-
-
“C’mon little piggy,” said the shark swimming in the big data pool, “jump right in. I won’t byte ya. I just wanna hear you squeal!”
Well I took the plunge into the murky waters of the Creators Update 1703. The only fecal matter that stuck this time through the wormhole was some new app dreck. “Mixed Reality Portal”, “Paint 3D”, and “View 3D” apps showed up, and as usual, not removable through normal means. I haven’t bothered to take the time to forcibly remove them yet. Interestingly the Start Menu pane survived unchanged and the apps I had been able to forcibly remove didn’t make a reappearance in its app list which only had “Connect” and “Cortana” spoiling things.
I had disconnected from the Internet, sewer that it is, before allowing the update proceed and ended up making a couple of notable changes before I went back on line (yeah I had physically disconnected the internet cable from the computer). Which means I have again disabled “Connected User Experiences and Telemetry”, “Windows Search”, “Geolocation Service”, “Network Connection Broker”, “Connected Devices Platform Service” and all the services in the UnistackSvcGroup since nothing I use is part of the IoT. A few new privacy settings needed switching off as well.
I also changed the “ContentDeliveryAllowed”, a setting I had created and set to zero, back to zero under the registry key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager] “FeatureManagementEnabled”=dword:00000000 “SilentInstalledAppsEnabled”=dword:00000000 “SoftLandingEnabled”=dword:00000000 “SubscribedContentEnabled”=dword:00000000 “OemPreInstalledAppsEnabled”=dword:00000000 “PreInstalledAppsEnabled”=dword:00000000 “RotatingLockScreenEnabled”=dword:00000000 “RotatingLockScreenOverlayEnabled”=dword:00000000 “SystemPaneSuggestionsEnabled”=dword:00000000 “RotatingLockScreenOverlayVisible”=dword:00000000 “ContentDeliveryAllowed”=dword:00000000
All the rest I had ensured were set to zero long ago were still zero there as well as under the registry key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager\SuggestedApps] “9E2F88E3.Twitter_wgeqdkkx372wm”=dword:00000000 “AdobeSystemsIncorporated.AdobePhotoshopExpress_ynb6jyjzte8ga”=dword:00000000 “Flipboard.Flipboard_3f5azkryzdbc4″=dword:00000000 “king.com.CandyCrushSodaSaga_kgqvnymyfvs32″=dword:00000000 “Microsoft.MinecraftUWP_8wekyb3d8bbwe”=dword:00000000
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Looks like Microsoft is relying far too much on the infinite monkey theorem. Firstly to produce their patches and secondly, rather than following a reliable QA process involving regression testing, they’re using the whole world to see if those patches work. Come on Microsoft, replace your leadership with AI–it has got to be better than what you have now!
Given an infinite length of time, a chimpanzee punching at random on a typewriter would almost surely type out all of Shakespeare’s plays. So why would that not work to produce a working patch? Hint–they are much too slow!
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB -
Update–I hooked the dwindle test system to the internet–both Edge and IE11 both work fine. However–both Windows Update and Windows Defender are not able to update–a class is not registered error 0x80040154–I will have to look into that later. NTLite showed about 5 different possible settings for “Delivery Optimization” among them WSUS, HTML, and BITS. I had left it at default. Possibly changing whatever setting that is will do the trick.
Right now I’m going to have to deal with the Microsoft 1703 whale that just beached itself on my system at long last. No I don’t bother to use wushowhide. Network status says it used about 7 GB doing so. A “DIR /A /S C:\$WINDOWS.~BT|clip” pasted into notepad shows at the end “19164 File(s) 9,236,233,492 bytes” and “11059 Dir(s) 56,714,641,408 bytes free”. Since it’s already there complete with patches, I’ll let it install while it’s offline and try my luck neutering it before I go back online. I want see what the effect of zeroing the various settings under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager has on preventing useless apps from installing in the first place.
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB1 user thanked author for this post.
