"Windows as a service" means big, painful changes for IT pros

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“Windows as a service” means big, painful changes for IT pros
http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-as-a-service-means-big-painful-changes-for-it-pros/

Everything you know about Windows deployment is undergoing wrenching changes. For IT pros who’ve grown accustomed to “set it and forget it” as a management strategy, three big changes are making life much more challenging.

By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | February 18, 2017 — 16:09 GMT (08:09 PST) | Topic: Windows

When Microsoft rolled out the “Windows as a Service” tagline for Windows 10, most of us assumed it was just another marketing ploy.

But as we approach Windows 10’s two-year anniversary, it’s becoming apparent that there’s some substance behind the label. And for Windows power users and IT pros, the ramifications are just beginning to become apparent.

Microsoft has published a handful of low-key technical articles covering the new rules, but some of those details have shifted over time. The maximum interval for deferring feature updates, for example, was eight months when the feature debuted in November 2015, but shrank to 180 days in the July 2016 Anniversary Update.

Even for those of us who regularly attend IT-focused conferences and keep up with deployment news, managing a Windows-based organization in this new era can be confusing. For those who are simply using Windows for day-to-day-business, the changes can appear unexpectedly. And the realization that tried-and-true workflows no longer apply isn’t sitting well with some IT pros.

For the past year, I’ve been hearing a steady stream of complaints from longtime Windows admins and users. Consistently, those grumbles all boil down to a single objection: Because of “Windows as a service,” we’re losing control of our desktop PCs.

They have a point.

For the past quarter-century, businesses running Windows have been able to count on a few constants, all of which are now changing. Consider these three major shifts:

OVERLY AGGRESSIVE UPGRADE CYCLES

……..

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1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
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dononline, Elly, AlexEiffel

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Glad to hear that and that I am not some crazy lonely person thinking that way.

Maybe b could tell us what is his secret because he doesn’t seem to experience this at all and seems very happy to manage Windows 10.

Do we need to let go more and surrender the idea of set it and forget it?
I don’t understand how this will benefit anyone. It is based on the premiss that Microsoft knows better than IT people in your organization what is good for users.

My prediction:
As Windows 7 support reaches its end, big businesses will have to face the problems and will complain loudly, to which Microsoft will have to give these constantly paying customers a bit of what they want: a customizable set it and forget it LTS version that is supported for general computing and not just for special systems.

However, all the small businesses and home users will still be stuck with the new paradigm. Some might move to Macs if they only do general office computing or do nothing for lack of knowledge about what is possible, accepting their degraded experience as being part of the fact that computers are complicated and messy to them.

If we are “lucky” (as in lucky that you get the privilege to now pay for what was free earlier instead of not getting at all what you liked anymore), Microsoft will start selling us Windows as-a-service LTS version too, the as-a-service part being only the fact that you pay regularly for a stable version that has nothing to do with a service. What a paradox!

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, PhotM

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@ AlexE

Fyi, at present, it seems only buyers or renters/leasers of the most expensive Win 10 Ent E5 Volume Licenses could obtain the LTSB edition, ie LTSB is not available for subscribers of Win 10 Ent E3 & E5(eg SMBs and home-users) and buyers or renters of the less expensive Win 10 Ent E3 Volume Licenses.

Win 10 LTSB is the only ‘set it and forget it’ mode with a real EOL of 2025 and is needed by most businesses, and even by some home-users.
Win 10 LTSB is similar to the good old Win 7/8.1 which has a real EOL of 2020/2023.
Win 10 LTSB has been made by M$ to be the most expensive edition and very restricted in availability.

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Elly

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@AlexEiffel

My prediction:
As Windows 7 support reaches its end, big businesses will have to face the problems and will complain loudly, to which Microsoft will have to give these constantly paying customers a bit of what they want: a customizable set it and forget it LTS version that is supported for general computing and not just for special systems.

I find this very unlikely. Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB is in current use by some businesses, but they are strongly discouraged to use it for general purpose by Microsoft Support and all official documentation. Those businesses might find themselves to pay premium fees for supporting Windows 10 LTSB, like for any of the systems outside of mainstream or extended support. Windows 2016 Server with GUI (Desktop Experience) and Core installations are LTSB only though. Only the Nano style of installation which is still evolving (read work in progress) gets the CBB treatment.
I think the likely outcome for most of those businesses not able to cope with the new requirements of CBB will be an accelerated move to the Cloud or some will choose not to update, in which case they will not benefit of much support from the vendor.

