What to do if you got caught with a forced Windows 10 update

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I’ve had so many people ask me how to deal with their forced upgrade to Windows 10, that I figured I’d better put the bare bones here for all to see.
[See the full post at: What to do if you got caught with a forced Windows 10 update]

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Woody, I’ve built a few W-7 PCs in the last few months and none of them have shown any W-10 symptoms and I don’t run GWX Control Panel. I really have to think it’s because I have avoided all W-10 trash, including:

-KB3013531: Update to support copying .mkv files to Windows Phone
-KB617977 (I think): Universal C Runtime
-KB3118401: Update for Universal C Runtime
-all DTLS / Remote Desktop updates (and disabled in Control Panel)
-as well as the known W-10 and telemetry ones

If you read the description for KB3118401, you will see: “Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 creates a dependency on the Universal CRT when applications are built by using the Windows 10 Software Development Kit (SDK).” This sounds like yet another W-10 backdoor. I did not see this one listed in your malware list.

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“Note that rolling back does NOT protect you from Microsoft’s hell-bent march to turn your PC into a Windows 10 PC. The minute you get your machine rolled back” —- Doesn’t sound like it’s your machine at all. Seems to be Microsofts.

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JUST to let everyone know GO AND check the Win.Updates settings and go to the bottom where it says ( Privacy statement online) And you find M.S. has change it. You have to SAY NEVER for updates! If you have Win.7,8,8.1. Or the way I read it is when you do check for updates it will install drivers and other Win. products with out notification!I have gotten more help from my Bernina of America than anybody else. The Notebook I use Is stable so far.
Thanks,
Darcia J.

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Woody, I recall that several weeks ago you asked for reader comments about upgrading the Ask Woody web site. Well, sometimes sauce has to simmer before it becomes… sauce! I propose a new Category for the right-hand sidebar. “Stickies” would be a place for posts such as yours above that need to hang around longer than usual. Of course, you would have to cull the category occasionally but I doubt it would add significantly to your workload.

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I actually have the power to “stick” a post. I’m just not sure which posts to stick!

That’s why I’m following up the current spate of posts with a series of articles in InfoWorld. They tend to stick in peoples’ minds longer…

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Thanks for drawing my attention to this text, which I hadn’t read (incidentally, it doesn’t look like it’s changed since 2012).
Since the KB2952644 “virus” infected my computer I pretty much have my Windows Update turned right off to keep MS from installing things on my computer without my knowledge or consent. However, after reading the privacy statement I’m wondering whether some of those Required updates are really necessary and whether there is some way to get them later if I really need them. This whole updating thing is such a double-edged sword!

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“You have until July 29, 2016 to get your “free” upgrade to Windows 10. There’s no reason to feel pressured to move to Win10 now. Windows 7 will be supported until January 14, 2020; Windows 8.1 will be supported until January 10, 2023.”

Of course, that is qualified with if you don’t home-build/upgrade your PCs, and, like me, find yourself in the position where you need to upgrade your main board to fix a problem, and just about the only motherboards and CPUs you can find for reasonable cost out there are Skylake ones. You install one of those, and unless Microsoft clarifies things, will stop receiving updated after mid next year.

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As you say, it isn’t clear if all Skylake mobos will no longer receive updates for Win7 after next year.

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I agree that, as a casual reader, it feels to me that you use this blog to let topics percolate a bit and to solicit thoughts/experiences from readers, then you collate and summarize the most important things you are discovering/solving into your more-formal InfoWorld articles.

(I don’t do Twitter, so I didn’t mention it, but from your mentions of it, it seems that you use it quite a lot these days for “real time”, truncated thoughts and explorations.)

So: Maybe what you can “stick” on the side here is a hyperlinked list of your Infoworld articles, by title and date, as a handy resource for visitors to this blog.

And, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in a comment on this site, if you could do a box on the right-hand side here showing a Twitter feed of your recent tweets, I think that would be quite informative for visitors here.

Plus, you could include links at the end of your InfoWorld articles that point to this blog and to your Twitter feed, as a way to gather your fragmented audiences.

Just some suggestions.

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All good ideas. When the dust clears, I’ll see what can be done.

InfoWorld articles are listed at http://www.infoworld.com/blog/woody-on-windows/, which is the link on this page on the top right.

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Hi Woody
My wife had a new laptop HP something or other which shipped with win 10 and had a roll back option to win 7. It seemed ok at first and I thought maybe the naysayers were having their usual nothing new ever works but it appears to be the case. When I finally decided to roll it back the 30 days had elapsed and the option had magically disappeared.
10 is not being updated (we’ll call it that for ease) but has a new identity each time, MS have been forced to reinstate Redmond as a platform for app developers, and issues with office 365 led me to spend 3 hours on their chat line with 2 reinstalls and an hour on the phone to a nice Indian chap sorting out an issue caused by March 9th win 10 updates. Even one of the MSFT guys said to unistall the updates but then he didn’t realise that opting to be told a restart is necessary doesn’t stop it reinstalling!
The need to hide updates seems to be more necessary than ever now that the old update system has been replaced with a fixed for death auto updating nightmare

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Here, here.

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It’s reports like this post which make me glad I live near a bricks and mortar Microsoft Store. If it’s an updates issue, their techs will solve the problem for free, evenif the OS has to be reinstalled. For those not living near a Mmicrosoft retail Store, my sympathies are with you all.

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