A utility for disabling Windows 10

While there may be people who actually like Windows 10, there are also many people who aren’t interested in fully exposing every part of their digital life to for-profit mining as means of offsetting Microsoft’s declining profits in the desktop OS business, and if you’re one of those, fighting Microsoft’s truly viral (and malware) marketing techniques is quite a hassle. It appears there may be an easier way.

Micrsoft has finally provided an “easy” way for people to turn off windows OS update (e.g. from 7.x or 8.x to 10) from happening automatically and without user intervention (and frequently in outright defiance of clear user intent because profits first!)

The short form for people who are comfortable with some of the internal workings of Windows is:

Search for "edit group policy" and open the editor then follow the selection cascade as:

Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates 
-> windows Components -> Windows Update 
->> Turn off the upgrade to the latest version... ->> [x] enabled

The longer instructions are at this link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

Easy, no?

I suggest doing this and then downloading and installing the following program. It will pretty much do the same thing but it also checks to see if Microsoft has already kindly filled your hard disk with malware without your permission and offers to delete it:

https://www.grc.com/never10.htm

Note that my previous posts about removing specific “updates” are still relevant. The above should prevent windows 10 from auto-updating but Microsoft has been pushing updates with “telemetry” to Win 7 and Win 8, which are also spyware and are tracking you and reporting your usage patterns back to Microsoft without telling you or asking you.

Welcome to the new economy: you’re the product.