We should not forget here that Microsoft has the support of all industry in forcing updates.
Other major vendors practice exactly the same method of forced updating.
Look at Adobe Reader DC and how hard they made it to find the information needed to disable forced updates. Sure Adobe Reader is not an OS, but it is an example. Chrome has been doing forced updating for a very long time, Mozilla Firefox is more or less doing the same.

And for those who don’t like the concept of using Microsoft Update for drivers, Citrix (and OpenSource) have moved with XenServer 7.0 to update the XenServer Tools via Microsoft Update, which may or may not be forced, depending on how those drivers are classified in MU.

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AlexEiffel

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You might be right and this would go along the lines of your other comments regarding that maybe most or at least a lot of users shouldn’t be the administrators of their computers, just like in IOS.

However, that means that businesses must be willing to accept they don’t need to control as much no more and accept whatever will be thrown at them very often and the associated costs or sudden loss of functionalities with incompatible legacy software or hardware like specialized machinery. Windows releases bring a much higher level of disturbance to work flows than all Firefox, Acrobat, IOS and whatever else combined.

I am just not sure it is really doable in practice with the legacy of Windows. What will happen if your business app don’t work after a feature upgrade and for various reasons that app can’t be updated to the latest working version?

My prediction was to say a lot of businesses will suffer the consequences of this new paradigm in the next few years and then they might voice their concerns much louder and demands a real LTS version that would be more like the versions of Windows we had before. Yes, not many businesses uses LTS right now and for good reasons: Microsoft don’t want you to and those businesses might not need to because they probably are on Windows 7 right now, having upgraded from XP not so long ago. That will change in less than 3 years. I predict Microsoft will be forced to extend Windows 7 support a bit longer than expected for businesses, while charging high support fees for it. If Microsoft really tries too hard to coerces businesses to adopt the new model when it doesn’t fit their needs, maybe a lot of them will try what IBM did and realizes that for a lot of users, they saved a lot of money on TCOs using 33 000 “expensive” Macs instead of Windows PCs.

I think Apple has successfully shown with IOS that you can have a device that people will want to use for business and not manage much while still being quite secure and being able to do your things on it in a satisfactory manner, even if one could argue the business tools and file management are very incomplete, but I don’t think it is due to the paradigm itself. So maybe, Windows could become a bit like that, or at least be that to a lot of people, but in practice, although you don’t see a lot of old phones still running, you see a lot of old Windows running a specific old app. I think Enterprises might have difficulties following the fast pace of changes in each Windows version.

 

 

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Elly, ch100

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I think what will happen with the legacy application is exactly what has been happening until now and is happening today. Businesses affected will not install updates which impact those applications and use legacy OS beyond the maintenance date. If this is a big issue in reality, it is the responsibility of the affected businesses to assess and decide. A lot of businesses still use Windows XP and Windows 2003 for various reasons and I was told a while ago that there are very large organisations still using Windows NT4, it is true that this is in isolated environments.

Microsoft is a business after all and they operate in a way suitable for their business model.

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AlexEiffel

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I was at LabCorp recently for a blood test. The PC at the receptionist’s desk was still running XP. The one in the room where they take the blood was running Win 7.

Just a random observation.

-Noel

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Hopefully no sensitive info was kept on the XP computer.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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AlexEiffel wrote:

Maybe b could tell us what is his secret because he doesn’t seem to experience this at all and seems very happy to manage Windows 10.

Secret of what?

I don’t see that a feature update every 8-12 months is painful.

CB seems fine for home use and I don’t think CBB is much of a burden for businesses either.

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I am curious which context you operate in, how many users, what kind of users, do you let them run admin, do you almost not tweak the system out of the box, do you control specific things only, etc. You seem to have an environment where Windows 10 fits well and where you don’t see any of the considerations that seems to bother other people here.

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Elly

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Maybe this is part of the answer, at least for awhile: My Musings About Windows 10 or “Windows as a Service”

I don’t know what the whole answer is really, because I just don’t see a suitable REAL OS for all people, Masses and Tech/IT/DevOps people around at this time other than some form of Windows???? :confused: 🙁

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

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Some of the problems, like lost control over Windows Updates reboot scheduling, can be retained with AD GPO’s on Windows 10 Enterprise. My gripe is that we used to get GPO settings in Windows Pro that were like enough that SMB’s could keep control. That’s been lost as of 1607.

