Problems with Windows 10 Anniversary Update continue

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If somebody knows how to turn off the crap app tiles in Win10 Pro, I’d sure like to know about it. InfoWorld Woody on Windows
[See the full post at: Problems with Windows 10 Anniversary Update continue]

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Hmm. Mine didn’t come back after I had right-clicked on them and either clicked “Uninstall” or “Unpin from Start” in the 1511 build.

However, I’m finding the Anniversary Update less stable than the previous final 1511 build. I found that Microsoft turned back on almost all of the privacy-issue causing telemetry that I specifically turned off in the previous build, and then, only showed some of that in the “Customize” feature for the upgrade. If I hadn’t drilled down into the settings, I’d have assumed I took care of the previous privacy issues (even if annoyingly, I had to do it again) but that isn’t true.

The UAC prompts now look like the “PC Settings” dialogue, or the new Win10 calendar; that is, they’re large and sloppy instead of neat and precise. I am very tempted to roll back on my work laptop, I set “Defer Upgrades” on my home laptop, and I’ll have to make the decision with my home workstation. But I feel like the Anniversary Update has less polish than the build I was running, and as such, I’m not impressed. Microsoft is doing itself no favors.

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Oh, and one has to add registry keys to turn Cortana off. That irritated me to no end.

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Yeah, same as Doug above I noticed that telemetry settings got changed back to the default.

That right there makes this update automatically a failure in my eyes. It was sneaky, and it’s a good thing that I always check settings after Microsoft updates its OS.

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Our company had a nicely tested GPO packaged that we pushed from any Domain Controller that used the previously “blessed” GP features that MS just killed in the Pro edition.

It’s broken now.

Still have not given up totally on trying to find a clean method, but I have a problem using any hack with our customer base since that may or may not work in the future, and may or may not cause serious problems with the system without warning.

What really needs to happen: We need to somehow convince MS to reverse their last minute decision to remove the Customer Experience control bits from Group Policy on Pro.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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Here, here….

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@ Doug “However, I’m finding the Anniversary Update less stable than the previous final 1511 build.”

I think this is “normal” to say so, as 1511 was already patched for about 6 months while 1607 is a new update which can be also designated as a Service Pack. Wait for few fixes until it becomes more stable.

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@NetDef You may find few registry keys working instead of Group Policies and push them via Group Policy Preferences. I know it is annoying, but the end result may be even cleaner than using true Group Policies.

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Hey… I just upgraded to Windows 7!

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We tried pushing the relevant reg-keys out instead of the GPO rules, no change in behavior. I was able to verify that the keys successfully propagated on workstation reboot. But the tiles still came back on our test machine when upgraded from an imaged 1511 to 1607. The reg keys were not changed during the upgrade.

Seems that Microsoft has truly locked out the ability to block Customer Experiences (aka crap-ware tiles in the start menu and apps list) on the Anniversary Edition Pro via supported methods.

Additionally, we think we’re seeing some very odd behavior with another reg-key policy that we’ve been using successfully for years. Still inconclusive until I finish more testing. That policy is one that blocks all EXE files from running from the “%username%%appdata%” folders – we’ve been using that to block unauthorized software from running without admin install permissions, and to mitigate the risk of ransom-ware. This policy method on the W10-Pro AE edition may be borked too . . . as someone was able to install Chrome and Dropbox into their profile without Admin rights.

Ugh . . .

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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You have chosen . . . wisely!

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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Hi, I updated the Win10 Anniversary Update last wed. I have already had 7 BSOD occour all saying the same thing;
Stop Code: SYSTEM THREAD EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED” and had to restart my machine!!

I’m thinking about backing back to 1511, if I do, will windows try to install the update again by its self?? If so can I stop it. (I’m using Home not Pro)

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For the Edge not shutting down – I’m surprised you haven’t tried Task Manager (right click the task bar..) Just look for the executable and kill it. That’s WAY easier than rebooting.

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congrats. I never downgraded to 10 in the first place

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First, unpin and uninstall (where possible) apps via Start. Next, either remove apps as outlined at technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/manage-connections-from-windows-operating-system-components-to-microsoft-services or simply grill all (non-OS) apps via PowerShell admin prompt. Just execute:

Get-AppxPackage | Foreach {Remove-AppxPackage -package $_.PackageFullName}

Note: All ‘errors’ showing up can be safely ignored (those ‘errors’ are just notifications that OS apps cannot be removed) and if any leftovers hang around, just run the command one more time.

