Windows 7 users are reporting that Windows 10 is automatically installing on their PCs without permission.
Scores of users have posted on Twitter, forums, Reddit and gaming sites to complain about Windows 10 automatically installing, seemingly without asking, and often in the middle of doing something important.
- I'm in the process of repairing an Asus low spec AMD Based Laptop for a friend that had 8.1 foisted onto it and it junked the system because that particular model is not compatible with 8.1 for whatever reason after 8.1 installs it fails to boot and if it does boot it doesn't stay running and shuts down in less than 30 seconds but I've had it running again on 8.0 for several hours at a time over several days now without the shutdown problems.
won't be letting it update to ape dot one
I find the lack of configuration options disturbing !
I felt a great disturbance in the force.. as if millions of win 7 systems suddenly cried out in terror.
Windows 7 users are reporting that Windows 10 is automatically installing on their PCs without permission.
Scores of users have posted on Twitter, forums, Reddit and gaming sites to complain about Windows 10 automatically installing, seemingly without asking, and often in the middle of doing something important.
If we could only pick their brains about the set up they were running when the auto install took place. Probably default oob for all of them. Sad but true.
Last Edit: Mar 15, 2016 13:03:33 GMT -6 by Bayer A.User
So after all this time with GWX rearing its head over and over, these people didn't think that maybe they need to get just a little more serious about managing Windows Updates?
I'm reminded of an old political ad from a generation ago where a big, fat Congressman was driving and his aide says "Congressman, we're running out of gas!" to which the Congressman just harrumphs and waves his hand. They keep on driving. This happens a few more times and finally the car sputters to a stop in the middle of nowhere, and the Congressman suddenly exclaims surprisedly, "We're out of gas!!!"
And just think, THESE people are the smart ones, who avoided getting Windows 10 up to now.
And just think, THESE people are the smart ones, who avoided getting Windows 10 up to now.
There's no hope.
-Noel
8165128200 said: “We’ve been getting calls trickling in all week from doctor’s offices, dental practices, B&Bs and roofing companies – among others – that have been hit by this and it’s a fucking mess.
These are just simple business people trying to run Point of Sale software, scheduling software, or QuickBooks or something. Frequently an elderly woman in the office.
These are not sophisticated users and it is beyond Evil what MS has done to them.
Post by Bayer A.User on Mar 16, 2016 8:22:16 GMT -6
All of this was obvious to us as far back as march of 2015. The undeniable campaign to seed win7-8.1 machines with underhanded updates that had nothing to do with system functionality or security. All the mystery KB's that would result in 10 being installed,like it or not.
I'm not the only one with a red ink list of KB's never to install. Yeah, i've got machines idling overnight/used daily that qualify for the "free" upgrade. Yet they remain un- upgraded because i made sure of it. No crossed fingers.
I could lose my voice telling the tale,not to mention six deactivated msa's. It will only get worse leading up to Aug 2016. check the date on these images.
Last Edit: Mar 16, 2016 9:43:06 GMT -6 by Bayer A.User
I had a growing list of hidden updates until I just decided that no updates are worth having any more unless there's a very good and specific case for them:
The patch would have to fix a bug I'm actually experiencing.
Or be a security patch that's actually likely to be needed.
The patch has been verified by others that there's no secret payload and no performance degradation.
The good news is that at the moment I'm sensing no bugs at all. I only have one tiny irritant that's part of my ATI display driver - once every 4 or 5 monitor wakeups a slightly wrong calibration is loaded into my leftmost monitor (which is easy to work around). I know this glitch comes from ATI because I once had a driver version (15.9.1) that didn't do it. I have considered rolling back, but I'm giving them a chance to fix it. If their lack of attention to it persists much longer I'll just roll back the driver. I'm going to hate to reboot the system, though. I'm already into record uptime territory (something that used to always be limited by the need to reboot due to Windows Updates).
I feel very comfortable right now: Win 8.1 is working perfectly even after 51 days uptime, Win 7 is working perfectly (90 days uptime), and Win 10 doesn't yet offer anything I want that I can't get from the older systems, and in fact only provides degraded desktop functionality.
