Updating Windows® 7

[heartbone]

I have just finished the final tweaking of my daughter's new Windows® 7 Professional computer, and I must say that I am extremely happy with the results.
After over eight years of using XP on almost a daily basis, I find that 7 can be easily configured to be a very familiar tool.
It is compatible with most recent Windows® software, and a lot of my older incompatible stuff can be run from the very impressive virtual Win XP mode.

So far, I only miss three functions that were in XP.
1) The up one folder navigation button
2) The recent Documents list on the Start Menu
3) The ability to create dockable Toolbars

I've kept detailed installation and configuration notes so the process can be repeated more efficiently the next time.
I had assumed that a refurbished computer would have a base Windows® 7 SP1 install.
Perhaps if I were to ever use the builtin system restore package contained in a 6.5 GB hard drive partition, it would revert to that state.
I was fully expecting to endure a multi-hour Windows® 7 update cycle to install everything after SP1, but the system as delivered was updated to last October 3, and contained all the spyware installs.

It seems that Microsoft must tightly control those authorized Microsoft refurbishers, and I am sure they are working to make sure everyone is on the GWX bandwagon.
There was no significant bloatware installed on the machine, instead I had to remove some spyware infections.

Code: Select all

Windows® 7 Updates - considered spyware related 3/15/16

KB2545698
KB2592687
KB2876229
KB2923545
KB2952664
KB2976978
KB2977759
KB2990214
KB2994023
KB3012973
KB3021917
KB3022345
KB3035583
KB3050265
KB3065987
KB3068707
KB3068708
KB3075249
KB3075851
KB3080149
KB3083324
KB3083710
KB3086255  secdrv
KB3090045
KB3112343
KB3123862
KB3135445
KB3138612
KB3139929
KB3146449

From the Windows® 7 Updates spyware prohibit list above, which I've compiled from information on various internet sites, I had to delete 15 installs.

After an update is uninstalled, the next time that Windows® Update offers the same update, refuse it, or use the update selection menu to hide the update from future consideration, although it seems that nowadays M$ deletes the hidden updates list as they see fit.

If you are interested in supporting the maintaining of an anti-beacon Windows® 7 OS environment, and you learn of any updates that should be avoided which are not listed in this thread, then kindly post a message in this thread with that information (include a reference link or two) so that the information in this thread is current and comprehensive.

After research I now realize that the vast majority of the Windows® Update patches never affect anything that I use.

If you decide to debug your Windows® 7 system, beware that the KB3035583 (the GWX rabbit hole) install needs a manual pre-uninstall process to prevent the persistent reappearance of it after a normal uninstall is applied. The information at that last link could change as M$ mutates the KB3035583 malware update.

After the spyware infections are removed, the Spybot Anti-Beacon utility stops functioning correctly, and it goes into an infinite loop when run.
Therefore, my plan to incorporate its use as a diagnostic system scanner tool to be used immediately after future Windows® Updates will have to wait until the software matures.

[heartbone]

After I got Windows® all sorted I used gParted v3.37 to repartition the hard drive to make a place for UBUNTU.
Big mistake.
It seems that a Windows® 7 install has extra bits that my old trusty version of gParted didn't know about.
When it reported that the shrinking of the Windows® partition was going to take 2 hours and 45 minutes, I knew something was wrong!
But a partition change is not the sort of operation that one should abort, so I let it finish the deed.
Long story short, 11 hours of frustration and I could not recover the partition.

The thing about a backup is that most of us never test them, because it might not be good... and then what?
Thankfully the Paragon 14 backup that I made just before I used gParted worked like a charm!

I can't say enough good things about that Paragon utility.
Its ability to write files to a USB flash drive which allow the computer to boot to the Paragon archive/restore environment from the USB flash drive, and then archive the OS to or restore the OS from the same flash drive, is superb.

The most important message of this post, don't use old reliable Linux disk tools on newer versions of Windows® installations.

I used MiniTool Partition Wizard, a Windows® utility to repartition the restored disk image.
It took mere seconds to resize the Windows® 7 partition.

Now onward to the UBUNTU 15.10 installs.

[Num3]

Just disable windows updates.
Download Wsus offline update from http://www.wsusoffline.net/
Create update folder and run it the program once or twice a month.
The program takes care of incompatible or unwanted updates for you, and the Client folder can be saved to a DVD so you can update multiple W7 from it.

[Lunasole]

I dislike 7 and higher versions, there are lot of minuses which I can describe, but nothing to do, XP is deliberately forgotten by MS and only possible alternative is linux, but it would take lot of time to learn it so much as I know windows.
Just keeping autoupdate permanently off and manually tracking critical fixes.

