Windows Update - How will it change your system?

Anonymous
2016-10-14T16:11:13+00:00

You need to make a decision about where you want to be with your system.

My advice is to change the Windows Update (WU) setting to never.

It really depends on where you want to be with your Windows 7 system.

Woody Leonhard has described the situation something like this.  Note, I am using my own words here and describing it from my own perspective:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3128983/microsoft-windows/how-to-prepare-for-the-windows-781-patchocalypse.html

Group A:  Roll over and just let MS install what ever they wish on your computer and just don't worry about privacy and the spyware they will install.  With this option you leave WU as Delayed start, and set the WU setting at Recommended.  This is the easy way and requires no effort or concentration.  You just let happen what will.  This is essentially what you have with a Windows 10 system.

Group B:  Refuse to accept any updates except Security ones.  In that case you follow my initial recommendation and leave WU set at Never.  You get the Security only updates from the "catalog".   There is risk here in B.  You are trusting that MS will not put anything in that group that does things you do not want done. A sort of level of trust in MS that I am not sure they deserve.   Keep in mind that they have done the same thing with this set of updates they did in the main one.  It is all one agglomeration of whatever number of security updates they decide to put in it. 

Group C (AKA W): Shut down WU permanently and never again accept a Windows Update.  This group feels that the risk of MS changing their machine in unacceptable ways or even bricking it is greater than the risk of a hacker breaking in because some security patch was not installed.   I suspect that most people who even think about this topic will opt for this.  However since most people think of their computer like a potato peeler, they will not even think about this and things will just happen without them even knowing.  They will be Group A and won't even know it.

I am in Group W and would like to be in Group B.   It depends on whether I can find a satisfactory way for my 150 or so client machines to be updated.  They are average Joes and Janes.

Note that this may not apply to NON-Windows updates such as Office.  I am not sure how you can be in group B or W and do this, but I am working on it.

UPDATE November 19, 2016:

It now appears that B is an impractical strategy for 99% of users.  And, here is the reason why:  When an error is made in a security-only update, if the error turns out not to have a security affect, it may be corrected in a non-security update.  In that case if you were following B strategy, you would be left with an un-corrected defective update installed on your computer.  If you were extremely diligent and knew about it, you may be able to get the correction in specific cases.  This would entail an extreme amount of diligence that few would be willing or able to provide.

The new rollup style of updates that Microsoft is now providing to what we would call Group A, which include all kinds of updates (security and non-security), are cumulative.  That means if you miss a month or even more, it will not matter because by installing the latest month's rollup, you would be up to date.

NOTE well, that Security-only updates are NOT cumulative.  Which means if you miss a month, you may never get the missed updates.

So one strategy that you may wish to consider is following Group C, but still updating .net and Microsoft Office through Windows Update, but installing no Windows updates at all.  It would be advisable in this case that you stop using Internet Explorer because you would not be getting those updates, but instead use an alternative browser.

Then, after following this strategy for some time, if things take a turn for the worse, and you decide you made the wrong choice (Group C with .net an Office updates), you can easily shift to A by simply using the latest offered Rollup offered in Windows Update.

So, as things have evolved, it looks like the vast majority have really only two choices:  A as described above or C (modified as described above).  The good news is that if you follow the modified C strategy, you have a way back to the Microsoft way, that is easy to implement.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-10-28T14:10:09+00:00

    I don't find your style so much as irritating as I do hard to understand.

    I am not your guy if you are looking for expertise on specific patches.  As I should have made clear by now, my ambition is to protect my clients' investments in our computers. We like to use our computers as tools and expect them to be private, secure and safe, where we keep records of our financial affairs and other personal matters.  As such, I have developed a strategy to keep them safe that seems to work, at least to the best of my knowledge.

    You are looking for information to help start a movement to bring attention to the wrongs being done.  I am just a bit player trying to defend.

    If you are looking for a culprit update look at KB2952664.  Google it and you will find lots of information. 

    Woody Leonhard is likely the expert you are looking for.  He is quite responsive.  You can read his articles in InfoWorld  http://www.infoworld.com/article/3127809/microsoft-windows/detested-get-windows-10-snooping-patch-kb-2952664-reappears.html .  You can also read his blog at www.askwoody.com

    The most amazing thing to me is that there are not numerous class actions already started as a result of the most under-handed, unethical pushing of Windows 10 on unsuspecting Windows 7 owners.  They resorted to every trick the most competent virus writers have ever used.   This forum is full of stories of people who fell into the trap.  Many ended up with computers as good as bricks as a result.

