Will Microsoft decide which programs you can run on Windows 10?

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Great question from reader PC: Is this real or just more hokum? Microsoft is now going to decide what programs you can run on Win10? https://www.yahoo
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I have to agree with the intent of the Technet blog.

One other category which often gets exaggerated in cleaners is Temporary Files. These may include upgrade related files and Windows Updates files. When performing the next upgrade or major update, the absence of some of this class of files may interfere with the upgrade/update process and cause errors or even failures with obscure error codes. Some cleaners make a further attempt to clean out Registry entries which are deemed obsolete, with similar possible consequences down the road.

Milder cleaners like Glary Utilities and CCleaner don’t charge for applying changes, and don’t over-aggressively clean everything just to up the numbers.

Disk space on modern PCs is not at a premium (although on some tablets, space limitations are still an issue). So getting every obsolete temporary or prefetch file off the disk really does nothing to improve boot time or system performance during normal operations.

That said, I do clean regularly, I clean my browser caches when exiting, and I defragment my mechanical hard drive and occasionally apply Trim optimization to my tablet’s internal storage. The tablet also gets Disk Cleanup after each big MS Updates Cumulative Update cycle. But not the main laptop, where space is not at such a premium.

While I do light Registry cleaning once in awhile, I believe those who say this does nothing to improve Windows performance.

It’s not like Windows Defender is alone in marking cleaners and other third party utilities as PUP or PUM malware. Malwarebytes and AVG, Avast and a host of other non-Microsoft security products do exactly the same things.

What differs from product to product is how they treat PUP and PUM. Automatic removal is not an option for me, as I lose my Nir Sofer utilities if this occurs. Quarantine is also a bit extreme.

I have AVG and Malwarebytes set to warn me, include these warnings in all scan results, and allow me to select on a case by case basis, what to keep and what to remove or quarantine. This makes for a messy and sometimes lengthy sorting and clicking post-scan process, but I do get the chance to evaluate after each scan, what I really want on my devices and what I do not want, and to find and get rid of anything new and unwanted.

I appreciate the alerts; I do not appreciate automatic removals. I ask Microsoft and all third parties, including browser makers a simple compromise: Don’t play Net Nanny to me — but do warn me of potential threats. Then let me decide my personal risk tolerance level.

Is that too much to ask of a Consumer Operating System?

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The MS article at https://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/mmpc/shared/objectivecriteria.aspx contains this definition– “Unwanted behavior: The software runs unwanted processes or programs on your PC, does not display adequate disclosures about its behavior or obtain adequate consent, prevents you from controlling its actions while it runs on your computer, prevents you from uninstalling or removing the program, prevents you from viewing or modifying browser features or settings, makes misleading or inaccurate claims about the state of your PC, or circumvents user consent dialogs from the browser or operating system.”

Sheesh, sounds a lot like GWX!

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I guess I’m not smart enough to figure how Speccy fits into this roundup.

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Many things can be done in the name of “security”.

After all, who would ever say that you could have “too much security”? More is better, right?

Yet, big picture, a new normal is being defined as quickly as Microsoft can manage it where we are being moved away from general purpose computing where we are in control, and into a walled garden where they are in control.

When walls go up, sheep get fleeced…

-Noel

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Agree, the Windows ecosystem is changing as MS aggressively tests what they can get away with in controlling the hardware and software resources of the user. It will be an interesting evolution to observe but perhaps not entirely enjoyable?

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One more reason to ditch MSE. Too bad. I always thought it was a nice basic program.

M$: This is how you foul your nest.

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Yes, with all due respect rc that is too much to ask. Everything you do manually is fine & dandy for you but by far you’re not what’s considered an “average” user. You have much more technical knowledge than the average computer user and I’d have to think a large portion of them would sit there shaking their heads in confusion just reading everything you do manually. Hell, my head was shaking reading some of it and I understand it!

Not everybody shares your knowledge & desire to spend vast amounts of time “maintaining” their computers. The average computer user just wants to get online and do whatever they choose. Most of them use their computers for a variety of things that mostly provides them with enjoyment and/or entertainment. Every computer owner shouldn’t be required to be a “geek” to enjoy using their computers.

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I’m sure RC understands that. In fact, Windows has become such a problem that I usually set up family members and most friends with either iPads or Chromebooks. If they have a very specific need to use a specific Windows program, then I’ll relent. But for the majority of people, the vast majority of time, iPads, Android tablets and/or Chromebooks will do everything they need – without the hassles.

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Maintaining Windows is just like maintaining an automobile.

If all you want to know is that the long pedal makes it go, the short pedal stops it and the round wheel steers then you are at the mercy of the auto mechanics.

And so it is with Windows…

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How evil of Microsoft to protect your computer and wallet.

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However, by the same token, a lot of “small business” users will suddenly find their systems useless when forced into this type of operating model.

Just over this weekend, I was called in to a 5-man business that has been running on Windows 7 and 8 PCs, where suddenly Windows 10 was knocking at the door, and I had to advise them not to upgrade their PCs as the old application packages they were using would either a) stop working correctly, or b) would be considered by Microsoft to be incompatible with the OS and would be made inoperable. Three of their PCs were at the point where they were about to be upgraded by default if I hadn’t stepped in and disabled the install.

For home users or small businesses, who don’t have dedicated IT teams on standby, you can’t just go and force an upgrade on these users that might trash their whole IT infrastructure in the name of installed base counts.

