wanted to get into that industry
too... all the evidence certainly supports that, including the now-well-known
_closing the upgrade window indicates consent_ shady behaviour common amongst
malware/adware. It's clear that MS is really, _really_ desperate to get as
much users onto Win10 as they can.

To adopt a phrase MS originally used against Linux, "Windows 10 is a free
upgrade only if your freedom and privacy are worth nothing."

~~~
ams6110
_I was quite disgusted when I saw that Windows 10 's start menu contains
adverts_

Maybe they got the idea from Ubuntu's funneling local search queries to online
search engines?

~~~
zxcvcxz
Trying to equate Canonical and MS is desperate. Microsoft is undeniably worse.
And Will Microsoft remove the ads? Of course not. When windows 10 first came
out the only way to remove candy crush was with power shell.

[http://superuser.com/questions/958562/how-do-i-remove-
candy-...](http://superuser.com/questions/958562/how-do-i-remove-candy-crush-
saga-from-windows-10)

You will jump through these hoops every upgrade unless you go through and
disable certain updates, which you will need to keep up with for the rest of
your life.

You now have to pay a monthly fee to avoid 30 second videos in Solitaire.

~~~
chris_wot
Well, Ubuntu doesn't do those paid searches any more by default.

------
metaphor
There's a sense of irony seeing this post today when just last night, as my
girlfriend and I were planning a weekend trip, I asked her what OS she was
using (not being familiar with anything beyond Win7), to which she responded
Win8. I then asked if she planned to upgrade to Win10, noting a post I had
read about MS charging for the upgrade after a certain date, to which she
responded no...then a minute or two later, poof, Win10 auto-update
starts...literally in the middle of a reservation transaction. She swears she
never explicitly consented to the upgrade.

It's one thing to read about and discuss the issues with Microsoft's overt
push to migrate the world to Win10. It's admittedly a completely different
experience to see it happen right before your eyes. Some time ago, I half-
committed to never owning another computer with a Microsoft OS beyond Win7,
reasoning that you just never know if a useful tool may pop up that's only
available for Windows. After last night's surprise, that commitment became
unwavering.

~~~
aluhut
As someone who held onto Win2k until it hurt, I still thought it might be a
good deal back then when they offered the free upgrade from 7 to 10. I
thought: I'll just wait until the last moment so I can see what kind of bugs
come up. While upgrading one of my laptops to 10 to play around with it and be
prepared (which was a horrible experience on it's own).

Now with the moment coming closer and seeing what they do there, I'm pretty
sure I'll play the win2k game one more time with my win7 and see what comes up
next. Even if I'd have to pay for it.

~~~
noisem4ker
1\. Backup your Windows 7 install

2\. Upgrade to Windows 10 (this associates your machine with a permanent
license)

3\. Restore your backup

If/when time comes to actually upgrade, you should be able to do so (or
install from scratch) using the license you acquired in step 2.

------
curiousgal
As per the post[0], the upgrade did not crash the computer BUT it did download
6Gb of data over satellite-internet which can be quite expensive.

OP is having an AMA[1].

0.[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_in_the_central_african_bush_we_pay_for/)

1.[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4mirin/i_am_the_accid...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4mirin/i_am_the_accidental_it_guy_antipoaching_pilot_in/)

~~~
13of40
I think it's weird that so many people want to demonize Microsoft for snapping
to a model that Apple has been using for a decade. I'm currently in one of
those weeks where every time I wake up my iPad I have to click through two
separate dialogs to tell it that, no, I don't want to install the updated
version of iOS it downloaded without asking. Yet everyone is fine with this. I
mean, except the Linux guys, I guess.

~~~
LeoPanthera
The difference is, iOS asks. You can say no.

There are plenty of people being force-upgraded to 10 who never consented.

~~~
ksk
>The difference is, iOS asks. You can say no.

Yeah, and then it asks again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and
again.. and again....

~~~
orbitur
That's when you upgrade. There's no reason to stay on an older iOS.

