The Windows 10 Anniversary Update was released earlier this evening, and I dutifully installed it so that I could write about any oddities that might pop up. Well, a number of oddities have popped up, and they’re bad – really bad. The Anniversary Update does some really shady stuff during installation that it doesn’t inform you of at all until after the fact.
First, the Anniversary Update reinstalls Skype “for you”, even if you had it uninstalled earlier, which in and of itself is a blatant disregard for users – I uninstalled it for a reason, and I’d like Microsoft to respect that. That in and of itself is bad enough, but here’s the kicker: during installation, Microsoft also automatically logs you into Skype, so that possible Skype contacts can just start calling or messaging you – again, without ever asking for the user’s consent.
Imagine my surprise when I open that useless Metro notification center thing – whose button now sits in the bottom right of the task bar, right of the clock, even, and is unremovable – and see that Skype is now installed, and that I’m logged in. This is a blatant disregard for users, and I’m sure tons of users will be unpleasantly surprised to see Microsoft forcing Skype down their throats.
There was an even bigger surprise, though: during installation of the Anniversary Update, Microsoft apparently flags Classic Shell – a popular Start menu replacement that gives Windows 10 a customisable Start menu that doesn’t suck – as incompatible with the Anniversary Update, and just straight-up deletes hides it from your computer – again, without ever notifying you beforehand or asking you for your permission.
Update: actually, the application isn’t removed entirely – it’s still there in the Program Files folder, but it’s entirely scrapped from search results and the Start menu. Effectively, for most users, that’s identical to removing it. What an incredibly odd and user-hostile way of dealing with this. You can see how the wording in the screenshot below is confusing regarding the removing vs. hiding issue.
Classic Shell released an update to fix the compatibility issue detected, so I hope my settings are still there somewhere, because it’d suck having to redo all of them because Microsoft just randomly deleted a program from my computer hid a program, without informing me or asking me for my permission. It could’ve just disabled the program, prevented it from running – why delete hide it entirely? Are they that desperate to try and get me to use their terrible excuse for a Start menu?
So, just in case you’re about to install this update – Microsoft will force Skype down your throat, and may randomly delete hide programs from your computer without asking for your permission.
Have fun.
The skype thing is shitty.
But Windows 10 will stop you from installing incompatible programs.
I installed Visual Studio 2008 a few months ago. Bundled in the installer is SQL SERVER EXPRESS 2005 (which is deemed incompatible by Windows 10). Even though I had accidentally included it when choosing the components in the installer. Windows 10 blocked the installation.
Edited 2016-08-02 21:57 UTC
Understood, but I thought windows prided itself as making each version compatible with all the crazy apps everyone already had.
I just upgraded to 10 before the free upgrade expired, and saw it hide/disable a few of the stupid OEM apps that were bundled in.
You’ve stayed on 7, you’d be able to use these links :
https://gist.github.com/xvitaly/eafa75ed2cb79b3bd4e9#file-remove_crw…
https://www.grc.com/never10.htm
I think you misunderstood.
I did want to upgrade to win 10 from win 8.1.
I don’t mind that it disabled crapware. Just surprised that Microsoft didn’t go out of its way to support the OEM bloat/crapware.
Don’t know if it made it through politics, but rumors of a crapware free re-install option.
Newer Versions of SQL Server are backwards compatible with Database Scripts of earlier versions.
i.e. SQL Server 2005 database will work with MS SQL SERVER 2008 and above. So there is no reason to keep old versions of it around.
I think SQL SERVER and the Management studio really digs it way into the OS.
I bet there are an equal, or maybe even greater number of users who will think something like “oh cool – Skype is free – I thought I had to pay for that.”
But it seems on osnews.com all we can do is bitch about change, and only consider less technical users’ feelings when something might hurt them, rather than delight them – like a thing might go away or change, boo. Can’t ever think that somethings might be a sensible default, or a nicety that many users actually appreciate or think is neat, so yeah Microsoft is totally lame…
And yes, I get that many users will dislike or be annoyed by this software (and it’s endless unsolicited invites) – but most that do will simply turn it off, and everyone else will have a pretty decent new VOIP toy to play with. Maybe that will finally give people an alternative t the old horrible – what the hell did you just say 8 kHz – phone system that Microsoft has been tepidly trying to disrupt for ages. No, that would be horrible! MICORSOFT IS TBADD!!
Edited 2016-08-03 05:09 UTC
I noticed with the UWP version of Skype that there aren’t ads in it, unlike the desktop version.
Oh cool – Internet Explorer is free – I thought I had to pay for that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/4vw21h/massive_psa_do…
Classic Shell was hacked, I suspect this is why it was disabled and flagged.
