[HN Gopher] Windows 11: a spyware machine out of users' control
___________________________________________________________________
Windows 11: a spyware machine out of users' control
Author : jlpcsl
Score : 262 points
Date : 2023-02-08 18:39 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techspot.com)
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| I couldn't even install windows 11 - it had some issue with my
| account, couldn't log in. A couple of hours wasted just trying to
| log in... no.
| grugagag wrote:
| Blessing in disguise
| [deleted]
| Someone1234 wrote:
| This whole article is just a description of this YouTube video:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT4vDfA_4NI
|
| This video is substance-less, they hooked up Wireshark, watched
| packets fly past, most of which were DNS lookups, then described
| domains as if that is meaningful in itself. Most of the traffic
| is generated by Windows 11 widgets[0], which I'd suggest
| disabling either way.
|
| Do I like what Microsoft is doing with Windows 11? Actually, no,
| I'm pretty unhappy with it. But I hate how lazy most of these
| critiques are. They do so much irrefutably bad stuff, this is the
| best you can come up with?
|
| [0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/stay-up-to-
| date-...
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Is this middlebrow dismissal really the top comment for an
| important discussion?
|
| Do you really believe the geolocator and marketing pings you
| didn't ask for are just to say hello and immediately forgotten?
| theknocker wrote:
| [dead]
| kitkat_new wrote:
| is it possible to disable them?
| photoGrant wrote:
| Let's say I'm a politician at a restaurant. I just want to eat.
| But even without opening the menu, you've had the chef call
| every person in town to let them know you're here.
|
| It's just, gross.
| naikrovek wrote:
| That's not what's happening. that's not even a good analogy.
|
| A better analogy would be this:
|
| let's say I'm a politician at a restaurant. I just want to
| eat. But, without even opening the menu, the waiter needs to
| know that I'm there so they can bring the menu to me and
| greet me. They also bring water in case I am thirsty right
| now.
|
| BY FAR (if not entirely) this is what Windows does. Do you
| need updates? Are you an Autopilot machine used in the
| enterprise? Do any of your installed applications need
| updates from the Windows Store?
|
| These are all normal things, but people who don't understand
| how Windows handles these things consider them all spyware.
| None of them seem to be aware that you can install a
| telemetry viewer application and see everything sent to
| Microsoft from your PC if you're so concerned with what is
| being collected. You can also, from that application, delete
| the stuff Microsoft has collected about you from that
| machine. They go straight to "oh I can get views if I
| complain about Microsoft and sound very offended by it!" So,
| that's what they do.
|
| It's just annoying.
| gigel82 wrote:
| The app you're talking about is called Diagnostic Data
| Viewer [1].
|
| However, your statement is not correct. It's true that most
| system diagnostics / telemetry flow through this
| application; however, that's only one part of the network
| requests going out of your system.
|
| There are network requests being made every time you type a
| character in the start menu (whether or not you have web
| search enabled). That is not considered telemetry so it
| does not show up in the Diagnostic Data Viewer. It is also
| not possible to disable it (there were various group policy
| and registry settings that worked at some point in time,
| none of them do any more on latest versions of Windows 11).
|
| Similarly, when the "recommended" container of the start
| menu refreshes itself, it does a lot of network traffic,
| none of which is recorded in DDV. And of course, any
| applications that come with the system but are not core OS
| (OneDrive, Office, Store, Xbox, Cortana, Explorer, etc.)
| will send their own telemetry (and other network requests)
| which do not go through DDV.
|
| [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/privacy/diagnostic...
| naikrovek wrote:
| if you turn off typing and inking in privacy settings,
| does the start menu stuff stop?
| gigel82 wrote:
| No, not the last time I checked this (a few months ago).
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Do you need updates? [...] Do any of your installed
| applications need updates from the Windows Store?
|
| If the checking for updates for anything is happening
| without my consent, that's bad.
|
| > None of them seem to be aware that you can install a
| telemetry viewer application
|
| Or, more likely, they don't trust it.
| photoGrant wrote:
| Your waiter is calling every Tom Dick & Harry to just wait.
| I'd say if everything requires a phone call, you've already
| lost me as a customer. Your analogy is worse, if
| we're...y'know. Doing that.
| joeframbach wrote:
| Which actor in your analogy is scorecardresearch.com?
| nightski wrote:
| Do we know that request originated from the OS and not
| some other app the user had installed?
| vorticalbox wrote:
| They used a "fresh install" so default everything.
| naikrovek wrote:
| that means nothing. fresh install of a custom image?
| fresh install of what ISO image? insider build or release
| build? maybe the DNS server being used by default is
| being hijacked, or the ISO they created, if they created
| one, has an app installed by the ISO creation tool which
| made it. not all of those are legit.
|
| I set up a VM and installed Windows 11 Home on it and
| captured all traffic after initial setup and a reboot. I
| saw nothing going to any non-microsoft domain.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The hidden camera in the waiter's tie.
| naikrovek wrote:
| tell me that comes from Windows and is not the result of
| a redirect that some app's HTTP request encountered and
| I'll try to find an answer.
|
| when I boot up a Win11 Home VM and capture all traffic, I
| don't see any traffic to that host at all, so I can't
| tell you where that comes from.
| xg15 wrote:
| Weird how Windows XP managed to be a perfectly usable
| operating system without doing any of those things...
| naikrovek wrote:
| I don't think you can fairly compare XP and Windows 11
| given how much more Windows 11 does than XP. even just
| looking at enterprise management alone, XP is
| uncontrollable by comparison. forget all the end-user
| features that didn't exist in Windows XP.
