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posted by mrpg on Saturday June 23 2018, @05:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the systemd dept.

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


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @11:42PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @11:42PM (#697384)

    I've installed Microsoft OS's from DOS 2.11a onwards. I've been a lifetime Windows user since Windows 3.10. But in the last couple years, I feel like I'm battling Microsoft for control of my machine...

    I've installed Microsoft OSes and DEs for nearly as long as you have, since the days of MS-DOS 3.0. Unlike you, I haven't done so willingly.

    I bought and used DR-DOS when I could instead of MS-DOS. I bought and used GeoWorks as an alternative to the lame Windows 3.x, even though Windows 3.x was easily accessible to copy and install. I bought and tried to use OS/2. (My computer met minimum requirements, but it wouldn't install.) I bought and used BeOS. I bought and used numerous Linux distros -- Caldera, SuSE, Red Hat, and others. I bought and used WordPerfect and Quattro Pro instead of accepting Word and Excel. (They weren't an awkwardly bundled office suite then.)

    I watched when the industry came out with inexpensive, innovative little netbooks, loaded with stripped down Linux, and shook my head when Microsoft flexed their might, forcing the netbook makers to overburden the machines by preloading Windows XP instead, adding a corresponding cost increase to accommodate the new license fee and extra hardware required to run Windows, pricing them out of the newly-created niche.

    Microsoft was there at every turn, trying to wrest control of our computers, anti-competitively forcing people away from MS-DOS alternatives, anti-competitively using their sway with OEMs to force them to not include alternatives to Windows as either a preload or an optional replacement.

    Every step of the way, Microsoft has been trying to ensure that the computers we've bought have only been nominally ours. With Windows 10, they effectively own our computers.

    I fought their trying to sneakily force Win10 onto any of my computers. I have yet to allow that software to infect my computers. Unfortunately, I know my days are numbered. There are a couple of tools I use for which I have yet to find a solid non-Windows alternative and I know that, at some point, the developers are going to drop support for Win7.

    Sometimes it's the unrelenting juggernaut, not the good guys, who wins.

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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday June 24 2018, @02:03AM (7 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Sunday June 24 2018, @02:03AM (#697431)

    I dabbled with all of those except GeoWorks (BeOS had such promise...), and always came back to Windows, as the only platform that actually supported a decent range of software. Until I finally got a laptop over a decade ago, intended primarily for web access rather than a primary work/play machine, and decided to use Linux as the primary OS, rather than deal with Vista's increasingly customer-hostile "features". I was happy with Ubuntu for years, and even Unity didn't drive me away, though it did convince me to install the incredibly versatile xfce panel instead of their horribly under-powered launch bar. I did try many other distros, but found none that had the same level of "polish" as mainstream Ubuntu - like the best parts of MacOS and Windows combined, with that irascible "rebuild me to your vision" Linux allure just under the surface.

    Been happy with Linux ever since - for browsing and a lot of basic "office" stuff. My main system is still Windows though - for serious work and play, Linux sadly still lacks the breadth of both modern and mature software. WINE has made a huge difference though - probably supports 90% of the work software I want to use. That last 10% though, that's what keeps the abomination of Windows 10 on my desktop. Well, that and the games.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:55AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:55AM (#697476)

      "lacks breadth of modern and mature software". Really?
      I suppose you have to use some autocad-like thingy that's only availabe on windows.
      Here's an idea: when you go to conferences, and meet your peers, talk to them. Find out what you guys can do to move away from Windows. It's very likely there are others who want to get rid of windows, and if there are enough of you, you can just talk to the programmers of your "mature software", and tell them you want linux/MacOS whatever.
      I would recommend not moving to a Mac, but it's still much better than Windows.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:35AM (3 children)

        by Immerman (3985) on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:35AM (#697490)

        Yes really. take any popular piece of software - you know, the software you need to actually be fully compatible when exchanging data with someone else, and we both know the odds of there being a native Linux version are slim. Libre Office is wonderful, and I use it for my own work - but the moment I need to collaborate with someone else - it's got to be MS Office - 90% compatibility just doesn't cut it when you're trying to get work done. And yeah,that one is totally the fault of MS and their intentional file format sabotage, but that doesn't let me get away from it (though I always savor the moments when I get to rescue old MS Office files using LO, since age or corruption has made them incompatible with MS Office's fragile file loader.

