Windows 7 & 8 machines to get monthly "rollups", no choice in patches

by
in microsoft on (#1QYT5)
It looks like the end of the road for Win 7 & 8 users may be at hand. Microsoft's Senior Product Marketing Manager Nathan Mercer just announced that, "From October 2016 onwards, Windows will release a single Monthly Rollup that addresses both security issues and reliability issues in a single update. The Monthly Rollup will be published to Windows Update (WU), WSUS, SCCM, and the Microsoft Update Catalog. Each month's rollup will supersede the previous month's rollup, so there will always be only one update required for your Windows PCs to get current."

In other words, individual patches will no longer be available after October 2016, and Windows 7 and Windows 8 users will now only have two choices: stop updating completely and leave your computers vulnerable to security holes, or accept everything single thing Microsoft sends you whether you want it or not. Will this include forced installs of Win 10 on existing Win 7/8 PCs? Only time will tell.
Reply 7 comments

Turning off patches in 1...2...3... (Score: 2, Insightful)

by genericuser@pipedot.org on 2016-08-19 00:11 (#1QYT6)

I think it's finally time to turn off patches in my Win 7 machine, or at least wait a couple of weeks after each patch is made available to make sure that it doesn't fist-fuck my PC into becoming a Win 10 machine. If Microsoft wanted to force users to try Linux they could hardly have picked a better way. So it looks like it's time to make Linux Mint my main OS...I've been dabbling with it and using it on my laptop, but I think the time has come to make the switch to Linux on my primary PC.

Re: Turning off patches in 1...2...3... (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-08-20 12:38 (#1R3H2)

This does it for me. Updates are now disabled for all Windows machines in the house. Moving primary machine to a non-systemd linux soon.

Free Windows 10 upgrades are over (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2016-08-19 02:07 (#1QZ17)

Will this include forced installs of Win 10 on existing Win 7/8 PCs?
Unless I'm mistaken, the free Win10 upgrades are now over. If you didn't accept it before now, you have to buy a copy at more than $100, and certainly won't find it hidden in Windows Updates:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3107789/windows-pcs/end-to-free-upgrade-halts-rapid-windows-10-growth.html

From Microsoft: "the Windows 10 free upgrade offer ended on July 29, 2016."

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12435/windows-10-upgrade-faq

Re: Free Windows 10 upgrades are over (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-08-20 12:45 (#1R3H3)

I would not put it past them to continue to sneak it in. Go on, accuse me of paranoia.

Re: Free Windows 10 upgrades are over (Score: 1)

by genericuser@pipedot.org on 2016-08-20 16:25 (#1R402)

"I would not put it past them to continue to sneak it in. Go on, accuse me of paranoia."

After my experiences with Microsoft, paranoia is in order. In fact, it's practically required.

Re: Free Windows 10 upgrades are over (Score: 1, Informative)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-08-21 16:35 (#1R6JT)

It's still possible to get the free upgrade if you use pinky swear that you use assistive technologies:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade

Re: Free Windows 10 upgrades are over (Score: 1)

by genericuser@pipedot.org on 2016-08-23 21:07 (#1RE1R)

> It's still possible to get the free upgrade if you use pinky swear that you use assistive technologies:

Yes, but the point is that a lot of people don't want Win 10 on their machines and many of us actively oppose it. We also like to be able to reject or decline some of the patches that are offered. For example, I never install any of the Silverlight patches because I don't have Silverlight on my PC. But MS will happily offer them to me regardless.