From the don’t force shit on me I don’t want and prevent me from saying NO department.
Forgive my off-topic rant, but this will be useful for others having this same problem. One of the things I hate about Microsoft recently is the idea that Windows 8, 8.1, and the upcoming Windows 10 is the greatest thing since sliced bread. If you own a Windows based tablet, or a Windows phone, it probably is (I own a Windows 8 based tablet, and I’m able to use it just fine, because Windows 8.1 is a touch based operating system).
But a problem occurs with Windows 8, 8.1, and the upcoming Windows 10 as a desktop operating system. IMHO, it’s mostly useless as a desktop OS and gets in the way of working as I am accustomed to. I use a mouse and keyboard, with a 27″ monitor, not a touchscreen. I use Windows 7 because it works, is stable, and defensible from malware.
Imagine my surprise after recently doing “Microsoft Update” and I get this icon in my system tray:
Clicking it gives you this advertisement:
OK, I can forgive them for offering this free upgrade, but what I CAN’T forgive Microsoft for is the inability to ever opt-out of being notified about this. Why?
- You can’t remove the icon from the system tray easily,
- You can’t make it go away after “reserving” a copy of Windows 10,
- Average users can’t get rid of the notification process that’s running in the background called “gwx.exe” easily. It saps CPU and memory resources just so it can keep reminding you about Windows 10 and calling home to find out if Windows 10 is available yet,
- This advertisement was a “stealth” upgrade. It is almost like a Trojan in my opinion.
Sorry Microsoft, this isn’t cool, and if I don’t want to bastardize my desktop experience with an operating system designed with a tablet/phone user touch interface, I shouldn’t have to put up with continual reminders. Since this has done nothing but piss me off, it’s marketing FAIL as far as I’m concerned.
This sticky nature of this upgrade notice is by design, the average user of Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 that doesn’t have savvy skills won’t be able to make this go away, so I’m here to help with a simple solution:
Get rid of the Windows Update that creates the problem!
Here’s what it is, from Windows Update:
Update enables additional capabilities for Windows Update notifications in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1
This update enables additional capabilities for Windows Update notifications when new updates are available to the user. It applies to a computer that is running Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1). Before you install this update, check out the Prerequisites section.
Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3035583
Note that they don’t really tell you what you’ll actually be getting, hence my opinion that it’s like a Trojan horse.
So, here’s how to get rid of the damned thing:
1. Go to Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features > Installed Updates
2. Put KB3035583 into the search box in the upper right of the dialog as shown below, press ENTER to search for it
3. Click on the “update for Microsoft Windows (KB3035583)” to highlight it, then click “Uninstall” as show below.
4. Unfortunately, you’ll have to Restart your computer.
5. Enjoy a hassle free desktop experience from now on.
By the way if you already have Windows 8 or 8.1 and you hate the fact that you are running a tablet/phone touch based operating system on your desktop, and you wish it would run like Windows 7, I have a solution for that too:
Classic Shell™ is free software that improves your productivity, enhances the usability of Windows and empowers you to use the computer the way you like it. The main features are:
- Highly customizable start menu with multiple styles and skins
- Quick access to recent, frequently-used, or pinned programs
- Find programs, settings, files and documents
- Start button for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
- Toolbar and status bar for Windows Explorer
- Caption and status bar for Internet Explorer
Classic Shell has been in active development for 5 years and has over 25 million downloads.
Get it free here: http://classicshell.net/
In my opinion, Microsoft has erred greatly in trying to foist a tablet/phone touch based OS on desktop users. They should have allowed for some sort of retro experience in the GUI for people that want to use a desktop like they always have. Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 have speed and security enhancements, but they come at the cost of running a touch based OS on your desktop when you really don’t want a touch based OS on your existing machine.
Boneheads.
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I lucked out. When I was offered this “high priority” update for download, I was curious why this “off-cycle update” was so important. When I googled it, I became aware of the dastardly deed it does. So I hid it from my system.
Thanks for the tips. I agree.. I am still trying to get used to Windows 8.1 on my laptop and I’m merely a ‘just find the time to install classic shell’ away from continuing this. It is so profoundly irritating to be zipping along with mouse and keyboard and then “BAM!” you slam into a brick wall and the only way out is to touch the screen. I can’t imagine how AWFUL Windows 8 is for users who do not have a touchscreen enabled screen! But, although I can see the system probably would work fine on a tablet or phone, as you note, it SUCKS on a computer!