    This discussion thread is not about getting justice.  This discussion thread is about the outcomes and alternatives and the goods and bads of different strategies.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-10-28T05:56:34+00:00

    I fully understand that my style is irritating, Canadian Tech.  You have been bothered by my style in other threads.  It irritates many others , and at other companies, especially at Google.  I can apologize, but I can't change.

    In this situation I am trying to come up with facts we can present to the public that can withstand scrutiny by the skeptics.  And scrutiny by committees at the national legislators level, because that is where this is eventually going to end up.  That is a fact.  Not in the courts.  In the national governments of nations around the world.  But somebody has to put the package together that will cause the citizens of a given nation to stand up and demand the necessary investigations from their legislators.

    Yes, I have read all the posts in this thread more than once -- some more than three or four times.

    In this instance I want to be able to point to a specific update as not being for security, but being one that helps Microsoft collect information from a person's computer that helps Microsoft do something other than help make that person's computer safer.

    At this time the bundled update style has only been deployed once -- October -- for Windows 7, so for other examples we must turn to Windows 10, I think.

    Thus, I ask for a specific example of an update that was bundled together with all the security updates but was for gathering information that was not in a security bracket.  If we can show more than one example, that's even better.

    Is there any chance that happened in October in the Windows 7 field of play?

    If not, at present, we use the Windows 10 example to show what might happen with Windows 7 down the road.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-10-27T15:42:40+00:00

    HFM47, are you asking if updates for intelligence gathering are included in the new roll-=ups??  Or, are you telling me they are not??

    I am pretty certain they are.

    You should read my comments in context.  Let me restate for you.....

    Microsoft ended all development work on the Windows 7 project at the end of 2014.  That means that any "updates" to Win7 that are not security patches are questionable and unlikely to include improvements to Win7.   So, my conclusion is they are unlikely to be of use or benefit to a Win7 system.  It is well known and documented that many of these updates are installing changes that feed "telemetry" data to MS "to improve the customer experience."  I don't know about you, but I do not expect an improved experience with Win7 from Microsoft.   In my mind that is corporate speak for spyware and increased advertising effectiveness.   We already know of the many unbridled tricks that were included in them to get people to take the free "upgrade" to Win10.

    Personally, I have been a huge MS supporter for decades.  Over the past year or so, that has changed quite dramatically.  I have found myself becoming rather expert in finding ways to protect my clients from what MS was trying to do.  If MS is being criticized, it deserves it.  This is a sad day and I am truly sorry MS has made these changes.  Changes that in my mind degrade the value of my, and my clients' Windows 7 computer investments.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-10-27T02:30:59+00:00

    You may find differing opinions on this, but in my opinion, the ONLY updates to use are those labeled Security.  All others are not useful and may be turning your computer into an intelligence gathering machine like Windows 10.

    Let me check something, please.

    The updates you feel are for intelligence gathering are not bundled into that new style mandatory package under the guise of being for security?

    Well, this thread is for Windows 7 users and it has only been one month since that new style was put into play on the Windows 7, 8, 8.1 playing field, so the answer I seek above may have to come from somebody's research on Windows 10.

    <  <  <  something else  >  >  >

    And I don't wish to have this thread appear as if its only purpose is for bashing Microsoft and so such statements from non-employees that Microsoft forced them to update to Windows 10 shouldn't be allowed to be posted without somebody pointing out that it seems odd to read that.

    I'm not stating such statements are not true, but it would be good for the "cause" to have such statements supported with some sort of evidence, if I may be so impolite as to make that request/suggestion.

    By the way, the "cause" is consumer rights, even in the IT business.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-10-27T00:38:36+00:00

    It really annoyed me how Microsoft forced me to upgrade to Windows 10. I have Windows 7 Professional again, and I am going to try to use Anytime Upgrade to get Windows 7 Ultimate, assuming Microsoft didn't shut down this feature.

    Personally I prefer Windows 7. For Microsoft employees, it's Windows 10, whether they like it or not.

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