# Does Microsoft own my laptop? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 27, 2019, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474 "2019-01-27T08:05:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/21 "2019-01-29T18:39:52Z")
In today’s America you own your laptop about as much as a baker owns his hands. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/22 "2019-01-29T18:56:08Z")
As a now-retired IT director, I am surprised at the posts that talk about updates being performed at the next reboot, or in the next 15 minutes, or some other inconvenient time for the end user. We (the IT staff) controlled when updates would be applied. When we received notification of a pending update, we would test it on several machines and make sure that all software behaved properly after the update. Once we deemed it okay for release, we would ‘push’ the update to all workstations and schedule it to happen at 4:00 am or some other time when nobody should be working. We would also publish the update schedule, so people would know why their computer rebooted itself in the middle of the night. And we used tools by Microsoft to accomplish this. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/23 "2019-01-29T20:02:46Z")
The PC I use for a community organization I help run is on Win10 and it took about half an hour to boot up last night, almost certainly because it had been powered off for a couple weeks and had a backlog of updates to install and configure. It was a new machine that I set up a few months ago, direct from HP as part of a general refresh I did on the office(new PC, cable provider, 30X faster downloads than the old DSL line, retired the old inkjet too, and a keyboard with all the letters visible instead of worn off). It took so long to boot up that one of other officers of the board said “I guess this is our new faster network, huh?” The reality is the new PC is faster, and the network is MUCH faster, but we’re expecting more of it. The old stand-alone Win7 PC wasn’t phoning home all the time and it didn’t have nearly as many services running on it. This bloatware is crippling us in lots of ways and most people don’t even know it. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/24 "2019-01-30T19:28:27Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Do yung’uns remember when almost all the telephones in the U.S.A. were owned by [The Telephone Company](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2NNZdigSXg)? (I don’t recall The Phone Company ever showing up to grab their property back, but I suppose it happened to some.) Actually, the phone company did hunt for illicit phones. I know because my father worked for New England Telephone\* starting shortly after he got out of the Navy following World War II, entering as a lineman, ending as a foreman. At one point in his working life he was posted to a van that went around sniffing somehow for non-NET phones and then (under what legal authority I dunno; I was a child when he was telling us about all this) searching houses for the nonsubscribed telephone sets. I recall him telling us at the dinner table about finding phones hidden in refrigerators. That was a very different world. - Or whatever the name was way back then. Dad got the job because his father-in-law was a longtime phone company employee who’d wired for initial service some of the great resort hotels in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, back a century or so ago. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/25 "2019-01-30T19:52:42Z")
Man, now I’m thinking I should update something. I do have a work laptop, and i grudgingly admit they own it, but I still upgrade it manually on my own schedule (or if I’m lazy I back everything up, take it in to the IT guys and say “Here, it’s a couple of versions behind in everything. Good luck.”) But MY computers are still running old OSes. Partly out of caution at not wanting to load an OS til I’ve read about the problems… and part me being curmudgeonly. They’re macs, and I’ve never gotten an auto-update request or warning. If that’s a thing, I’ll have to be sure to find out how to opt-out. It’s MY computer, dirtwads. If I want to run Snow Leopard on my Pismo PowerBook and MacOS System 9 on my Cube, that’s none of Timmy Cook’s business. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/26 "2019-01-31T14:51:55Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > This is astonishing to me. That we’ve come to the point where our tools are rendered unusable when we need them, and not much can be done about it. > > Who are these people? Who at MS, knowing this sort of thing happens, allows it to continue? What will it take? Planes falling out of the fucking sky? Maybe it wasn’t clear in my post… this wasn’t Microsoft’s fault, this is how our own corporate IT department pushes out updates. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/27 "2019-01-31T15:35:46Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > This is astonishing to me. That we’ve come to the point where our tools are rendered unusable when we need them, and not much can be done about it. > > Who are these people? Who at MS, knowing this sort of thing happens, allows it to continue? What will it take? Planes falling out of the fucking sky? Your tools, as an individual, may be less stable or have less uptime today than in the past, but as a society we have much more reliable infrastructure than we had in the past AND we do much more with it BECAUSE it’s much more reliable. For all their competition-crushing and money-grubbing faults, Microsoft has made huge stability and performance strides in the past few years. Taking people off the yearly upgrade grind has been a huge boon to most of us. Vulnerabilities are addressed in days or hours instead of years or months. This is one of those “can’t see the forest cause of all the damn trees in the way” kind of times in PC history. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/28 "2019-01-31T19:58:09Z")