Or as a variant, there are good sysadmins on russian torrent-trackers, they often posting their packs of updates which having all necessary for security/stability but nothing unnecessary or unwanted from MS. At least for XP it was so, didn't checked yet for W7

[ostapas]

You can try software like Shadow Defender or Deep Freeze, which reverts windows to its initial condition on each restart, this way you can have windows always fresh and smooth, without any service packs, updates or antivirus installed.

[heartbone]

Just disable windows updates.
Download Wsus offline update from http://www.wsusoffline.net/
Create update folder and run it the program once or twice a month.
The program takes care of incompatible or unwanted updates for you, and the Client folder can be saved to a DVD so you can update multiple W7 from it.

How could they possibly know which ones I want?

I dislike 7 and higher versions, there are lot of minuses which I can describe, but nothing to do, XP is deliberately forgotten by MS and only possible alternative is linux, but it would take lot of time to learn it so much as I know windows.
Just keeping autoupdate permanently off and manually tracking critical fixes.

Or as a variant, there are good sysadmins on russian torrent-trackers, they often posting their packs of updates which having all necessary for security/stability but nothing unnecessary or unwanted from MS. At least for XP it was so, didn't checked yet for W7

I Like Win 7, but I like the XP Desktop interface better because of the dockable toolbars.
However UBUNTU's Unity Desktop has them both beat by far.
Anyone who does not like using the UBUNTU Desktop needs to check out the amazing integration of the mouse's scroll wheel into every interactive aspect.
If you interact with modern UBUNTU without using the scroll wheel, then you have missed much of the top notch user interface optimization that has been incorporated into the OS.

After installing the latest version of UBUNTU on my daughter's desktop, only two configuration items remain that I can't figure out how to accomplish.

One is no big deal, they've dropped support for 32 bit executables in the 64 bit versions of the OS, and I wanted to restore that capability. The support was dropped for a reason, so I'll probably forget about that and move on.

The second should not be a big deal, but it is to me. I can't figure out how to change the Desktop and window icons displayed for .htm and .mht files.
In earlier versions of UBUNTU there was a program called Assogiate which would allow you to accomplish that feat, but a few years ago they deprecated it and it can no longer be installed.

edit 12-1-15:

Code: Select all

sudo cp Graphics/icons/application-x-mimearchive.svg /usr/share/icons/gnome/scalable/mimetypes/application-x-mimearchive.svg
sudo gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/gnome/ -f

Run both commands to update the system to use the custom icon for .mht files. However only run first command once, and only once for a particular installation.
I created the Graphics/icons/application-x-mimearchive.svg file by renaming the 128x128 .png graphics file that I wanted to use for the icon.

To accomplish the .htm file system wide icon update, I used the commands that Anwar Shah gave me.
I have since discovered that they will only work correctly when input from the terminal interface command line, and not from a script![/color]

There are still a couple of rough edges remaining in the install process, nothing major. And even if the user doesn't detect or resolve the problems right away, the system is very usable and easily fixed once problems are detected.

I have long wondered if I could take an archive of a Linux installation and copy it to another computer and get it to run.
This morning I created a Paragon backup of up my daughter's (10.3 GB used of) 48GB UBUNTU partition and restored it to the 26 GB Zorin partition on my laptop.
Because of the different partition sizes, Paragon took about 70 minutes to move the data from the backup to the hard drive.
After the restore process finished, Paragon informed me that "If you have Linux installed, please reinit its boot loader".
I have yet to reinstall the boot-loader as I have not yet installed boot-repair on the computer.
Therefore the Linux Mint install (triple boot) will not be accessible until I do.
So far both the Windows® 7 Professional and the UBUNTU 15.10 boot just fine.
Yes you can move a Linux install, even from a desktop to a laptop and it still works well!

UBUNTU Linux is a great free alternative to Windows®, but for far too many applications there is no alternative to Windows®, so it won't be going away anytime soon.

After listening to the great Professor McCanney issue a stern warning against installing Windows® 10 in his lecture this week, I'm thinking that the word has been spread far and wide, and it looks like Windows® 7 won't be going away anytime soon.

You can try software like Shadow Defender or Deep Freeze, which reverts windows to its initial condition on each restart, this way you can have windows always fresh and smooth, without any service packs, updates or antivirus installed.

And suppose you want to keep your changes?
A better strategy is to make frequent backups and practice safe computing.

