Microsoft embeds nagware into IE patch

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-embeds-nagware-into-ie-patch-2016-3?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

by coloneltcb • 10 years ago

120 138 10 years ago

ewzimm2• 10 years ago

Except they just redefined nagware, which is usually Shareware that keeps asking for money. This is just more offers for a free upgrade before they start charging.

kevingadd• 10 years ago

Their bizdev people have totally botched the Win10 rollout with bad marketing and silent forced updates, but it'll still be nasty if we end up with a bunch of people on Win7 past its EOL who could've been getting free OS updates instead. Newer kernel and user-mode means newer security features, and for app developers it's nice to not have to keep supporting builds of Windows from over a decade ago.

I just wish they got their act together so it was easier to get people onto W10 without them (rightly!) freaking out because it broke some of their apps or it keeps rebooting overnight and losing their files.

Someone1234• 10 years ago

Mark my words: Windows 10 will be a free upgrade forever.

They only placed a one year time limit on it in order to increase early adoption. They will no doubt "extend" the period right before its end due to "overwhelming popularity" and then extend it indefinitely after the buzz from the first extension has worn off.

For Microsoft's current strategy it doesn't make sense to leave even a single user on Windows 7, 8, or 8.1. They need everyone on Windows 10, and further still the number of people who, missing the free period, will pay to upgrade to 10 is going to be miniscule.

I might be wrong, but I don't think I am. It is just more compatible with Microsoft's strategy.

x1798DE2• 10 years ago

I think many of us have no intention of installing Windows 10 ever. I certainly wouldn't do it even if the price for the upgrade were negative.

userbinator4• 10 years ago

Newer kernel and user-mode means newer security features

From what I've seen, they seem to be more of the user-hostile, "treat the user like an idiot" security features. MS could've kept patching all the remotely exploitable Win7 (or even XP) bugs, and eventually approach some sort of reasonable stability.

Instead they decide to rewrite most of it --- probably introducing an unknown number of new vulnerabilities --- add spyware and mess with the UI, all so they can force users into "cloud services" and monetise them.

Really, I would like the old MS to return --- despite being not as open or friendly towards open-source, the one that treated users like actual users and not "consumers".

taneq2• 10 years ago

It's not an upgrade.

calciphus• 10 years ago

But when OSX does this or nags me to switch from Chrome to Safari, it's a "feature", right?

colejohnson662• 10 years ago

Even as an Apple "fanboy", I can't see how that's a "feature" in any sense of the word

skywhopper• 10 years ago

I guess I missed this part, except where every browser nags you to set it as the default.

koenigdavidmj• 10 years ago

As a global notification even when Safari is not visibly running?

curt15• 10 years ago

This http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/153379/disable-try-...

Grue3• 10 years ago

Not that Google doesn't constantly nag to switch to Chrome as well.

owly• 10 years ago

This ensuring that everyone will use Chrome.

ocdtrekkie4• 10 years ago

You know how much Google nags about Chrome? When I signed into Gmail on a different computer, I got an EMAIL telling me Gmail is better on Chrome AND a blue nag bar at the top of Gmail asking me to download Chrome. And any time I sign into a new computer, I will get both nags.

TrevorJ5• 10 years ago

I've used Gmail on 4+ machines in a variety of browsers and have never ever seen that. You must be in the darkest A/B test timeline.

sridharpoduri• 10 years ago

I see this regularly too irrespective on browser/OS I use. I have been nagged on IE/Edge/Windows and Safari/OSX

reitanqild• 10 years ago

Especially annoying when I use Firefox and they lie through their teeth about Chrome being better.

(Yes, I know I know I know, opinions. But still FF has TST while Chrome has not, as well as almost any other feature except sending every last keystroke to Google.)

And I say this as a heavy user of google (still), as someone who has defended Google+ here (ducks), -and I'd even go so far as to say I've been a fanboy until a couple of years ago.

If anyone from Google reads this: Please, please, please ask management to stop this. We don't need another browser monoculture where web designers think it is OK to design only for Chrome like they did during IEs reign.

acqq9• 10 years ago

I have a valid reason not wanting to upgrade: I've tried (after the messages that suggested "It will work we promise") and it doesn't work on my machine: turns out the WiFi card on my notebook is not supported by either Intel or Microsoft for Windows 10, and if Windows 10 is running it becomes horribly unstable (hardware interrupts are wrongly interpreted or handled).

After trying to revert to Windows 7, it wasn't fully recovered (the scheduled tasks, created by Windows, remained corrupted). So I had to restore Windows 7 from my backup. But it seems iTunes remain confused ("can't sync due to unknown error") as apparently some permissions in user directories remain different than initially even now?

So I've added some registry entries which were supposed to mean "I don't want Windows 10." And I've hidden the updates that install "Get Windows 10."

Yet not only the Update tries to install the "Get Windows 10" every month (un-hiding the updates without me!), the updates last for hours (the famous svchost looping in some unnecessary checking of something that doesn't have to be checked almost infinite number of times).

(Unfortunately Linux isn't working optimally on the notebook either, making the touchpad unusable and not handling the vendor Fn keys.)

Now I know that the nags came with the security patch of IE, which means that I can't even avoid it if I want to have security updates installed. Horrible. How is then that the nag doesn't happen for business users if it's a part of the security patch?

nopreserveroot• 10 years ago

What's the make/model? I overcame my hatred of broadcom wireless cards thanks to some command line wizardry.

acqq9• 10 years ago

You mean in Linux? Linux has problem with the touchpad and the keyboard, not with the WiFi card. The touchpad kind-of-works but somehow interprets the movements wrong, "micro-jerky" (like if some noise were added to the reading of the coordinates) in some way that the changes of the touchpad parameters that I have found I can change don't affect.