I also get annoyed by Windows updating itself when it wants to, but… The alternative to Microsoft “owning” your laptop, in terms of dictating how the software updates itself isn’t _you_ owning your laptop, it’s some virus, worm, or script kiddie owning it. The threat landscape for connected-to-the-internet devices is vast, and vanishingly few people are qualified to reasonably secure a computer. Yes, you can put Linux on it. Better stay on top of your updates, though, or someone else will gain root pretty quick. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/29 "2019-01-31T23:28:18Z")
If you move to Linux then you need to be a responsible adult and do your own updates, management, etc. If you can’t be bothered you probably are better off with Windows10. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/30 "2019-01-31T23:35:35Z")
You can set Linux up to install updates automatically. You can also set it up _not_ to update automatically, if you so choose. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/31 "2019-01-31T23:41:09Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Starting with Windows 10, you no longer license a copy of Windows. Instead, Windows is a service. You pay for the service, and Microsoft provides and controls the service. They control when it upgrades. There’s none of this nonsense of hanging on to an older operating system because it actually ran your programs correctly. Nope, you upgrade when Microsoft upgrades their service. This is what Quicken has gone to. And it’s damn near impossible to find a game for your PC that doesn’t run through some server or other, even if it’s just a stupid one player classic like SimCity. So yeah, nobody says you HAVE to agree to giving free reign of your stuff to a faceless corp–your option is to simply not have a computer. Or cell phone. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/32 "2019-02-01T00:51:45Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > As a now-retired IT director, I am surprised at the posts that talk about updates being performed at the next reboot, or in the next 15 minutes, or some other inconvenient time for the end user. We (the IT staff) controlled when updates would be applied. When we received notification of a pending update, we would test it on several machines and make sure that all software behaved properly after the update. Once we deemed it okay for release, we would ‘push’ the update to all workstations and schedule it to happen at 4:00 am or some other time when nobody should be working. We would also publish the update schedule, so people would know why their computer rebooted itself in the middle of the night. > > And we used tools by Microsoft to accomplish this. I think setting up your own WSUS or SCCM server is a bit daunting for the average user… 😉 (I get your point, there are options, but obviously what you used at your company isn’t going to make sense for home users.) ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/33 "2019-02-01T01:42:36Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > This is what Quicken has gone to. And it’s damn near impossible to find a game for your PC that doesn’t run through some server or other, even if it’s just a stupid one player classic like SimCity. So yeah, nobody says you HAVE to agree to giving free reign of your stuff to a faceless corp–your option is to simply not have a computer. Or cell phone. And it’s this that really angers me. Even with things you own (smart phones, cars), they don’t want you to be able to fix or tinker with them. Whenever I meet people who feel oppressed by the government I point out that I feel way more oppressed by private industry. It’s now very, very difficult to hang on to software that actually works because your operating system has been “improved” and updated to the point where it won’t run it anymore. This pisses me off. Where is the crazy militia that’s hoarding Windows XP motherboards against the time when we truly have no control over our computers? ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/34 "2019-02-01T03:36:26Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I think setting up your own WSUS or SCCM server is a bit daunting for the average user… 😉 > > (I get your point, there are options, but obviously what you used at your company isn’t going to make sense for home users.) Oh, without a doubt, using WSUS would be just a tad much for most people, including me. My post was primarily in response to post #13, where **Shoeless** said > [@Shoeless](#): > > One time we had a bunch of upper management onsite doing their semi-annual dog-and-pony show, and halfway through their presentation the “your PC will restart in 15 minutes” message came up. And there was nothing they could do about it, other than rush through the rest of their presentation before the laptop rebooted. This type of situation should never occur with a competent and reliable IT department. In my home experience, configuring Windows 10 to honor my ‘Active Hours’ setting for updating and rebooting has worked just fine. > **[Get updates when you're away from your PC with active hours in Windows -...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-updates-when-you-re-away-from-your-pc-with-active-hours-in-windows-09b5376c-7647-4361-1423-c29aa692a8c4)** > > Use active hours in Windows 10 and Windows 11 to get updates when you're away from your PC. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/35 "2019-02-01T05:43:24Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > In my home experience, configuring Windows 10 to honor my ‘Active Hours’ setting for updating and rebooting has worked just fine. > > [Get updates when you're away from your PC with active hours in Windows - Microsoft Support](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027636/windows-10-get-updates-with-active-hours-in-windows-10) I complain about MS all the time but they did a lot of things right with Windows 10. If you take the time to configure updates they won’t be disruptive. I’ve had it since before official release (I was lucky enough to get an advance copy at a seminar) and it has never been an inconvenience for me. For those who can’t be troubled to set up their update system, Microsoft pushes the updates at you on their own schedule, because frankly you aren’t going to do it properly yourself. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/36 "2019-02-01T08:11:13Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I complain about MS all the time but they did a lot of things right with Windows 10. > > If you take the time to configure updates they won’t be disruptive. I’ve had it since before official release (I was lucky enough to get an advance copy at a seminar) and it has never been an inconvenience for me. > > For those who can’t be troubled to set up their update system, Microsoft pushes the updates at you on their own schedule, because frankly you aren’t going to do it properly yourself. This is basically my experience. I’ve never had Win 10 do an update against my will while I’m doing something else. It just makes an announcement–something like, “It’s time to do an update–now, or postpone?” I postpone it, and instead of shutting down, I use hibernate. Then, when I don’t need to use the computer for anything, I do an actual restart, and let it update. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/37 "2019-02-02T13:15:49Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > In today’s America you own your laptop about as much as a baker owns his hands. Well, thank god for that. Because, being that I’m lying in bed alone right now, and will soon be doing something fun with _both_ of them, it would be a tragedy if I did not own them. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/38 "2019-02-02T20:44:53Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Well, thank god for that. Because, being that I’m lying in bed alone right now, and will soon be doing something fun with _both_ of them, it would be a tragedy if I did not own them. Fiddling with your peghead? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/39 "2019-02-03T06:36:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Let me digress. On a certain on-line game there’s a clickable labeled “Ready.” If you click it, it says “Not Ready.” (Click it a 2nd (or 3rd) time and it will say “Ready” (or “Not Ready”) again. But when it says “Ready” it is NOT Ready. It’s when it says “Not Ready” that it’s Ready! That behavior is not specific to that game; it is ubiquitous in the post-rational era. As another example, in Youtube the muting icon will be labeled “Mute” when you’re NOT muted, “Un-mute” when you _are_ muted. Does everyone know what I’m talking about? What’s the word for this phenomenon? I’ll call it “Ready Reversal.” It’s called “someone is reading a verb and thinking it’s an adjective”. It’s a button you click to change your status to that one the button says, not an indication of your current status. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474/40 "2019-02-03T08:15:45Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > As a now-retired IT director…Once we deemed it okay for release, we would ‘push’ the update to all workstations and schedule it to happen at 4:00 am or some other time when nobody should be working… Considering I just started working on the computer at 2AM local time today, and will probably be running some lengthy, CPU-intensive processing in the next few hours, your schedule would be quite inconvenient for me. > [@Atamasama](#): > > If you take the time to configure updates they won’t be disruptive. I’ve had it since before official release (I was lucky enough to get an advance copy at a seminar) and it has never been an inconvenience for me… You know what’s the **least** disruptive? NO UPDATES! > [@BigT](#): > > There is software that stops Windows from pulling this shit. One I found quickly by Googling is [Kill-Update](https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-10-from-updating-using-kill-update). I can’t vouch for it since I don’t use Windows 10, but what it says it does is exactly what needs to be done. Haven’t tried that, but I will. There are some videos on YT that purport to [prevent updates completely, using multiple approaches.](https://www.easeus.com/todo-backup-resource/how-to-stop-windows-10-from-automatically-update.html) They don’t, not even if all of them are implemented. > [@](#): > > You will also want to look up [how to set your Internet connection as a “metered connection.”](https://www.howtogeek.com/226722/how-when-and-why-to-set-a-connection-as-metered-on-windows-10/) This has been the best built-in way to limit updates. It’s not guaranteed to work, which is why I recommend the app, but I do think you should probably do both. It doesn’t work. > [@](#): > > Still, it is important that you still do update Windows. As someone who ran XP for 15 years on multiple computers with not a single update from start, I beg to differ. They may be useful for the uninformed, but are useless and very annoying for the professional. Get rid of the auto-updates and I will gladly take the risk. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-microsoft-own-my-laptop/828474.md?page=3)