There may come a time when that comfort is challenged, but that day is not this day.
I had a growing list of hidden updates until I just decided that no updates are worth having any more unless there's a very good and specific case for them:
The patch would have to fix a bug I'm actually experiencing.
Or be a security patch that's actually likely to be needed.
The patch has been verified by others that there's no secret payload and no performance degradation.
Glad to see you come to this view. Am still waiting for an update that I need.
Post by Locutus deBorg on Mar 17, 2016 22:18:30 GMT -6
so I fired up my old Acer M1201 Desktop Athlon 64 x2 2.6GHz 3GB PC2-5300 DDR2 667MHz 5.5.5.15 RAM Vista Homeless Prem. x86 SP2 (started life as RTM then SP1 then SP2)
winders updates round trip just to get download and notify (Option 2) to complete 12 BS hours of the 100% Core utilization and High RAM usage of SVCHOST.EXE 6 hours prior to downloads starting a few minutes of actual downloading and 6 hours post download before system was idle
installed 2 crapdates 1> the final IE7 cumulative security... from Jan. 2016 and 2> MRT.EXE Mar./2016
over 5 hours before SVCHOST.EXE stopped shut down Sunday morning power up Monday morning walk away and do nothing with the system
> SVCHOST.EXE total run time : (7:hours 19:minutes 55:seconds) to re-enumerate everything again
every round of crapdates will be like this until 2017 when vista SP2 is cut off and 2020 when win 7 SP1 is cutoff ! Ouch !
I find the lack of configuration options disturbing !
I felt a great disturbance in the force.. as if millions of win 7 systems suddenly cried out in terror.
Now imagine that you're an average computer user that uses your laptop anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours a day—some days—and shuts down when done. Yup, that process starts on its own a couple minutes after you boot your laptop, and runs the entire time you're trying to use laptop, making it run hot and slowing it down to a crawl. And then, at the end of the day you shutdown and Windows Update has to start that 12 hour process over again from the beginning the next time you start your laptop.
That's where I and a number of my customers have been finding ourselves as of the last 9 months or so. It's an outrage!!!
Microsoft, is Windows 10 the best you could do? Really? After promising to listen to our feedback, what a letdown!
Post by Bayer A.User on Mar 18, 2016 6:31:45 GMT -6
My story with very similar 2009 vintage Compaq tower. Athlon64 x2, 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2,oem Vista HomePrem 32bit upgraded to Win7 64bit. WU in Vista was always sluggish,still is unfortunately. Win7 is better in this respect. Can't deny it. This from a guy who still uses and appreciates Vista !
Even with 7 installed from system builder pack, Everything you describe Locutus was still an issue in the last year if the machine was shut down for any period of time. As desktops are usually left running idle 24-7 with internet connection the "problem" goes away. Simple as that.
As Techie007 mentioned, Laptops are a different story. Start em' up,use em', shut em'down. The "problem" persists. The time and resources wasted to get a couple updates is silly, I agree. Frustrating as hell.
Could this be a long-term plot by the evil empire to push people off the update path, then to later invalidate their licenses because they've failed to keep their computers up to date - thus forcing their hands into updating to Windows 10?
All in the name of security?
"Your computer, which despite our providing free updates you have NOT kept up to date, has thus become a very great threat to all the other online users and a spreader of viruses, so we're canceling your authorization to use it in the name of the greater good."
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
I was experiencing the "problem" on my Win7 desktop system months before joining the Win10 insiders beta program. My machine was left on 24/7 and it used to peeve-me-off that my computer was almost unusable for 20-45 minutes each time I logged in. I did trace the problem down to a subservice of svchost.exe called netsvcs. Whenever it was happening, I was getting near 100% hard disk usage which is probably one of the main contributing factors why I suffered a hard dish failure. Since then, I've seen a number of threads about the excessive hard disk usage problems on answers.microsoft.com which has now extended into the Windows 10 Insiders program with people still trying deal with the problem.
Could this be a long-term plot by the evil empire to push people off the update path, then to later invalidate their licenses because they've failed to keep their computers up to date - thus forcing their hands into updating to Windows 10?