~~~
Spooky23
Tell my iPad 2 that.

~~~
orbitur
My iPad 2 should talk to yours. It's happy with iOS 9, if a bit slow compared
to my Air 2.

------
mattkevan
The windows boxes in our office have been upgrading themselves, much to
everyone's dismay:

The one in the meeting room decided to upgrade and then break in the middle of
a client presentation I was leading. I got my Mac and continued on, but it was
embarrassing.

My colleague's machine upgraded itself overnight, and in the process deleted a
bunch of files and corrupted creative suite.

I know having as many people as possible on the latest version is a good thing
from a platform perspective, but in reality it's such an irresponsible thing
to do. It just lets people know that Microsoft are quite happy to reach in and
break their stuff at any point.

If anything it's persuaded the last few Windows holdouts in the office to
switch to the Mac or Linux in short order.

~~~
Mithaldu
Edit: Note that i am not disagreeing that MS is engaging in a dark pattern by
opting-in users implicitly, and then only informing them about said opt-in
having happened. The snide and snark in this post only came about because i
realized rather suddenly what was actually happening, and how the misreporting
and sensationalizing had skewed this whole thing in a way that the reporting
helped literally nobody but people's click counters.

Know that the upgrade is not unavoidable, and if you have friends who don't
want it, tell them how they can avoid it.

> The windows boxes in our office have been upgrading themselves, much to
> everyone's dismay

Go around and ask which of your colleagues closed this window without actually
reading it: [http://i.imgur.com/aWFX0vc.png](http://i.imgur.com/aWFX0vc.png)

~~~
anotherevan
Also ask them about how many bloody times prompts about upgrading have come
up, again and again and again. People are not perfect robots that crunch data,
fatigue sets in at some point, which is exactly what microsoft preyed on in
this case. Crunching data is what we use computers for, or at least try to.

~~~
Mithaldu
Ok, then report "MS is using dark patterns", not "Windows is upgrading on its
own and there was nothing we could do to stop it". Those are both very serious
failure modes, and both need to be adressed, but by obscuring which one is
actually occurring you're doing nobody a favor.

~~~
anotherevan
Blaming the victim is doing nobody a favour either.

The distinction between “windows is upgrading on its own and there was nothing
I could to to stop it [once it started]” and “microsoft used a bunch of shifty
tricks to fool me into pressing a button that supposedly gave my consent, and
then there was nothing I could do to stop it” becomes pretty moot, pretty
fast.

Yes, the latter is technically correct, and should be the main focus. But for
the victims who are wondering what the fuck just happened, a snide, “did you
read the dialogue before closing it?” isn’t helpful. It comes off as smug
because because you consider yourself superior.

If there was more nuance to your original comment, you probably should have
made it in the first place. Your one-liner only came across as snark.

~~~
Mithaldu
> The distinction between .... becomes pretty moot

I vehemently disagree, since by identifying the actual issue you can, instead
of frightening other people into fearing an automatic upgrade at any time,
inform them about what is actually happening and better prepare them to
prevent the same happening to them.

That said, yes, my previous comment was snide snark. At that point it was all
i had upon realizing how badly the whole discourse was fucked up towards not
being useful to anyone.

~~~
anotherevan
> > The distinction between … becomes pretty moot

> I vehemently disagree, since by identifying the actual issue you can

I understand where you’re coming from. And I already agreed that what actually
happened – the shifty practice to supposedly gain consent – should be the
discussion. My entire sentence about the distinction is with regard to giving
consent, which is what your original one-liner alluded to. Microsoft tricked
people so they would have the excuse after the fact that you gave consent,
when they really do no such thing.

So in most ways we probably agree on the actual issue – but your original one-
liner came across as blaming the victim for being human – my reaction to it
was to blame microsoft for intentional manipulation of human nature to achieve
their objective, without the person’s consent, against the person’s desire, in
a way that tries to make it look like their own fault.

If nothing else though, the snark comment prompted us both to elucidate our
viewpoints and (I hope) find common ground.

~~~
Mithaldu
> common ground

If the common ground is that we're somehow in a situation where both Windows
users, and MS are being harmed, and the only people benefiting are news
websites who get clicks for sensationalist headlines that do nothing to help
the users, then i think we've reached it. :)

:( vvvv

~~~
anotherevan
Oh well, I guess not, then. :-)

------
codedokode
Using dark UI patterns (like dialogs without cancel button) is disrespectful
to users. They bought Windows to get stable and reliable operationg system.
The system that updates at night and gets drivers or software broken is
nowhere near stable. Even linux (which is awful as desktop system) doesn't
autoupdate.

It might be acceptable if Microsoft gave their product away for free: many
free products (e.g. Sublime or Skype) include annoying autoupdate popups for
non-paying users. But Windows is quite expensive software.

Microsoft's motives are just getting more paid services, getting more
telemetry (for free! they do not pay for it) and maybe adding some kind of
subscription in future. Recent Windows versions like 7 or 8 seem to be 'good
enough' for most customers so they do not want to upgrade for free let alone
buy newer versions.

And subscription is as bad as DRM.

