back to article Microsoft deletes Windows 10 nagware from Windows 7 and 8

Microsoft has quietly excised Windows 10 free upgrade offers from Windows 7 and 8, aka the GWX.exe. PCs running Windows 7 or 8.x and Windows Update will silently delete the nagware, thanks to a new update dubbed KB3184143. “This update removes the Get Windows 10 app and other software related to the Windows 10 free upgrade …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Now lets hope...

    It deletes the right nagware, and not something else. Because I can imagine it already: "Ok, so now that Win7/Win8 users can no longer upgrade to Windows 10 I guess they won't be needing that update option anymore either...".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Now lets hope...

      I hope it only deletes, and doesn't install some telemetry also for those who didn't like the W10 one...

      1. Oliver Mayes

        Re: Now lets hope...

        The Windows 10 telemetry feature was forced into Windows 7 & 8 months ago.

        1. CompUser

          Re: Now lets hope...

          "The Windows 10 telemetry feature was forced into Windows 7 & 8 months ago."

          Only if you let it be installed in Windows 7, 8.

          If you don't want it on your Windows 7, 8, then uninstall it.

          1. asdf

            Re: Now lets hope...

            >If you don't want it on your Windows 7, 8, then uninstall it.

            Yeah have fun keeping track of all the KBs on that. And if you don't think eventually vital security updates will depend on having them then you haven't been following Redmond lately.

  2. Martin 47

    Anyone care to guess how long it will be before an 'update' (shouldn't that be 'downdate'?) reinstalls the nagware albeit in a slightly different form?

    I'm going with before the end of the month

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Childcatcher

      I'll put a tenner on "early December" please. Reckon the bastards will attempt to slip it in among (and misrepresented as) seasonal gift giving.

    2. Elf
      Meh

      No bet. Here's my wallet. Leave me a fiver and my ID so I can get a beer on the way home.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Pint

        Much obliged.

        Bottoms up!

  3. Don Dumb

    They give more than you found

    I find Microsoft's refusal to publish useful update information annoying and deeply suspcious. However for the rollup update patch they do give information behind the first link in the knowledgebase article.

    September's rollup update (3185278) includes these updates:

    "This update includes quality improvements. No new operating system features are being introduced in this update. Key changes include:

    Improved support for the Disk Cleanup tool to free up space by removing older Windows Updates after they are superseded by newer updates.

    Improved compatibility of certain software applications.

    Removed the Copy Protection option when ripping CDs in Windows Media Audio (WMA) format from Windows Media Player.

    Addressed issue that causes mmc.exe to consume 100% of the CPU on one processor when trying to close the Exchange 2010 Exchange Management Console (EMC), after installing KB3125574.

    Addressed issue that causes the Generic Commands (GC) to fail upon attempting to install KB2919469 or KB2970228 on a device that already has KB3125574 installed."

    I prefer this to having 6 updates. Of course there might be 'more' updates included within the pack they aren't talking about...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: They give more than you found

      > Removed the Copy Protection option when ripping CDs in Windows Media Audio (WMA) format from Windows Media Player.

      The cynical side of me now assumes that the behaviour of Windows Media Player is now to rip with copy protection and the option to disable this behaviour has been removed?

  4. Steven Roper

    Too little, too late

    Thanks to Microsoft's pushiness with Windows 10, the only machines facing the internet in my home and at the office now are all running Linux Mint with Pale Moon, Thunderbird and Libre Office. Only the design-room machines are still running Windows 7, and none of those are internet-facing any longer.

    It's become our office pastime lately to open with impunity the malicious attachments on the spam emails we get, just for the fun of watching the Cryptolocker payload fall flat on its face trying to run on a Linux box...

    No, we don't miss Windows in our office, not one bit!

    1. wolfetone Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: Too little, too late

      As a penguinista, let me welcome you to our humble family.

      1. sabroni Silver badge
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: our humble family.

        Thanks for that!

        The humility always shines through whenever the penguins are posting!

        1. wolfetone Silver badge

          Re: our humble family.

          "The humility always shines through whenever the penguins are posting!"

          Hmm, you're either one of those poor souls who have been nagged to death by Micro$oft, or one of those souls languishing in a fruity walled garden environment that requires you to pay £1,000+ for a new computer ever 2 years.

          Do you need a hug? x

          1. sabroni Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: Hmm, you're either one of those poor souls...

            See! Exactly the kind of humility I was talking about!

            1. Geoffrey W

              Re: Hmm, you're either one of those poor souls...

              @Sabroni

              I was pondering the idea of posting something like wot u dun (re: humility) but now I don't need to and can recline unmolested by those waddling penguins and their down votes and enjoy a glass of wine. Cheers!

            2. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. WolfFan Silver badge

            Re: our humble family.

            fruity walled garden environment that requires you to pay £1,000+ for a new computer ever 2 years.

