And here I thought I was just avoiding unexpected update reboots.  I feel so... "dirty".   

Thanks for that bit of (convoluted) trivia Doc.   

It does seem like somebody over there might want to "back away slowly" from the coffee maker.

I don't know what MS is thinking but......if A > B > C > usually back to A to start all over again, like a circle, then what happens when they drop the D with nowhere to go but >>>>>>>>>Down to the nth part of sanity.  I'm gonna sue MS for plagiarizing my insanity defense.

Just stay with 7 ....

Never thought I'd say it:  I miss Balmer.

Yeah, this Nadella bloke is the missing link.  Yup, the link between apes just mastering primitive tools and a good CEO with smarts.

Bill Gates must be rolling in.... 

Oh, that's right, he's not dead yet.

Well in that case, he needs to step back up to the plate and rescue his company from the lunatics.

Seriously, the board over at Apple must be laughing their socks off when it comes to 'let's discuss the competition' time.

What's wrong is that if you check for updates through Windows Update, you become a 'seeker' giving MS permission to install updates which are not fully tested and capable of screwing your machine but good.

And they don't tell you about that little surprise up front, alaknebs.

Thinking about it, surely MS is breaking the law by not disclosing important information such as users getting pretty much untested updates, like it or not, if they perform a Windows Updates search. 

Surely it has to be an opt in thing, rather than being deemed a 'seeker' and having them installed on your machine regardless of whether you want or need them or not.  Essentially, then, users are being used as guinea pigs to test relatively untried software ehen they go looking for an important update they may have missed.

I thought the 'Early Adopters Program' was for the testing and feedback of new software, etc.  Now it seems that regular and possibly inexperienced users are being used in this way as well.   And what happens when an inexperienced user gets their machine borked by MS' untried, untested updates?  Most likely they have to take it to a PC tech to get it fixed.... at their expense,  Nope, it's not right.

Personally, I think this is MS' workaround to force stuff down users throats again.  A lot of users are using 3rd party programs to prevent automatic updates, which is fair enough, given MS' recent track record with botched updates.  Thing is, those users then have to perform a manual search for any important updates and patches they would have missed.... and when they do, BAM, they get all the crap they were trying to avoid in the first place.

For mine, Microsoft has become a software/tech bully that treats its customers/users with complete arrogance and contempt.  Users are all different, with different machines and different needs, but Microsoft is throwing a blanket over us all and saying: "This is what you need and will get, like it or not.  And it it borks your machine, too bad.  We are too big to sue, so just pay up and get it fixed."

Sadly, the people who could bring pressure to bear on Microsoft, politicians and big-name tech journalists, are all sitting on their hands and doing nothing.  They all talk about the good stuff, never the bad.  Makes you wonder just how many of them are on the MS payroll, don't it.

Well I'm decided about the updates.  I already have auto-updates blocked, but given this situation, I will no longer search manually for them, either.  I have an updates nag icon with a little red flag on my taskbar, but I shall continue to ignore it.  If I need updates, majorgeeks hosts them and I can check out what they are and for before I download and install them.

That's the problem, MS adds the appropriate disclaimers, then goes ahead and breaks the law anyway.  It's no different to me running somebody over and killing them while driving without a license... I  knew that I  was doing the wrong thing but did it anyway.  A disclaimer means nothing if the party of the first part deliberately does wrong after the fact.

Sure is!  Just like when MS downloaded and installed Win 10 over a previous OS without warning or consent.  Even when users blocked it via normal means, MS went ahead and installed it via Scheduled Maintenance in the middle of the night, like it did to me.  Sneaky, underhanded and downright dishonest.

No, inexperienced users do check for updates, my sister being one of them.  So yeah, they too get screwed by this bullshit.

Second layer or not, it is sneaky and underhanded.  Insiders sign up for early releases and they know the risks, but adding update searches to that program is completely wrong, especially when there is little to no warning users will get untried, untested software/patches installed on their machines.

Not too sure, either, but other companies HAD to disclose what was included in bundled software downloads so that users were aware of added extras to the software they actually wanted.  This is pretty much the same thing.  Users may go looking for drivers or something and get a load of stuff they neither wanted or asked for.  The same rules should apply to MS as those other companies.

Am I the only one that feels that it's not just Microsoft, but the whole word that is slowly going insane?

The amount of blind stupidity and, most of all, arrogance in what Microsoft has been doing since Windows 8.x is - at least to me - simply mind blowing.

It's not that Microsoft wasn't always evil - everyone who ever got into bed with them ended up regretting it deeply later - but this is a whole new level of evil. I think even Stardock very nearly found this out with XP and UxTheme, although it was saved by Microsoft deciding to close the theme format at the last minute - but ONLY because badly made themes could crash the OS, not because they cared that such a thing would have essentially killed WindowBlinds.

Quoting DaveRI,

reply 22

Jorge, perhaps you need to go to Microsoft and teach them how to put in a little checkbox that says "Notify me of beta (test) versions"   

LOL. They would do that and then completely ignore whatever the user set it to and start shoving alphas down our throats.

Oh wait. They already do that.  

Exactly, Dave, users NOT on the Insider Program should NOT have to deal with alpha or beta software simply because they checked for updates.  I certainly won't ever be checking again, I'm not willing to take the risk of something dubious from MS messing my machine up.

To put it bluntly, MS has become the epithomy of evil. Whatever trust and respect it may have had, well that's been lost as millions of users worldwide feel betrayed and let down by it.... Satya Nadella in particular.

Not to mention the whole new level of contempt and arrogance it shows to users, customers and partners alike.  Nobody is exempt from it unless they use a Mac or Linux.