No, this is incorrect. The hacked .exe was 4.3.0, which is the new version of Classic Shell specifically for the Anniversary Update. I was running an earlier version, and it was this earlier, non-hacked version that got hidden by the Compatibility Assistant.
The virus inside the hacked version cannot, at this point, be detected by Windows’ own antivirus, so it can’t even be flagged in the first place. On top of that – it’s the Compatibility Assistant that’s doing the hiding – not Windows Defender (or whatever it’s called right now).
The hacked version of Classic Shell was on an external site; if you downloaded the new version using the updater – which is what I did – you’re fine.
You know programs can be reported manually right?
In anycase there is no conspiracy against you shell replacement. The compatibility wizard has done this for fucking months. You just didn’t notice it yet.
it is like you have never heard about the story of the boy that cried Wolf.
Hmm, I don’t think Thom’s mistaken in this case. The windows update only seems to have disabled the legitimate version.
The video posted by quackalist is informative – the official program was never infected. Someone broke into FossHub and uploaded fake versions of Classic Shell and Audacity. From the video, not only doesn’t windows catch the malware version, but it’s “virtually undetected” on virustotal, which scans files for malware using popular AV products.
Say someone distributed malware while impersonating your company, it would make your company look bad even if none of you were ever infected and the software was distributed by 3rd parties. This seems to be what’s happening.
You don’t understand the fable very well.
But sometimes you need to have “incompatible” stuff in order to deal with legacy situations. Old communications apps, old proprietary systems etc. Sometimes even partially broken functionality of an old app is all you need to maintain/communicate with/extend the heirloom stuff.
Granted this is likely a minority situation BUT a simple dialog box asking wether to do this or not during the update process would have been better.
All this extra control Microsoft is exerting over their platform – I wonder if their liability is increasing over it. If we no longer “own” or “control” our systems then wouldn’t a breach shift at least some of the responsibility back to Microsoft regardless of the EULA crap?
In fact MS was in direct collision course with their legacy ecosystem. Fortunately They have applied their expertize on ‘blending’, as the olive oil producers do, to keep consistency on their produce
That’s if it ever finished installing. I’m on my 3rd try.
Check if you have virtual disk service activated. Set any administrative BIOS password to clear. Activate Secure Boot if UEFI. Check if your Win licensing says ‘genuine’. Un-install Non-MS applications you know easy to reinstall. Un-install AV [but make sure you have the license to reinstall later].
The Skype thing… did you check to see if this happens to other people before you accuse MS of wrongdoing? I certainly wouldn’t put it past them, but this might just be a glitch of some sort …
Yeah, it adds Skype and logs you in, if your Skype account is the same as your Windows Live account, and you have it linked to your user account.
If you go to some length and uninstall every crap metro app you can uninstall (like Feedback, Phone, Solitaire, Buy Office, Skype etc). EVERY BIG UPDATE so far just REINSTALLS THEM. Try it with a fresh install yourself, I am not joking.
MS needs to broken up into smaller parts. They just suck too much as one company.
This has been the case with every version of Windows since 95.
Granted, you could customize things before the install rather than accept the default, but it’s the same amount of work regardless.
This is in line with Microsoft pushing all the customization after installation rather than before files are copied.
In line with the other thread regarding “dark patterns”, customizing the system and applications prior to installation is equivalent to “opting-in”.
Pushing everything on the system and having the users de-selecting things/undoing changes is equivalent to “opting-out”.
The typical user usually does not have the combination of knowledge and patience to opt-out from undesired applications and settings.
I disagree. Merely setting options to defaults isn’t “dark patterns” when it doesn’t have any actual negative affect on the user.
Privacy is not compromised by the defaults any more than it is when you connect your user account to Microsoft’s servers. Solitaire automatically being installed isn’t at all the same as automatically being opted in to harvesting and sharing your web browser history for sale to advertisers.
Not at all the same thing.
You don’t consider uninstalling software without my consent to be negative? Because I sure as hell do, when it’s my damned machine!
That sounds more like a bug – that they aren’t tracking which items you’ve uninstalled, only those of which you have provisioned (bought, downloaded for free), and then reinstalling them whenever there is an update.
Any organization has a set of attributes/faults, and buggy not well thought out software is even more Microsoft than devious behavior.
No it doesn’t been using Windows 10 since day one and this doesn’t happen.
Try doing the same in a VM and report back.
Edited 2016-08-03 21:47 UTC
Yes, it does. Try it yourself.
AND the antiversary update defaults back to edge, even though I had set Firefox as my default browser.