|
| might as well compare Win11 to MS-DOS if you're thinking
| along those lines.
| josephcsible wrote:
| There are zero features I need from Windows 11 that
| Windows XP didn't already have. The only reason I'm not
| still running XP is that security vulnerabilities in it
| are no longer being fixed.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| Honest question - what features does Windows 11 have that
| I would want? I've never tried Windows 11, but I already
| hate how invasive Windows 10 is. What is your definition
| of "better" because if I weren't forced to upgrade to
| play modern games I would have never bought 10 (and I
| hate it even after years of using it and spending
| countless hours tweaking it to suck less but it still
| fucking sucks balls).
|
| I feel like every time I "upgrade" Windows I hate it. And
| that hatred doesn't go away, it just gets normalized.
| CuriousSkeptic wrote:
| so far the two features I would lack in older versions
| would be:
|
| - "copy file path" in the context menu
|
| - More Window tiling options
| zootboy wrote:
| "Copy as Path" is definitely available in Win10, and
| probably older, just hidden under the Shift-RightClick
| context menu.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| By better they mean it enables them to be more
| controlling and invasive in their employees' actions and
| personal lives.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Indeed, these lame comparisons are just as bad today as I
| remember them over 20 years ago when I was a young lad
| and Windows XP launched and everyone hated it thinking it
| would bomb (including me) because "why do I need this
| bloated OS with a colorful paintjob when Win98 does
| everything just fine?"
|
| It's pretty hilarious to see history repeat itself at
| every new Windows launch. Rinse and repeat.
|
| _" Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are
| wrong!"_
| ineptech wrote:
| For a regular home user, what does Win11 do that WinXP
| couldn't? Everything I can think of (drivers, screen res,
| multiple monitors) is incremental improvements to what we
| already had, I can't think of a feature they've
| introduced since XP than I want.
|
| edit: This is probably too glib; certainly more recent
| Windowses are superior for application developers, which
| end users benefit from indirectly. It's the user-facing
| parts of the OS that seemed to have gone in the other
| direction.
| ormax3 wrote:
| It should be possible to disable many of these connections as
| documented here:
|
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/manage-con...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| _> Windows 11 widgets[0], which I 'd suggest disabling either
| way._
|
| In case you were curious, apparently the full widget removal is
| via group policy.
|
| gpedit.msc > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates
| > Windows Components > Widgets > Allow Widgets > {select
| Disabled} > {restart}
|
| https://www.pdq.com/blog/how-to-remove-widgets-in-windows-11...
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Per your own link, they can be disabled via Settings >
| Personalization > Taskbar > Widgets.
|
| All setting Local Policies does is force them off and stops
| the user from re-enabling them in the Settings (which is
| likely a good default for organizations).
| offsquares wrote:
| You set the group policy or Microsoft will reenable it on
| the next update (which is not what the user wants).
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| Group policy isn't a guarantee either since at some point
| they can just stop respecting it. I watched this happen
| with telemetry in Windows 7. You used to be able to opt
| out of everything at one point in time.
|
| Now you need a Microsoft account to register even non-365
| versions of Office.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| My general experience has been settings < registry <<
| group policy.
|
| Microsoft will update settings in an update at a PM's
| whim.
|
| They may break registry key bindings due to code changes.
|
| But they generally don't break gpo functionality, because
| this causes issues for $$$ enterprise customers.
|
| Downside: Believe they cut group policy functionality in
| <Pro OS versions.
| snuxoll wrote:
| In non-Pro/Enterprise editions of Windows the software
| still generally (though not always) respects the registry
| keys in HKLM\Policies, they just remove the tools to
| configure local group policy and (obviously) you cannot
| join a domain to set them through AD. You can still use
| third-party tools like PolicyPlus combined with the
| freely available ADMX packs that Microsoft ships for
| installation into AD forests to set whatever the hell you
| want.
| zamalek wrote:
| > then described domains as if that is meaningful in itself
|
| It would be one thing if it was all MSFT domains, but
| scorecardresearch.com is pretty terrifying from a data
| sovereignty perspective.
|
| > which I'd suggest disabling either way.
|
| This isn't alarming because of how it affects tech-savvy users,
| it's alarming because of how it affects average people.
| anthk wrote:
| get https://github.com/stevenblack/hosts
| klipklop wrote:
| There are components of windows that completely bypass the
| hosts file so it can 'phone home'.
| Vortigaunt wrote:
| Sadly this no longer works for Microsoft domains. Had
| Windows Defender mark my host file as having a 'severe'
| issue just because I copy pasted a list of Microsoft
| telemetry domains (1). Everything worked perfectly fine
| before that update.
|
| (1) https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows
| -10-h...
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| I use DNSCrypt (SimpleDNSCrypt in Windows). It has extra
| features like wildcards for blocking subdomains. It
| doesn't touch your hosts file so it should bypass that.
| moose_man wrote:
| Tech community treats Microsoft since Balmer with kids
| gloves, like it's some sort of non-profit organization for
| saving the planet.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Where do you come up with this information?
|
| Just look at the weekly anti-Microsoft articles around
| here, including this one you're commenting on.
| Jenk wrote:
| From my perspective it's the younger (and/or less mature)
| tech community that do this, and even then that's just
| sychophancy posts on reddit or elsewhere about how amazing
| C# is and you're a dumb-dumb for using anything that isn't
| C# etc.
|
| Those of us with longer teeth treat MS just the same as any
| org: We don't trust a single one of them.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| They're right about C#, it's an amazing language because
| it's solid + steals the good parts from other languages.