            Hmm. My last Mac cost considerably less than £1,000, and I've had it for nearly four years now, so I know that you can't be talking about Apple. The Mac I purchased before that did cost more than £1,000, but it's been running for nearly six years now. I am planning to buy some 'new' Macs, to replace Windows-infested systems. Some of them may cost over £1,000. Most will be less. Hint: look up 'Mac mini'. Indeed, look up 'refurbished Mac mini from PowerMax'. You'll notice machines which can run the finest version of OS X, Snow Leopard, from before Apple went bonkers and started to make everything flat and grey and iOSified, and for prices ranging from $160 to $450 or so. Hell, no, I'm not buying new, iOSified, systems, any more than I'm buying new, Win 10-infested, systems.

            Memo to Tim Cook: Cookie, ol' fruit, if I want to use an iPad I'll bloody well buy an iPad. Keep the iOS crap on iPads and iPhones and leave the Macs alone. And have someone sit on Jonny Ive, he's got way out of control.

    2. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: Too little, too late

      "just for the fun of watching the Cryptolocker payload fall flat on its face trying to run on a Linux box"

      I would not laugh too hard in case they go cross platform. In any case if you really treat security as a priority then all of you obvious user-writeable areas (such as /tmp, /var/tmp and /home) should be mounted with at least the 'noexec' option to help defeat users accidentally double-clicking on something malicious. For that and other tips you could do worse than checking this out:

      https://www.cesg.gov.uk/guidance/end-user-devices-security-guidance-ubuntu-1404-lts

      1. Steven Roper

        Re: Too little, too late

        "all of you obvious user-writeable areas (such as /tmp, /var/tmp and /home) should be mounted with at least the 'noexec' "

        Already done. Full-disk encryption, noexec and admin application whitelisting are all in place. I'm still looking at what other measures can be taken so that link you provided is very helpful, thanks for that.

        I'm sure that the goofing around with email attachments will stop once the novelty wears off. It's just that we in the office have spent so many years being paranoid about never opening attachments, never clicking on links in emails, constantly updating antivirus (and never being sure that said AV can even catch them all) and generally living in fear, that the safety and security of Linux feels strangely liberating. I've encouraged it because it eases the transition for the staff and and creates a sense of camaraderie and fun that helps them cope with the stresses of the changeover. In addition it helps me to locate and plug any potential security holes. But once things settle down properly be assured we'll be as vigilant to threats as we've always been.

      2. Paul Woodhouse

        Re: Too little, too late

        @Paul Crawford

        upvoted for truth and providing a useful link... I wouldn't recommend anyone baits the virus's on any production machine no matter how safe they think they are... especially not if you've not read and UNDERSTOOD all of the link Paul provided and this one, even if its a bit old...

        https://www.maketecheasier.com/secure-newly-installed-ubuntu/

    3. kmac499

      Re: Too little, too late

      Can you imagine how fast the MS update servers would melt if they offered an optional 'upgrade' from Win10 to Win7..

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It removes the Windows 10 Nagware

    in return for installing other Malware in the same update that steals your soul.

  6. frank ly

    I'm so happy ....

    .... that I made the effort to get the Win 10 update early this year and the Anniversary Edition update last week.

    Every time I plug that SSD in and boot from it, I'm reminded of why I switched to Linux three years ago. (If you haven't worked your way through the Win 10 Anniversary Edition update process then you haven't died.)

  7. Novex

    I didn't notice this patch in the September updates for my Windows 7 partition. Is this update out of band?

    I did notice that the update to check compatibility with Windows 10 was still there though, so that still got 'hidden'. Thank god we're past all that nagging, at least for now.

    On the BBC News website, they're reporting that Which? have condemned Windows 10: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37431343

    1. Stanislaw
      WTF?

      Security is now optional, it seems

      On my Windows 7 box KB3179930 - the rollup with the .NET stuff in it - has come up as an optional update, despite the description mentioning that it corrects security issues.

      Whereas an update to correct time zone information in Novosibirsk is listed as important despite me being in the UK.

      Go figure, I suppose.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        .... update to correct time zone information in Novosibirsk is listed as important ...

        Well, it is a lovely place. Great weather, lots of trees, wonderful fishing and hunting, and the people are quite nice (certainly much nicer than in Moscow). You should really drop by for a visit - and now, thanks to Microsoft, you won't miss your return flight on the way back home.

        What's not to like?

        1. Stanislaw
          Happy

          What's not to like?

          Heh. Now you're being a little bit naughty, quoting most of my sentence but leaving off the bit at the end. I'm sure Novosibirsk is not only lovely, but also important, and you're a proper scamp for trying to make it look like I think otherwise!

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "On the BBC News website, they're reporting that Which? have condemned Windows 10: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37431343"

      I liked the quote at the end: "On the whole, Windows 10 has been received well, and was a notable step up from the previous Windows 8, which did not go down well with many users." I'd call that damning with faint praise.

    3. JetSetJim
      Joke

      re: condemned

      Condemned by Amnesty International, too

  8. GregC

    So Microsoft 'now issues adjustments to Windows “... either during our regular update releases on the second and fourth Tuesday of every month or whenever an unscheduled update is released.”'

    Or "whenever the fuck they feel like it" in other words.

    1. Anonymous IV

      > Or "whenever the fuck they feel like it" in other words.