No, the anniversary edition asks you to update your preferences, with the default set to edge. If you customize, you can set it back to what you want to prevent the change.
Odd: yes.
A dark pattern: Yes.
Something that would have been illegal 10 years ago: Yes
A slight difference, it default recommends that you change it to edge in a difficult to detect manner. Rather than silently doing it, with no possible way of figuring out its going to do that. Its possible, just not obvious.
This seems to be the one thing that my update did not do. My default browser was left unchanged.
Sounds like there was a legitimate compatibility issue in Classic Shell; they patched it on the 30th so that’s not really a problem.
As for Skype it seems that it is now integrated into Windows 10 so that would explain it being installed (because we have no choice anymore). I don’t have a Skype account and never have so there is no way it could automatically log me in at least. I really do wish we could opt out of stuff like this. I don’t use Cortana or Skype so I certainly don’t want them integrated into my OS.
I think the thing that bugs me the most is actually the notification icon being moved to the end of the taskbar. That’s just wrong. The clock is supposed to be there, it has been for 20 years. It’s going to drive me crazy if someone doesn’t find a way to move it back.
Edited 2016-08-02 22:09 UTC
A program actually got REMOVED from my machine, and I got a helpful notification telling me Windows had done it because it wasn’t compatible with that version. Doesn’t anyone have a problem with Microsoft removing programs without warning? Disable them, sure. Firefox does that with incompatible extensions. But remove them? What the flying F$%@?
Android has done the same btw during updates.
And I’d have been equally scared if I’d seen that. I hadn’t before, Android or otherwise. Good to know, though.
I’ve never seen Android remove a program either. I have seen anti-viruses try to or suggest to, but that’s about it. I wouldn’t be surprised as well if the program in question was simply pulled from the app store and remotely removed because it was flagged for having a nefarious purpose.
With Windows 10 it’ll randomly change the open with defaults back to MS’s bullshit software. Install VLC, it’ll randomly say it’s caused an issue and Windows has changed your default music player to Groove for example.
Windows 10 is by far the most annoying and terrible example of what happens when a software maker decides that you’re it’s product.
In some vendor ROM’s, if you have an app that is incompatible with new API’s, it gets nuked. This is part of the reason why I hunt so hard for a phone that runs stock Android (that and because if it runs Stock Android, I could switch to Cyanogen Mod if I ever wanted to too).
Android does that. I guess I’d prefer if Windows didn’t do that, but, none of my apps were flagged as incompatible with the new Windows 10 update, so I didn’t have that problem.
It has happened with a load of old dev stuff that I used for support that I should really run a VM for.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/08/windows-10-anniversary-update-de…
They can’t even get it right for Windows 7:
“The update wiped my windows 7 dual boot partition. Thanks microsoft.”
“Well I have a second internal physical hard drive (D:) and it’s been wiped!”
Removing partitions doesn’t sound right, even for Microsoft. I suspect they nuked any non-Microsoft bootloaders. I saw this happen on late versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, where they just made the partitions unavailable.
If this happened to anyone, I’d like to see two things before I am sure they nuked an actual partition:
1. The report from GParted. This usually tells you everything.
2. The Windows Disk Management tells you everything that it wants you to know, but I don’t think it hides anything on purpose.
As someone who has been installing multi-boot systems since the mid-90’s, it is very uncommon to not have Windows think it owns the boot sectors. Oh, wait, they do!
Well, they should be nice and share. But in recent years I’ve noticed that sometimes Ubuntu messes up my partition table.
My guess is that Grub2 will find the partitions, but these days you never know.
I still find that I don’t care about what Windows 10 uninstalls, but I care greatly that there seems to be something odd with the file system. I’ll copy a file to a folder. It isn’t there when the copy finishes. I hit F5, nothing changes. I go to another folder and come back, and the files are now showing. Hey, guys, the file system is everything.
I hope it’s just windows being more strict about what the partition tables looks like.
But even if it’s just that: this has already been shows to make certain USB-sticks and external hard drives unreadable under windows. So for Windows only users that data looks like it’s gone. If people use external hard drives for backup, etc. for example these people will be very unhappy.
I’m not a win10 user, but I wonder if classic shell was really broken or if microsoft just wanted to make it disappear by design.
I assume that “learn more” in Thom’s screen shot is a link, can someone post the link that it goes to?
Also, classic shell has auto-update capability, which is on by default. Does anyone know if microsoft disabled the class shell updates in addition to the interface?