Thanks for reminding me of Classic shell – I had made a note of it before and was just on the verge of installing it.
PS: I was intrigued it was that particular KB file that has to be uninstalled – that same file has been giving me issues with my sound (if I pull out my headphones, the speakers don’t work without me rebooting) and the solution is to uninstall it…
There is no point in Windows 8 where you ever have to touch the screen.
I switched to Mac a year ago.
Sadly there are still a few areas where only Windows applications are available and it is necessary to keep one foot in the Windows camp with a small Windows 7 computer for the more esoteric things I like to do.
I have also been trialling Windows 10 under Parallells Desktop which allows concurrent OS/X and Windows.
I have to agree with others that it is a user friendly and robust version that is a joy to use, not that I could ever go back to having system control taken away whilst a seemingly endless stream of system updates are applied to the OS.
As I mentioned above, VMWare is an option for the Mac where you can run Windows Virtual Machines on your Mac and even a second OS/X device. You do need a valid Windows Key to install, but other than that it works flawlessly. You can even copy your current Windows image to a VM and run it inside OS/X.
On the printer discussion.. we have a variety of printers as do our clients and the best one have seen are the Brother’s. Long toner life and robust paper feeding.
Haven’t used winblows since win95. Free yourself get rid of it.
I’m getting error code ID10T from your post…
Use a Mac and you won’t get those error codes anymore. ..
🙂
To keep it off your computer, you have to check for updates, find the update, uncheck the box next to it, right click the update and choose ‘hide’. Otherwise it will return the next type your computer auto-updates.
What do picky Russian hackers prefer?
MicroHard.
OK, next on the list of removing annoying MS ‘features’. Is it possibly to disable the random upgrades that is the new model, away from the Monthly Update Tuesday? John Dvorak recently wrote about it, but gave no solution.
“But a problem occurs with Windows 8, 8.1, and the upcoming Windows 10 as a desktop operating system. IMHO, it’s mostly useless as a desktop OS and gets in the way of working as I am accustomed to.”
Reviewing a product (Windows 10) without trying it is beneath you and representative of similar activity you have complained about from others in the past. As others have noted Windows 10 has a desktop compatible interface available.
“Anyway I was forced to update my Mac to Yosemite (OS 10.10) to get the printer working on that iMac. Now I have to shell out money to MicroSoft for a new MS Office. sigh.”
No, you don’t. I haven’t run MS-Office on my Macs for over six years, and I do writing on a professional basis. Just download and install Open Office. The learning curve is very shallow, and it won’t cost you a cent.
I agree wholeheartedly. Although I use LibreOffice… which seems to be getting more developer attention.
I can’t imagine going back to trying to figure out what’s the difference between a section and a chapter break… and how to renumber pages based on a logical flow of document… styles for everything make things so easy… And then frames… how could Office exist without frames? In order to make graphics appear logically on a page, I need to use ‘tables’ so that MS Office users can see the graphics.
Anyway, done with mini-ranting for the day.
True! However if you save the .doc file in the default format, many users of Word 2010, for instance, cannot open the document, or if they can, there are compatability/format issues. I suffered this recently with someone who uses Macs.
True!
However, the Office user can simply download the freely available LibreOffice package from their website and edit the shared document in a fully compatible environment.
Snip, snip; over the top
Saps CPU? gwx.exe shows 0 cpu time on my machine. It’s just an icon. Ignore W10 if you don’t want it, Anthony
Whose desktop it is – user’s or Microsoft’s? If you claim you own my desktop, I’ll make sure I’ll stop using it.
I bought a new laptop with Windows 8, and the first thing I did was to install Classic Shell. As I recall, it was very easy, and it looks just like Windows 7. I wouldn’t touch touch screens with a barge pole.
travelblips June 3, 2015 at 8:54 am
Thanks for the tips. I agree.. I am still trying to get used to Windows 8.1 on my laptop and I’m merely a ‘just find the time to install classic shell’
==========================================================================
Five minutes? Two at most!
You don’t even have to do that. Follow these directions and then pin your most used programs to the task bar. Since that’s what I do with Windows 7, using it is pretty much just like Win&
Unfortunately there is no escape.
You need to update to a version of software which is maintained. You can choose to use a hard core linuxish os and maintain it yourself, or one of the commercial products, including Ubuntu. They all have nagware features resembling to Adobe’s well known security hole rich products.