All in the name of security?
"Your computer, which despite our providing free updates you have NOT kept up to date, has thus become a very great threat to all the other online users and a spreader of viruses, so we're canceling your authorization to use it in the name of the greater good."
-Noel
I think this sort of thing has been going on a lot longer than the more recent need to try and force people to switch over to Windows 10. It seems that with each new iteration of windows, the older one suddenly starts having issues. With Windows XP, I was suddenly getting recommended updates for things I really did not want or need on my system. If you put them in, your system started to get bogged down. Even in Windows 98, I was noticing that some of the fixes where doing the same sort of thing up until support was dropped for it. The funny thing about this is, the last set of updates that were made for Windows 98 seem to have reversed that trend.
I'm just doing an update operation on my Win 7 test VM, and while I didn't wait hours, I logged some 25 minutes of svchost core time just to get to the point where the available updates showed.
I've hidden several updates and am now in the "Downloading updates..." phase.
I'm watching CPU, disk, network, and DNS activity. For the lion's share of the time both before and after seeing the list there's absolutely nothing happening except a tight loop on one core in a svchost.exe process. NOTHING. I see DNS entries resolved then minutes upon minutes of tight loop, then finally some network activity.
This must be intentional.
It occurs to me it's also intended to make people with older systems - and worse yet those with 1 core - suffer. And also those who do manual updates!
My Xeon-based workstation is still one of the fastest, so waiting through 25 minutes of CPU time before even seeing the updates is an amazing waste.
An additional 20 minutes of tight loop time has gone by. A full 10 minutes since a server name (ctldl.windowsupdate.com) was resolved to an address. The only disk activity is from the screen grabs I'm capturing. I should switch that to happen outside the VM to capture even more pure info...
This looping behavior is clearly intentional, no question.
Post by Bayer A.User on Mar 18, 2016 11:06:36 GMT -6
One thing for sure,we need to compare notes and work on it. At this point it comes down to a lack of trust. Once apon a time we took the updates on blind faith and only occasionally got a KB that would wonk a system. Word traveled fast and people were able to use the old WU gui to prevent install of the guilty KB.
Now,its a about suspicion n skepticism because we know Redmond has an agenda. An agenda that ignores legacy customers and their OS.
What if...the monthly windows update client updates solved this issue ? How would we know if we hide them/never install them ?
Also, fast hardware masks the issue making it even harder to nail down.
I was experiencing the "problem" on my Win7 desktop system months before joining the Win10 insiders beta program. My machine was left on 24/7 and it used to peeve-me-off that my computer was almost unusable for 20-45 minutes each time I logged in. I did trace the problem down to a subservice of svchost.exe called netsvcs. Whenever it was happening, I was getting near 100% hard disk usage which is probably one of the main contributing factors why I suffered a hard dish failure. Since then, I've seen a number of threads about the excessive hard disk usage problems on answers.microsoft.com which has now extended into the Windows 10 Insiders program with people still trying deal with the problem.
"each time i logged on" I think you're on to something,Rick. The Compaq i mentioned stays logged on running at idle 24-7 and it responds instantly to check for updates. Hhmm...
Post by Locutus deBorg on Mar 18, 2016 11:26:49 GMT -6
> "Once apon a time we took the updates on blind faith..." ___________________________________________________________
Not me, Nope! Never!
WUAU has always been either off or download and notify only (option 2) I ran XP from just after SP1a when they basically stabilized it and have never run in full auto for crapdates
In XP I've always skipped the WGA, dot nut, and the IE / WiMP version upgrades
vista, same thing, skip all the dot nut and IE garbage
in win 7 same thing, skip WAT KB971033, dot nut, and IE version upgrades I have absolutely zero use for every stupid version of dot nut
when I have to help friends with winders ape / ape dot one same thing no dot nut or IE version upgrades / changes only allow for currently installed / shipped versions security patches and IE cumulative security updates
service packs, yes, but not until final version and only after verifying the SP won't break anything already installed which IE and WiMP have been notorious for doing IE 6 on win2K breaks of all things the Windows 2000 Resource kit
IE7 / IE8 on XP breaks Nero 6.x certain versions of Adaptec / Roxio Easy CD Creator also breaks windows exploder
Last Edit: Mar 18, 2016 11:33:01 GMT -6 by Locutus deBorg: text
I find the lack of configuration options disturbing !