Well, considering it randomly flags software as incompatible while you’re using said software, I’d say it’s either a bug or malicious intent on Microsoft’s part to force you to use their software. Either way wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Why would they even put something in where it continually pops up and says ‘The program you have chosen for $files has an issue, reverting to default $program’
As far as I know Classic Shell only checks for updates when it starts, not in a seperate background process. So if Thom would have waited untill the anniversary update would have arrived by Windows Update, Classic Shell would have updated itself to be compatible with the Anniversary Update first and then there wouldn’t have been an issue.
Also, Skype auto-logging in is exactly what most people would love. It is the exact same with the Mail app. As long as both are linked to the Microsoft Account that you use to log in to Windows it only makes sense for Windows to say “Hey, you have this software, I know how to login, I will setup everything for you automatically and get it ready to use”.
I agree that it sucks that Skype (and many apps) get reinstalled by default though. (Technically I think it is a different Skype App actually) Except for that this article basically feels like hyperbole and ranting. Let’s see exactly what happened to Thom: On the very day that the update came out he got it through an alternative way and installed it. That worked without any issue. After the upgrade he got 1 app that he doesn’t like anymore, although he had an account previously, and can uninstall with 2 clicks. He also had only 1 3rd party program-incompatibility and that was in a Shell Replacement. He got updated of that but doesn’t like the wording. There is already an update from that 3rd party.
So on day 1 someday finds an alternative way of installing Windows in search for oddities and he thinks the above 2 things are “bad – really bad”.
Well, I guess we have now reached the level of OS-maturity where this is considered “bad – really bad” /s
Edited 2016-08-03 09:34 UTC
I guess we have now reached the level of OS-maturity where random hiding and reinstallation of a ton of programs (including Skype) and using your credentials without permission or even so much as a notification is considered “normal”. That’s some creepy level of Stockholm Syndrome right there.
Edited 2016-08-03 09:37 UTC
I agree with the point that reinstalling Skype was bad behaviour. WRT Classic Shell though, maybe there was an incompatibility. As a Shell replacement, that could potentially leave your system in an unusable state, in which case this behaviour would be just what I would expect.
Are you serious? You want, even expect, the system to make changes without even asking once?
Did I fall through a wormhole into a universe of sheep or something?
Nope, you didn’t fall through a wormhole but maybe you finally discovered that you are a ram living amongst sheep. And although the ram is certainly more powerful than any individual sheep, it is the flock that actually decides the direction they are all going.
(okay, that is as far as I am going to take that analogy)
Haha, epic analogy.
Sheep have shepherds to provide direction. They are not autonomous.
Musk agrees /s
(That is one reason why I stopped the analogy, because you are now saying that the one guiding the sheep is a whole different species)
Apparently Classic Shell, despite the name, is NOT a shell replacement. It adds/modifies the default Shell (Explorer.exe) and otherwise it is just a program.
source: http://www.classicshell.net/faq/#general_whatnot
What I would expect is that the compatibility checker inside the Upgrade procedure would warn about this incompatible program before performing the actual update with an option to stop the upgrade. That is how it always used to work and how I think it should work!
As I mentioned earlier today, Microsoft is very confused about the difference between an update and an upgrade and I think this is one of the symptoms of that.
The program has been flagged as incompatible since Win8 on and off if you do a quick google and you will see Forum posts going back to 2013-2014.
It isn’t random reinstallation, it is “apps that are considered part of the OS only”. I also disagree with this practice and wouldn’t expect that from a Windows Update. HOWEVER, Microsoft stupidly uses an upgrade- instead of update-technique for 1507/1511/1607 versions (and insider and mobile) that has always had this behavior.
There was also no random hiding. You used an incompatible Shell that got disabled and you DID get notified about that through the notification center that you actually called useless but seems pretty useful here.
When you sign in to Windows with a Microsoft account and you use that Microsoft account for other things like Skype/Mail why would it not allow you to use those programs immediately? You actually did give permission for this when you decided to use a Microsoft account for login instead of a local account. And Skype has been trying to do Auto-Login for ages! Most people love it when they only have to enter their password once and everything works automatically.
I wouldn’t call these things normal, but I would call them oddities or quirks or minor things to pay attention to. I would keep qualifications like “bad – really bad” for things like “my machine doesn’t boot”, “everything takes forever or “many of my programs/hardware doesn’t work”. (disastrous would be “I lost my personal files”). Please don’t setup a strawman by mentioning “normal” and “Stockholm Syndrome”
They’re pushing it out incrementally because they don’t want people trashing their bandwidth and hurting performance for people who they’re hosting via Azure or Office 365. I’m not sure how they’re deciding who gets it right now, but I had to manually force it on my work laptop (you can download a tool from Microsoft to do this from their version history page for Win10), but my home laptop (where I only use Windows for Gaming) saw the update immediately on being turned on.
