Microsoft needs to learn consent. Everywhere there's a Yes and "Remind me later", there has to be a No. And the No has to work and be remembered forever, not forgotten after the next update. Using Windows has to stop feeling like you're being roofied all the time.
Today I woke up, went to check the progress and wouldn't you know, Windows Update updated the computer and rebooted, and what I was waiting for was aborted... So fucking tiresome to use shit like this.
It's annoying to have to shuffle files over to it, if that's needed for its job, but I think it's still a worthwhile thing to consider (it's insane that we've gotten to this point, but such is life). If it isn't workable, then fine. But if it is, the hassle of shuffling files using external SSDs or whatever is probably better, or at the very least more consistent, than turning on your machine one day and finding it corrupted itself due to an update, or the software in question got a UI update which breaks your workflow for a month.
Regardless, thanks for the ideas!
The Windows Update processes were really a stubborn bunch in W10 - not sure if anything have changed in W11. These probably were given the highest privileges that made them spawn periodically outside any scheduled tasks settings somehow. Some 3rd-party tools were able to neuter most of them but these were like zombies. Continuously rising up.
Hibernate? Gone by default.
Sleep? Ineffective 1/2 the time because a Microsoft utility force-wakes it.
It's sad that 15 year old Windows system was more usable than one today.
1. Laptop has most of its battery life still because it slept successfully and predictably
2. Laptop drained battery to 5% and only then slept
Google does this too. I don't have photos backed up to my Google account on a Pixel and every few days if I open the photos app it prompts me to backup to the cloud and I always have to click "maybe later", "not now" or whatever they decide to name it.
It's messed up because if I were to accidentally ever click yes to that it would fill up my Google storage and I would no longer be able to receive email since I'd have 0% storage. I don't get how something so dangerous can be shoved in front of you so frequently. I know it's marketing / advertising to constantly remind you of something even if you don't want it, but I would have thought customer happiness would outweigh that.
I host an Immich server for us. They don’t want Google Photos syncing and they know to watch out for the dark patterns, but, eventually, they come over with Google Photos syncing.
The other day my mother came to me with a OneDrive prompt on her Pixel. It was asking if she wanted to “free up space”. I’m pretty sure it was trying to get her to sync photos. I wish I would have taken a screenshot. She’s not low on space.
Of course, the only way space gets freed up is if they delete your local copies. It’s practically ransomware and they can’t figure out why people hate them.
Google is an advertising company and the product managers there are now incentivized to tie everything to revenue.
Microsoft, your users include developers and power users. We are not all someone's tech illiterate relative who needs constant reminding to check that backups are on, nor do we want to use OneDrive.
If we turn it off, it means off. Updates off = they stay off until turned back on, don't worry, we'll remember. Backup off = it stays off. Edge off = it stays off. Ads off = I don't want ads.
The battle they are fighting is that by using Google, tech illiterate people have found buttons like the ability to disable updates, but don't understand what they're doing, and then leave them off and now their OS becomes part of a botnet in a few months. So Microsoft believes that they are doing a greater good by not offering a real option to actually turn certain things off. But this babysitting behavior is annoying as shit when you want to leave something running that is going to take 6 days. Sure yes put it on a cloud vm. But if I was still using Windows as my OS, why should I have to? Just because your OS can't handle a developer doing something else than using Outlook and OneDrive to store pictures of aunties family get-together?
Microsoft has options to provide local image-based backups but they want to make you dependent on their online services - which surely isn't surprising to anyone.
Last time I was installing Windows 10 I had a bunch of 3rd-party tools that gave me back control to some degree. And these worked for most of the things you did mention but Windows Update maintenance services were most pesky component. Nearly every idle period would spawn a bunch of processes which were placed to ensure that updates will be delivered Microsoft way. And while I'm on CachyOS I have W11 in the vm and looks like nothing has changed and I doubt anything will despite these pretty claims up there.
The lack of control over Windows that advanced, power users have to deal with is nowadays insulting.
The Windows pedigree assumed that everything would at most have an ini or registry setting or group policy to override 99.9% of Windows' behavior or at least an undocumented but accessible internal API to set it.
The Windows 11 transition was the first time Microsoft shipped a sufficiently bullshit OS that it actually needed a developer mode.
But most scathingly... and the original sin... was that some shit-for-brains Microsoft leader made the decision to disable configurability for purpose of boosting platform revenue.
Fuck that person, because they knew exactly what and why they were doing it, and still made that decision.
Tolerate or hate them for all their sharp business elbows, but Microsoft of yore (Gates and Ballmer eras) intentionally made the decision that if they built and owned a platform that most people used (because it worked for them) then there would be more than enough money for everyone. And that it was healthy to leave money on the table for their developers, because developers and the apps they built drove people to the platform (see "Developers, developers, developers!").
But their customers are enterprises. Until you’re bringing in the money that those enterprise contracts are, you’re a pathetic speck who can and will get what you’re offered and no more.
We're at such point in the software history that perhaps this should be regulated. I know that such idea isn't particularly welcomed among hn but what else there left? A blind hope that some wind of changes will do the work? I don't think so.
Truth is that nearly every commercial software and service operates with compromising user privacy by default. It's the same constant nagging up until user surrenders. All of this so someone on the top of the corporate structure could get higher bonus from statistics.
This shouldn't be tolerated.