And for a SMB to get Windows 10 Enterprise they have to subscribe to it, a recurring cost, unless they buy enough Open License seats to meet a minimum.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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There are those that say GPO is on it’s way out, others didpute that. I don’t really know BUT sometimes it appears to have numbered days. Because of that and other reasons I like to stick to the Registry.

This MAY HELP??? you for what you want???: Registry Adjustments for ALL, W 7, W 8.1 and W 10 It is in Tools here.

Hope that helps some…. 😛

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

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NetDef

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The whole idea with Windows “Pro” was that it was the version for small business. I always used to buy “Ultimate” though.

Now, even “Pro” doesn’t truly have the professional features any business user would want.

-Noel

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Elly

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I see that almost everyone complains about losing features in the Group Policy in Windows 10 Pro.
What is actually missing from the Pro policies?
I cannot identify any useful missing policy, except for the Telemetry setting configured on Security. Even that one, the setting on Basic is more than enough for those who are really interested in having a functioning system and less in complaining for very little reason.

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@ ch100

A few “important” Group policies were removed from Win 10 Pro Version 1607,

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/28/microsoft-removes-policies-windows-10-pro/

Fyi, soon after Anniversary Update or Win 10 Version 1607 was released on 02 Aug 2016, ads started appearing in the Lock Screen, which could no longer be disabled by Win 10 Pro users.

And so happened in Sep 2016, M$ began offering subscriptions for Win 10 Ent E3 at US$7 per month per user. This was likely a move by M$ to push Win 10 Pro SMB and home-users who hv just lost various Group policies to subscribe to Win 10 Ent E3.

Subscriptions for Win 10 Ent E5 at US$14 per month per user was quietly introduced by M$ at around Nov 2016 thru their CSPs.

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For disabling the apps from Windows Store on Windows 10 Pro, please try the old and tested known from the previous versions:

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Internet Communication Management\Internet Communication settings
Turn off access to the Store – Enabled

Do not display the lock screen policy has undesired side-effects on Enterprise version and I am not recommending it to be used on any version.

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@ ch100

For disabling the apps from Windows Store on Windows 10 Pro, please try the old and tested known from the previous versions:

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Internet Communication Management\Internet Communication settings
Turn off access to the Store – Enabled

The above is not available for Win 10 Pro 1607, ie only available for Win 10 Ent 1607 and Win 8.1 Pro.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/manage-connections-from-windows-operating-system-components-to-microsoft-services

1 user thanked author for this post.

Elly

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@ ch100

For disabling the apps from Windows Store on Windows 10 Pro, please try the old and tested known from the previous versions:

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Internet Communication Management\Internet Communication settings
Turn off access to the Store – Enabled

Seems, you are suggesting that Win 10 Pro users who wanna retain a few of their Group Policies that were removed by M$ in Version 1607 should remain with the old versions, ie Version 1507 or 1511, and not upgrade.
IOW, “take it or leave it”.?

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Maybe I missing the point that some of you are making BUT I am not seeing ads anywhere and I do as little as possible with GPO. It is either unreliable or here to day gone tomorrow. When I can find an effective Registry adjustment, I replace GPO with that.

Since I am on Pro and not having your experience, look over my two posts and see if there is anything there for you:

Registry Adjustments for ALL, W 7, W 8.1 and W 10

My Musings About Windows 10 or “Windows as a Service”

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

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ch100 wrote:

Do not display the lock screen policy has undesired side-effects on Enterprise version and I am not recommending it to be used on any version.

Could you elaborate on that? I hate the lock screen and would like to know what side-effects you are talking about that would be a concern for any version?

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When using Group Policy, there are inter-relations and some settings affect other settings. A lot of testing is required.

Have a look here

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/windows-spotlight

In principle the lock screen in 1607 should be managed via the spotlight policy and there are differences between 1511 and 1607. This is documented elsewhere on that Technet site.

See also the effect of animations which produces another side-effect with Citrix Receiver.

Also have a look at this thread:

http://marc.info/?t=148722486400005&r=1&w=2

I have good reasons to say that this is way above the average user’s understanding.