| The best choice I ever made was switching from Java/PHP
| to C# back in the early 2000s.
|
| I absolutely hate Microsoft for what they've done to
| Windows and Office - both of these were fantastic
| products for desktop users 20 years ago but nowadays
| they're either a bloated mess (Office) or spyware.
|
| We really need to see PC gaming move completely away from
| it.
| JohnFen wrote:
| The young whippersnappers will learn with experience.
| wrldos wrote:
| I think you're right on the mark there. I'm jaded and
| cynical enough to know what's going to hurt me and what's
| going to pay the bills and that's where my interest
| stops. 20 years of C# and 35 years of Unix now :(
|
| Worshipping any vendor is quite frankly a bit sad.
|
| I tend to avoid having to solve problems now. If I do it
| tends to go somewhere vendor neutral like python on
| whatever platform happens to be lying around and not
| annoying me at the time.
| bob1029 wrote:
| Microsoft is a big place. Lately, the tech community is
| probably focusing more on their improvements to .NET (which
| now works on _non_ windows PCs) rather than their OS
| product line.
| zamalek wrote:
| > non-profit organization
|
| No edition of Windows is free. This is the very reasonable
| expectation that if you pay for a product, then you are not
| the product.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| I haven't paid anything since Windows 8. Win 10 and 11
| have been given to me for free.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| The widgets are a [bad] wrapper on bing.com. bing.com uses
| those analytics products.
|
| Yes, it should be disabled by default, just like a lot of
| unacceptable practices on Windows 11. Just don't need to
| shoot a video with Wireshark running and talk through DNS
| lookups to get to that critique.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Just don't need to shoot a video with Wireshark running
| and talk through DNS lookups to get to that critique.
|
| Or, you could do that. Why shouldn't that be done again?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| The video was useful and informative.
| vmoore wrote:
| I use Windows Privacy Dashboard[0] to patch Windows 11 for
| privacy. There are many others like it, but I found this app
| intuitive and the ability to grab the latest telemetry block-list
| is great (Windows 11 introduces new and undocumented telemetry
| hosts all the time).
|
| I primarily use Windows 11 for gaming and for Office 365. For
| anything sensitive, I use various Linux distributions. I also
| have a spare Windows 11 virtual machine (VM) for testing purposes
| and it's completely offline. I like to try out different Windows
| software in the VM and have it offline because some software I
| don't trust and I acquired it from sketchy sites, or it could be
| phoning home and sending sensitive data to some random server.
|
| [0] https://wpd.app/
| atraktor wrote:
| Satya Nadella, shame on you!
| amelius wrote:
| See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25095438
|
| > Does Apple really log every app you run? A technical look
| BirAdam wrote:
| I wish that the ameliorated.info project were producing up-to-
| date scripts for win10 and win11. Personally, I refuse to run
| Windows because I find it incredibly annoying. I do not believe
| that Redmond is doing anything nefarious to people via their
| PCs/software other than milking them for cash, but the UI changes
| I find to be going the wrong direction, the update mechanisms,
| the ads, etc... are all annoying, and I even find the
| notification system annoying.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Meh. This is a content-less article, that seems to be exclusively
| about how many DNS requests Windows 11 makes on first boot.
|
| Absolutely nothing on what data is being sent, if any, or why.
| nehal3m wrote:
| It'd be great if the OS told you the how and why in plain
| English.
| pathartl wrote:
| While I realize it's not a solution to the issue you raised,
| it's worth pointing out that Microsoft does a decent* job of
| documenting the types of telemetry taken across the Windows
| platform: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/privacy/configure-...
|
| * When I say decent, I mean this absolutely should be the
| bare minimum, but this type of thing feels rare in the
| industry.
| MikusR wrote:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/privacy/diagnostic...
| user3939382 wrote:
| > what data is being sent, if any
|
| Obviously the Windows crapware isn't doing explicit DNS lookups
| for no reason, they're implicit because it's making requests.
| bakugo wrote:
| > Absolutely nothing on what data is being sent, if any, or
| why.
|
| Might have something to do with the fact that the data is
| almost certainly encrypted and the OS is closed source.
|
| If I install a piece of software and it immediately connects to
| 20 random servers without asking or even telling me, for
| purposes other than to directly provide advertised features,
| I'm going to assume that those connections are being used to
| extract my personal data and the burden of proof is on the
| developer to prove otherwise.
| DethNinja wrote:
| Wouldn't transparent TLS with self signed certificates solve
| this problem? I'll definitely try this in couple of weeks but
| I can't be the only person to try this to uncover exact data
| that is being sent via Windows telemetrics.
|
| Another alternative would be remote debugging the kernel and
| hooking into some of the undocumented API calls but that
| would take lots of effort.
| ormax3 wrote:
| something like this using mitmproxy (from 2017):
|
| https://www.softscheck.com/en/blog/windows-10-enterprise-
| tel...
