Steve Gibson’s Never10 vs Josh Mayfield’s GWX Control Panel

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Many of you have asked. Here’s the whole story. InfoWorld Woody on Windows This from Josh on updating GWX Control Panel: Beginning with 1.7.3, you sti
[See the full post at: Steve Gibson’s Never10 vs Josh Mayfield’s GWX Control Panel]

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The Woody on Windows article says “It’s also worth noting that you can go into the registry and flip the bits by hand or use Win10 Pro’s group policy editor to change things yourself. Details for doing that are in KB 3080351. None of that will clear out the 3GB to 5GB of hidden downloaded installation files, however.”

If you have to use Win10 Pro’s group policy editor it’s already too late.

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Good article. Think many people were asking themselves the same question.

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Gibson’s software has always been superb.

However, GWX has another advantage not mentioned in the InfoWorld article — it will monitor, detect and warn the user if a Windows Update has reset the registry to allow Win10 and/or start that d*mn multi-gigabyte download of hidden installation files.

This has happened TWICE since I started using GWX.

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new version of GWX Control Panel (1.7.3.1) was released on March 28 (a few days ago). I try out Gibson’s Never10 tool as well as the newest version of GWX Control Panel on my Win7 & Win8.1 PCs.

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Hi Woody

A BIG THANK YOU to both yourself and Steve Gibson for the time and effort you guys put into helping us Windows users make the best decisions on what programs/updates we install on our computers.

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It is not late if the documented steps are followed to the letter.
The question is how many of the regular end-users are actually aware of the configuration and even so, how many can understand the technicalities of implementing them correctly?

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Woody, very good article on InfoWorld and easy to understand by anyone interested without going into too much technical detail difficult to follow.

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Gibson’s Never 10 requires you install KB3065987 (Win7) or KB3058168 (Win8/8.1) before it makes the Group Policy/Registry changes to block the upgrade. Those are the Windows updates that are referred to in KB3080351, I believe, that make changes to the group policies.

But the Group Policy Editor is not available to Win7 Home Premium and Win8/8.1 Home, which most home Users and many small business have. Even if they have Pro, Business, or Ultimate, Users have no idea how to use gpedit.
And, Editing the Registry is not supported for individual Users by MS for Home Premium and Home.
And, I have been hiding the Windows Update Client “improvements” since before July 2015 because I believe (maybe I’m paranoid) any changes MS has made to the Update Client are NOT for the Users’ benefits and probably grease the skids for them to ram Win10 through the pipeline.

While I am somewhat computer savvy, and sometimes feel comfortable editing the Registry (VERRRRRY carefully), the average User is FAR from that (Regis tree? Where can I get a Regis tree?).

GWX Control Panel makes it easy for EVERYBODY. It not only makes the necessary changes to the Registry (even in Home Premium and Home), but it disables the GWX app as well as other Win10 directed tasks, and deletes the huge downloaded install bits. And it’s reversible too, except for the downloaded 3-6GB installer (which MS will only too gladly help you get again) if you decide to change your mind. And it does it with an easy “Click here to…” even the novice can understand.

However, it is a good thing to see additional tools to block MS’s political blunder. The more negative publicity (and lately I’ve heard some of MS’s traditional advocates saying the way Win10 is being pushed is a mistake) the greater the doubtful possibility that MS may stop.

(But I see where Win10 picked up another half million or so market share through the forced upgrades a couple of weekends ago. Really something to brag about.)

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Eric,

A minor correction: The reason Never10 doesn’t need to bother with deleting the pre-downloaded Win10 files… is that the GWX subsystem *DOES* delete them for us when the registry is set to disable OS upgrading. This was a welcome surprise, and it further convinced me that Microsoft was serious about honoring their own registry settings.

Cheers,
/Steve.

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Interesting! Does GWX delete the files on reboot? Or is there a trigger somewhere?

(Good to see you.)

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Steve and I have been at this for quite a while.

Josh deserves thanks, too. He found the mistakes in Microsoft’s documentation. Which reminds me, if you haven’t donated on Josh’s site, now’s a good time to do so….

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True, if you run GWX Control Panel in Monitor Mode.

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The article mentions “the 3GB to 5GB of hidden downloaded installation files” —
I’d like to (manually, without downloading GWX Control Panel) see if my computer has these, but I don’t know where to look.

(And if there are any special settings I would need to adjust to be able to see them, like open-with-administrator, show-hidden-files, etc. My operating system is “windows 7, home premium 64bit”.)