I believe Microsoft doesn’t even use the same network bandwidth for this. And a lot is still handled by Akamai as well.
Lennie,
P2P has unbeatable performance and shifts the bandwidth burden/costs away from the source and to the users. If MS is using P2P tech, then all microsoft would have to do is to seed it using modest resources.
The main reason to stagger updates over a longer period doesn’t isn’t bandwidth but to limit the damage caused by a faulty update, giving MS time to detect & fix it before the next batch of of “production testers” get the update
P2P updates was one of first ‘features’ I disabled on 10. Hopefully it can still be.
That I fully agree with.
They do have the option, and from what I can tell, the protocol is pretty much BitTorrent with X.509 certificates involved in the hashing and the magic numbers changed (I’ve looked at packet captures, and the traffic patterns are very similar to BitTorrent). The problem is that many people turn this off (I get turning off sending updates to random people on the internet, but not even sharing them between local systems is stupid, the downloads get verified just the same as regular windows update downloads, and it’s actually harder to inject something in a P2P network than a regular download). On top of that though, they don’t appear to be distributing the upgrade through this network.
In all seriousness though, the whole ‘You’ll get a notification when the update is ready for your system, or you can click here to download it now’ thing with pseudo-random selection of what systems get the update automatically screams attempting to conserve bandwidth.
Amazed at this P2P involvement!
I’m on the Insiders Preview programme. I didn’t notice a single change after the update. They did send me some nice wallpapers though.
So you got the plus pack for free? sweet!
Why do you expect any change? What you get through Preview is the same as what you eventually get through normal channels. It wouldn’t make much sense to test something otherwise.
Of course if something breaks it will not go to normal channels
I was simply making the point that my upgrade didn’t cause the problems that Thom encountered.
Finally, the ‘videophone’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:On_Space_Station_V,_Dr._Heywood_F…
Depending on your Country AT&T could still be collecting the tariff. And Yes, ISS_I already have wide enough throughput.
Some tablet around the same film:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2001interview.png
[The weirdos at ISS_V are those always carrying ‘mobiles’]
Out of the joy, That’s not the way an upgrade should work. Agree with Thom.
It’s not the same Skype [application].
Be careful people
Classic Shell distro servers were hacked today
They have fixed the problem.
It wipes your Master Boot Record and you will not be able to boot again without careful repair.
If your file size says 6.81 MB (7,148,732 bytes) You have the infected version.
The NEW one they have up as of now says: 6.88 MB (7,220,496 bytes).
More info at Classic Shell Forums under bug reports.
I got zapped, fortunately was able to rebuild the MBR, otherwise you will get a ‘spade’ character on boot bottom left with a false prompt.
Some users got a message ‘Your adventures end here’
In that I only own Windows 8.1 retail, my ‘free’ windows 10, while I did upgrade ? is not longer free, as of July 29th. So, if I had not been able to repair my master boot record (I used Windows 7 repair CD, and selected ‘fix startup problems’ command line tools did not work)? I would have to go BUY Windows 10 all because of this CultOfPeggle virus that was responsible for this.
So sad that such a wonderful product- Classic Shell was hit the DAY people would be saying ‘where’d my Classic Shell go’ ? after the update, they go download it – as I did- and if they got the infected one – kiss your machine goodbye unless you even know what an MBR is. CultOfPeggle twitter page says ‘this will be a survival of the trouble-shootiest’ – most unfortunate for many today.
Edited 2016-08-03 04:09 UTC
What fun!
Thats exactly why I did not update any win 7/8 box to 10. Rolling releases, more so with a vendor like Microsoft, need permanent domain-knowledge what results in DAU’s calling me for unpayed support-tasks to fix there “computer problems”. Its already bad enough with them blindly executing every executable attached to a mail, what I can work around, but got way more worse with random breaks at bugfix-updates rolled out all at the same time without a way to delay, control or customize ie without a way to work around.
Edited 2016-08-03 13:04 UTC
Mildly irritating, but throwing in a recovery disk, booting to command prompt and typing “fixmbr” no longer works?
You have to fuck about with parted to get things working again according to reddit.
This is completely wrong. Once you upgrade and activate, that PC has a digital entitlement. You can wipe the disk and do a clean install and it will auto activate – and if there is a problem, you can always call in and do the phone activation dance.
Not infected though did download CS last night to see how new version would work, or not, when 10 updates.
https://youtu.be/DD9CvHVU7B4
What to do video, if infected
You can still get a free Windows 10 upgrade if you use assistive technologies.
