The introduction of a Microsoft developed anti-virus is a large reason why malware and adware prevalence has gone down so sharply in the last decade.

I worked in the break/fix computer industry for almost a decade, and virus cleanups are almost non-existent anymore.

You can meme all you want, but the forced inclusion of anti-virus software has had a measurably positive impact on the average user’s computer security.

It is bad advice to suggest that people turn off updates. Full stop.

Folks got no tolerance for anyone not doing anything the way they decided was most correct back when they were in their twenties.

I don’t like throwing shade online, but at this point, either this is deliberate or you really can’t grasp the nuance of my position.

You do you.

But you shouldn’t recommend that other people do the same things as you if you’re engaging in unsafe behavior.

The top level comment that spawned this was recommending that people use Group Policy and modify their registry values to fully disable automatic updates:

Just go through regedit and group policy settings for anything that feels like it’s going to update windows and disable it.

This whole time, in basically every post, I’ve had to repeatedly say that I am, by no means at all, defending Microsoft. I am condemning bad advice.

At this point, you can have the last word, I think my posts stand for themselves.

Like it or not, Microsoft can do what they want with their operating system.

If you want that to not be the case, swap to Linux.

I’m not trying to defend Microsoft, I’m calling a spade a spade.

This is no different than back when Windows XP was pushed to End of Life, except maybe they’re more nagging about trying to get you on a secure platform vs letting you continue to use an unsecured one. Microsoft will not support every Windows version forever, there will always come a time where the ‘good’ Windows version is no longer supported.

Running an internet-connected computer and turning off updates is bad advice. Doesn’t matter if it’s desktop, laptop, server, cellphone, etc. You should install updates.

Deferring updates until you can make sure there will be no adverse consequences is good advice, but that isn’t what people are recommending here.

Look, dude,

You wanna live-on-the-edge and be reckless? You go ahead. I’m not trying to convince you to stop doing whatever you want with your stuff. We all have that “I know better than everyone else” phase. I had mine, too. Hopefully, when your wax wings melt, your fall won’t be ruinous either.

But you absolutely should stop recommending that other people turn off updates. That is objectively bad advice.

Imagine that happening on somebody’s lab equipment or surgical monitor.

There’s a reason why WSUS is a thing.

Maybe a hospital can take on the court case but I’ve been voiding my warranties since I graduated, that’s just not an option for me.

I’m not implying that end users should sue Microsoft, but Microsoft is an entity that is bound by US law, however flimsy that is nowadays.

The black hat hackers and script kiddies who will infect your machine if you don’t install updates aren’t. Microsoft won’t store CSAM on your computer, or add devices on your network to their DDOS botnet.

It does not matter how bad Microsoft is, turning off updates will always be the worse choice, and recommending that people do so is bad advice. Full stop.

I’ll be the first one to say that I’ve left Windows in the dust for Linux almost 10 years ago. After losing 24-48 hours worth of work **twice** due to automatic updates (on a Windows 7 machine, running data recovery against a deleted partition on an external hard drive. When they took away the ability to have windows download updates but let me choose when to reboot), I swapped to Linux fulltime and have never looked back.

While Microsoft isn’t exactly setting records for user privacy, the answer to “Microsoft is installing things that track what I do for corporate interests” will never be “stop installing updates”. Microsoft is at least an entity you can hold legally responsible for damaging you. Refusing to install updates will only make that problem worse, not better.

I get that the Microsoft Hate bandwagon is a fun ride, but suggesting that users disable updates is bad advice, full stop.

You really should be doing regular updates.

Disabling updates is dangerous and not recommended for a reason.

Sure, the court can threaten sanctions and fines against the party not turning over documents, but this is a civil case. It’s not like the judge will file a warrant and send police to collect the documents.

Discovery is, where the rubber meets the road, a voluntary process. Alex Jones refused to cooperate with discovery in his defamation trial, and the plaintiffs just didn’t get any documents from him during the trial. At all.

It went very poorly for him, because refusal to cooperate means you’ll lose very badly (Alex Jones is now liable for billions in damages to the Sandy Hook plaintiffs because of his refusal to cooperate) but the court cannot force you to produce documents in a civil case. They’ll just give the other party exactly what they’re asking for.

It’s just almost always in your best interest to comply.

Which is why refusing to cooperate is so rare.

The running theory is that he refused to cooperate because the trial wasn’t sealed, so documents would end up in the public eye, and we assume that those documents getting published would be more damaging to him than the billions he is now liable for.

And that’s my theory of what will happen here. The specific things the BBC is wanting in discovery could be very damaging to Trump politically, and it could be that losing this court case in spectacular fashion like Alex Jones did is the less damaging outcome for him.

We shall see, but I can’t wait for Mango Mussolini to fall back into spray tan obscurity.

They can just do what Alex Jones did in his defamation trail and refuse to cooperate with discovery. The court can’t make them turn over documents at gunpoint, but the court can threaten to tell the jury that one party refused to cooperate, and to assume the evidence would be very bad for the party refusing to turn it over.

It’s basically giving the other party carte blanche to say whatever they want because you’re admitting you won’t back anything up. So the discovery has to be pretty bad for someone to refuse to cooperate.

Generally, the first step is enabling logging and reading the logs to try and find the problem.