I felt a great disturbance in the force.. as if millions of win 7 systems suddenly cried out in terror.
What if...the monthly windows update client updates solved this issue ? How would we know if we hide them/never install them ?
I actually DID install the latest Windows Update client with this set of test updates on that VM.
I've just done another update check, which of course would exercise the latest updates to the Windows Update process itself. That completed quickly, reporting "no updates available".
The specific updates I have hidden on this test VM are these:
Doing a test now in which I have restored a VM snapshot (so updates since late January aren't installed). It's well into its first 25 minute tight loop.
Once it shows me the updates I'll install only those pertaining to updating the Windows Update process only. Then I'll reboot and report on whether the rest of them then go in quickly.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
OK, it took a half hour of hard looping on one core to show the available updates, then when I chose only the Windows Update update (KB3138612) it immediately downloaded it, installed it, and put up the request for reboot.
After rebooting, another check for updates (presumably with the brand spanking new Windows Update software) exhibits the same behavior as before. So far the svchost instance running the wuauserv service has chewed through several minutes of CPU time.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
Post by Locutus deBorg on Mar 18, 2016 14:19:00 GMT -6
the winders update screens come up fine, it's the other problem of svchost.exe hosing the system for hours on end while appearing to do nothing but waste resources and time
just got a Dell Inspiron 1525 Celeron single core 2.0GHz 1GB DDR2 in for factory reset what a flippin chore just to access the recovery partition, had to nuke C:\ from a win 7 OEM System Builder DVD, then start the installation from my Dell Homeless vista DVD once first run was done, reboot to access factory reset factory reset done clean up unwanted extraneous unnecessary garbageware a couple of config settings before applying the stand alone SP1 and SP2 next step is complete the performance and security config before turning on winders update
this should be fun (not)
how long is that poor thing is going to take just to get to the "downloading winders updates x%" stage
I find the lack of configuration options disturbing !
I felt a great disturbance in the force.. as if millions of win 7 systems suddenly cried out in terror.
OK, it took a half hour of hard looping on one core to show the available updates, then when I chose only the Windows Update update (KB3138612) it immediately downloaded it, installed it, and put up the request for reboot.
After rebooting, another check for updates (presumably with the brand spanking new Windows Update software) exhibits the same behavior as before. So far the svchost instance running the wuauserv service has chewed through several minutes of CPU time.
-Noel
Well, i guess that answers that question. Nice work Noel
So if the monthly update client UPDATES don't solve a known long term problem.....? and offer no advantage......?
After the obligatory half hour of hard looping, I was presented with a list of updates. I hid several, chose all the remaining Important ones, and some of the optional ones. I left a few unchecked so that I could go through it again and have more than 0 updates available.
366.7 MB of downloads in 29 updates total started right away. Installs proceeded, and I am now prompted to reboot.
Without overgeneralizing, it may be that the Windows Update client update last time around at least shortened the time AFTER selecting the updates and before they download/install.
OK, so I got through the installs and reboot, and started the whole thing upAGAIN...
This time it only took a couple of minutes to show the available updates (and interestingly, some 3 new Important ones showed up, all security updates for .NET 4.6.1.
Selecting all 6 updates led to an immediate download and installation.
Now, is it back to normal on both ends because I've both accepted the update to Windows Update itself AND one of the other ones? Or is this going to happen again?
Bayer, to be clear, the WU update itself may have cleared up the long wait AFTER selecting updates. Then something else cleared up the long wait BEFORE selecting updates.
I'll try again I guess when the next set of updates show up.
I can't help but get the impression that this is all done on purpose to push us into the direction they want us to go in, though it's pretty subtle.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
Post by Bayer A.User on Mar 18, 2016 15:51:17 GMT -6
I've said no thanx to the monthly update client updates across the board for quite a long time, although i may have missed at least one on the compaq. That machine has been running non stop since i clean installed 7 on it back in 2010. APC Battery backup kept it up even during power outages.