 

 

3 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, Noel Carboni, AlexEiffel

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@ ch100

Do not display the lock screen policy has undesired side-effects on Enterprise version and I am not recommending it to be used on any version.

Fyi, we were talking about M$ removing the Group Policy for “Do not display the Lock Screen” from Win 10 Pro Version 1607.

The links that you gave do not indicate the above quote at all.
2 of the links mainly talked about the relationship between Windows Spotlight, display of ads and the Lock Screen. 1 of the links talked about an isolated problem with a Black Lock Screen in connection with the Citrix receiver, ie with the Lock Screen not disabled by Group Policy.

Fake news ?

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@alexeiffel

Here is the other URL about managing spotlight and lock screen and differences between versions

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/manage-connections-from-windows-operating-system-components-to-microsoft-services#bkmk-spotlight

 

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Elly, AlexEiffel

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AlexEiffel wrote:

… I hate the lock screen ….

I am having trouble understanding that sentiment OR maybe I am not aware of what “the lock screen” is referring to? :confused:

I power up, I sign in, I restart, I find nothing “not to like”???? Maybe I really have been off of W 7 so long that I don’t remember what it was like???

I hear this sentiment so much in various places, I just GOTS to ask…. 😀

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

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ch100

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I don’t see it on my Win 10 test system, but I’ve read reports that for some people the lock screen shows up if the system is left alone for a few minutes – even when configured not to.

I know I’ve run across a fix for that (I believe it was a registry tweak), but for the life of me I can’t remember where.

-Noel

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Ok, let me try to explain. I know someone who has a Mac laptop. She has a laptop because it is very convenient for her. She carries it around the house everywhere, on the kitchen table or on the couch to do a little work here and there, on the kitchen counter to cook or watch a show, in the bedroom, everywhere the computer follows her, unplugged. It is like a smartphone. She  only plugs it when the battery gets low to continue having her always on experience. If she has a sudden question for Google, it doesn’t take more time to reach the laptop and ask than to pick up the smartphone and ask. When not in use for just a few minutes, the screen dims and then the whole computer goes to sleep soon so the battery lasts a very long time, but it is never a problem getting out of sleep because it is instantaneous, as if the computer was waiting for you. When I saw the Mac laptop in action for the first time with this usage scenario a few years ago when laptops would still take many seconds to get out of sleep, I understood how the Windows laptops were so dated in this world of instant access to tablets and phones.

Ok, now suppose you are a home user with no password on your Windows 10 AU laptop. You like your computer to turn to sleep when not in use, same thing. Well, with the horrible lock screen, each time you get out of sleep, you see a weird screen with ads (if you don’t know how to disable them) and you need to click on it without moving the mouse the slightest or else the screen will slide a bit only to return to its starting position. Then, if you succeed at this acrobatic move, you get the privilege of seeing a screen that shows a silhouette of a person asking you to click on a connect button so that eventually you have access to your computer. Do that 50 times a day. Grrrr!

Maybe it is not annoying to a lot of people and I for one don’t mind inputting my password many times a day to log in my work computer, but I think there is certainly some scenarios when it can get unnecessarily irritating. My problem is with Microsoft now forcing the lock screen since AU even in the Pro version when there was clearly a group p0licy to disable it because they knew it would not make a lot of business users happy.

And seriously, I don’t wake up at night for that and I don’t mind putting a password at work, but if I have to also look at ads and click before getting the prompt to get a password, it just reminds me every time that this OS is not made with my needs as a priority anymore.

 

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Elly

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Well, I have Tower, maybe Laptops are different???? O.o 🙂

I don’t ever let mine sleep, the CPU and spinning rust are set to wind down in low to no activity.

Hibernate is completely turned off.

What I do with the Asus Monitor, that has multiple inputs, is switch it to a different input that doesn’t currently have a signal. My TV, which is the screen for my NUC, actually has a “Pic Off” button. I have turn off so much of this consumer only C*** the MS has infussed into the OS/Windows that I may have disabled all that is plaguing your girl — friend without even realizing it. I have been adjusting the Registry in W 10 since 2014, and most of them stay.

I have health issues, sometimes I just need to immediately disengage, OFF goes the screen. When I am up to it,ON goes the screen. Everything is there right where I left, anything running will possible be completed, telling me all about it. If I change partition then of course I need to Restart.