It's Microsoft and Intel that don't support the WiFi card, and I can't find the replacement that I can put in the full-size space in the notebook. There are extenders available to support the more modern (supported) half-size cards, but these adapters don't solve the problem of too short antenna cables.

dustinupdyke• 10 years ago

Win 10 gives me an onslaught of driver blue screens. I don't have time to investigate these, so I'm happy to stay on 8.1 for now. It's hard to not be annoyed in being asked to upgrade into something I already know does not work.

niels_olson• 10 years ago

Win10 has been quite stable in VirtualBox on my MacBook. Maybe they should give up on hardware :)

bitL• 10 years ago

Do what many reasonable folks did - turn off windows updates and install Linux Mint alongside for everything that can be done outside Windows. Microsoft makes it not worth it to care anymore...

It's appalling to see how Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot...

viraptor4• 10 years ago

That's a terrible advice IMO. You can do the other things of course, but don't turn your windows updates off. It's still better to get a nag screen than to get your machine owned by random malware, just because you didn't apply known/available security patches.

Silhouette7• 10 years ago

Now I know that the nags came with the security patch of IE, which means that I can't even avoid it if I want to have security updates installed. Horrible. How is then that the nag doesn't happen for business users if it's a part of the security patch?

I submitted another related article (and posted a summary) with more emphasis on the specifics, including when this nag does and doesn't appear to be showing up:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11261438

While I'm here, I'll add my voice to the chorus of people who think they're crazy to include not just non-security but clearly not-even-important functionality in a bundled security update. That was a line they should never have crossed, and it's going to cost them much of whatever trust they had left after the earlier GWX unpleasantness and the questionable practices of Windows 10 itself.

Edit: In fact, this Business Insider article seems to be a thin wrapper for the more detailed Infoworld one I submitted before, which is here:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042155/microsoft-windows/w...

acqq9• 10 years ago

Domain attachment as the nag/don't nag flag in fantastically stupid. In my previous company we had very good reason to have more Windows computers not on domain (and I'm not going to elaborate them, please don't ask, but domain is just one specific usage pattern).

Survey_Sez• 10 years ago

Buisness users will not see the nag because computers joined to a domain are excluded.

stephengillie2• 10 years ago

Not sure about this. Windows Enterprise was never sent the nagware bits. I use Win8.0 Enterprise at home (MSDN) and it's never asked me once. I tried to manually upgrade to 10 and it refused. One PC has never been domain joined.

So it might be the fact that it's the Enterprise version of the OS, not the domain join.

kyriakos• 10 years ago

Which wifi adapter are you using? Mine wasn't "supported" but I did get it to work (5 year old laptop)

acqq9• 10 years ago

Intel 4xxx. I've spent enough energy trying, turning off the features didn't help. If the "to full size" extenders would have antenna cable extensions too I'd put something newer, but I don't know of such product.

giancarlostoro2• 10 years ago

My main workaround for Wi-Fi issues is to get a USB Wi-Fi dongle that is supported on Linux. Worked like a charm when my regular Wi-Fi card decided to stop functioning properly on any OS I would go on (probably hardware malfunction). The one I always get is less than $20 on Amazon and is by TP Link.

acqq9• 10 years ago

In Windows 7 and Linux the built-in card "just works" and supports the "n" protocol too. The dangling dongle just to have WiFi isn't really the convenient alternative. If your WiFi card in the notebook is a half-size PCIe, you'd surely be better of replacing it.

mkohlmyr• 10 years ago

My girlfriend upgraded and ended up with her touchpad driver dead in the water. Cue me rolling back by enabling num pad arrow keys as a cursor. I wonder how many people simply didn't know it was an option and had their laptop bricked by microsoft for all intents and purposes..

alyandon3• 10 years ago

That's a really unfortunate experience upgrade experience. My experiences after upgrading multiple machines has been flawless so far - even on an old Dell Vostro 1500 laptop.

acqq9• 10 years ago

Your better experience is not an excuse for Microsoft pushing already rejected "Get Windows 10" code every month anew to my machine where I already tried the upgrade and it doesn't work and I've rejected. They override my rejection every month!

And also not an excuse for not fixing the svchost problem:

(updates got immensely slower around the time since the "Get Windows 10 "updates started to appear)

http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/392938-sv...

And for not allowing users to control the updates in Windows 10:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/49wcua/svchostex...

Animats• 10 years ago

A few days ago, we had an article about Verizon and their "supercookies" they were injecting into the web pages of others.[1] They didn't do this for "enterprise and government" accounts. Now, Microsoft is pulling the same stunt. Enterprise customers don't get the forced upgrade, the "telemetry" backdoor, or forced ads. Only "consumers" get screwed.

You can't even buy a non-crap Windows as an individual any more.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11239781

cm218710• 10 years ago

Plus you would expect at least the pro versions to be exempt.

Huhty• 10 years ago

IE is still around???

romanovcode• 10 years ago

Apple does the same thing, nobody cares. http://i.stack.imgur.com/BkQTT.png

Aoyagi• 10 years ago

Could we please not share links with the ?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter part? I'm not interested in giving someone idea that Twitter (or facebook or whatever) gives them more traffic than it actually does.

plugnburn• 10 years ago

Faildows and Infernet Exploiter users must suffer. Period.

Microsoft embeds nagware into IE patch

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