I was basically born with a keyboard in my hand, and I Very Intentionally do not mess with updates. I want performance in a machine - I downgrade to the last stable OS with the latest Service Packs and updates up to that point in order to maximize performance (more RAM and CPU are used with each new Windows OS for basically no reason other than they can), then disable the update service.
The aggravation of hours of downtime every week to install updates, for the reward of a crapshoot where anything can happen from something relatively annoying like now 50% of CPU and 50% of RAM are constantly in use by Windows, up to the update being hastily released and something they didn’t think of leads to the computer not booting - all of the aggravation is WORSE than getting infected with adware, malware, viruses, etc.
I’ll also happily trade the risk of infection for NOT having a Mcafee or Norton bloatware piece of shit constantly lagging my computer and ruining usage. For a very long time antivirus has been so paranoid and overblown that the antivirus *itself behaves in much the same way a virus would - hogging system resources, making access difficult, and wasting time.
For a standard user… sure, ok. They’re probably downloading email attachments from random sources left and right, going to dozens of sketchy websites, and following links helpfully provided by Nigerian princes looking to share the wealth and help them lose weight. Update away.
But if you actually understand how to install a *lightweight Antivirus that isn’t taking over your whole system, run a boot-time scan once in a while, and keep an eye on processes and msconfig from time to time, and throw in a clean wipe of the HD every 6 months:
System updates and hyperaggressive security are worse than the problem they are trying to solve.
I don’t actually agree with either your balancing of risks, or your statement that the cure is worse than the disease, but that aside, how could the above actually be realised? How could Microsoft offer an ‘advanced user’ option to suppress updates that would not also simply be abused by every idiot who thinks they know better and wishes to throw caution to the wind?
Right. How does Microsoft distinguish between the ninja robot sysadmin gods and the walking Dunning-Kruger victims?
Microsoft distinguishes by money. Get the Enterprise license and you’re on your own, patch-support wise. You set the policy, you set the schedule, you choose the patches, you manage the deployment.
And you pay $84 per year, per user. (Not per computer, so if you and Billy and Mom and Effie have accounts, that’s 84 x 4 per year.)
And that’s how you tell a competent business user from a consumer monkey. Apparently.
Pretty simply…as they’ve done with every OS, just put the option to disable Windows Update in the Control Panel, and don’t offer it with the automatic update reminders. The highest risk users won’t be willing or able to find and disable it.
It’s not about “knowing better,” it’s about I Own This, I Will Do What I Want With It.
Basically, it’s the same objection I have to phone and game console required firmware updates to disable open source apps / homebrew / piracy. If you want to intentionally cripple system capabilities and remove functionality just because it’s not your officially released software (or in the case of Windows updates, because someone doesn’t want their system hijacked every ten minutes), I get it. It’s a bad position to take and you’re only losing customers doing it, but I get it. Doesn’t mean I’ll just accept it and stop circumventing whatever unnecessary measures you put in place though.
I agree. This taps into the feeling I get more and more that I am losing control over my devices. It isn’t just a “get off my lawn” or “these new-fangled things” type mentality.
I like many features of modern operating systems and devices, but I also liked being in full control of them.
Windows 10(and other similar things) need a “I know what I’m doing” button.
You don’t own the internet, and you don’t (morally) have an absolute right to put an unsecured computer on it. You may well know what you are doing, but if so you’ll know how to install updayes with a minimum of trouble.
Do you know what I didn’t click on or agree to? Something that says “Yeah, maybe our updates and “upgrades” will make your device drivers inoperable or we’ll uninstall or simply break other programs and apps you’ve installed which means you might be out the money you paid for them and your system will be unusable for that function and we’ll also fuck over your preferences and settings for the operating system itself, requirig you to spend a lot of your own time figuring out what we changed and broke and resetting it all.” I know for a fact I never agreed to that and yet, the Creator’s Update did exactly those things–the only one I didn’t get was the broken device drivers but I sure found a lot of people who did.
I’m fine with security updates and virus library updates and patches of security holes but what I sure as fuck do NOT want is what some dweeb’s idea of “improving” the operating system looks like, because it’s seldom anything I want or welcome.
Sure they will, they will dumbly and blindly follow something they found online.
You own the hardware, but you don’t own the OS - you use it under licence, subject to terms that are imposed by Microsoft - they’ve decided that they know better than you.
I understand if you think turning off updates is better for you - that may even be true, but the stance Microsoft has taken is to try to keep the whole herd immunized, which means overriding the choices of individuals.