~~~
jmiserez
> Even linux (which is awful as desktop system)

I disagree. Linux is great as a desktop system precisely because you're in
control, not some third-party. And in terms of desktop functionality there is
no meaningful difference anymore.

~~~
cm2187
But the drivers problem isn't really behind them. I just purchased a lenovo
laptop after reading similar comments noting the progress of linux desktop,
and can't get the laptop to connect to an external monitor, despite the device
being on ubuntu's certified list.

~~~
washadjeffmad
If you post your model laptop on the Ubuntu forums or on
reddit.com/r/linuxquestions with your issue, you'll likely get either a
solution or enough information to know how about soon support will be added
for your device. It's often a solved problem just with no upstream patch yet.

~~~
cm2187
Thanks. I'll give it a try.

------
asimuvPR
I tune cars as as as a hobby. My current setup is based around windows xp due
to driver supports (technically an embedded application). My plan was to
upgrade to a windows 8 machine and emulate an xp install. But I'm not going to
anymore. I tune while driving and it could be catastrophic to have the machine
install updates. I'll continue with the air gapped xp machine. Too bad because
I was looking forward to not using a machine that was a hundred years old.

~~~
yrro
Your decision is the correct one, but I'm pretty sure that no consumer version
of Windows has ever shipped without a requirement that you shouldn't use it
for real-time/safety-critical purposes.

~~~
asimuvPR
Well, safety goes out the window when you are tuning a modified 911. :)

------
MertsA
Can we get this changed to the original source? Not only does the Softpedia
article not add anything substantial to the original source, it's also
factually inaccurate. Windows 10 wasn't installed on any of their computers,
the issue was just that it racked up a huge telecom bill for caching the
installer. It also didn't impede any operations or disable any computer.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_in_the_central_african_bush_we_pay_for/)

~~~
chris_wot
Yeah, but chewing up that bandwidth, surely it took forever and it must have
slowed down some critical network functions!

------
rm999
The headline really should be reworded, even the article states the shutdown
was a theoretical.

> _if_ a forced upgrade happened and crashed our pc's while in the middle of
> coordinating rangers...

------
wvenable
I have a few computers where I have reserved the Windows 10 upgrade. I have
yet to have this upgrade happen automatically.

------
jgalt212
Our business's recent experience with forced upgrades

Our accounting team used Quickbooks Pro 2014 which worked on Windows 7. Then
all our machines went to Windows 10, and Quickbooks no longer worked. Our
accounting team basically did no work for a week while they did a combo of
trying to figure out which software to migrate to (went with Quickbooks
Online), recover any missing data, and make sure the data migrated
successfully to the new accounting package.

The nice part of this forced migration is that Quickbooks online does not
require Windows, so three less Windows boxes to support at our shop as we have
moved the acct dept to Linux boxes.

The rule of unintended consequences in full effect.

------
Reese1379
Have they considered upgrading to a Linux distro?

[http://distrowatch.com/](http://distrowatch.com/)

------
Reese1379
This has to be the only tech site where a suggestion to use Linux results in a
down vote.

~~~
frik
MS kind of infiltrated HN in 2015, visible to HN users during the Build 2015
conference in early 2015. Coincidentally Microsoft and Y Combinator formed a
partnership,
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/stevengu/2015/02/09/y-combi...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/stevengu/2015/02/09/y-combinator-
and-microsoft-inspiring-ideas-through-partnership/) and somewhere I read that
they formed a joint venture (but I haven't found the source again).

In 2015 a lot of new (green) sock puppet and corporate accounts appeared that
down vote comments and flag stories that share not their "nice vision". The
worse situation around MS all started when Gates (who is apparently still a
driving force) replaced Ballmer with Nadella, a marionette. I am viewing HN
using a third party front end, and every time a unfavorable MS story appears
it doesn't last long on HN until it gets flagged - no other company story is
handled that negatively or flagged in any way that often. So there is a clear
pattern behind it. To make my point clear, also this story quickly vanished
from the HN frontpage. And I would have no chance to even know about it. HN
used to be a better site :(