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Just spin up Fiddler with a generated root CA on the
| device. Or if you don't trust the network stack on the OS -
| point the thing at a MITM proxy and trust the self-signed
| CA in the certificate store.
|
| It's really not all that hard to view https traffic...
|
| ex: https://www.telerik.com/fiddler/fiddler-classic
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Look - I'm not really a Windows fan (almost exclusively on
| linux these days) but they _ARE_ providing advertised
| features.
|
| Like - honestly - the machine is a fresh install of Windows,
| what exactly is the data you think is being exfiltrated? In
| most cases... there's just nothing there.
|
| At best, someone now knows that ip x.x.x.x is running windows
| version y.y.y.y, and possibly that the user account is z. And
| honestly - all of those pieces of information are actually
| reasonable to send when providing advertised features (such
| as weather data in widgets, or local news).
|
| There's literally just nothing else on the device to grab
| yet... There's no browsing data, there's no app usage data,
| there's no documents generated.
|
| It's a blank fucking OS outside of the MS account you signed
| on with.
|
| So again - without talking about the actual data in the
| requests (and not just a dns record...) this isn't really a
| helpful conversation to have.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > the machine is a fresh install of Windows, what exactly
| is the data you think is being exfiltrated? In most
| cases... there's just nothing there.
|
| Then there shouldn't be any requests.
|
| > At best, someone now knows that ip x.x.x.x is running
| windows version y.y.y.y, and possibly that the user account
| is z.
|
| Is this something you have inside information about? How
| many requests does this take? Your sentence seems far
| longer than the single serialized string that would have to
| be sent.
|
| edit: and to be more direct, how is it all right for you to
| speculate about things you don't know but not all right for
| the OP? Is it only legitimate to make up excuses for
| suspicious behavior, and illegitimate to be suspicious of
| it?
| ninjagoo wrote:
| > There's literally just nothing else on the device to grab
| yet... There's no browsing data, there's no app usage data,
| there's no documents generated.
|
| Well, there's your internal and external IP addresses, your
| MAC addresses, your Processor ID, your Mainboard serial #s,
| Hard Drive serial #s, along with your OS ID (I don't know
| if the Edge browser has a unique ID per install), all of
| which can be used to identify you/your machine uniquely.
| This data is now going to all these "Data Research"
| companies.
|
| I wonder why they need to collect this information.
| jmclnx wrote:
| That could be because Microsoft encrypts the data, I would be
| shocked if the data being sent was not encrypted.
|
| To to me, this means M/S could be grabbing everything and
| sending it across, fo example browser history, files accessed,
| info typed into your edge browser, etc. No way to tell and no
| way to dispute this except for trusting M/S.
|
| So, in reality, people should dump all M/S products.
| throw10920 wrote:
| Is it just me, or is the original source actually
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT4vDfA_4NI? It doesn't seem like
| the article provides much extra value over it...
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I tire of this never-ending slander against Windows as being
| "spyware" when those saying it can't be f*ked to even prove their
| own point. "It makes HTTP requests" is the latest laziest slap-
| in-the-face low-effort "attempt" to prove this. Yawn. Personally
| I like Windows 11 and am amused by people like this.
| ninjagoo wrote:
| So what's your theory on why a fresh Windows PC needs to
| connect to all these 3rd parties at all?
| M95D wrote:
| Why is this treated as news?
|
| I knew there was spyware when I first saw it in Windows XP - the
| "search online for drivers" option pre-enabled which would have
| sent my exact PC's configuration to Microsoft servers. At least
| back then it could be disabled and there were 3rd party firewalls
| that could filter outgoing connections.
|
| I skipped Vista.
|
| I only connected Win7 to the internet once and I saw how the
| firewall completely failed to block outgoing connections. Since
| then, I keep my Win7 behind a filtering proxy with no direct
| access to internet. Only firefox has the proxy password.
|
| Did anyone look at the Win7's scheduled tasks? It's an absolute
| nightmare.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Congrats on seeing this early, but most people are still
| unaware.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| These comments are disappointing. In the midst of rampant
| disrespect of the user we have story after story such as this.
| Instead of discussing what is the ethics are of such behavior and
| where boundaries should be drawn, we get a number of complaints
| that there is no packet content provided? Is that really the most
| interesting detail to focus on?
|
| Just to answer, I can guarantee that geolocator and marketing
| research pings are not there for "no reason whatsoever" aka
| coincidence. No, they are not just being friendly. Someone on the
| other end is paying for that server capacity. The capacity to
| handle _billions_ of requests from Windows users. Without lots of
| value creation, MS would be hit with a lawsuit from the folks
| being DDoSed.
| ninjagoo wrote:
| > These comments are disappointing. In the midst of rampant
| disrespect of the user we have story after story such as this.
| Instead of discussing what is the ethics are of such behavior
| and where boundaries should be drawn, we get a number of
| complaints that there is no packet content provided? Is that
| really the most interesting detail to focus on?
|
| It's a distraction, an attempt at deflection. The real question
| here is: why do these fresh Windows installs need to connect to
| "Data Research" 3rd parties at all?
| ajmarsh wrote:
| There are options.
|
| https://github.com/TheWorldOfPC/Windows11-Debloat-Privacy-Gu...
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Also O&O's ShutUp10 [1] which also works on Windows 11. It's
| not as complete as some of the scripts on Github but also only
| changes things known to not affect the usability of the OS. And
| it has a happy-clicky UI and prompts the person to make a
| snapshot first. I can attest to it quieting down the telemetry
| on W10/11 for my gaming machine. _I still play certain games on
| Windows_
|
| These tools should be run after any big patches from Microsoft
| as they may change settings. ShutUp10 will show a diff of what
| features were reset.
|
| [1] - https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
| nathants wrote:
| first step after reinstalling windows is always flipping every
| toggle in:
|
| https://github.com/hellzerg/optimizer
| aquir wrote:
| I wish I could use Linux but a very trivial task of "keep my
| second screen usable when I close my laptop lid" is apparently
| too much to ask :( OK, I have a discreet GPU, bit still!! Tried 5
| different distros with different window managers, the closest I
| got was yes you van have the second screen but everything happens
| with on it with 5 second lag and at 1 FPS
| Avicebron wrote:
| For what it's worth, I have a lenovo thinkpad and this behavior
| was somehow baked into it for both windows and linux (ubuntu).
