Windows 10

[Yegolev]

While we're bitching about stuff related to Win8/10, can someone explain to me why UEFI  was such a grand idea? I know, there's this whole secured boot sector thing, which allegedly protected us from the Red Army or Aliens, but was it that needed in practice, for the average user?

I got the impression it was for anti-piracy somehow.  Or to prevent people from running OSes which aren't sold by one of the cabal members.  Something like that.

[Torinak]

While we're bitching about stuff related to Win8/10, can someone explain to me why UEFI  was such a grand idea? I know, there's this whole secured boot sector thing, which allegedly protected us from the Red Army or Aliens, but was it that needed in practice, for the average user?

It adds a really great place for persistent spyware and rootkits that exist independently of the operating system.

It can still be used for invasive DRM, though, that prevents the owner of hardware from running what they want.

[Engels]

Ok, so I'm not crazy. 

[Chimpy]

UEFI does have some important features that allow modern CPU/Memory/Disk to be utilized fully that the 40 year old BIOS architecture was just not capable of handling. But, like everything these days, you have to take the good with the (lots of) bad.

[Yegolev]

UEFI... the Congressional Omnibus of hardware?

[Quinton]

Well, UEFI does not imply Secure Boot and Secure Boot does not imply DRM and lockdown.  And regardless, DRM can't prevent you from playing content or running software that is not DRM encrusted (and since DRM inevitably fails to prevent piracy by actual pirates, even content that is only delivered so encrusted doesn't stay that way for log).  I'm sure there are companies and governments that dream of computers that only play blessed content, but in a free market that kind of shit just doesn't survive (remember DIVX, the self-destructing DVD-alike format?  exactly).

Secure Boot and Trusted Computing is actually useful stuff -- providing a mechanism for the system to detect tampering, if implemented well (sadly this is not always the case) -- allows for protection from a lot of attack vectors.

Honestly the thing that I think is the scariest feature of modern Intel CPUs is the "Management Engine" (and the AMD equivalent) -- a smaller core that runs opaque, closed firmware, which has complete access to all the hardware in the system, including the network interface.  I predict that thing is going to be a treasure trove of persistent and remote exploits as people unravel it.

[Yegolev]

I think if I were to try to gain control of a system, the Management Engine would be a great place to enter.

[Torinak]

I think if I were to try to gain control of a system, the Management Engine would be a great place to enter.

There were already published reports in late 2013 about persistent malware at that level. It's pretty much a guarantee that there are "state level" exploit kits that use it as well--it's just too useful for that, much like UEFI.

[Goreschach]

Finally got around to installing this after a motherboard died. DPI scaling is a fucking mess now, apparently because Microsoft is still under the delusion that people will someday want to use windows on a handheld. I shouldn't have to use regedit just to make everything be not-blurry.

[Jeff Kelly]

The bigger issue is that it is still buggy when the resolution changes. I use my laptop for gaming. Both on the integrated display and to output video to a TV.

The UI and the DPI scaling is always completely fucked after several resolution changes.

Additionally the task bar vanishes because if you switch from a higher to a lower res and back the task bar is technically "off screen" and won't reappear until you kill the explorer process.

[Trippy]

Windows 10 auto-install update changed from Recommended to Important, may cause your system to install Windows 10 depending on your update settings.

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4a0asv/warning_windows_7_computers_are_being_reported_as/

[Sky]

What a bunch of dirtbags. Actively pissing off your customer base is awesome. At least I've got mostly macs for the staff, I guess updating the public computers just got a whole lot more shitty. Not to mention the flood of people who will be coming to the library because of this. (We run OSX server, so no domain for the staff windows and I know a few people will mess theirs up).

I take small consolation in the marketing genius who thought a national tv ad showing off bugs on Windows 10 was a good idea.

[KallDrexx]

it's so utterly retarded.  If they pulled this shit on Windows 8 then whatever, everyone considered that a pretty terrible OS.

But Windows 10 is actually good and it's dumb they are shooting themselves in the foot over it.

[Ironwood]

Yeah. That's all I have to say about that.

[Engels]

I have to wonder about the motive. Is it that they're trying to minimize having to provide updates for Windows 7, are they trying to ferret out pirated Windows 7 copies, is there a secret NSA backdoor so that the aliens can riffle through our pron?

[Yegolev]

Those are all likely.

[Ironwood]

The aliens are going to be there a good long while.

[Sky]

The aliens are going to be there a good long while.

[Ginaz]

So, against my advice, my mother decided to "upgrade" to Windows 10 because she was tired of getting a pop up message asking to do so every time she turned on the computer.  Predictably, her laptop is now fucked because Windows 10 somehow screwed with the wifi and now she can't connect to the internet.  It's a known issue, apparently, with older wifi hardware/software and I wasn't able to fix it.  So now I have to take it somewhere and hopefully get it fixed.  Eat my ass, Microsoft.

[Sky]

Things I see every day at the library.

[Mandella]

So, against my advice, my mother decided to "upgrade" to Windows 10 because she was tired of getting a pop up message asking to do so every time she turned on the computer.  Predictably, her laptop is now fucked because Windows 10 somehow screwed with the wifi and now she can't connect to the internet.  It's a known issue, apparently, with older wifi hardware/software and I wasn't able to fix it.  So now I have to take it somewhere and hopefully get it fixed.  Eat my ass, Microsoft.

Is there not a rollback option?

[brellium]

So, against my advice, my mother decided to "upgrade" to Windows 10 because she was tired of getting a pop up message asking to do so every time she turned on the computer.  Predictably, her laptop is now fucked because Windows 10 somehow screwed with the wifi and now she can't connect to the internet.  It's a known issue, apparently, with older wifi hardware/software and I wasn't able to fix it.  So now I have to take it somewhere and hopefully get it fixed.  Eat my ass, Microsoft.