      More precisely, when they feel there is a need for it. Do you think Microsoft produces updates just to keep their programmers busy? Sheesh.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Well, yes. How many times do they have to push out a new version of an update because the original one didn't work? You could count that happening on the fingers of one hand over years in the days when they had QA.

  9. Felonmarmer

    Optional Upgrade?

    KB3184143 is listed as an optional upgrade and not installed automatically, whereas the one that put GWX on was listed as an important upgrade and happened without consent or notification.

    Getting rid of it should be the same level priority as the one that put it on.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    Next month

    a patch will "break" Win7/8, and you will be told the ONLY way to fix it is to buy and install Win10A.

    Just a theory - honest

  11. Pat 11

    Windows Update is unbelievably shit

    Several of my machines have got themselves into a state where the updater can't do anything, while fully using an entire CPU core. Fixing it is a dark art. It's hard to believe how badly they fuck up something so simple, the whole thing must be built on a mesh of bad kludges.

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: how badly they fuck up something so simple

      I mean, what could be easier than robustly updating 3 different operating systems on any PC configuration you can think of? Fucking Idiots!!!

      1. hplasm
        Gimp

        Re: how badly they fuck up something so simple

        "... robustly updating ..."

        HAHAHAHAHA!!

      2. stephanh

        Re: how badly they fuck up something so simple

        Right! I mean, this is MicroSoft we are talking about, the small software outfit run from Paul Allen's shed. It is not like they could afford, say 10,000 differently configured computers and a team of 100 people to test installation on all of them.

        1. Justicesays

          Re: how badly they fuck up something so simple

          Ironically the standard fix for this issue is to install an update...

          You can manually download the individual update from MS however.

          Tip: temporarily stop the windows update service before installing it or you have to compete with the locked up background update scanner.

          http://superuser.com/questions/951960/windows-7-sp1-windows-update-stuck-checking-for-updates

      3. Pat 11

        Re: how badly they fuck up something so simple

        I don't doubt it's challenging, but none of my Linux machines have ever locked up when patching without so much as an error message.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. DropBear

          Re: how badly they fuck up something so simple

          "none of my Linux machines have ever locked up when patching without so much as an error message."

          Oh, mine did, regularly, on a kernel update. Granted, it promptly unlocked itself and continued booting without a hitch FOURTY minutes later, once it concluded I don't actually have a floppy drive connected, but to be fair I DID have to figure out first that I should just not touch the computer at all for almost an hour even though it positively looks dead as a doornail...

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: how badly they fuck up something so simple

        I mean, what could be easier than robustly updating 3 different operating systems on any PC configuration you can think of? Fucking Idiots!!!

        You're right, it's really difficult… so difficult in fact that Debian have been doing it across 3 revisions simultaneously for i386, alpha, amd64, mips, mipsel, sparc, ppc, parisc, armel, armhf, m68k… most of those since the late 90s. i386 and amd64 being just as varied as you'd see on Windows including some that cannot run Windows (e.g. Cobalt Qube3/4). Gentoo have been supporting nearly as many, yours truly used to help out with their MIPS port.

        Microsoft have been doing it for i386 and amd64. Pretty much all being descendants of the IBM PC compatible. Nowhere near as varied as what Debian supports. Historically they've supported MIPS, PowerPC, Alpha and a few others, but these days, i386 and amd64 are their main ports with some dabbling in ARM. They also have far more economic resources to throw at the problem, and they charge customers for their product.

        So yes, I expect them to do better. Much better.

        1. sabroni Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: so difficult in fact that Debian have been doing it

          I think the MS install base is a little larger than the Debian one, and also has less consumer users.

          Get back to me in the year of the Linux desktop and we'll see whether they can maintain that under scale.

          1. hplasm
            Gimp

            Re: so difficult in fact that Debian have been doing it

            "I think..."

            Ah- MS also fail hard on servers; you were saying...

          2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: so difficult in fact that Debian have been doing it

            "I think the MS install base is a little larger than the Debian one, and also has less consumer users."

            The scale effect might come into play with download speeds and to some extent the speed of checking for updates. But as Stuart said, the installed base is very diverse: from the Raspberry Pi upwards to larger server installations. I think we can reasonably conclude that scale wouldn't shake out many if any hidden quality problems. And having installed updates on both Windows and Linux I know from experience that the latter are still faster even if you disregard the download speeds.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: so difficult in fact that Debian have been doing it

            I think the MS install base is a little larger than the Debian one, and also has less consumer users.

            Yet Microsoft for all their experience in making it flawless, seem to achieve anything but. Windows Update is all but broken on a fresh out-of-the-box Windows 7 install, or any Windows 7 installation that has been left alone (not-updated) in months.

            I'm sorry, but an out-of-the-box just-performed installation of Windows 7 from clean OEM media should JustWork, with regards to Windows Update. This has nothing to do with the number or skill of the users.

            Get back to me in the year of the Linux desktop and we'll see whether they can maintain that under scale.

            Yep, well we're still waiting for the Year of the Microsoft web server too.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows Update is unbelievably shit

      "built on a mesh of bad kludges"

      And that, right there, is the Windows 10 marketing slogan as brought to you by the "Truth in Advertising" people.

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