[heartbone]

According to Woody at Infoworld add KB 3112343 -- December 2015 to the Windows® 7 Updates spyware list.

And looking at Woody's earlier work, I think that I've missed one.
KB 2977759, re-released for Windows 7 on Oct. 6, version 12.
Analogous to the KB 2976978 patch for Windows 8.1, this one is also a scanner.
The KB article says it's a compatibility update for Windows 7 RTM.

Beware that you will need to scan the offered updates to check if any are on the spyware list!
I previously removed KB 3035583 and it reappeared in the 12/15/15 update with its box checked!

[heartbone]

Banishing 'Get Windows 10' nagware isn't as easy as you think

Linked above is an interesting update on the ongoing battle against M$, where Woody at InfoWorld wants to know:

"Last October, Windows honcho Terry Myerson promised: "You can specify that you no longer want to receive notifications of the Windows 10 upgrade through the Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 settings pages."
I haven't seen anything in any Win 7 or 8.1 settings pages that allow you to just say no to the Windows 10 upgrade process. If you've seen something, please hit me in the comments."

I mainly rely on Avira, Spybot, NoScript, and ABP to keep my computer system secure.
If anything manages to get through that security, I also have MalwareBytes installed, and as a last resort I can restore from a few month old backup.

I am confident that after 20 years of Windows® development as a preemptive multitasking operating system, M$ has gotten most of the major bugs out.

Somewhat resistant to the fear based motivation used to herd the users toward Windows® Update,
I won't update Windows® 7 any more than semi-annually,
and then only a few months after the updates are released.

[BasicallyPure]

heartbone,
have you tried the 'GWX Control Panel' tool that is talked about in the link you provided?
I'm seriously thinking about giving it a try.

I have 3 computers now that are running Windows 7 and the upgrade nag screens are really getting annoying.
The main reason I absolutely do not want to upgrade to Windows 10 is because they no longer provide the 'Media Center'
software that is part of Windows 7.
Media Center is great for recording and editing live TV broadcasting (with the proper hardware installed of course).
I can save copies of my favorite shows with commercials removed and burn them to DVDs if I want.

Why they abandoned this great feature of Windows is a mystery to me.
I guess we can't have anything that works that good for free anymore.

[ts-soft]

I guess we can't have anything that works that good for free anymore.

I think, http://kodi.tv/ is better as media-center

[BasicallyPure]

I think, http://kodi.tv/ is better as media-center

As I read the description there seems to be one vital feature missing.
The ability to edit the videos after recording.
I'm talking about cutting out commercials and splicing the video back together.
Windows 'Movie Maker' works great for this and I haven't found anything else that will do this.
I recently purchased some software to create and burn Blu-ray disks but even that will not
do the editing that I want.

[heartbone]

heartbone,
have you tried the 'GWX Control Panel' tool that is talked about in the link you provided?
I'm seriously thinking about giving it a try.

No.
As an engineer I went for the "expunge unnecessary updates from my system" solution.
I thoroughly dislike the inefficient idea of installing unneeded software updates, then installing more unnecessary software to control the unneeded updates.

I have 3 computers now that are running Windows 7 and the upgrade nag screens are really getting annoying.
The main reason I absolutely do not want to upgrade to Windows 10 is because they no longer provide the 'Media Center'
software that is part of Windows 7.
Media Center is great for recording and editing live TV broadcasting (with the proper hardware installed of course).
I can save copies of my favorite shows with commercials removed and burn them to DVDs if I want.

It really is quite easy (at this point in time) to exorcize the unwanted WinX code from your OS, just follow the steps outlined above.
It does not break anything and as of now we have never seen any thing related to GWX on my daughter's socially networked Win7Pro system, in use for an average of six hours a day.

Based on this new article detailing new research, I may have missed a few of the Windows® 7 updates that M$ uses to push Vista 10.
KBs 3075851, 3083710, 3083324, 3102810
I'll add them to the list above, after I research them and find them to be suspect.

One thing for sure, it looks like it's about to get nasty.
"Permit me to translate. Any Win7 or Win8.1 system exposed directly to Windows Update is going to get pummeled with Get Windows 10"nagware"

Why they abandoned this great feature of Windows is a mystery to me.
I guess we can't have anything that works that good for free anymore.

Hang on, because a free editor with a great pedigree is coming 'real soon now'.
VLMC
VideoLAN Movie Creator is a non-linear editing software for video creation based on libVLC and running on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X!
It is a free software distributed under the terms of the GPL v2.
I expect this will blow WMM to bits, and it will likely work and be supported in both 7 and XP for many years to come.
VLC has a few overlooked video editing features and can be used cut stuff out of videos.