Is there not a rollback option?

It hoses the recovery partition on laptops, purposefully.

[Ginaz]

So, against my advice, my mother decided to "upgrade" to Windows 10 because she was tired of getting a pop up message asking to do so every time she turned on the computer.  Predictably, her laptop is now fucked because Windows 10 somehow screwed with the wifi and now she can't connect to the internet.  It's a known issue, apparently, with older wifi hardware/software and I wasn't able to fix it.  So now I have to take it somewhere and hopefully get it fixed.  Eat my ass, Microsoft.

Is there not a rollback option?

It hoses the recovery partition on laptops, purposefully.

Yeah, I tried to roll it back but there was nothing there.  There was no previous back up available even though I know there was one because the laptop was mine before I gave it to my parents. 

It just pisses me off because she only uses it for email and to play Facebook games for maybe an hour a day at most.  It's often the only bit of time she gets to herself because she has to look after my father who is stuck in bed all day with ALS.  She doesn't have time to screw around and try and fix it or take it somewhere to be fixed, which is why I'm doing it.  She's an old woman who can barely use the mouse or turn the laptop on so when she saw a message like "upgrade now before it's too late!!!" she thought she needed to do it.  It's annoying for me to click on the pop up to dismiss the message every time I turn my computer on but for people like her that don't know any better (even though I told her not to upgrade) it pisses me off that Microsoft pushes that shit on people.  I'll fucking upgrade when I want to, stop spamming every time I turn on the computer and stop making it a default update that I have to manually uncheck.

[Ironwood]

Yeah. That's all I have to say about that.

[Sir T]

I'll fucking upgrade when I want to, stop spamming every time I turn on the computer and stop making it a default update that I have to manually uncheck.

Try this

http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

Select GWX Control Panel - Allow you to turn off the annoying Win10 upgrade, delete the downloaded files, etc. Allows you to turn it all back on whenever you decide to make the jump.

Done it on my Laptop that only has 4 gigs of RAM so I imagine W 10 would be a bit tight in there. Pretty much at the point of doing it on my gaming rig becasue I really really dont want to upgrade.

Anyone want to try and persuade me to?

[Sky]

Things I see every day at the library.

[Sky]

Too be less Scottish-snarky (just found out I'm half scot on Sunday, looks like mom got Ancestry).

I've been running W10 on one laptop here that is minimal impact and it's fine. For the most part my interaction with it has been fine. It seems like a decent OS. Hopefully in SP1  they fully bake the control panel so it's both the new UI and fully functional (vs half the old panel, which is a good thing because they've obscured a lot in the new UI panels).

But holy shit do people hate Windows 10 with a fervor I haven't seen since Windows 8 Vista WinME days. From my aunt complaining about it at xmas through hearing people coming in with complaints every day because their computer is fucked up in some way or another (real or perceived, it doesn't make a difference to non-techs).

I get why they're pushing it, the very people who are most screwed by it are the ones who need to upgrade the most. But it does show a certain disconnect from reality, similar to the assumption that everyone has broadband, or even Internet connectivity at all. Which is incorrect, given the poverty and ignorance in this country. 'Merca.

[Mandella]

It hoses the recovery partition on laptops, purposefully.

Learn something new and awesome about Windows 10 everyday!

My own adventures in "upgrading" have gone from absolutely smooth to absolutely not smooth across the range of my admittedly quirky collection of machinery.

...And I get that annoying popup as I am typing this very message. Thank you Microsoft, but every time I attempt to upgrade this micro-PC it fails on final boot thank you very much. Problem is that the "fix" (maybe) is to remove all external devices (including even inserted SD cards) while installing. Of course, to a micro-PC *everything* is an external device, plus without the SD card I don't have the memory storage to hold the downloaded upgrade plus operating system plus temporary files...

[Yegolev]

Installed W10 fresh, which is annoying, but so far less annoying than the frequent hangs and assorted jackassery.  Fresh installs of various crust-covered utilities (Firefox) will probably also be a good move.  Need to figure out where the sleep controls are, since I seem to be the last bastard on earth using a tower.

[Fabricated]

I did a fresh install of W10 pro a while back and I've had basically 0 problems outside of its dogged insistence on rebooting my computer for updates when I don't want it to.

[Yegolev]

I was offered to choose either Home or Pro and without any research whatsoever I chose Pro.

[Rendakor]

Wasn't a promised feature of some Windows release or another an end to the ceaseless rebooting?

[eldaec]

I don't know whether MS promised that, but I think I waa lied to in this thread about it at some point.

But I doubt MS promised it. Rebooting is what windows is for.

[01101010]

I don't know whether MS promised that, but I think I waa lied to in this thread about it at some point.

But I doubt MS promised it. Rebooting is what windows is for.

To that end, the computer industry as a whole is unknown for turning it off and turning it back on again.

[Sky]

Had a weird one today. User was on our wifi and I reset the password (we change it monthly and I was 15 minutes late today!). Now she can't connect, getting a 'Can't connect to network' error (windows 10, obviously since I'm in this thread!).

Tried a slew of basic shit, nothing working, everyone else is connected just fine.

Had to send her away pissed at the library, I really hate that. The upside to my job is making everything work for people so they can just focus on their tasks (in her case, getting her nursing degree online in peace and quiet away from her kids). She had to take the week off for school work and now she can't work here.

Now, there is some slight chance she messed with some setting before she asked for help. But I have a suspicion about it being W10 fuckery at work, since everything looked right to me.