See here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade
But hurry!! Microsoft is aware that this site, which works on the honor system, could be abused by able bodied users who missed the free upgrade deadline and will be taking it down in the next couple of weeks!
Thanks for the info. This kind of “defaulting” only started in the past year or so. Windows in particular seems to drop back to default settings but some applications as well. It used to be so that once you configured the system, it behaved as it should.
I should probably read the EULAs. Do they really keep the right to randomly and unannounced alter the system _people make their living_ with?
Windows 8.1 seems to be working as before. I booted it again, first time after March. It no longer nagged about new version 🙂
I believe MS are rolling out this update in stages and my PC (admittedly old, but highly spec’ed) just didn’t list anything “big” in Windows Update (just the usual Windows Defender definition update) on Tuesday evening.
I did, however, get a Classic Shell update as you said, which had a fix for the Anniversary Update, so maybe the moral of the tale is to install that CS update before the Anniversary Update?
I’m not sure I’ve uninstalled Skype (I spend 95% of my time in Linux in a dual boot setup), but I’d rather uninstall Onedrive to be honest (can you?!) because I know I’ll never use that.
Those that use Windows 10 Pro to be able to use some group policy’s, will be glad to learn that you no longer have to do that difficult stuff. Those that want to keep using them can better upgrade to the Enterprise/Education edidtion… Or roll back to Windows 8/7.
Take a look here: http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/28/microsoft-removes-policies-windows…
Also – Windows 10 does not longer give you the chance to switch off Cortana, and you are not longer able to turn off Microsoft consumer experiences policy.
Nice touches huh?
Edited 2016-08-03 06:52 UTC
Now these are some valid concerns! Luckily enough there are workarounds for everything but why Microsoft decided to do this can only be explained by them wanting to have more people on Enterprise Edition.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/administrators-can-no-longer-shut-off-…
(There is edition creep as well again, with an Enterprise Education. It used to be that Enterprise/Ultimate was the highest edition, but now you have Education and Education Pro above that. They really should just release a Home version, maybe a Pro version, and all extra features should be pay-a-bit and enter a license key to prove you are allowed to use that feature.
That is ludicrous. Pro is well used in businesses and the only difference is supposed to be with the volume licensing.
Guess they don’t want business folks getting excused from their marketing and ads.
Not really, there many small things you can do on Enterprise and Ultimate that you can’t do on Professional version. Just to cite one, Applocker doesn’t work on the last (you can set rules but they will not be enforced).
Edited 2016-08-05 09:06 UTC
Classic Shell was hacked.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/4vw21h/massive_psa_do…
Which is why it was flagged.
No, it isn’t. It really was a compatibility issue, and regardless of one’s stance on how Microsoft handled that situation, it had nothing to do with the hack. The hack occurred to the version of Classic Shell that was patched to fix the compatibility issue. Anyone running the Insider version of W10 and Classic Shell would have already seen that issue come up long before the hack/virus occurred.
TBH I woke up the morning after Thom posted this with my mate posting me the reddit thread on skype.
Honestly, the only thing that I really find bad in your situation is Skype’s auto-login (because it uses your credentials without asking you for confirmation). But I wouldn’t be so dramatic about the rest…
– I if understood well, Skype gets upgraded (as many other apps do) along with the operating system (and part of it seems to be now embedded into Windows). To have it, say, lose all of your contact information without gracefully migrating it to the new app is a different matter.
– As many have noticed, the Classic Shell application (which I happily used too, in the Windows 8[.1] days) was hacked around the update release time, so this might explain the incompatibility. Not that you shouldn’t expect incompatibility to old software in general, anyway – even if it’s Windows, which always treated old software better than others.
To put it short, I wouldn’t be too upset like you appear to be. I know you have rightfully pointed out less-than-desired Windows practices in the past, but at this point it may seem you are reasoning forward by inertia.
No, the version that was hacked was the patched version that specifically fixed the incompatibility issue. Keep in mind that Windows software developers will have access to Windows updates via the Insider program specifically so they can patch for such things ahead of time. The Classic Shell developer released an updated version of their program to coincide with the Anniversary Update to address the compatibility issue they already knew about, and it’s that new, patched version that ended up being compromised by the attacker.
In other words, if you do the Anniversary Update and you get a compatibility warning, you have the version of Classic Shell that came out before the hacked version. The attacker counted on that; he wanted to ensure that people would download his virus thinking they were getting the fix for their compatibility issue. Simple social engineering.