-
So yes, I just tried out NTLite in its free incarnation last night, and with wild abandon, gleefully, shockingly trimmed away large swaths of Windows 10 code bloat (and yes the image of a cowboy straddling a bucking bronco, one hand hanging onto to the saddle, the other waving his hat is very appropriate). So bottom line, yes it does install, boot and run just fine afterwards–although do please note I haven’t yet even connected that test system to the internet.
Certain caveats, as always do apply. First off, I did indeed flush the entire metro apps core, and I mean all of it. And as expected, the start menu is indeed not at all functional (clicking it shows an unresponsive version of what I had under 1607). But then I’ve already not been using the start menu for quite some time anyway except for two things: sleep/shutdown/restart and settings. Low and behold, for sleep/shutdown/restart CTRL-ALT-DEL brings up a screen with (|) in the lower right corner which when clicked gives exactly those same options. And guess what, settings still works! Just right click on the desktop and choose at the bottom Personalize. That brings up settings, which when you click the (gear) Home area in the upper left takes you to the full swath of settings categories.
Typing “control” into a command window, power shell, (Windows button)R, or TaskManager>File>”Run new task” will bring up the control panel. Likewise, if you are comming at this completely cold (command window (“cmd”), “powershell”, “explorer” not pinned to the task bar), type those likewise into any of those to bring them up and then pin them to the taskbar. Note that you can also pin both settings and control panel to the taskbar. Also note that TaskManager appears on the CTRL-ALT-DEL screen. So, if like me, you just like to terminate the explorer process just to see what happens, you can run it again using CTRL-ALT-DEL:TaskManager>File>”Run new task”.
Also, I left Edge and IE11 in when I trimmed the bloat last night just see if they still run without the metro app core. And yes they do as far as I can tell without connecting to the internet.
So real I’m a really happy camper so far. Only time will tell if I’ve mortally wounded Windows 10 in some way or other. Smash windows? Diminished windows? Nah, how about dwindles for a cute name? Just free associating…
So what did I do? Got the NTLite 64-bit version, clicked the 1703 Windows 10 (Pro and Home) 64-bit ISO media I already had used before to mount it (for me shows as E:\ “CCSA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV5”), create a folder, drag-copy the contents of the mounted ISO media into that folder, run NTLite, add that folder to the source choices in NTLite, load the Windows 10 Pro wim from under that folder, on the NTLite Taskbar click the Compatibility button in the upper left, uncheck what I wrote earlier and then close it, uncheck the Components>Windows>APPS and more–I ended up tossing 52 components in all; 10K files/1 GB or so, click Apply to see a summary–note I did not check “Create ISO”, finally, on the NTLite Taskbar click Process to get the ball rolling.
Whew, after all that, only the sources\install.wim in that folder gets changed. I clicked setup.exe in that folder to install the newly minted setup. I ignored it for about an hour (read a book for a while–my system is quiet–so I can’t hear it–but I did check to see that the disk access had stopped flickering) and moved the mouse to wake the display to see “Welcome to Windows 10!” displayed. Then Next … Choose Privacy Settings (yeah–set all to off/basic to the left) … Accept … wait … 12:13 AM Fri July 28 over the rice paddies image I had before and then login. Note that I’m blessed to have a plain vanilla circa 2010 HP system which runs just fine with the generic Microsoft drivers.
As to the free NTLite, note that the items in blue text are unchangeable when used in the free/unlicensed mode. Offhand I didn’t need any of those. I could easily have also scrubbed Edge and IE11, had I so desired. I did also change nearly all of the Settings>User (mostly privacy related) to disabled. The Windows Update and/or Windows Defender system components can also be scrubbed should that ever be desired–you’d have to very carefully administer a system with those missing. I also disabled the “Connected User Experiences and Telemetry” service from inside NTLite as well since I now normally do that under the current version 1607 as well. The test system was running an up-to-date version of 1607 Windows 10 Pro at the time I did this. I may roll back and redo this again with even more components scrubbed and services disabled if I feel up to it. There were things I didn’t grok that I might toss if I can figure just what they are. I did toss the Holo* and Office related components already.