I think the location of these was mentioned a month or two ago on AskWoody.com, and I’m wondering if anyone can point me to that post – ?

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I think user “Eric” may have meant that “it’s already too late” for you if your operating system is Windows 10, such that you have ready access to “Win10 Pro’s group policy editor”.

I am not clear on this at all, but maybe Woody meant to write in his article that you can use (if your _version_ of your operating system gives you access to it, of course), the group policy editor of whatever operating system you are trying to stay with, Win 7 or 8 etc., rather than the group policy editor of Win 10 Pro. But maybe I have misunderstood.

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If you’re using Win10 Pro’s group policy editor then hasn’t Win10 already been installed?

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Hi Woody,

Reboot wasn’t needed since something, either a service or the task scheduler, is waking up GWX periodically. When it awakens it sees that the user has requested OS upgrade disabling… and it deletes the +3GB of Win10 files it may have already downloaded.

Note, also, that I make no effort to prevent the GWX subsystem from being installed in the system. Having written that 81kb utility in assembly language, I’m a purist, so I CERTAINLY empathize with someone who dislikes the whole idea of having any part of GWX in their machine. And I looked long and hard at preventing it in a clean way (which wouldn’t be worse than the disease). But the Windows Update subsystem doesn’t make that practical. As we have all seen, “hidden” updates tend to reappear at Microsoft’s whim. (I have one system where I’m unable to reliably hide Silverlight.) Since the GWX files at /windows/system32/GWX are only 30MB… I decided that the better (most user friendly) solution was to tolerate them since they had proven to behave themselves.

All the best,
/Steve.

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Will have to try this the next time I find one in the process. I think I have disabled the upgrade both ways, by editing editing the Registry and with GEXCP, and the install bits remain. Will certainly be glad if this is right. Will run a reboot in between to see if it’s before or after.

Is this a recent change (GWX has been reissued so many times)?

Glad to see someone else get in the melee. The more we learn about it, the better. Kudos to both you and Mayfield!

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Hi Woody,

2 things –

As I mentioned above in a nested reply, I am wondering if you meant to type “Win10 Pro” in the following sentence:

“It’s also worth noting that you can go into the registry and flip the bits by hand or use Win10 Pro’s group policy editor to change them yourself.”

You may have meant the group policy editor of Win 7 or Win 8 (whichever OS the user presently has)?

—
I understand that if a person has Win 7 Home Premium, there are some things he/she can’t do in terms of warding off Win 10 that people who have other, higher-level versions of Win 7 can do.

But I don’t quite know what those are… I think there is no “group policy editor” for that group of people who have Home Premium Win 7, but can they still “flip the bits by hand” in the registry?

The sentence makes it sound pretty simple for everyone, but for your non-expert readers like me, maybe adding some caveats to that statement would help steer them/us from wading into the registry and getting into something over our heads.

Unless it really is pretty easy! I would give it a go if it were confirmed as being pretty easy if you are a careful amateur.

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GACK! Yes, that’s right!

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Well put. And I betcha anything that it’s a scheduled task – GWX uses several.

Thanks for the update!

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Gosh Woody,

I pointed that out at in my 8:15 am post!

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Yep. Ooops.

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you have to “Show hidden files and folders” then look at C:$WINDOWS.~BT.

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re “showering us with carrots”

I think they *think* they are presenting us with a free, delightful carrot,
but this so-called carrot is still a big hunkin’ long hard fibrous thing — in other words, indistinguishable from a stick — and it’s covered in gloopy soil+manure that sprays all over us every time they jab us in the face with their nasty, indigestible, genetically-modified, pesticide-soaked carrot, trying to get us to open our mouths and accept the “optional” “treat”.

…maybe I’ve had too much caffeine this afternoon.

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It’s been a very busy day. Sorry ’bout that!

(I need to get an editor involved, to change the InfoWorld story. I’ve been blitzing a review of the Build keynote all day – so I have the editors, and myself, all tied up in knots. It’ll stabilize by morning.)

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Is this (from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351)
the entire registry thing that needs to be flipped?

“Windows registry

Important: Follow the steps in this section carefully. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before you modify it, back up the registry for restoration in case problems occur.

To block the upgrade to Windows 10 through Windows Update, specify the following registry value:

Subkey: HKLMSOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdate
DWORD value: DisableOSUpgrade = 1”

—-
Even though I’ve asked this question in earnest, between hitting ctrl-C and ctrl-v just now, I decided that more than 50% of that KB is Greek to me (or, rather, Martian!), so I don’t feel comfortable even trying to parse out what I, as a Win 7 Home Premium innocent pleb, might dare to tinker with, in terms of the registry. Oh dear.