Also I have found the Settings App in W 10 very good at controlling much of the MS nonsense as well…. 😛

Also look at this in Tools: The Windows Club: Ultimate Windows Tweaker for W 7 to W 10
It also does Registry tweaks that I have then as well.

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

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2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, AlexEiffel

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Crysta’s and my approach are startlingly similar.

No sleep, no hibernate for my desktop Win 8.1 system. It just stays on, with the various parts going to low power as needed (spinners stop after 5 minutes of non-use, monitors go off after 5 minutes of mouse/keyboard inactivity, etc.

It may chew up a bit more power, but it’s instant on, no lock screen, no password when I move the mouse or touch a key.

That is the only way I would want to have a computer system work.

-Noel

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Elly

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By spinners do you mean HDs? Aren’t you worried they will break sooner by shutting them down after 5 minutes? Are all drives able to sustain many start/stop cycles?

I always find trying to get the perfect balance is a bit difficult. At work, no sleep on Windows, no sleep on hard disks, lots of AC to prevent my office from becoming too hot with all the huge monitors, password and very frequent use of win-L each time I get up from my desk.

At home, I would prefer to go to sleep after a bit so the room don’t heat too much but I don’t want to spin down drives many times a day so I keep the delay before sleep to an hour or two but just turns the monitor off quickly. No hibernate file, I find it is an abomination, just like fastboot that actually slowed down the boot of my tweaked computers instead of making it faster. I think it is more a psychological effect than reason that explains why I don’t want a short delay before sleep on desktops. I don’t like to hear the big noise it makes when you get the computer back on from sleep like it is such a big deal to get out of sleep. You hear that power supply and fans starting, hard disks starting to spin, I don’t like to do it especially if I just put the computer to sleep and forgot something. On laptops with SSDs, i just feel it is so natural to always sleep but be ready to come back in a fraction of a second.

To need sleep less on the desktop I bought a better Power Supply because being more efficient it dissipates less heat and thus I don’t mind leaving the computer running longer heating the room. Plus, by sizing it better, which is smaller total output, it is operating in the range where it is more effective. I was very surprised when I read on that, since I have no engineering background, to find out actually I didn’t need a bigger power supply just in case and it was even a bad idea to have free power to spare and that it would be much better to size down and get a more efficient one so I end up using it where it really produces a lot less heat which is not on its lower and higher output levels.

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AlexEiffel wrote:

By spinners do you mean HDs? Aren’t you worried they will break sooner by shutting them down after 5 minutes? Are all drives able to sustain many start/stop cycles?

I can’t be sure about Noel, but in some ways, it is amazing how similar we think alike BUT independently. If my “Spinners” or “Spinning Rust”, HDD’s wind down, they are not going to be used for a long enough while, to be a concern about the wear and tear, you speak of. One needs to realize that my HDD’s are Data disks only. All my OS,s are on SSD’s.

I have a bank of several single disk NAS, most of the day they wind down and sleep for about an hour at a time. Why would I want High Speeders spinning all that time. I use them in bursts, mostly for large volume backup like Images, Driver Backups, ISO’s which collectively can add up to significant xxx GB.

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

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Noel Carboni

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+1

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Noel,

Is this perhaps what your referring to?

REG WINLOGON Restart Silented – Lock Screen Protected W 10.0.14361.0.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
“ARSOUserConsent”=dword:00000001

I will have to check, but I don’t think I have ever used it?

I collect these as I come across them, more for the Key they are pointing to, for future reference.

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

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AlexEiffel

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Here is what I used to test on a standalone workstation that don’t need any password to log in. It prevents the lock screen from popping when going out of sleep, then also prevents asking to push the connect button to get back the session once out of sleep.

; rename the lock app in c:\Windows\SystemApps (I simply add a .bak extension)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Power\PowerSettings\0e796bdb-100d-47d6-a2d5-f7d2daa51f51]
“ACSettingIndex”=dword:00000000        ; ac
“DCSettingIndex”=dword:00000000        ; battery

I also of course disabled the settings in the new settings app for Windows spotlight on the lock screen by settting it to still image and deactivated the settings that wants to show me fun stuff and other tips whatever.

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What and where is the connect button?

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It is in French on the computer I am looking at. After you click the lock screen, you see a silhouette of a person because I have no image for the account and there is a “Se connecter” button you need to press when you don’t have a password. I guess if you have a password, this will be the password input box.

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