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I had a weird experience in that the second screen(s)
| (connected via a USB dock) would be laggy if the chosen
| 'primary' monitor was not the one directly connected to the
| computer (either built-in monitor for a laptop, or directly
| connected via HDMI / DisplayPort).
|
| If the primary monitor was one of the two connected to the
| dock, they would be horribly laggy.
|
| That problem seems to have gone away, but I've changed machines
| and Linux distributions since then. I think it was with Ubuntu
| and using a Toshiba Dynadock.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| I've been using linux on my main machine for quite a while now,
| but I usually keep a windows machine for games (though I hear
| linux gaming is pretty good these days, so hopefully I can go
| that route before windows 11 becomes mandatory).
|
| I liked windows 7, but always felt annoyed at being coerced onto
| more and more disrespectful versions of windows over time. At
| this point, I wish I had something like a throwaway vm or docker
| container for anything I need to run in a windows environment,
| like people use for malware research but more convenient.
| fest wrote:
| I set up a windows VM proxmox with GPU passthrough for exactly
| this reason. With parsec for remote access it is very usable
| even with my less than ideal LTE uplink for the occasional need
| for Windows.
| the_cramer wrote:
| Aside some AAA title and rare edge caves, gaming on Linux is
| quite good. Some tinkering necesary and of course wine, but it
| works.
|
| Sincerely, a fresh Linux User with not much knowledge.
| snuxoll wrote:
| As somebody with a Steam Deck it's seriously impressive what
| Valve has managed to do with Proton. I didn't catch the memo
| about the Samsung 980 Pro failure in time and my Windows 10
| drive just went readonly on me, and if it weren't for SteamVR
| not being supported on Linux I'd seriously be considering
| just...not reinstalling Windows again. Once the day comes
| that the last few gaming issues I have on Linux go away I
| will probably let the Windows install rot and daily drive
| Fedora or Arch again.
| ninjagoo wrote:
| When I signed up for the waitlist for the New Bing (with
| ChatGPT), I was offered an express lane with this copy:
| "Access the new Bing even faster" "Get ahead in the
| line when you complete the following" "1. Set
| *Microsoft Defaults* on your PC" "2. Scan the QR
| code to install the *Microsoft Bing App*"
|
| Microsoft Defaults and Microsoft Bing App were links, which I
| didn't click, and there was a QR code below the second one.
|
| Make of that what you will.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Is there a tried and true instruction to prevent windows 11 from
| running updater at all?
|
| I keep losing sensitive work because of the windows penchant to
| reboot at times when im not at the PC, causing my tabs and docs
| to be lost.
|
| Edit: yes im aware we need security patches but id lile those on
| demand, not randonly
| smileybarry wrote:
| Under Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options > enable
| "Automatically save my restartable apps and restart them when I
| sign back in". Most apps since Windows 7 register their current
| documents, workspace, etc. with Windows when they launch, and
| can then be reopened on next boot with the same context. If
| they don't support that API, Windows will just remember the
| command line and relaunch it.
|
| I use this for a work computer that I shut down _daily_ and it
| restores _everything_ I had open: browser windows & tabs,
| email, Visual Studio solutions, PyCharm workspaces, Windows
| Explorer windows, Slack, etc. And update restarts use this
| mechanism specifically.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| This is helpful. Thank you.
|
| Now here is to hope That the next "fix" from windows does not
| push an update that consistent blue screens my PC [1] which
| is why i prefer to reject all patches.
|
| [1]https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/forum/all/window...
| kens wrote:
| Forced Windows updates caused me no end of problems too. I'd
| run a simulation overnight and discover Windows had rebooted on
| its own and I lost all my results. Or I wanted to show a movie
| at a birthday party but Windows decided it had to spend an hour
| updating.
|
| I followed various instructions to disable automatic updates,
| and I'm someone who generally keeps things up to date, but
| after the third time of Windows updates ruining things, I gave
| up and switched to a MacBook. With Windows it seems like
| updating is its primary task and running applications is
| secondary to. There's probably someone at Microsoft who shows
| weekly graphs of Windows updates, and their bonus depends on
| the graph continuing up and to the right, so they ram through
| whatever update features are necessary without thinking of the
| customer experience.
| andai wrote:
| I recently used Privatezilla to disable automatic updates. Not
| sure if the same approach works on Windows 11, but you might
| find the relevant registry keys mentioned in the code helpful:
| https://github.com/builtbybel/privatezilla/blob/master/src/P...
| vmoore wrote:
| > Is there a tried and true instruction to prevent windows 11
| from running updater at all?
|
| Check out this:
|
| https://www.sordum.org/9470/windows-update-blocker-v1-7/
| eastbound wrote:
| > Is there a tried and true instruction to (...)? I keep losing
| sensitive work because of the Windows penchant
|
| 2023, the year of Linux on the desktop ?
| wishfish wrote:
| I haven't used 11 yet. When I was on 10, there was a group
| policy that would prevent automatic updates & restarts. The OS
| would check regularly for updates but wouldn't automatically
| download them.
|
| If this is still available in 11, that's your best solution.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Run the Windows update checker manually on a periodic basis,
| same as you would on a Linux server, and you will never be
| caught by forced reboots or patches being downloaded at
| inconvenient times.
| bakugo wrote:
| > I don't want to do X but I'm being forced to, how do I
| avoid this?
|
| > Just do X yourself
|
| This isn't helpful in the slightest.
