How Microsoft copied malware techniques to make Get Windows 10 the world's PC pest

[SecularMotion]

Microsoft uses techniques similar to aggressive malware to promote its “Get Windows 10” offer.

As many readers have discovered, the persistent and constantly changing methods Microsoft uses to continually reintroduce its “Get Windows 10” tool, or GWX, onto computers means it’s extremely difficult to avoid.

Windows users who decline to use it find it is repeatedly reintroduced. The language of the counter-malware industry is more appropriate than the language of enterprise IT for GWX.

GWX subverts a channel intended for one purpose (security hotfixes) for another (advertising); it changes its “attack vectors”, it “conceals itself” kinda like a rootkit; it uses “polymorphic” techniques; and it consistently overrides users' actions and permissions.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/17/microsoft_windows_10_upgrade_gwx_vs_humanity/

[hobbit709]

1. Yep, it keeps coming back like a bad penny.

I just had to reinstall 7 on a laptop that got hosed by ransomware. Hid KB3035583 3 times. Once in Optional and twice in Recommended updates.
Nothing like taking an extra hour to setup a customer's computer.

[earthshine]

2. These two free products seem to do the trick of keeping W10 off my systems.

GWX control panel - block W10 from infecting your W7 or W8.1 machine.

http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/


Spybot Anti-beacon - stop telemetry uploads from W7, W8.1, and W10.

https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/


Also, these are MS's recently published official instructions on how to block it. I haven't tried this method, yet.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

[hobbit709]

3. There's no real problem keeping it off.

I don't let windows Update download automatically. If it never gets in you don't have to worry about it.
It's just now they want to keep giving you that update no matter how many times you hide it.
I'd rather catch the plague than have Windows 10.

[SusanCalvin]

4. Me too.

I'm happy with my Windows 7 - it's my favorite Windows, and I intend to stick with it until it's physically impossible. I'm old, so maybe I'll never have to get Win 10. Actually, I'd get brave and try Linux first.....

I have virtually never updated any version of Windows. I guess I have a good firewall, antivirus, and browsing habits (or a lot of luck), as I have (knock on wood) never gotten a virus or malware.