In order to reinstall apps shipped with Win 10, get the package name using

(Get-AppxPackage).PackageFullName

or

(Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers).PackageFullName

and execute (replace *AppName* with the ‘PackageFullName’ returned)

Get-AppxPackage -Name *AppName* | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)AppXManifest.xml”}

or

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name *AppName* | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)AppXManifest.xml”}

depending on the location the package is stored.

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I’ll give that a try. I’ve completely re-installed my main test machine from scratch. Not sure when Edge will start acting up on me again – for now, I’m avoiding the endless advertising sites linked from msn.com.

Perhaps I should learn 35 more astonishing facts about “I Love Lucy” and that one trick for my work schedule that will make me a lot more productive.

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Yep, you can roll it back.

You can also block the upgrade, even on a Home machine, but I’m not clear exactly how to do it. Start here:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3053701/microsoft-windows/block-windows-10-forced-updates-without-breaking-your-machine-part-2.html

I don’t know how to use wushowhide to block the upgrade, but allow 1511 Cumulative Updates. It’d be an interesting experiment, if you want to try it!

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Holy moses. They’re serious about it.

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I have Internet Explorer 11, Firefox, and Chrome on my taskbar in Windows 10.

Edge has been hidden. There is no reason on this earth I’d use a browser that isn’t compatible half the time with websites I need to use. It’s the first time I found a browser irrelevant before I even started using it.

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@ch100 -That is one way to look at it, and it’s probably not an unreasonable way; but I don’t recall XP, Vista, or Windows 7 having those kinds of issues with their service packs (I do in a few other cases, like the famous Windows NT “getadmin” bug, later resolved in SP4).

I think I expect that while development timelines are highly parallelized now, that Microsoft would be better at merging in fixes to full builds, or, QA to resolve (as I know that sometimes an issue could be part of a completely new piece of code).

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Click the “Manage optional features” button at the very top of Settings->System->”Apps & features”. Some of these can be uninstalled, for example:
Contact Support 1.54 MB
English (United States) Retail Demo Content 358 MB
Microsoft Quick Assist 853 KB
Neutral Retail Demo Content 22.9 MB

Also OneDrive can be uninstalled from an admin command prompt:
%SystemRoot%SysWOW64OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

And in Settings->System->Storage click on “This PC (C:)”. From there, near the bottom, click on “Temporary Files”. That shows usage and lets you remove “Temporary Files”, Downloads, “Recycle Bin”, and “Previous version of Windows”. It also shows pending updates usage.

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Well, times have changed. And not for the better as it appears.

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Had not yet received the Anniversary Update as part of Windows Update, so downloaded it manually. On the plus side, Cortana was fixed and there were no serious issues. The downside was the time spent going through settings and configurations to see what got reverted and checking which new features or apps had settings enabled by default. So far needed to: re-enable restore points, reset privacy settings, confirm previously set group policy changes, investigate why I am automatically signing into Skype Preview (uninstalled the Skype Preview app to stop), investigate how to turn off notifications to try a trial version of Office 365 (uninstalled the Get Office app to stop), the setting to turn off device drivers using the following method (System Properties/Hardware/Device Installation Settings) is now missing the option to “Never install driver software from Windows Updates” If this option is needed it must be set in group policy, re-enable the feedback hub, re-add missing shortcuts to taskbar and tile start menu, and remove a new start-up item in Task Manager/Start-up.

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I haven’t heard that this no longer works, so I’ll post a simpler approach to uninstalling any and all UWP Windows 10 Apps:

Run CCleaner, and use the Uninstall item in the Tools Icon screen. This works much like the Programs and Features removal procedure we are all used to in Windows.

Then simply check off the apps to be removed. Click Apply and done is done. Even the Windows Store App itself can be removed in this way.

If this method does not remove the unwanted Microsoft forced downloads (Potentially Unwanted Apps or PUAs) from the Lock Screen, give a holler here so we can try something else.

Shout-out to How To Geek for the original tutorial on how to do this.

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I’m sure the full list of post-install Things To Do will eventually be posted here and at many other sites. Thanks for the heads-up on what you have found so far.

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The How-To Geek article from Chris Hoffman is a year old, but I think it’s still valid

http://www.howtogeek.com/224798/how-to-uninstall-windows-10s-built-in-apps-and-how-to-reinstall-them/

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