| derefr wrote:
| ...no? The GP commenter's problem-as-stated isn't that X is
| being forced on them; their problem is that X is being
| forced on them when they _don 't have time to deal with
| it_. The solution is to do it when they _do_ have time,
| ideally frequently such that only small incremental updates
| are needed, such that each update cycle doesn 't take very
| long.
|
| A.k.a. "if you don't want to get a toothache and have your
| life interrupted with a 'random' need to visit the dentist,
| then take a few minutes _of your choosing_ each day to
| brush your teeth. "
| bakugo wrote:
| > A.k.a. "if you don't want to get a toothache and have
| your life interrupted with a 'random' need to visit the
| dentist, then take a few minutes of your choosing each
| day to brush your teeth."
|
| Microsoft taking control of a computer you bought and
| paid for remotely to force it to do what they want is in
| no way comparable to a health issue and I really don't
| understand what could possibly lead you to believe it is.
| derefr wrote:
| When you go to the dentist, the dentist takes control of
| your mouth and forces it to do what they want. I don't
| see what's confusing about that.
|
| If you think the scope of the loss of control doesn't
| line up: replace "brushing your teeth" with "watching
| your blood pressure"; "a toothache" with "a stroke"; "the
| dentist" with "an ICU doctor"; and "taking control of
| your mouth" with "taking control of your whole body"
| (since you're likely under general anesthesia -- they've
| literally taken control of your body away from you to fix
| the problem.)
|
| But, by looking at my analogy as analogizing two _fields_
| , I think you missed the point. I was trying to give a
| general analogy about _preventative maintenance tasks_
| you are expected to enact as part of the _ownership of a
| tool_ ; where that tool will eventually 'randomly' break
| down without said maintenance, effectively forcibly
| interrupting you to have _reactive_ maintenance done by
| some external professional at much greater time cost.
| Your teeth are just one such tool.
|
| A different but equivalent analogy would be to changing
| the oil in your car. If you don't do it, eventually at
| some 'random' time you'll need to spend a long time at a
| repair shop because your engine cylinders got grit in
| them and wore holes large enough to lose stroke pressure.
|
| Also, if you mean to suggest that these cases are
| different because the computer is "choosing" to force the
| update on you, rather than "requiring" the update in some
| technical "being broken" sense -- it's not like that's
| uncommon. Many tools and machines -- industrial ones,
| specifically -- come with resource and maintenance
| sensors built into them which will _prevent_ you from
| operating the machine in a condition where it would
| _begin_ to require maintenance, to prevent you from
| accidentally imposing an above-tolerance workload on a
| system that you presumably want to last a long time.
| Self-greasing CNC routers will stop running when they run
| out of grease, rather than trying to operate dry. Etc.
|
| If you question why your system "requires maintenance" in
| the first place -- well, this is what I addressed in a
| sibling comment. If you believe in vaccines, and in herd
| immunity; and if you understand that, for active threats
| (computer worms et al), computer networks have virality
| coefficients just like human populations do; then you
| should be able to see that the "maintenance" being
| required here, is for the sake of increasing the herd-
| immunity of the network by removing your node within it
| as a potential infection vector, rather than for the sake
| of your own computer's individual health per se.
| (Although it _is_ also for the sake of your own computer,
| insofar as, besides just joining you to a botnet, a worm
| could also carry a crypto-locker payload or something
| equally nefarious.)
|
| And if you question why Microsoft should be able to force
| your computer to "get vaccinated", when the government
| can't force _you_ to do so -- well, consider something
| the government _can_ do: it can prevent you from driving
| a car that doesn 't pass an EPA inspection. Because
| driving is a privilege, rather than a right. Well,
| operating your computer isn't a right either. It can come
| with conditions.
|
| (If you, finally, notice that the distinction should
| actually be "operating your computer _on the Internet_ ",
| similar to "driving your car _on the road_ " -- such that
| operating your computer _offline_ , or driving your car
| _on a private track_ , shouldn't be something anyone
| other than you has a say in -- well, I'm not going to
| argue with you there. Computers _could_ certainly have
| the option to delay a forced restart to install a patch,
| but to "force you offline" until such time as the
| [already-downloaded] patch is installed. I think OSes
| only don't offer that because it'd be terribly confusing
| for the average grandmother. But it _could_ certainly be
| something hidden in the most arcane of config flags.)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| But I didn't go to the dentist. I went to the computer
| store.
| layer8 wrote:
| Did you try Reboot Blocker [0]? It works by constantly rotating
| the Active Hours configuration so that the current time is
| always within active hours, thus delaying Windows Update
| restarts indefinitely. It works reliably on Windows 10, but I
| couldn't find confirmation for Windows 11.
|
| [0] https://udse.de/reboot-blocker/
| sccxy wrote:
| Just use "Pause updates for X days".
|
| Install updates once a month and Windows does not have to do it
| "randomly".
| bakugo wrote:
| If you have a Pro or Enterprise SKU you should be able to
| disable automatic updates by messing with Group Policy
| (Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows
| Components > Windows Update). Changing the "configure automatic
| updates" policy should be enough but you might have to change
| others, just go through them and read the descriptions.
| derefr wrote:
| There are "active" threat classes (worms, and human attackers
| explicitly running intrusion exploits) that can infect your
| computer _while_ it is sitting idle, you know.
|
| What would you prefer: coming back to find your computer has
| joined a botnet while you were gone; or coming back to find
| your computer was restarted while you were gone, to _avoid_
| joining a botnet?
| jacquesm wrote:
| I would prefer to find it as I left it. And in 45 years of
| using computers this has always been the case. But then
| againg, I haven't used windows in more than two decades now,
| other than a single box here that talks to an older mixer and
| that machine doesn't even have an internet connection, I
| treat it as part of the mixer.