One more note BasicallyPure, another great advantage in running Windows® 7 (and XP) is no forced updates to break your system, just when you need it most.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/302216 ... r-fix.html

[heartbone]

After researching the 4 possible problematic KBs to add to the list,
I've discovered that M$ has started to update the KB updates and reissue them without updated documentation.
Sysadmins are getting rather pissed.
M$ has also started deleting pending and hidden updates from their users lists without notice!

Based on posted information that I've read, I've decided to add these 3 KBs to the list.
KB3075851 https://deskroll.com/blog/article.php?i ... _Windows_7
KB3083324 http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/ ... kb3083324/
KB3083710 http://www.infoworld.com/article/299247 ... 83710.html

KB3102810, although listed as suspicious by Woody Leonhard's article linked above', it seems OK.
It apparently fixes a bug condition where there's 100% CPU use during Windows® Update, and I am not deleting that update from the OS.
http://www.askwoody.com/2015/kb-3102810-booby-trapped/

Issued to fix a problem with Russian characters, I had wondered how KB2970228 made the original list.
After further investigation I see reports where there was a problem with the first five versions of that update ,
and that's probably why it is on the early spyware KB lists.
But now the update is reported to work fine and seems to have nothing to do with telemetry, so I will remove it from the spyware list in the first post of this thread.

There are two more KBs on my updates list that I am currently investigating whether or not to remove from the Win7 spyware list.
KB2660075 Time and date if the time zone is set to Samoa.
KB2726535 Adds South Sudan to the list of countries.
For my US based system I consider these updates as bloatware, so even if I remove them from the spyware list I'll probably not bother to reinstall them.

This information is a bit obsolete, but it is a very interesting look at Updating Windows® 7: Updates to hide to prevent Windows 10 Upgrade / Disable Telemetry

And here's a handy information site: http://www.sevenforums.com/windows-updates-activation/

"Microsoft is pushing the upgrade very hard and has declared it their future policy.

Part of this policy seems to be that if you do a fresh install of W7 you are likely to wait for many hours before update delivers what it should.
Before W10, updates would come normally and even longer lists were installed in minutes.
That is not the case any more!
Nowadays you have to run update for hours to get the requested updates and have them installed.
(I've noticed this unreasonable slowdown as well.)

All due to their policy to get the entire world to convert to Windows 10.

Their clutches are getting tighter and tighter around their users and Microsoft is really showing now what a demagogic club of dictators they really are.

And all this to comfort governments to be able to snoop on us all the way.

What was seen as science fiction some 10 years ago has since become science fact:
Microsoft is part of the world domination program to help governments to get a tighter grip on their citizens!!!"

Which is a good reason why I believe it is important to preserve a properly functioning, uncorrupted Windows® 7 for as long as practicable.

[BasicallyPure]

heartbone, thanks for the info on the VLMC movie creator.
That will be something I can really make use of when that is released.
I have been using the VLC media player for years and I avoid the windows media player completely.

[heartbone]

BasicallyPure, I am quite happy to spread the word about the VideoLan Organization's amazing work.

While researching the updates I've discovered another list, Windows GWX and Telemetry updates to avoid that contains 2 updates that I've previously missed and should be added onto the list.
KB3068707 - Customer experience telemetry point (W7,8,8.1) ....
KB3012973 – Upgrade to Windows 10

Using PowerShell, run this command to check if any of these spyware updates are installed on your system.

Code: Select all

Get-HotFix -id KB2545698, KB2592687, KB2876229, KB2923545, KB2952664, KB2977759, KB2990214, KB2994023, KB3012973, KB3021917, KB3022345, KB3035583, KB3050265, KB3065987, KB3068707, KB3068708, KB3075249, KB3075851, KB3080149, KB3083324, KB3083710, KB3112343

When you uninstall them, do not reboot your system until you have removed them all.

Another bit of possibly useful information, it seems that for the past few days or so, something (Windows® Updates ) has been causing legitimate Windows® 7 installs to become non genuine. Even at my daughter's middle school!

Windows Not Genuine problem after 2yrs normal use
This copy of windows is not genuine
Your Win 7 is NOT genuine + no motherboard for you?
Another no longer genuine - Help.
I think my school uses pirated windows 7

I suppose that is one way to get Vista 10 on more machines, but it is rather unethical.

Woody (a senior editor at InfoWorld) says: "Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it."
I agree with that position.