Even Android forces people to UI changes without requiring the user to actually ask for those. Suddenly you just notice notice your keyboard is missing a tilde key and you are unable to type your passwd.
It sucks, really.
I just finished restoring my system to the state before the last Windows Update — after the addition of the thing Anthony is complaining about — I could no longer access the Internet with a browser (oddly, Thunderbird email had no trouble). Restoring my system setting to before the latest update eliminated the Windows 10 Upgrade icon, and my restored my ability to use my browsers.
Windows: forces you to upgrade OS and applications frequently to keep cash flowing in to Microsoft. Full of bugs and vulnerabilities. Internet Explorer has been the #1 choice for malware/spyware/virus insertion for years by hackers and national intelligence agencies worldwide.
MacOS: forces you to buy new hardware because of their short software compatibility lifecycle, which keeps cash flowing into Apple. Claimed to have fewer vulnerabilities but hard to tell.
Linux: new versions remain compatible with very old hardware, but tend to be slow supporting the latest hardware, especially 3D graphics. Comes absolutely free with advanced security software developed by the NSA, which protects you from ever getting any useful work done. But you really want it and it’s impossible to remove anyway, so you just disable it so it does nothing (really, you can believe that because the NSA would never lie to you).
Regardless of platform, anything that uses Adobe Flash or Java is unstable and insecure.
Hillary’s email server was running Windows, which is why everyone in the world except the US State Department and the general public have all her emails — including those boring ones she deleted about uranium minting shares as a wedding present for Chelsea.
Why use Internet Explorer when Firefox is perfectly fine ?
Because sadly not everything works with fox, including (surprise) a lot of stuff developed in .NET. If you ship stuff via FedEx (www.fedex.com/us), some things (updating payment info, address book) do not work with Fox. I haven’t tried Chrome, mostly because I view Google as the new über-evil empire — worse than Microsoft and Apple together. Sort of like TPC in “The President’s Analyst” (a movie everyone should see).
The NSA developed security spyware is embedded in both Mac and Windows too. However, those companies are not required to give you the source code proving that fact.
I prefer to run an OS that keeps me fully aware of which NSA spying package is running.
How do you feel about Tails?
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/29/5664884/this-is-the-most-secure-computer-you-ll-ever-own
@commieBob:
I know ‘Tails’ has a following because of the Snowden affair, but I don’t have a need for a specifically tailored Tor based OS.
Besides, criminals and governments [not just the USA] all carefully watch the Tor exit nodes. So, unless the Tor user is really careful about the specific connection details and information shared [in all network layers] — Tor is of limited use for protecting privacy… and in many cases, Tor use is detrimental to privacy.
What are you talking about, re Mac? I know many still running Snow Leopard (OS 10.6.x) on their old machines – sort of like all the WinXP types here. It works fine. If your hardware is 6 years old, then it won’t run OS 10.10 Yosemite, but if you aren’t wanting to interface every form of mobile equipment (iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch) then you can do just fine. Apple is pretty easy on forcing hardware upgrades – 2 or 3 generations at the least. And nowadays, the OS upgrades are free. The mobile interfacing, however, does have some costs. For example, Pages (Apple’s MS Word-lite) in the older version was a potent page layout program. The newer Pages, meant to interface with mobile versions, lost a huge amount of capability. But, I can still run both old and new on my current Yosemite platform, and make beautiful catalogs with the old one, and word processing documents that I can trade back and forth with my iPad with the new one. And never once having to buy Norton/Symantec anything. Life is good.
That all depends on your notion of expected hardware lifecycle. Since Apple depends on hardware sales, they pay little attention to maintaining compatibility beyond a few years. As I detail below I am still running current Linux on IBM hardware I bought cheap in 2006, and it was probably new around 2000 or earlier. Works fine and has all the horsepower it needs.
Personally, I think Windows is great because its ongoing bloatware expansion causes perfectly good server hardware to depreciate to the point I can afford it after only 4-5 years, and then run Linux on it for the next 10 or so.
Actually, Debian, and it’s derivatives such as Ubuntu, stopped working with older Pentium chips several years ago. If you have older hardware, don’t even try the ‘buntus.
Anthony, can’t you kill that in the MSconfig startup tab?
Yeah sure I could, but I wanted an idiot proof solution for everyone. And I wanted to get rid of the damned thing from my PC.
Why ? Nobody is forcing you to click on it. If you hover over it, it says ‘Get Windows 10’ so you can just hover away again.