Oops…looks like I just ran out of time…hey thanks for the heads up Woody!
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB3 users thanked author for this post.
-
Looks like it’s time for me to go ahead and try out the free NTLite v1.3.1.5060 version to create some really striped down custom 1703 ISO media before that happens. Let’s see, under Remove in Components, click Compatibility button in the upper left, uncheck: Core Metro services, Cortana, Microsoft Office, Out-of-box Experience, Printing, Recommended. That way NTLite will let me toss a whole lot of components…yeah let’s see now…whistle a happy tune
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Gee that takes all the fun out of playing hide and seek…
Perhaps this will be the new normal for the future where your identity will depend on knowing precisely where and what position you are in. Along with all the other pertinent information such as heartbeat, metabolism, hormone levels–think FitBit on steroids. Oh the nanny state–think full on Person of Interest! Imagine the all the possibilities for apps to constantly monitor and record every second of your miserable life even when you’re off the grid. An advertiser’s dream to be able to precisely gauge your reaction to ads–and when and where best to hit you over the head with them. You’ll just be a rat in the maze for them to manipulate. Then there’s the potential for AIs to mimic all this too since you’ll be so predicable–and thus allow predators to get you into trouble you’d never have dreamed of. No where to run or hide. Completely vulnerable. You’ll be so stressed-out and those nightmares won’t let you sleep either. Just imagine the neuroses you’ll develop–and the chance for treatments for them to be sold to you. Naturally for the most unlucky few(?) their details will be splashed across the networks–and the opportunity for Experian to sell you a service to notify you when that happens. Just think–you won’t have to update Facebook page–it will be done for you–your whole life will be on display, play-by-play. As the crescendo builds, are you really wound-up tight now? Remember what you’re opting into whether you like it or not.
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB -
-
Just today there was this:
Microsoft: 500M Windows 10 devices, half of 2018 goal
SEATTLE (AP) — Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella says a half billion devices are now running Windows 10, its latest operating system. That’s up from 400 million disclosed last September, but far short of a goal of 1 billion by 2018.
Five days ago there was also this:
Windows 10 now has over 300 million daily active users
Microsoft’s CVP of Windows of Devices Group Yusuf Medhi just shared a more accurate metric in a recent interview with Bloomberg Tech:
“Windows 10 has been doing great. It’s been many months since we reported we had over 400 million monthly active users. 300 million+ use it every day for 3 and a half hours. It’s the fastest adoption in corporation we’ve ever seen, and we’re seeing great deployment on that. We couldn’t be more thrilled with the progress on Windows.”
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I wish that I would get as much detail as you – “EyesOnWindows” – get. Are you on Win10, Win10 Pro or Win10 Enterprise or something else?
I’m running Windows 10 Pro (just changed my signature to reflect that).
From the Start Menu, in the lower left, choose
Settings (Gear icon) > Update & security > Windows Update
then click on “Update history”.
I just typed in the first three entries as shown above. The last entry should have started with “Update for” (my typo).The 30 last entries in mine are (one of latest patch opera sagas):
Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 for x64-based Systems (KB4015438) Failed to install on 4/8/2017
Running “WMIC qfe list” in a command prompt lists only the last installation KB3150513 on 5/5/2017.
I see other patches KB3176936 installed on 8/23/2016 thru KB4015217 installed on 4/12/2017 suggesting that the earliest version of this patch predates 8/23/2016.Opening %windir%\WindowsUpdate.log shows:
Please run the Get-WindowsUpdateLog PowerShell command to convert ETW traces into a readable WindowsUpdate.log.
When I do that I get WindowsUpdate.log written to the Desktop. Among other things it only contains those last three entries for KB3150513, nothing older.
