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If you've been trying to keep Microsoft's forced updates and upgrades off your machine, your job just got harder. With KB 4056254, we now have a new Win10 Update Facilitation Service joining its comrade-in-arms Update Assistant V2 to ensure no patch gets blocked.
You can look at the new KB 4056254 Win10 Update Facilitation Service and the re-emergence of Win10 Update Assistant V2 from two different perspectives. On the one hand, you have those poor hapless Win10 users who accidentally munged Windows Update. On the other hand, you have folks with bazookas and flamethrowers who want to keep some semblance of control over updating their machines.
Both groups now face two different Microsoft initiatives to reset Windows Update.
[...] Seems, from April to June 2018, some savvy Win 10 users have found new ways to disable or block Windows Update. So, M$ has to come out with KB4056254 to "neutralize" their efforts. It's like a cat-and-mouse game.
Which seems to me like the core of the matter. It's not nice to mess with Mother Microsoft's patching schemes, so you're going to get a few new services running in the background to whop your system upside the head if you dare to block patches.
Sources:
Win10 Update Facilitation Service joins Update Assistant V2 to make sure you get patched | Computerworld
Watch out: Win10 Update Facilitation as a Service and a new push for the Update Assistant | AskWoody
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday June 23 2018, @06:51PM (9 children)
The saddest thing about all this is that Windows users have been subject to a multi-decade scheme to train them away from the ability to choose, to even know that they can choose. Training them to captivity in their software, which is in everything now, trains them to every other kind of captivity. It's tragic, especially when we're at a historical moment when technology has opened more avenues to freedom and empowerment than have ever existed before.
Open Source has come a long, long way from its inception. There are so many shades of choice and customization to choose from that you don't have to be an expert at all to take advantage of. Others have already created entire menus to suit each taste. Me, I run Debian-variants with lightweight desktops like XFCE and LXDE because I like things more bare bones and snappy. Others like 3D animation, effects, and many, many other flavors. You can even run different boot loaders and so on, if you want, if you are that technical.
Even as a business, subjecting your productivity to somebody else's revenue curve like MS does its customers is stupid. It's just stupid.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 23 2018, @09:31PM (8 children)
I agree about MS Windows giving fewer and fewer options to many things. I've seen this trend for 20+ years. I've attributed it to MacOS envy, hoping to reduce support calls, and perceived customer demand. Every now and then I stumble onto a 3rd-party addon, like someone (Symantec maybe?) had a major UI mod package for probably Win98 or so. Seems like there's a strong market for tools to get into Windows and give us back the options. I know there are "telemetry" blockers, but lots of warnings that they're bad for you. Bad like Cheetos.
I always wish for an "expert mode" setting somewhere to give me back my options.
Yep, xfce is my go-to in general, and it seems to run kde apps well without all the extra kde "stuff" I don't seem to need.
(Score: 3, Touché) by frojack on Saturday June 23 2018, @09:35PM (5 children)
You mean there are people who actually CALL Microsoft still?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @11:46PM (2 children)
I've had lots of calls "from Microsoft" telling me they have detected malware on my machine. Microsoft seems to employ a lot of technicians who barely (or don't) speak conversational English.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:57AM (1 child)
I don't have Microsoft. Because I don't have computer. But I got that call too. And I said to the guy, "This is Donald J. Trump. Is this Bill Gates?" Because I've been wanting to talk to Bill about closing up that Internet. The guy says "no, this isn't Bill Gates. I'm calling from Windows." Not Microsoft. And he asked me to turn my computer on. So I go, "maybe you have the wrong number. Or maybe you want my son. Because I don't have computer." Barron is 12, he's amazing with computer. And with every kind of cyber. So I say to him, it's the guy from Windows, do you want to talk to him? And he shakes his head, he told me that was a Fake call. So watch out!!!
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday June 24 2018, @05:23AM
Just hope those aerospace contractors who control your "big guns" don't rely on this kind of business model.
You may only think you control them. Until you need them.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Funny) by RS3 on Saturday June 23 2018, @11:48PM
They come hoping for help, they stay for the awesome hold music.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:08AM
Yes, there are people who call Microsoft. People with corporate support. Even they generally regret doing so one way or another. Even if Microsoft do help it is only for their benefit. Your problem may be solved but there is always another problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Saturday June 23 2018, @10:00PM (1 child)
> (Symantec maybe?) had a major UI mod package for probably Win98 or so.
You mean Stardock? They had something called Windowblinds. You could skin Windows with themes that were out of this world.
Back in the late 90s, it was the dogs bollocks for Windows users. I remember it being a hog. One really impressive theme used up around 1024MB of RAM just for the skin + Windows 2000 OS. On my 256MB PC it would swap like crazy just to load the UI, but dear god it looked awesome. Spent ages clicking on it just to watch it work before going back to the standard interface to actually make the PC usable again.
Interestingly, seems they are still in business and allowing skinning of even the latest Windows OS'es:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WindowBlinds [wikipedia.org]
As for me, I never got intimately familiar with it, because shortly after I discovered Linux, and its myriad options for window managers, without basically being a massive hack (I seem to remember windowblinds worked by shunting their own DLLs between the graphic subsystem and the upper UI level drawing DLLs. If it works it was great, but if an app was using undocumented calls, you had a hell of a lot of odd behaviour and bugs). However if it is still going strong all these years, I presume there must be a lot of happy customers using it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:58PM
But I believe I read that WindowBlinds was licensed by Microsoft as the basis for their theme support in XP. That was what gave StarDock the money to expand into game publishing and the variety of other products they have moved into since (they were originally app software and then bbs doorgames I believe.)