Richard…
it is just more clutter, more nag. Who needs that if you can just get rid of it?
Anthony with windows 8.1 you can boot right into the desktop you don’t need classic shell or any add ons.
I have Dell xps laptop which is touch and mouse and 8.1 works just fine on that too, its the best Windows OS Microsoft have ever produced.
Thanks for the heads up, AW, and for finding the fix.
Yea, this upgrade business is an ongoing headache. Valuable, even critical programs may not run under newer versions of the MS operating system. Some may need DOS. My old version of 3DS Max requires a parallel port to mount a dongle. Win XP isn’t perfect, but I could live with it forever, especially when I have a long list of applications that run in that environment just very fine, thank you.
I run Win 7 on this laptop, and also Linux. I will dodge or eject this upgrade if I stumble onto it.
The answer in my view is to have the operating system in ROM, just like the old Apple II. By now, it should be possible to design an unbreakable but powerful computer with o/s, graphics and other subsystems right on the main board that would be good enough.
China, tired of NSA snooping, has made a secure stable OS:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylin_(operating_system)
based on BSD UNIX and with a Linux option / version.
If you want security and stability, run Open BSD Unix.
Duh .. uninstall .. why hadn’t I thunk of that before?!!
But …
If you’re set to receive automatic updates, in a day or so, it’ll be back, as KB3035583 is listed as Important and will automatically reinstall.
So I just reset my system from automatic to one which lets me choose which updates install.
Thank you – thank you!!!!
Maybe off topic, but since I was a child, I’ve always had a knee-jerk reaction when told I have to do something – which probably explains why I resent “government” making more and more laws – Don’t smoke – Don’t drink – Don’t do this and don’t do that. Hey – that reminds me of an old favorite of mine.
https://youtu.be/oeT5otk2R1g
Yeah, I dislike the way M$ does things these days. Window$ 7, Home Edition, works well for me, even the x64bit version. Personally, I prefered Window$ XP, because it simply worked and worked well on a small, x32 bit machine. Windows 8, like 98 and Vista, was a disaster, 8.1 was better, but now 10 (Apparently as a result of millions of user’s feedback from Window$ 8 and 8.1 users)? Come on M$, users want something that works. That’s all I want. I do not like the Window$ 8, 8.1, 10 GUI either.
Having said that, I have reserved my copy of Window$ 10 (And I will install it in a VM to evaluate) but I read on a M$ blog that it is free for 1 year only, after that you have to buy a copy. Well, M$ I won’t be doing that, I purchased Window$ 7 with my laptop. If this is a “free” upgrade to those valid Window$ 7, 8 and 8.1 users, then it should be free for the life of the device. Also, there does not seem to be a way to migrate currently installed applications. I simply do not want to re-install *ALL* of my apps, and I am not sure *ALL* of them will run under Window$ 10.
So, I won’t be going to Window$ 10 until I replace my laptop, when it fails. I am looking at Linux as an option to Window$ because, like The Simpsons, its getting tired IMO.
Thanks for the useful tip!
Please leave a link to where MS has stated you have to pay after the first year.
The only place I found a year mentioned MS Q&A:
Is the upgrade really free?
Yes, it’s free. This is a full version of Windows, not a trial or introductory version. It is available for a limited time: you have one year from the time Windows 10 is available to take advantage of this offer.
So you have a year to get your free upgrade once they release it.
What they said was NOT that if you upgrade for free you’ll have to “buy” it after a year.
It’s NOT a “1-year ‘free trial’.”
What they *ACTUALLY* said was that you may reserve a copy of the upgrade to Windows 10 for free for an entire year. If you reserve the upgrade during that year, the OS is FREE. Period. You don’t have to pay a dime for the upgrade.
If you have not reserved or upgraded to Windows 10 within that 1 year period and wish to upgrade AFTER that timeframe, you would have to pay for the upgrade after that time.
Basically they’re just encouraging early and uniform adoption during the first year by offering the upgrade to users for FREE during that time.
Upgrade from Win7 or Win8 *during* the first year of availability: Free. Period.
Upgrade *after* the first year: you have to pay for the upgrade.
That’s all.
Win10 is free because otherwise Mac and Linux would take over in the long run. I don’t think MS will ever be able to charge for the upgrade. If they try, just install some Linux distro. Kubuntu (=Ubuntu with KDE desktop) should be rather familiar to existing Win7 users.