Here I’ve hacked the contents of that log down to the essentials for KB3176936:
2017/04/22 http://au.download.windowsupdate.com/c/msdownload/update/software/updt/2017/04/windows10.0-kb3150513-x64-express_407fcd84879fed4cd904b9a234aaf3f0433f2b14.cab 2017/04/22 CBS package identity: Package_for_KB3150513~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.1.8 2017/05/01 http://au.download.windowsupdate.com/c/msdownload/update/software/updt/2017/05/windows10.0-kb3150513-x64-express_d956cd1711d244b95779db4dc23d9db56e8af8ee.cab 2017/05/01 CBS package identity: Package_for_KB3150513~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.1.9 2017/05/05 http://au.download.windowsupdate.com/c/msdownload/update/software/updt/2017/05/windows10.0-kb3150513-x64-express_4a1a135808f1594c6010c58d325fc0e3fae85e9a.cab 2017/05/05 CBS package identity: Package_for_KB3150513~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.1.10
As you can see the last three entries correspond to versions 8, 9 and 10 of KB3150513.
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB -
-
-
I might try uninstalling the ‘device’ in Device Manager, but I think that will cause an error in Device Manager (missing driver), so will probably just leave it uninstalled until Intell and or Dell come up with a BIOS fix, although, since this is a rather old system, Dell might not ever come up with a new BIOS for it.
On my systems I solved the “missing driver” driver problem (on Windows 10) with the the null driver offered by Windows Update in Windows 7. Here’s a link to that file: 4892_ad61ee225535c6e58fcb15a5bb92f778f1a1c606.cab.
The particulars of the contents of the cabinet file and the info file itself are:
11/09/2011 02:40 AM 7,077 mgmt.cat
11/04/2011 09:48 PM 1,261 MGMT_4.inf;Null Driver for Intel(R) Management Engine Interface
[Manufacturer]
%ProviderName%=ManagementDriver,NTamd64.6.1,NTx86.6.1[ManagementDriver.NTamd64.6.1]
%DeviceName%=ManagementDriver64_61_Install,PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2E17
%DeviceName%=ManagementDriver64_61_Install,PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B67
%DeviceName%=ManagementDriver64_61_Install,PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2E14[ManagementDriver.NTx86.6.1]
%DeviceName%=ManagementDriver32_61_Install,PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2E17
%DeviceName%=ManagementDriver32_61_Install,PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B67
%DeviceName%=ManagementDriver32_61_Install,PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2E14Of course it only installs if your hardware matches what is shown here.
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB1 user thanked author for this post.
-
This campaign to lock Windows 10 onto new hardware is aimed squarely at the entrenched enterprises which will continue to put Windows 7 (since they have volume licenses) on any new systems they purchase and then turn around and continue to buy extended support contracts well beyond the EOL date all the while refusing to buy into Windows 10. Doing that is what will cost Microsoft money in terms of unrecoverable support overhead costs and future sales. So what Microsoft is doing attempts to force those enterprises to stop doing that and leave Windows 10 on those new systems and in so doing bring older systems along.
Companys can and certainly do ignore what Microsoft has to say when it come to what OS they must use. Many enterprises have equipment rolled out to the factory floor running custom software that would rather fight than switch. Others simply don’t see any profit in retooling and then having to retrain their employees. As an extreme example of a current situation, I have had a grocery store employee tell me that their self-checkout kiosk systems display the Windows 95 logo when they boot up. Somehow I would not be surprised to find out that those might be 16-bit systems connected by serial cables.
What is perceived as “fud” (fear, uncertainty, distrust) in relationship to Microsoft by experimentalist Windows 7 users is just an unfortunate side effect of this campaign. In Microsoft’s view such users are just an insignificant nuisance to be utterly disregarded–you can be certain that Microsoft is not bothering to go out of its way to do this to them. Those users are not a source of income, just fodder for testing and advertising like all the other users. We’ve certainly come along way from where people camped out overnight and waited in long lines to buy Windows 95 and then end up spend even more on Microsoft’s various Office products!
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB -
Well if you look at the Desktop Top Operating System Share Trend you might be forgiven if you concluded that–statistically speaking–the situation has flat-lined for the past year with Windows 7 at 50% and Windows 10 at 25%.
HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB1 user thanked author for this post.
Author