Thom, you are such a great writer, could you perhaps put together a review of the W10 start menu so I could understand what are your specific issues with it. I have used W10 quite a lot and do not see a reason to search a replacement for start menu anymore. You can remove all the clutter away and the rest is quite similar to W7.
So why the demand for Classic Shell or any other 3rd party start menu. What are you missing on stock one?
Myself, I’m a fan of the new Start Menu. Much more customizable, and a great place to stash additional icons – as many as I want – that aren’t on the task bar.
The only thing missing is drag-and-drop re-arrangement of items in the “All Apps” panel, but that’s minor, since I rarely use in in lieu of the tiles
For the several of you commenting about Classic Shell removal likely being related to the hack, please PLEASE read Thom’s response carefully.
Then, consider how often in the past MS has reacted that quickly to anything, which is just about never.
They do not now, and likely never will, deserve the benefit of the doubt on anything.
Only in this case it’s not even strictly free. Microsoft wants to have its cake and eat it too.
Why the Microsoft of today seems to have a better rep than the MS of the 90’s, I’ll never know. That Microsoft used to be extremely hostile to competitors, but as a user, this Microsoft is extremely hostile to me.
Agreed. Which is why Microsoft and Windows 10 are “dead” to me.
I’m unsure what I’ll do once Windows 7 reaches EOL but 10 won’t be it. I already use other OS’s for most stuff other than gaming where I use mostly Windows 7. Hopefully developers will start releasing more stuff for platforms other than Windows as I’ll be moving off of Windows entirely once 7 is EOL. Unless things change, which is highly unlikely!
Same here, I did buy W7 Retail specifically before W8 came out and I saw that it will be a mess. Currently I am patiently on W7 and letting MS do its stuff. Once the W7 will EOL in 2020, I will look around to see how the landscape has evolved and decide what to do next.
If you don’t already use Steam (and I understand if you don’t, it is after all a DRM scheme at its core), maybe create an account and port in your existing Windows games to your Steam library (backing up your original software of course). Then, install Steam on Linux, and allow it to install the Linux compatible versions of any of the games in your library. Make sure Steam is set to report to the hardware/software survey, and you’ve just successfully voted for more Linux gaming support.
Last I heard, Linux was up a whole 0.02% in Steam’s hardware/software survey. That’s absolutely pathetic, and the only way Valve will continue its efforts to port as many games as possible to Linux is to see more people using it.
I wish there was a way to get other, superior (from a DRM-free standpoint) game publishers to port to Linux or even better, do native Linux development. I know GOG.com is generally positive towards Linux but they don’t go out of their way to push the platform live Valve does. But the more you blog about it, post in forums about it, and just play your Linux games and allow them to be reported to Steam, the more the word gets out.
I wish Linux were more friendly to commercial developers in the first place.
I use Steam on both Windows and Linux, the latter for the last 2 or 3 years. I don’t have a huge Steam library but nearly half of what I do have has a Linux port so it’s not too bad.
I find Wine very useful also for running some stuff, it will run games that don’t even work on Windows after 98 so it’s a big bonus.
Shame Loki isn’t still around, maybe someone will pick up where they left off eventually. One can always hope!
Why do they have a better rep? I think it comes down to two factors:
– Windows 7 being generally sane and regaining some of the lost trust
– Lots of positive stuff on social media and news sites (by which I mean paid publicity as well as microsoft staffers; look how many of them are around on the reddit development subreddits for example)
However, they do seem have done their level best to shred every bit of the goodwill they gained! I was tentatively hopeful for Windows 10, but sadly they managed to screw it up beyond redemption.
In addition, they seem to randomly reset some settings to the ‘Microsoft sanctioned values’. I had to uninstall the ‘Retail Demo Content’ again, as well as Bluetooth being randomly re-enabled on one of my two systems, and had to turn off Wi-Fi Sense (again) and re-enable automatic time-zone detection.
My favorite example of poor choices in the new build though is the new ‘Choose your App mode’ setting under the color tab of personalization. It lets you switch between light and dark theming, except it only applies to Metro style apps, which means even the file amnager is unaffected by it.
Every version of Windows since Windows 95, has defaulted to reinstalling components you may have previously removed/uninstalled.
EVERY VERSION, without fail. The only difference is, instead of having to dig through a weirdly organized nested tree ahead of time, you just install/uninstall them afterwards. All the files are copied over anyways (preventing you from ever seeing an “Insert Windows CD” dialog ever again).
TBH this is the regular sky is falling update everytime Thom finds something doesn’t work for him, even though this has been happening for months or years (according to forum searches)
It is a classic boy who cried wolf shite.
