Have automatic computer updates ever screwed up something in your computer? How do you unscrew it?

System restore to a previous date before the update.

I used to get that with my old computer. My current one doesn't do it.

Nope.   I never allow automatic updates.   I look at all of them and okay them on my machines.   With the exception of security bug fixes I often don't allow them.   There's a lot of updates to an OS that doesn't even have any use on a persons home machines and just lead to bloating the OS.

Oh Yes! Though with "help" from me.

Not so much "automatic" but after holding out for several months to see how it developed and what people thought of it, I fell for Microsoft persuading me to "up-grade" my Windows-7 PC to WIN-10. Others reckoned it was very good - but I failed to ask what they use their computers for beyond e-posts and Facebook-faffing*.

Yes, W10 is designed to run on portable instruments as well as table-top PCs. Yes, MS claims to keep WIN-10 automatically up-to-date, whatever it really means by that... BUT Otherwise...

What a mass of utter, gimmick-laden, low-budget, low-quality, badly-presented.....  crap!

The photo-filing system was slightly better than earlier ones, once I found it, but general navigation was awkward, the embedded Office programmes were very poor versions of what had been approaching somewhere quite good; and worse it deleted my half-dozen web-site registrations. Eventually I had to revert the OS to 7 - MS did offer that choice - but recovering the registrations took hours of labour and frustration.

(I see WIN 7 and its versions of 'Word', Excel' etc as shabby, low-budget and slap-dash compared to XP and accompanying 'Office' set. Although that older s/w still contained inexcusably crass flaws, I regard it as MS' developmental zenith, having started my own computer using with MS-DOS, WIN-3, etc.)

Basically, I regard Microsoft as a complacent, arrogant monopoly whose designers have run out of ideas, and whose contract programmers don't seem able to understand what people use computers for beyond glorified TV-viewing and chatting on social "for a". [sic - MS' enforced spelling error not mine: the word should be "FORA" not "FOR A" but the same programmers do not know how to make the applications accept simple plurals.]. So MS merely tinkers around the edges, removes really useful features from its serious applications, makes it all ever less useful and harder to use, changes the look from smart (-ish) to cheap and scrappy; then thinks us stupid enough to believe its "up-graded" claim. B*ll*cks.

Up-dated yes, but that is a mere chronological statement; up-graded , no.


*Facebook-faffing. I know FB is not or was not an MS product, I don't know Twitter's history;  but I neither need nor want their ilk, and would not touch them with a barge-mouse. Nor do I watch television on-line.

Thank you for the "Like"!

Ah, thank you Rosie! You don't need to produce multiple "Likes" - it's the thought that counts.

I am by no means an IT expert, and struggle to learn some aspects. I find some parts of sites like this very hard to understand, and "CAD" (Computer-Aided Draughting"), used for engineering drawings, impossible for me to learn.

I am not naïve though - I do not trust the major IT companies, and manage to see through most attempted attacks and on-line advertising. 

A lot of people have complained about MS forcing WIN-10 on them without asking, and with no care about any consequences such as preventing you to continue using perfectly good peripheral software & files; but my installation was voluntary, and at the time, Chez Gates did grudgingly allow you to revert to 7.  


An important point was that WIN-10's installer displays a large "Full Installation" (or similar words) screen button, but puts the "Custom" option in very small print. If you fall for the full installation it gives MS very much higher over-sight and control of your computer, presumably to help it sell your personal details to advertising-agencies and on-line retailers - without your knowledge let alone permission, and a even greater risk of being hacked. 'Custom' gives you some control over this aspect of the OS.

Companies like Google and Facebook already do this. Indeed, data-harvesting is FB's main line of work, it's not an altruist chat-site, and probably why you lose all control of anything you publish on it. However, what MS wanted from you would have made such commercial intrusion via your Internet use far easier.


Even with WIN 7 I have encountered another piece of either ineptitude or vandalism by MS on your data.

I had to send some Word & Excel files from my work PC preparatory to retiring (personnel matters and some after-hours private-study work). I've also received documents as a club committee-member by the club's private mailing-list. In both cases, the files arrived in a useless state. MS has modified Outlook to convert data files by default into a strange image type denoted by 'x' after the normal dot-phrase - "docx", "xlsx". You cannot open and edit them; you cannot incorporate them properly in other documents (in the club's case, to produce cohesive meetings-handbooks). You cannot revert them to their original, standard file-types.

A 'dot-aaax' file is rather like a pdf file - purely an unalterable page-image, but even less useable, and sometimes not even readable.

I have no idea of MS' motives, but discovered that curiously, sending the file as if made by a much earlier, more basic programme-format seemed to keep them intact and useable. This suggests the application versions MS now add a hidden 'x' file tag so however you save your data, Outlook can convert it to this locked format for e-posting.

I wonder if it's linked to the IT industry's drive to make you place all your data on the so-called 'cloud', i.e. the Internet, by default, so they are open to anyone, legal or not, your authority & knowledge or not, with the appropriate software. Playing Devil's Advocate, that makes commercial sense because making your documents and spread-sheets into 'x'-types means you can read but not alter them, perhaps to remove details like home addresses or bank accounts, or to up-date them.

The precaution is obvious: DO NOT save to the 'cloud' (silly name, no technical significance, merely a clumsy attempt to disguise reality).

Am I right to think 'One Drive' is just another name for Internet-held archives? It's interesting to notice that the screen displays highlight One Drive over local options. This post was edited by Durdle at December 11, 2016 3:20 AM MST

Glis - just looked back at the thread again.

Any idea what that YTSpam thing you quote as a screen-shot, was meant to mean, or where it came from?

It's obviously utter twaddle by someone barely literate - I don't think it's an attempt at English as a second-language - but do you reckon it was meant as a joke or what? Certainly not someone I could trust to write a song of any worth, let alone learn computer programming, even if able to make videos.

Unusually, it looks as if by a Briton, though not necessarily in Britain. How? The spelling of "arse", the British version, not "ass" as in American.

Not sure it's safe to play though.