~~~
dang
Microsoft has no special status on Hacker News. It's true that HN sees a
flurry of MS stories on their big conference day, but it's also true of
Google, Apple, and Amazon's annual conference days, and maybe others. That's
how they all like to do their big tech announcements. Each time it happens,
people complain that HN has fallen into the clutches of
MS|Google|Apple|Amazon, but nothing has changed at our end. Actually we
_raise_ the bar a bit on those days so that only 3 or 4 such stories stay on
the front page instead of 7 or 8. They'd probably get more attention overall
if they staggered their releases through the year.

There have been a lot of unfavorable stories about MS on HN, including
recently. We don't do anything special to penalize them, nor do we let users
abuse flagging in the way you suggest. In fact the Windows 10 update nagware
saga has appeared numerous times on HN's front page, including multiple
stories about clicking 'x' on the dialog box, how it screwed some African
satellite operators, etc. The current one fell suddenly off the front page
because of software (it set off the flamewar detector).

If MS "infiltrated" HN, it's news to me and I'd like to know about it. It's
our job to protect the integrity of this place for the community and we take
it seriously. When we see gaming and manipulation we crack down on it hard.
But actually the BigCos aren't the ones who do such things. They're (rightly)
too risk-averse.

If you think you see evidence of manipulation you should email us at
hn@ycombinator.com. When we get emails like that we always look into it.

~~~
frik
Look:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11845741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11845741)

This MS story from today also vanished from the frontpage quickly.

I contacted HN (you), I highlighted several vanished posts. You mentioned you
see no pattern or unusual activities.

Also this one vanished:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11846199](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11846199)

~~~
dang
Those stories fell off the front page because of software that penalizes
overheated threads, which tend to be shallow and sensational. That software
has been running for years.

Even if an automatic penalty hadn't kicked in, moderators would have penalized
that first link (even if we personally agree with what it says). First, it's a
duplicate that adds no new information over previous incarnations of the story
(which have already appeared more than once on the front page, already an
indulgence and certainly not a pro-MS one). Second, it's a garden-variety
riler-upper, and those aren't a good fit for HN, as should be well known by
now.

None of these mechanisms has anything to do with Microsoft. I'm pretty sure
that the bias you're arguing for doesn't exist at our end. How sure are you
that you're not simply noticing things because they fit your interpretation?

~~~
frik
Ok, fair enough. It's certainly a fine line. Though, a company is playing a
not so nice but well known game, a game it is known for decades. And one can
see how reasonable objective comments get downvoted and highly opinionated
pro-biased comments get upvoted to influence the audience. And about stories,
you rarely see objective stories about that company, because the fear to loose
ads or the big gorilla and its lawyers. I will continue using a third party
frontend, as HN frontpage hides some of the "heated discussions" or "high
voted stories" that got flagged a lot too. But I am here because of the
insightful comments and stories.

------
bitmapbrother
In their quest to remain relevant and join the 1 Billion install club for
their latest OS they're using every trick in the book to fool users into
upgrading their OS just so that they can meet their timelines. What they
didn't account for was the backlash and rage their malware inspired tactics
would ignite. Forcing people to upgrade to Windows 10 against their wishes is
despicable and disgusting.

------
x0n
For f*cks sake.

What about "Unpatched Windows PC shuts down N instances of x,y or z due to
worm/virus/malware," which is a headline far more common than this completely
ridiculous headline.

This is the technological equivalent of that one person pontificating and
whining on about someone who once knew someone who died in a car crash BECAUSE
they WERE wearing their seat belt.

Back before updates were forced, users have proven themselves too clueless to
manage their own PCs. I don't care what people do as long as they are not
connected to the internet. It's a shared resource.

~~~
Falkon1313
For security updates, yes. But this is not a security update. Upgrades that
completely change the UI, alter the set of programs that are capable of
running on the platform (potentially disabling critical software), and add new
processes that do things behind the scenes that you might not want (like
monitoring/tracking etc.), and may not even be compatible with your hardware
are another thing entirely.

Updates or upgrades should only be forced when backwards compatibility is
preserved.