It’s all very well saying that corporate clients won’t be forced, but if that’s only for “corporates” who have an Enterprise licence, that’s not good enough. Most people will be running with a Professional OEM PC licence, as that’s what came with the PCs. And most smaller corporates also won’t have a WSUS infrastructure that blocks the automatic upgrades.

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First, let me reply to the charge that I spend a lot of time maintaining my devices. It amounts (under Windows 10 Pro) to about twenty minutes per month, plus whatever time it takes to download and install third-party updates. Which I track using an updates checker (SUMo Lite, without the spyware). Then there are the per-session (automatic) AVG updates checks, and Malwarebytes– about three minutes with a good broadband Internet Connection. The Windows Store may add about another three minutes, but I can be doing other tasks while all of the automatic updates happen. Restart once or twice, and I’m good for two to four weeks.

Backup to three different hard drives per device takes more time, and I do recommend that most average users simply employ File History and not worry about system image backups, unless they have customized Windows excessively. Which would put them in the same category as me, namely an advanced user.

Second, I am not asking Microsoft (or anybody else) to force consumers to take control of our updates. I am only asking that we retain the choice to select what, when and how to update. Within reason, of course. For those with little knowledge, time and patience, automatic everything, Reset instead of Image Backup, File History and a third-party automatic update program such as Ninite, all are just fine. But for those of us who want more specific control, the options which have lately been taken away need to be restored.

For myself, I can go full-throttle to Linux, as I already use it. Provided that Intel doesn’t blacklist Linux from their next-gen processors, all will be well with me. Only a few apps won’t work in Linux for me, and there are some workarounds for most of those.

Microsoft has never respected non-corporate advanced users, and keeps dumbing-down our options to control what gets onto our devices, when and how. third parties have been at least as bad. And don’t get me started about how dumb ChromeOS, Android, iOS and MacOS are!

For those who demand choice, there should be choices. For those who would rather just let everything go on auto-pilot, anything which crashes or breaks is not my problem. I am far from alone in this way of using technology, and those of us who do work this way have a right to do so. That’s all I am really saying.

I am *not* speaking for the average user, whoever that may be. BTW, this site is also not aimed at average users, if I am correct in my reading here.

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But if you want to do your own diagnostics and repairs, you need access to increasingly complex codes, which can be read only with professional grade tools. Cars or Windows, this is the reality of increasingly complex technology.

Like the car manufacturers vs. the independent mechanics, Microsoft and its non-corporate advanced users are more and more at war over access to the codes and tools to maintain our own devices and software. This is criminal in my opinion, yet no one ever brings charges. So the relationship between advanced customers and vendors continues to deteriorate. Even some Linux distros are like this.

This is not the way a vendor-customer relationship should operate!

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You call charging $49.00 to reinstall the OS when MS’s own updates wreck Windows 10 “protecting your computer and wallet”???

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So everything has to be dumbed down to the level of the “average” user, whatever that is? There’s no room for Windows to adapt to the level of the user and allow that user to have some control over his own computer?

Computers are complicated things, and efforts to make them simple are always going to have serious trade-offs, like with iPads and iPhones that are so locked down and restricted that anyone who is not the “average” user begins to chafe at the arbitrary restrictions and an operating system that seems to be designed to thwart the user more than to facilitate what he needs to do.

An OS should never it upon itself to uninstall anything without the user’s permission. A user-friendly UI can try to isolate the user from the complicated stuff, but at some point, some things are going to require some decisions to be made by the user.

One example would be the free edition of Bitdefender (Windows), designed to require no configuration or user input. It’s meant to be simple, lightweight, and as close to “fire and forget” as possible. Still, it asks the user what to do when he to visit a reported “bad” web site or when it finds a file that it detects as infected.

The Bitdefender free user still has to decide whether to delete the quarantined files (automatically placed there upon detection), or that they are false positives and to restore them, which automatically creates a whitelist entry for that particular file. Those are things the “average” user would probably find confusing, but proper decisions simply cannot be made without user input in cases like these.

People may wish to just use complicated things without having any skills, but there’s a limit to that. We don’t expect any guy off the street to sit down in the cockpit of an airliner and fly to Pittsburgh. It’s simply not possible to simplify the proper operation of an aircraft enough that someone who doesn’t want to know about flying airplanes can just sit down and do it anyway.

Of course, using a Windows PC is nowhere close to requiring that much skill, but to operate one well requires a higher degree of skill than “knows what a mouse is.” You can only make it as easy as possible given the circumstances, but no easier.

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$49? Wow, what Utopia do you live in? When it’s a running system with data to be retrieved and system settings saved and restored, most tech outfits will charge ~$250-300 minimum for a customised reinstall.

It is $49 only if you get Bob, the teenager from down the street, to just reformat the hard disk and chuck in the installer…

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The situation you are complaining about is exactly what I am saying the major OSes except for Linux are doing now. I had the same sort of complaints about what more knowledgeable users should be able to do, but let’s face it — none of the commercial OS vendors has listened to more advanced users for months, if not years now. Wish I could say otherwise, but I can’t.

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I think you mean “Bob *or* the teenager down the street.

Actually, I am quoting the minimum repair charge at my local Microsoft Store. And that does not count data recovery or business services.

Customised reinstalls may not even be offered at the Microsoft Store.

But the basic point remains — Microsoft (and other commercial vendors) is *not* looking out for the best interests of “your computer and your wallet”.

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