I have been using Windows for work as a development plaform professionally since 2006 and I haven’t had any problems building or running anything ever unless it was *nix based and they did a half arsed windows port.
Edited 2016-08-03 21:43 UTC
Well, good for you. Of course, everyone should have the same likes/dislikes and experience as you, only you matter after all!
Well done for making the most pointless comment on the internet. There is NO reward btw.
Edited 2016-08-03 21:49 UTC
I’m glad you don’t give a shit about what happens on your machine and are perfectly fine with Microsoft installing and removing shit at will, without asking for permission or even notifying you.
There’s no need to be so aggressive to people who aren’t okay with this. People can have different opinions. Microsoft will survive a few harsh words, if that’s what you’re worried about. The world will keep spinning.
Coincidentally, people were saying the same thing back when I wrote about Microsoft’s notification ad spam from Office on Android – until that article got Microsoft to cease the ad spam.
So, every version of Windows 98 has re-added some previously-uninstalled components when you upgrade from previous versions – and this is an upgrade from a previous version, despite what the branding shows.
It used to be, for the most part, you choose them ahead of installation, so they wouldn’t be copied over, thus conserving disk space. Since everything is copied anyways, and most setup occurs after installation, rather than deselecting them from some poorly-structured tree listing, now you just remove them after the fact.
This isn’t at all unexpected, surprising. Not sure why it’s not a big deal. It’s just one of those things that happens when you upgrade your operating system.
Edited 2016-08-04 01:57 UTC
Well did it deserve it because I run those same apps and I never got the same thing.
Edited 2016-08-04 21:19 UTC
“…but it probably digs it claws into the OS in various ways.”
As for Stockholm Syndrome
Just helping MS to keep digging its claws into friends and family. Not happy at the situation, but out of sending back them to school and taking a personal crusade against the consumer|addictive|reality-disaffecting industry, little else to do, actually.
[I agree with lucas_maximus diagnostic. There are ways to make a UI to look behalf alike without messing with non public APIs].
ReactOS is the only feasible Windows replacement. With Windows 8/10 showing Microsoft’s total disconnection with the “real world”, i firmly believe the only alternative that has any real clout against Microsoft is ReactOS. Throw money at them, they need it more than Microsoft, now more than ever.
I would agree to a large extent, but you can be sure that as soon as ReactOS starts to gain any traction and users, Microsoft will come down on it like a ton of bricks and shut it down. From that point any and all money and development time will have been wasted!
It sucks, but it’s guaranteed to happen.
ReactOS borrows Wine’s DLLs for its userland.
Unless you have hardware which only has working drivers for old Windows versions, running your apps in Wine and choosing a desktop environment you find comfortable will always win out since Linux has more developers for the non-Wine parts.
Its not feasible. React is decades behind. Without a more stable target they are doomed to be what they are now. No amount of small one time donations from individuals will fix that. If you want a windows alternative, use Linux. Its better than windows ( which is why Window system for linux exists..) in many many ways.
Fine. Show me that Sonar, Photoshop, Office, iTunes, etc run on it perfectly then. You know, applications that most non-programmers use. Because until there are Linux versions of these, pushing the way you do is going to push people away. Just stop it. Until you have the applications people want–not alternatives, but the applications themselves–just stop before you do more damage, if that’s possible.
ReactOS won’t do any better there. They rely on code borrowed from Wine for their application APIs.
…and they’ll do more poorly for performance and stability since Linux has orders of magnitude more developers working on that.
I was speaking in general terms rather than about ReactOS in particular. Whether it’s ReactOS or Wine doesn’t matter; it’s not Windows enough to run the money makers and never will be no matter how much money people chuck at them.
If they don’t work on wine on linux, they won’t work on Reactos.
Linux, is stable well behaving desktop that continues to see significant investment and upgrades. Its not a hobby OS. Its not trying to catch up with the development of an OS backed by a 400 Billion $ company.
Its the rational choice.
It is better in some ways, problem is though that it’s also worse in some ways too. Some of the quirks can be deal breakers, especially when dealing with multimedia.
Stop supporting Microsoft. It’s like feeding a parasite or voting for Hillary.
…no organization has credentials to my computer.
No, I won’t use a Microsoft Account as my user account on my computer. I’m not a Microsoft Employee; they have no business having credentials on my personal system(s). Nor do I want to use the Windows Store for applications, etc.
In the end…yet another reason to avoid Microsoft.
Especially if linked to the World, TemporalBeing.
The update not only keeps re-adding Skype and Skype Video on your system without asking you, it will put “Get Office” on there, too.
I have set up several Windows 10 machines recently and I had to uninstall these apps twice each time.