| alar44 wrote:
| [flagged]
| codehalo wrote:
| I think the poster is referring to the loss of desktop state,
| not necessarily the loss of unsaved documents.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Do you have a PC?
|
| Are you aware how user-hostile is Windows to even allowing
| you to turn on your computer without creating an MSN
| "account" [0]
|
| Are you aware that not every user on HN is a software
| engineer that is comfortable with changing registry values?
|
| Its 2023. Empathize with your user or see your startup go
| dead without funding
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| (Not to whom you're replying)
|
| I'm entirely comfortable with configuring my Windows to
| behave how I want, but over the years the increasing user
| hostility of Windows has driven me to Linux, such that I
| only use Windows On a work machine, and I'm reminded almost
| daily about how good my decision was to make the switch.
|
| What I mean is: even those of us who can, are sick of
| having to.
| alar44 wrote:
| Registry values? It's pretty easy to tell Windows when to
| do updates. This is nonsense.
| ihateyouall123 wrote:
| You sound like a person who buys ugly Walmart jeans
| because they are cheap, efficient and economical and then
| wonder why no one talks to you.
| bakugo wrote:
| > your system
|
| If you can't disable updates, it's not "your" system.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Note the change from "My Computer" to "This PC." Subtle,
| isn't it?
| Zurrrrr wrote:
| Windows 10 is going to be my last windows with how MS is acting.
|
| 10 was annoying enough to configure to disable so much cruft, get
| back a decent startbar, disable all the telemetry etc, and much
| of it still sucks like not being able to have control over
| updates.
|
| 11 with forcing an account, forcing updates, stupid shit like
| nerfing the taskbar etc...there is just no need for it anymore.
|
| Games run fine on Linux via proton, or the ones I want to play at
| least. The rest of my toolchain and app library is all opensource
| stuff that runs on *nix.
|
| NetBSD or Void Linux with a custom configured AwesomeWM setup
| here I come.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| If the VR story on Linux was even remotely palatable to me I'd
| have already switched. If some games I want don't work, that's
| a sacrifice I'm willing to make. As it is, I'm with you on 10
| almost certainly being my last Windows.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| As a game developer, I'm stuck with windows for the foreseeable
| future. The major game engines technically work on Linux but
| the experience isn't smooth and the companies don't want to
| invest in improving it
|
| If they did, I'd switch back to Linux so fast--
|
| I actually really like gnome and miss the interface. It's a
| dream for people who never want to touch their mice
| josephcsible wrote:
| > The major game engines technically work on Linux but the
| experience isn't smooth
|
| That hasn't been my experience. In recent times, I've always
| had one of these two things happen:
|
| 1. The game runs just as good or better on Linux than it does
| on Windows
|
| 2. The game can't be played at all on Linux, because of the
| DRM, anti-cheat, or anti-tamper
| empyrrhicist wrote:
| I've had weird crashes - just frequent enough to dissuade
| me.
| klipklop wrote:
| I do 99% of my PC gaming with a Steam Deck. All the major
| games I am interested in "just work." If Elden Ring and
| most/all of my fav indie games work, I don't see why I will
| need a windows PC ever in the near future.
|
| I was able to get several non-steam games from the early
| 2000's working as well with Proton.
|
| Likely if more games are built against/for dxvk/proton things
| will get even easier.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| Godot
| isthiseasymode wrote:
| I believe they mean that the user base is mostly on
| windows. All of the major game engines already work with
| Linux and even MacOS.
|
| If they want to make money, they need to develop and test
| on windows.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| The tooling doesn't work on anything other than Windows,
| for both Unreal and Unity.
| Zurrrrr wrote:
| As a game developer I can see how you would be tied. I'm
| pretty lucky in that my gaming sticks to a few specific games
| for multiplayer (GTA online, counter-strike, sometimes red
| alert 2, nrs games) an a few specific AAA titles I want to
| play for campaigns.
|
| Gnome is pretty nice...I never understood why KDE was so
| popular with their childish naming scheme and some of the
| bloat that came in 4. Awesome was a gamechanger for me
| though, when I realized how easy it was to have a perfect
| gui, every little details perfectly to my specificaions.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| I like having a desktop, not a tablet, GUI, which is why I
| like KDE. ;p
|
| KDE and Qt apps (since Qt is so superior to GTK in almost
| every way) are superior to anything you find in Windows.
| Compare Windows's Explorer, the file manager, to Dolphin.
| The next best FM is PCManFM, which switched from GTK to Qt.
| Nautilus (now GNOME Files), which is still GTK, is a
| comical toy by comparison.
|
| The GNOME desktop looks very nice and has high polish but
| is very feature limited. Here's a feature that might
| interest gamers: KDE lets you disable desktop composition,
| which makes your desktop (including games) much smoother,
| but you lose DE animations and transparency effects. Try it
| and then drag some windows around on a high-refresh screen,
| on and then off, to sense the difference. In fact, the
| smoothness you'll feel is how smooth the Windows 10 DE is
| by default (it pains me to note). This difference is also
| felt in games. Fullscreen games are supposed to disable
| composition on most DEs, but whether they actually do this
| is unknown and I don't think they do at all if you keep
| your games windowed (which I do since some Proton games,
| like Fallout 4, work way better in windowed mode, and it's
| easier to access stuff on neighboring monitors without Alt-
| tabbing). I don't think you have any control over
| composition in GNOME, and conversations with GNOME devs on
| this topic made it seem like they see no reason at all to
| not have composition in current year and that a DE without
| composition is broken in their eyes.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > I never understood why KDE was so popular with their
| childish naming scheme and some of the bloat that came in 4
|
| And I could never understand why GNOME is so popular with
| its desire to be a tablet interface and complete disdain
| for the very concept of user customization.
