I went back to uninstall them, and did so. Then after 10 minutes or so, they were back on!
so all that's left is to forget about automatic updates for the time being. I UN-ticked the following option
next stop will be to turn off automatic updates altogether, for feks sake microsoft!
You may also consider just using this setting instead of leaving it on "automatic". It's the first thing I do every time I reinstall Windows.
Praemonitus, praemunitus - saves the trouble of having to uninstall anything later that shouldn't have been downloaded in the first place. Of course, it requires a bit of investigatory work ahead of time to know what each update is, but that's just part of being a responsible admin (even if you're just an admin of 1).
At least we still have the ability to disable updates. Imagine all the poor suckers on Win10 who will never even be allowed to turn them off, and then one day wake up to discover MS has turned their start menu into a glockenspiel. Is MS really a company you would trust to install (and indeed uninstall) anything it wants on your machine?
I have used Registry Workshop for years. Small, simple, clean, allows for Undo/Redo/Bookmarks/Tabs and everything else Windows Regedit could never do. Not free, but worth a try to see if it works for ye.
Given that the word "telemetry" has been much misappropriated in the popular consciousness in the last few years, what you say is only superficially true. Telemetry is not a personal thing - it does not mean Win10 is spying on you (which it is), it is merely an avenue of conveyance - impersonal and indifferent.
However, if you were to ask any programmer about exactly what they would expect a compiler to do when provided Source-Code-A, they would most likely say they would expect to get Binary-Code-B - no more, no less.
In this case, they are getting more than they propositioned for. True, it is not a personalised tracking mechanism against human privacy, but it is a mechanism set up on an opt-out basis by a company which has proven that it cannot be trusted. Any normal individual would look at it and say, "Why not just make it opt-in? That would put an end to any suspicion." But they didn't do that.
That is not "fud", that is just a simple fact. Whether you personally care about that fact is up to you to judge, however to actually call it "fud" is to further misappropriate what telemetry is, and to misdirect attention from yet more ethically questionable behaviour.
The question is not whether in this case the intent was benign or not - the question is more about what kind of opt-out only "features" are being added to compilers when the current generation of programmers are not being taught how to understand (or write) compilers themselves, they are instead encouraged (by a corporate-based education system) to learn and concentrate only on productivity and generating products.
The compiler is just something abstract to most students now... it's surprising how many can "graduate" these days without ever being given (or even encouraged to have) more than a passing understanding of a rather fundamental aspect of their craft. Kinda makes you wonder.
It's nice that you're giving MS the benefit of the doubt here, but you're missing the bigger picture.
Microsoft adding debug information to my applications is not really unwanted behavior, but I guess the "bigger picture" is, once more, that Microsoft is evil.
Tuxman wrote:but I guess the "bigger picture" is, once more, that Microsoft is evil.
Nope, that's just a kindly side-effect of an Indirect Proof (you did, after all, give them the benefit of the doubt). The bigger picture is actually that you weren't even aware that there was a bigger picture. Anyone can get excited about buzzwords like 'telemetry' these days (that's the misdirection), but suggest that a whole generation of programmers is being subverted by their own blithe acceptance of something they ought to treat with more respect, and people just blink like goats.
it looks like there IS something you can do about win10 updates after all https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930
and don't forget to switch to the advanced update option "Notify to schedule restart" because otherwise the fcukin thing reboots without asking and you lose all your work (usually when PC is in sleep mode)
And it just keeps getting better and better... the "Anniversary Update" for Win10 (a silly name, if ever there was), not only removes the ability to turn off that Cortana nonsense, but MS have begun intentionally crippling the Group Policy editor in Pro versions (and yes, blocking the relevant registry keys as well). Add that to the implementation of paid subscriptions for Enterprise users (which of course everyone said wouldn't happen last year claiming it as so-called FUD), and the schadenfreude is just as palpable as a change in the weather.