I would suggest those who have not tried Linux yet, try it now. It is free as in libre (not just as in free beer) , and if you don’t like it it isn’t forced upon you.
Don’t like or use touchscreens of touchpads. Don’t have a smartphone. I’m not leaving Windows, it’s leaving me.
Error: ID10T.
Silly statement is silly.
Windows 10 will be a desktop operating system by default on desktops, not a “tablet” interface like Win8. That’s largely the *point* of Windows 10: to correct the perceived inadequacies of 8 and make it more typically “desktop friendly” and “keyboard/mouse friendly” like Win7, etc.
It will still have the ability to make use of touch interface(s), of course, if you have one. But it is no longer intended to default to a “touch” / “tablet” interface on the desktop, though it still supports the functionality, and can be switched to a touch/tablet interface for actual tablets or 2-in-1’s where a “touch” interface may be appropriate in some situations.
Please, do your homework before making silly statements…
The last I checked, I’m free to say what I like within the ground rules of WUWT, even if it may be “silly”.
If that upsets you, it’s your problem.
Eustace:
Please forgive him. He keeps getting those Id1ot errors because he is still running MS…
I have the latest version of 10 with Visual Studio 15RC including the ARM compiler. No Touch screen on my 30″ display just a G7 mouse and MS keyboard. I signed up for the FREE upgrade since they screwed me on the OS before 7, the OS I will not say its name. Windows 7 has worked nicely but 10 on the same hardware works better and that isn’t just a little better. The method of making money has moved to the ‘online store’ and MS seems to be embracing this methodology. It does take ten minutes to learn to use 10 but it is a time well spent.
The main reason I’m moving is my CAD/CAM software runs 17% faster, the new release of VS 15 is shoehorned for 10 & ARM + x86 development. I have 7 Ultimate on three machines.
Its name was Vista… Adequate OS but not perfect. Perfected (somewhat) in Win7.
The typical M$ production schedule:
1) Release “revolutionary” OS [warts & all] to the wild ecosystem.
2) Public “beta tests” it (“in the wild”) and screams about all the stupid shit it does.
3) M$ fixes all the stupid shit it does in the next “Special Edition” of the OS: 95 –> 98/98SE, ME–>XP, Vista–>Win7, Win8/Win8.1–>Win10.
Don’t know why folks are surprised by this. It’s pretty much been M$’s M.O. for the last 2-3 decades.
That ain’t right… ME was intended to be EOL for the 95 codebase. They deliberately sabotaged it to force everyone to NT (2000/XP). I was on beta for ME and all of us who refused to sign off on it for all of its problems were kicked from the beta program.
IMO the best Windows were 2000 (the first completely stable version) and 7 (all of the good parts of Vista, none of the negatives).
The guy in charge of 8 was fired for it. 8 was the death of Windows, 10 is their last chance to fix it. Their plan is to make it the last version of Windows, with a pluggable architecture that can be modularly upgraded. It sounds ambitious to me, but I’d say they’ve seen the light about how bad the damage was from 8.
CodeTech, that is pure nonsense ME was not sabotaged and worked as well as any of the other Win9x variants – I know I sold hundreds of those systems before XP came out without issue and less support calls than Windows 98.
Windows XP was superior to Windows 2000 in all ways, especially in performance.
Actually you want W10, only not now. Wait until the end of the free upgrade period in about a year’s time; by then most glitches and compatibility issues will have been ironed out.
Like I tell most people when they bitch about Microsoft BS. Just buy a Mac. Went back to the Mac about 10 years ago and haven’t regretted it once. I started at OS X 10.2 and have migrated up to the current 10.10. Best part is that you don’t have to re-learn a new look and feel with every OS upgrade, and BTW, OS upgrades are free and painless. Hardware migrations are just as easy.
I still run MS XP on my MB Air in virtualization mode. Loaded Win 8.0 on my home Max and still haven’t really figured out how to change settings, etc. Totally unintuitive with extra steps and menus thrown in for the fun of it. PS: what the “H” are charms, other than something a woman wears on a bracelet.
MS needs a big lesson in KISS. They have the last letter down. Just need to work on the first three.
I think software developers like to impress people with how many lines of code they can write.
That is not true. A good day is when you leave the office with more powerful software, but fewer lines of code.
So why is software always getting bigger ? Is it because the marketing people want to add new features all the time ? Does this even apply to free software like browsers and email clients ?