With Windows 10 out there Microsoft is now taking an aggressive stance on upgrading windows 7 & 8, if you’re not watching the updates you may wake up with windows 10 without ever meaning to install it.
If that happens you have 30 days to revert back to the previous operating system after that you’re stuck on Windows 10.
Video’s discussing the current stance microsoft is taking:
These most recent updates relate to ‘Get Windows 10’:
Some tools to take control and prevent the windows 10 upgrade:
GWX Control Panel – Many features but may not be for everyone also has a stand alone and installer version.
Never 10 – Made by GRC it’s solid but basic to the point stand alone software as always.
Not knocking windows 10, but i don’t want to be forced to it as i’ll never trust microsoft not to brick my computer with forced updates. I know you can tweak settings to tell the computer you’re on a limited internet connection so it won’t do the updates or will postpone them but until Microsoft pulls their head outta their ass and gives users reasonable real control i’ll abstain for now.
Microsoft slips user-tracking tools into Windows 7, 8 amidst Windows 10 privacy storm
Worried about Windows 10’s deep-reaching user tracking? Some of it’s coming to Windows 7 and 8, too.
Windows 10 is a deliciously good operating system, all things considered, but its abundant user-tracking has prompted many privacy-minded individuals to stay pat with older versions of Windows. Now, Microsoft’s providing those concerned individuals a reason to upgrade.
No, the company’s not walking back its privacy-encroaching features. Instead, Microsoft’s quietly rolling out updates that bake new tracking tools into Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Yes, really.
The story behind the story: Privacy concerns have marred an otherwise sterling launch for Windows 10, which is already installed on 75 million PCs. Rolling out this Windows 7 and 8 updates amidst the controversy smacks of insensitivity—and it’s just plain poor timing, to boot.
All eyes on you
Ghacks discovered four recent KB updates for Windows 7 and 8, all designed to send Microsoft regular reports on your machine’s activities.
KB3068708 – “This update introduces the Diagnostics and Telemetry tracking service to existing devices. By applying this service, you can add benefits from the latest version of Windows to systems that have not yet upgraded. The update also supports applications that are subscribed to Visual Studio Application Insights.” This update replaced KB3022345.
KB3075249 – “This update adds telemetry points to the User Account Control (UAC) feature to collect information on elevations that come from low integrity levels.”
KB3080149 – “This package updates the Diagnostics and Telemetry tracking service to existing devices. This service provides benefits from the latest version of Windows to systems that have not yet upgraded. The update also supports applications that are subscribed to Visual Studio Application Insights.”
The latter two updates are flagged as Optional, but KB3068708 holds Recommended status, which means it would be downloaded and installed if you have Windows Updates set to automatic. It’s only functional in PCs that participate in Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program, which already sends Microsoft information on how you use your computer.
Opting out of the CEIP isn’t a single straightforward flip to switch. You have to disable it in all the software you’ve agreed to use it with. From Microsoft’s CEIP website:
“Most programs make CEIP options available from the Help menu, although for some products, you might need to check settings, options, or preferences menus. Some pre-release products that are under development might require participation in CEIP to help ensure the final release of the product improves frequently used features and solves common problems that exist in the pre-release software.”
If you use Office’s default settings, it signs you up for Microsoft’s CEIP. How-to Geek has a tutorial explaining how to disable it, though if sending information to Microsoft before didn’t bother you, this new update probably won’t either.
Begone!
Disabling the tracking tools in the Recommended KB3068708 update isn’t simple, either. It connects to vortex-win.data.microsoft.com and settings-win.data.microsoft.com, which are hard-coded to bypass the Windows HOSTS file. In other words, it’s tricky to block unless you have a firewall that can block HTTPS connections as well as be configured manually, ExtremeTech explains. There are options in GPEdit.msc that allow you to disable application telemetry and CEIP participation, but it’s unknown if they behave correctly after the new patches are installed.
Where to uninstall updates. (Image ironically taken on Windows 10.)
If you don’t want these new tracking tools on your PC, the best thing to do seems to be simply uninstalling the offending updates, then blocking them from being reinstalled.
To do so, head to Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall or change a program. Here, clickView installed updates in the left-hand navigation pane. In the search box in the upper-right corner, search for the KB3068708, KB3022345, KB3075249, and KB3080149 updates by name. If they’re installed, they’ll pop right up. If you find one, right-click on it and select Uninstall to wipe it from your system.
To block the updates from being downloaded again, dive back into the Control Panel and head to System and Security > Windows Update > Check for updates. The system will look for updates, then say you have a certain number of updates available, separated by status (Optional, Recommended, Critical). Simply click the recommended updates link, find the KB3068708 and KB3022345 updates, then right-click them and select Hide update. Boom! Done.
Now dive into the optional updates and hide KB3075249 and KB3080149 as well.
Change default program files installation path in Windows 7
Files and C:\Program Files (x86) directories. If the hard drive you have the operating system installed on is running out of space though, or you just want to have the OS on a separate SSD, you might want to consider changing these default installation paths.
Be warned before you go on though! Microsoft does not officially support changing installation directories (see here). You are responsible for all consequences.
Now that you have been warned, let’s get started: Open a Run…prompt and enter regedit. I will be referring to our new installation path as E:\Program Files and E:\Program Files (x86), so replace these paths with the ones you want to have (you can choose other names as well). Now browse the left registry pane for theHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion key. Click on that key once to show its contents and locate the ProgramFilesDir and ProgramFilesDir (x86):
Double click those values and change C:\Program Files toE:\Program Files as well as C:\Program Files (x86) toE:\Program Files (x86). Furthermore it might be safe to change all other paths directing to the old directories to point at the new ones as well. That’s it if you are on a 32bit system, close the registry and reboot your computer.
64bit users have one more step to go. Close the registry and open another Run… prompt. This time, enter%systemroot%\sysWOW64\regedit. Another registry windows will open. Repeat the exact same steps here that you have done before. Afterwards, close the registry and reboot your computer.
Nothing to hard there on the surface, but may require including the whole theme style which may break the editor visually requiring overriding some of the core theme elements, Which if it breaks or messes up the editor visually having to manually over write/nullify the offending css rules.
Leading to if that is the case is it maybe more efficient to create a separate css file for lists/paragraph/heading/image/video type defines ONLY compared to pulling in the whole theme style.. All that seems to be a revolving door mostly resting on the choice of using @import or not which has slightly higher overhead compared to not using it.
Literally the only difference would be not using @import, and instead of going round the merry go round just doing the work in the opposite direction instead of re-defining what we re-defined (the merry go round!), simply dig out what is needed and include that only.
This concept can be used to perform clean installs as well as perform recovery tasks. Potentially think about a larger system/restore partition large enough to hold other files, such as saving system backup images to this drive and maybe portable apps/tools.
Geek Tip from the video: shift + f10 launches a command prompt from within the windows installation process.
A user account trick to hide accounts from the login screen:
If you have an account with Administrator-level permissions on the system, you should be able to delete the account using the
net user
command from an elevated command prompt.
In the Start Menu’s search bar, type
cmd
. When “cmd.exe” is highlighted in the search results, press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER. You should get a UAC prompt. After the UAC prompt, you should see a CMD window with the title
Once done the user account still exists but it is not visible in the login screens visibly it is souly in the background existing for tasks not daily desktop work, this is handy for hidden admin accounts or other accounts that are used for specific purposes like password protected file sharing (very handy!).
