Wow. Microsoft really got my goat this time. 

So, I come home and my partner tells me that her Win7 PC is broken. It's a fairly fast PC and we haven't had any problems so far. She put it to sleep in the afternoon but it just got stuck in limbo for several hours, where the monitors shut down but the fans and the PC were still going. Moving the mouse or typing on the keyboard (e.g. CTRL+ALT+delete) did nothing. The machine was unresponsive.

Eventually I decided to restart it by holding down the power button. But when it restarted, instead of the "Windows wasn't shut down properly, would you like to restart it in Safe mode etc.," nothing happened. The fan came on, but the monitors just went to sleep, as if there was no signal. It looked like the restart didn't do the trick. So I force-shut it down again, but this time I also shut off the power supply, and then pressed the power button while it was off. Then I switched the electricity back on, and booted it.

The PC came on, but Windows refused to load. Instead, there was just a cursor blinking in the top left corner, as if there was no OS recognised. But during boot I didn't see the other boot options, such as enter BIOS etc. After a while the monitors went to sleep, as if there was no signal. I left it like that for some time, as nothing was happening. When I moved the mouse next time, suddenly the monitors woke up, and there was a rather unresponsive mouse pointer against a blank background, and nothing else for a while. When I left it for a while and came back, I caught Windows desktop coming on, but without the prompt for logging on. As if it had just restored itself after hibernation, even though it was forcefully shut off several times. The PC was also being very sluggish at this point.

I looked into Reliability History but I couldn't spot anything terribly unusual. After poking about I decided to uninstall Copernic, as it's been crashing regularly for a while, thinking it might be the culprit. I also decided to uninstall AVG, as that was the only software in Reliability History that was updated today. But before I could uninstall AVG, Windows gave a message, saying some Windows updates have been installed and the PC needs to be restarted.

So, I dutifully restarted the system, and then checked what was this Windows update that has just been installed, especially as I had it set to just download but not install. And this is what greeted me:

 

So could it be that this is why the PC was behaving so oddly? For the whole time this massive 2.8GB file was being downloaded and set up somehow? Probably my partner was putting the PC to sleep just as this massive thing was doing something in the background.

When I looked into the Windows Update window, I was even more incensed. This is what I found.



This looks really insidious to me. It makes it look like the Win10 installation is nothing more than a usual optional update. It even had the box ticked automatically for it. My partner is not very computer-savvy, so she could have just clicked OK on this 'optional update', as it's called there.

This is beyond the pale in my view. This is trying to trick not too savvy users to upgrade to Win10 even without them realising that that is what they are doing. This is completely counterproductive as far as I am concerned. It is exactly because of this practice that I will never ever upgrade any of my devices to Windows 10 as long as I can avoid it.

Currently I am too lazy too look it up, but I think it was here on this forum where I read that even if a Windows 7 user indicated that an update to Windows 10 is not desired, MS still pushes out the files for that upgrade (?), because in their mind your 'NO!' means 'maybe later' and still pushes it onto your system, so you can start immediately when you change your mind...

So I am with Miles. Windows updates are applied at my behest, not MS. Meaning I test updates before I deploy, so my systems won't f.ck up. In this regard my track record is much better than that of MS.

...why I always disable updates.

Yeah, I have to start doing that... Thanks.

In this regard my track record is much better than that of MS.

That's a good one! 

there were options discussed in a Windows 10 Privacy thread -- how to block certain updates using a script. This post was about Windows 7 -- following posts may also be helpful!

Thanks for that, I'll have to look into it. I want to remove all these Win10 files and updates. The problem is that MS is making me spending my time doing things I didn't want to spend time on. Why couldn't they just leave me alone? They are turning me from a happy Win7 customer (I just bought a Win7 laptop a few weeks ago) into a grumpy one... I must not be the only one...

     

Big Microsoft Trade-In Deal Gets Users Windows 10 For Less               

With the preceding uproar still in mind, is anyone interested in this offer?

Big Microsoft Trade-In Deal Gets Users Windows 10 For Less

With the preceding uproar still in mind, is anyone interested in this offer?

I was seriously considering it when I thought I could trade in my aging netbook. But though it doesn't seem that there are too many limitations on what they'll accept, mine doesn't seem to qualify. My netbook has a 10" screen, but they accept only a minimum of 11.3" for laptops.

Quote from: MilesAhead on October 12, 2015, 10:48 PM

@dr_andus the type of anguish you describe is why I always disable updates.

Apparently disabling the updates may not even do the trick anymore, Win10 installation will still download:

Windows users report Windows 10 upgrades are enforced on their systems - gHacks Tech News

Just imagine how much fun it will be when everything runs on The Cloud(tm).

MS' acknowledgement of this back-firing behavior...

Thanks. I wonder how much of this 'mistake' is due to someone lower down the chain of command being creative under the tremendous pressure of entire MS management coming down on them like a ton of bricks to install Win10 on 1 billion devices in 2 years...

if achievement of that goal is not going as well as they expected, I wouldn't be surprised if the 1-year free upgrade window might be extended or even permanently removed.

You may well have hit the nail on the head there. Irrational (you used the euphemism "creative") behaviours induced by fear and panic

Especially with all the restructuring in Redmond this likely has a few orders of magnitude more impact than average.  Everybody is sweating the chop. 

To get rid off the Windows 10 annoyances...

It would be nice to have a simple tool like that but there just isn't enough information on that site for me to put my trust into that provider.

I don't have a problem with them advertising or requiring an email in exchange for the free tool, but I'd just like to be sure this is not doing something sinister in the background or messing up my machine in some other unintended ways.

P.S. BTW, this is by no means to suggest that I don't trust your judgement, Shades, your contributions and help are much appreciated  I was just wondering if you have more info about the trustworthiness of this tool...

Windows 10 Free Upgrade Rules Change, Surface Book Vs MacBook Pro And OEM Tensions

that link redirects to a blank page: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/

Anyone know how the "Windows 10 Free Upgrade Rules Change" ?

Every Tueday there will be a new countermeasure.  Every Friday the turn off tool will be, shall we say, Updated?  Heh heh heh

...and on the days in between...use another OS or take a break