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Easiest is to run GWX Control Panel and/or Never10. They’ll flip the right bits.

If you want to do it manually, in the key HKLMSOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdate you have to add the DWORD value DisableOSUpgrade and set it to 1.

Registry editing terminology stinks, but that’s the basic idea.

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Sorry Eric, my fault. I assumed that we are still on Windows 7 and use the Group Policy Editor on Windows 7.

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Thanks Steve for your input here and I think everyone participating would agree.
Never10 is a very clean and efficient tool written in assembly like all the others.
I remember DCOMbobulator and Unplug ‘n Pray from the old times

Cliff Hogan

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For this to work, you also have to have a Windows Update Client later than June 2015. See this article for reference too – same Registry key. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3050265
If you have https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3138612 you should be fine as this supersedes all the old WU clients.

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Actually, if this looks too complicated and still wish to control it or learn what it is about, a better option would be to use one of the 2 well-known tools first and check the registry after the fact without editing anything by hand.

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Re: GWX Control Panel, which I run in monitor mode…How do I know what version I have? Is there some button I don’t see where I can “check for updates?” Or does it update to latest version automatically?

If I hadn’t read the reply above from EP, I would have had no idea there was a newer version.

Thanks Woody.

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@Ike,

All the way up in the top left hand corner of the GWX CP is a small icon. Click the icon and follow the prompts. Once you get to the download site, you can download and install the newest version without the need to uninstall the previous version.

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@louis,
Oh, DUH! Never noticed it up there; it just looks like a logo, not a live button. Got it now. Thank you!

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The most obvious advantage of Never10 is that it is simple to use.
It only has one Button – namely Enable/Disable Win10 Upgrade
And only one color coded report message:
– Windows 10 OS Upgrade is ENABLED on this system – in red
– Windows 10 OS Upgrade is DISABLED on this system – in green
This simple GUI interface is a big plus when recommending it to non-tech users.

For most non-tech users GWX-CP has too many options – currently 9 buttons.
Granted they all do something useful, but it takes time and effort to understand what they all do. The itemized report given by GWX-CP is nice – but it is overkill for many users.

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@Ike,

I went through the same thing, and I discovered it by accident!…….you’re welcome.

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@Woody

When I tried to open the Never10 program it prompts me install a newer version of the Windows Update Client?!
(see: http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/2262275~8ce190437bf94f2e1d356f844576ae22/Pic.jpg)

But when I run the GWX Control Panel, I can enable every option to prevent a possbile Windows 10 upgrade. No new WU Client needed.

So I’m kinda wondering if i’m even fully protected now? I mean the GWX Control Panel did made the registry settings in the proper folders.

But, why does Never10 needs that newer WU Client? This really baffles me!

I hope you can help me out here Woody.

Cheers,
Tom

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I don’t know if the Windows Update update is actually required. I do know that adding the key to the registry (even if it isn’t already there – even if the latest Windows Update update isn’t installed) seems to keep the wolves at bay.

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Do you have either KB3138612 for Win7 SP1 or KB3138615 for Win8.1 installed, Tom? Check the Installed Updates list if you have any one of those updates installed.

I ran Never10 with either KB3138612 or KB3138615 installed on my Win7 & Win8.1 PCs and it worked as advertised.

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Another NEW version of GWX Control Panel came out on March 30 (v1.7.4.0). Folks, download & upgrade the GWX Control Panel app if you’re running old and/or outdated versions.

Looks like Josh is keeping up with the competition and making more improvements & bug fixes.

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It may be that the only addition brought by Windows Update update is in relation to the Group Policy Administrative Templates, the files Windowsupdate.adml and Windowsupdate.admx contained in the updates.
Without those updated files, the setting is not visible in the Group Policy Editor which at the end of the day is a GUI for a specific section of the Registry.
However that may not stop the Registry edited directly to do its work.

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Now you have that paragraph twice.

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Yikes! Thanks.

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The GWX Control Panel was updated to version 1.7.4.1 on 2016.04.01: http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/ .

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@woody: Steve Gibson’s Never10 tool was updated on April 8 to version 1.3 and revised again on April 17 to version 1.3.1. A changelog for the Never10 tool is found here:
https://www.grc.com/never10/details.htm

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