Like you said, only time will tell.
edit3-19-2016, Found some MS Knowledge base articles on KB 308 3710, KB 310 2810 that apply to the sluggish WU problem. These update client UPDATES from last year mention 10, no surprise that i did not install them on the above Win7 pc when they were offered. Noel, your suspicions about them seem to be correct.
Last Edit: Mar 19, 2016 8:20:12 GMT -6 by Bayer A.User
I believe I have isolated a recent update that makes this delay go away:
KB3139852
I did a divide-and-conquer approach, installing half the remaining available Windows Updates then seeing if the problem had gone away. If it went away I uninstalled half of them.
I'm doing one final confirmation right now, where I will take my original system snapshot with a whole bunch of updates pending and install only this one. If the next run goes more quickly, I'll call it the one.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
Yeah, I've done that per advice found on the Internet. But the actual KB required to restore normal operation keeps changing—and I was having problems with this not being effective on some machines. So I eventually went the WSUS route.
Microsoft, is Windows 10 the best you could do? Really? After promising to listen to our feedback, what a letdown!
<Rick> Good video. It's almost hard to believe that at one time Windows 98 was the resource hog, but even then, it still ran circles around what Windows 10 can do on today's modern hardware and look a heck of alot better doing it.
May 25, 2021 22:55:12 GMT -6
<Rick> As stated elsewhere, So much for the launch of Windows 11, "The Great Crash." Myself, I had a hard time getting into the site listed above, when I did get in, the video was partly done and then it crashed. There has been many other reports of crashing.
Jun 24, 2021 9:52:33 GMT -6
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<Rick> I see Microsoft has been very quick to pull down reports of site crashing regarding the Launch of Windows 11 on the Microsoft Insiders forum.
Jun 24, 2021 9:57:31 GMT -6
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<Rick> The rebroadcast is working okay.
Jun 24, 2021 11:00:25 GMT -6
<Rick> With reports of people being able to install the dev-edition of Windows 11 on machines not meeting spec, I thought I would give it a what-the-heck try. Lucky me, I'm caught in the downloading, doesn't meet spec, clearing, re-downloading loop on my machine!
Jul 2, 2021 7:08:46 GMT -6
<Rick> I've recently purchased a license for ArcaOS from www.arcanoae.com/ to play with. First impressions, it's still OS/2, but it now has a Linux twist to it.
Jul 2, 2021 7:32:53 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> laptop shit out and am stuck buying a new one. os win11 as fucked as win10 was?
Oct 2, 2021 12:56:10 GMT -6
<Rick> Let's see ..., my impression of Windows 11 is that it is a spruced up version of Windows 10 requiring a 64-bit processor plus a piece of security hardware that is less than 4 years old in order for it to run.
Oct 4, 2021 18:25:49 GMT -6
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<Rick> On the plus side, Microsoft is supposed to be supporting Windows 10 for some time to come for those of us still using systems with I7 or older processors.
Oct 4, 2021 18:44:35 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> i tried installing win10 om the 'shitout' pc this morning usung media creation. EPIC FAIL! went into an endless bootloop. win7 reinstalled just fine
Oct 21, 2021 11:23:38 GMT -6
<dozrguy> STILL so much bullshit and so little time for the kiddie ideas from the hill. My new laptop (MSI GE 11-UH461) would be an awesome "10" machine but because of Winblows I can only give it a "2"......wasted $3500
Oct 27, 2021 9:36:47 GMT -6
<Rick> Hello. Just checking in.
Mar 17, 2022 10:46:54 GMT -6
<isidroco> Each new w10 update adds >100000 useless files to \Windows\Servicing\LCU\Package_for_RollupFix... folders. Even in a SSD takes time to delete that stuff. In each version they manage to worsen stuff.
Mar 27, 2022 16:14:51 GMT -6
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<dozerguy> still traffic here?
Oct 9, 2022 17:32:44 GMT -6
<Rick> No, there does not seem to be very much traffic these days. I still check in from time to time.
Oct 9, 2022 20:08:58 GMT -6