        And hey, I *do* tell software publishers I'd like a Linux version - but honestly, how many thousands, maybe millions of people have told Adobe they'd like native versions of Illustrator, Photoshop, etc (yes, GIMP and Inkscape are wonderful programs, I love them, but they just don't stack up in a professional setting) They don't care. Linux desktop users are a drop in the bucket, not even remotely as significant a market force as MacOS users, and *dramatically* more difficult to support thanks to platform fragmentation. Even when software is ported over, it's frequently a half-assed port with enough glaring issues that running the Windows version in WINE is the better option.

        As for Mac - all I can say is that I grieve that *Apple* has become the face of consumer-friendly mainstream operating systems - because they're pretty much as hostile and imperious as ever.

        • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday June 25 2018, @12:41AM (1 child)

          by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 25 2018, @12:41AM (#697855) Homepage Journal

          I'd be delighted if they just debugged their Windows versions in Wine. Wine is a perfectly good piece of free software.

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday June 25 2018, @02:35PM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Monday June 25 2018, @02:35PM (#698134) Journal

          Libre Office is wonderful, and I use it for my own work - but the moment I need to collaborate with someone else - it's got to be MS Office - 90% compatibility just doesn't cut it when you're trying to get work done. And yeah,that one is totally the fault of MS and their intentional file format sabotage, but that doesn't let me get away from it (though I always savor the moments when I get to rescue old MS Office files using LO, since age or corruption has made them incompatible with MS Office's fragile file loader.

          Eh...I used to do that, but 95% of the time I'd jump through hoops to find some legitimate MS Office install that I could use, only to find that MS Office had *the exact same problems* with the file as LO did. So I gave up on even trying that. If a file loads weird in LO, it loads weird and I deal with it. MS Office users are generally used to those issues since, as you said, they have to deal with it often enough just loading files from different versions of Office. I've never once had a complaint. Although when possible I save in PDF, which eliminates all issues for static documents...last time I checked that isn't supported on MS Office without installing special printer drivers and "printing" to PDF...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @04:04AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @04:04AM (#697952)

      I've grudgingly used Windows for years, dabbling with Linux and BeOS on secondary machines, but when Microsoft forced Vista on us and Ballmer insisted that this was the future, take it or leave it, I bought a Mac. I expected it to be a half-hearted affair, but I was surprised to discover that I liked it. A lot. The system worked much more logically than Windows. OS X 11.6 sung on the hardware of the time. And then Apple started to bog it down and started tying an increasing number of aspects of the system to "the cloud". Unless they make some serious corrective actions with the hardware -- I'm not holding my breath -- I'll probably be shifting more seriously to Linux as my primary OS.

      There are still unsanded and sloppily-painted furnishings involved in the (honestly, far too numerous) Linux distros, but Microsoft has gone full-on malicious spyware with Win10 and doesn't bother doing any QA on updates anymore, just forces them out and waits to see what they break. Apple's hardware has gone to crap with everything soldered and glued into place, and their OS and applications are too tied to the mothership. BeOS is long gone and Haiku, lovely though it is, is a long way from being a usable primary OS. ReactOS looks promising -- I would happily embrace something XP-compatible that looked like Win2k -- but, like Haiku, is too far from being ready for prime time.

      <sigh> Too bad about BeOS. It held great promise. Too bad Microsoft were major dicks, threatening OEMs who considered Be's suggestion to the OEMs to ship their computers configured to dual-boot so people could try an alternative to Windows.

      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday June 25 2018, @01:56PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Monday June 25 2018, @01:56PM (#698118)

        Yeah, I don't know anyone that was actually happy with Vista. Seems like Apple missed a big opportunity to become a lot more relevant in the PC realm - though I suppose they were 5 years into the iPod phenomena at that point, and just releasing the first iPhone. so may have simply had other priorities. Their decline since then was sad to watch - they actually made pretty decent computers there for a while. And with the incredibly user-hostility of Win10 they have another opportunity - but it seems they're venturing in similar directions themselves.

