Windows 10

[rong]

i can't wait for the day that i get paid cash money every time my phone spyware hears me recommend soylent* to my friends in real life



*or coke or WD40 or whatever my phone tells me my friend is thinking about buying

[Pergamos]

I use windows 10 because I mostly use my computer for playing games and windows, specifically the latest edition, is generally the best for games.  It bothered me today because last ight I told it to update and shut down,  I turned it on this morning to discover that it had to spend an hour updating.  Why it did not do this before it shut down for the night I do not know.

[Doktor Howl]

I use windows 10 because I mostly use my computer for playing games and windows, specifically the latest edition, is generally the best for games.  It bothered me today because last ight I told it to update and shut down,  I turned it on this morning to discover that it had to spend an hour updating.  Why it did not do this before it shut down for the night I do not know.

The updates usually require you to turn the machine back on.  So update in the evening, and turn the machine back on before you go to bed.  In the morning, it will be done and all the new embedded ads and spyware will be properly in place.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Ok, so now I've disabled not only windows update but also update orchestrator and changed them both to log in as "guest" and also deleted all windows update and update orchestrator related tasks in the task scheduler. Hopefully this will keep the damn thing off

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

It keeps reenabling itself.

Does anybody know what ports it connects over? Maybe I can block it with a third party firewall.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

It's sort of funny, everyone doing everything they can to kill off Windows Update, and at work all day I've been banging my head against a brick wall trying to get the damn thing to work. I've got 150 endpoints that absolutely *refuse* to update, or at least to install the updates I want them to install.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

I wonder if an exorcism would help

[POFP]

It keeps reenabling itself.

Does anybody know what ports it connects over? Maybe I can block it with a third party firewall.

I'd check this out. Probably won't be able to block it by firewall, since it's over HTTP and HTTPS.

You could probably set up a system proxy script for IE that routes all traffic to the Windows Update Servers listed in the link straight to 127.0.0.1 or some equally useless IP/Host. If you wanna use a local proxy script for that, you'll have to enable IE Legacy Features (Warning, may introduce one or two very old and outdated vulnerabilities that no one ever uses anymore) with the below command:

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" /v EnableLegacyAutoProxyFeatures /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Proxy Script language is pretty easy if I remember correctly, too. Based off of another one that's really common, but I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment.

It's sort of funny, everyone doing everything they can to kill off Windows Update, and at work all day I've been banging my head against a brick wall trying to get the damn thing to work. I've got 150 endpoints that absolutely *refuse* to update, or at least to install the updates I want them to install.

I would say the above may be relevant to you as well, but I suspect you've probably already tried everything firewall related.

You pushing these updates via SCCM and Active Directory or with a combination of WSUS and SCCM?

[Cain]

I have good news from technical support about your problem!

[POFP]

I have good news from technical support about your problem!

 

[trix]

I can't wrap my head around why some folks think going to this insane effort to disable large portions of the built-in spyware and crap, which is unlikely to actually work, is better than simply avoiding this shitshow of an operating system?

I mean if your job specifically requires Windows 10 that's one thing, but if you have a choice, and dislike the crap enough to go to all that trouble, there's a really really easy way to avoid it altogether.

[Faust]

It depends on what you are using your machine for. Gaming still hasn't got the support they should on Linux. But for the average person using a laptop to browse the net and write documents it should be encouraged more. Hardware DLLs for my hobbiest stuff are poorly supported also. At work I use windows 10 primarily for visual studio, and a Kali Linux build for network tests, though I am sure I am not using that right.

Then there's mac, with the worst of both worlds; restrictive OS that doesn't support a lot of stuff, with the tentacles of a massive company looking to suck out your data.

[Cain]

The only thing I will say in favour of Windows 10 is that when members of the Skyrim modding community reached out to them, over something that was putting an artificial cap on available VRAM on Windows 10 machines, they actually listened to the problem, rolled out a fix, included the fix in a bunch of beta updates before general release so they could get feedback on how it worked, fixed an issue with the original patch and then released it sometime last year.  They were super-communicative throughout the process and seemed genuinely interested in being able to help.

Not a big fan of MS, especially after they pushed me to upgrade against my will, but that won them back a little goodwill from me.  Not a lot, but a little.

Now if the rest of MS actually listened to consumer concerns like that, they might actually get people's respect.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

I know I said yoink a long time ago but here's a thing

[axod]

I know I said yoink a long time ago but here's a thing

Takeaway: everyone reading this should open an exit node, and, only boot virtual on non state-sponsored OSs. The latter condition currently precludes tor, so.