| vetinari wrote:
| I don't get why people think GNOME has a desire to be a
| tablet interface. It has not. It is just repeated ad
| nauseam by people, who never used it.
|
| Sure, it sucks at 14" 1376x768 displays, but 14" 1600x900
| or fullhd -- you know, what you could find a poweruser
| using? It's perfect, without having 125% scale or
| whatever.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I don't get why people think GNOME has a desire to be a
| tablet interface.
|
| That seems obvious. Because GNOME threw away GNOME 2,
| which people liked, and decided GNOME 3 would be a copy
| of Unity, which was supposed to be a tablet interface,
| and which distinguished itself only in being terrible?
| vetinari wrote:
| It's incorrect then, on several fronts.
|
| Unity was supposed to be netbook interface, not a tablet
| one. Tablets (as we know them today, not tablet pc, which
| sucked) were not yet a thing then.
|
| Gnome 3 decided not to be a clone of Unity, but not to be
| a clone of Windows 95. If you want a Windows 95 clone,
| you have a wide range of offers. If you do not want that,
| the choice was much worse. Gnome 3 improved that for
| those, who didn't want Windows 95 clone.
|
| Incidentally, the only people who think Gnome 3 is
| terrible are those, who cannot let Windows 95 concepts
| go. Everything that is different, is going to be
| terrible, simply by the virtue of being different.
| p1necone wrote:
| Gnome 3 is kind of awesome as a keyboard driven system
| too. It's only really when you try to navigate with the
| mouse rather than keyboard shortcuts that it feels worse
| than more traditional DEs. Laptop trackpads with multi
| finger gestures feel right at home as well.
|
| The _massive_ and uncustomizable window titlebars suck
| though.
| SaintSeiya84 wrote:
| there's a bunch of Microsoft employees doing damage control
| here....attacking the messenger and not the message.
| macintux wrote:
| > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling,
| bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades
| discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about
| abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| jimbobimbo wrote:
| "Using Wireshark to check what a freshly-installed copy of
| Windows 11 was doing on a brand-new laptop, what they saw was
| eye-opening to say the least: just after the first boot, Windows
| 11 was quick to try and reach third-party servers with absolutely
| no prior user permission or intervention."
|
| I highly doubt that "absolutely no prior user permission or
| intervention" happened here. Most likely didn't read the EULA on
| that "freshly-installed copy of Windows 11" or clicked through
| the whole out-of-the-box experience during the first login
| without reading what it enables.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Is that really permission? It's that or not use the laptop,
| right?
| jimbobimbo wrote:
| There're other laptop/OS manufacturers that may serve needs
| of privacy-conscious folks better than Windows laptop.
| Whether one likes it or not, there's no constitutional right
| to use this specific laptop/OS combination.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Yeah, but maybe consumers should still be very vocal about
| it.
| jimbobimbo wrote:
| They definitely should. But also they should NOT make
| misleading claims like "absolutely no prior user
| permission or intervention".
|
| Look, it's not that $1T company needs my defense, but
| it's a rather safe bet that CYA exercise was done by them
| before unleashing this to the world.
| grugagag wrote:
| > freshly-installed copy of Windows 11" or clicked through the
| whole out-of-the-box experience during the first login without
| reading what it enables.
|
| Isn't that what the most non tech savvy / common user has to
| deal with? A mom or pop, a relative perhaps? And if it's
| possible to de-junk windows 11 why bother? Who has time for
| that whack-a-mole game of turning things off and have them back
| on when the system updates? Again, why bother? Windows 11
| doesn't anything compelling to justify wasting my in the first
| place
| jimbobimbo wrote:
| Then buy another OS/laptop? It's not like there're no other
| options.
| grugagag wrote:
| Yes, sure. Are you implying I can't share my opinion with
| regards to Win11 though?
| jimbobimbo wrote:
| I'm not implying anything. My issue with TFA is the
| "absolutely no prior user permission or intervention"
| claim. My counter-argument is that clicking without
| reading through the EULA and/or the out-of-the-box
| experience during the first login most likely results in
| providing consent whether one likes it or not.
| causi wrote:
| I'm much more prone to working with a busted Windows installation
| these days rather than just reinstalling because of what a
| nightmare it is hammering Windows 10/11 into usable shape. With
| Windows 7, it was just install, ungroup taskbar icons, show
| hidden files and file extensions, set accent color to black and
| turn off transparency, then go down the list of installers in my
| software folder.
|
| With Windows 11, fuck, I don't even remember all the esoteric
| damn steps I have to do. I'm going to have to write it down the
| next time I have to do it.
| nehal3m wrote:
| If you go down a list of installers you might want to give
| Ninite a shot!
| metadat wrote:
| I'd never heard of Ninite, it looks potentially quite useful:
|
| https://ninite.com/
| JackGreyhat wrote:
| If you use ninite, you might want to give chocolatey a shot
| ;) https://community.chocolatey.org/
| gibspaulding wrote:
| Haven't set up Windows 11 on a personal machine yet, but for
| Windows 10 step one is download O&O Shutup 10 and let it set
| all of their recommended settings. After that all that's left
| is setting my wallpaper black and fiddling with some taskbar
| settings. I'd highly recommend checking it out if you're
| looking for a quick way to get sane defaults set on new Windows
| installs, including Windows 11.
|
| https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
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