        If you care about polish, I will reiterate that I've been pretty happy with Ubuntu's success there - things are mostly organized reasonably, work predictably, and look nice. On par with MacOS in many ways, and even easier in some. E.g. when setting up a new printer on Mac had to download and install the drivers and fiddle a bit - Ubuntu detected that the same printer had been plugged in, prompted for permission to download and install the appropriate drivers automatically, and then everything immediately worked beautifully.

        I haven't actually looked at recent versions of Ubuntu, transforming their Unity interface into something useful for a power user was enough of a hassle that I've only used 14.x and 16.x long-term releases. But with their return to proper Gnome I'm hopeful things will start moving in a more appealing direction again.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @10:57AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @10:57AM (#697503)

    Windows 10 came on my new laptop 2 years ago. I didn't want it. I wanted a machine with at least a decent I5 CPU and at least 16GB ram. So, I installed Ubuntu. It was a pain in the ass. Seriously. Even with my experience dual booting Windows and Linux in the past this was crappy. I found what I needed to do in a forum. Made the USB like it needed to be made, used Windows to make the UEFI change - which was galling but the easiest way to just get it working. Got Ubuntu working with the intention of booting into Windows if required. Perhaps putting Windows 7 on at some point. I've never used Windows 10 on this machine. It's there, sitting like a toad at the bottom of a pond. I thought I'd switch back to play games. It just never happened. Now I play games that run on Ubuntu.

    Soon I'll need to wipe this machine to update Ubuntu or replace it with something else. Ubuntu has been good to me. It works. Multi monitor support is good. Can plug the TV into it. NVidia card support blows, but I really should get off my ass and fix that with the new install and do it right the first time. Updating has caused problems but I think I've got it's quirks down now. Perhaps I'll try Mint next time or Devuan. Not Windows thought. I don't game like I used to. I can live without my Windows only software. The HP scanner works. VMs work well.

    I really like Windows. I do. Explorer is excellent. The Linux replacement's don't cut it yet, but they are getting better. Drive removal and install was better in Windows. Some things were better. Why did Microsoft have to screw it all up? Linux could have just been a hobby for me.

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday June 25 2018, @02:53PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Monday June 25 2018, @02:53PM (#698142) Journal

      Windows 10 came on my new laptop 2 years ago. I didn't want it. I wanted a machine with at least a decent I5 CPU and at least 16GB ram. So, I installed Ubuntu. It was a pain in the ass. Seriously. Even with my experience dual booting Windows and Linux in the past this was crappy.

      Yeah, the Ubuntu installer sucks. I thought Ubuntu would be a good choice when I was building a media center PC last year, but after a few issues with the installer (features I needed that simply weren't supported, and known bugs in default options that caused the entire install to crash every time) I ended up going with Fedora. Very happy with that choice. Fedora's got a great installer and it's a solid low-maintenance distro.

      I found what I needed to do in a forum. Made the USB like it needed to be made, used Windows to make the UEFI change - which was galling but the easiest way to just get it working.

      Oh...that sounds like it's just the usual issue that Windows doesn't come with proper system tools the way Linux does. All you really need is dd.

      I really like Windows. I do. Explorer is excellent. The Linux replacement's don't cut it yet, but they are getting better. Drive removal and install was better in Windows.

      This I'm curious about...I have no end of problems with Windows systems that won't detect or won't auto-mount drives. You know when you plug in a drive and Windows immediately says to just format the drive and wipe everything out? Usually those are still readable in Linux; often they're still readable in Windows too if you go into the drive manager and manually mount the thing. It's particularly common with SD cards IME. That doesn't happen in Linux -- I insert the drive, it pops right up in the file manager, and I use it. And when I'm done, I press eject and it's gone. And if not it actually explains why instead of just giving some generic "The operation failed" error message.