The despotic arrogance of Microsoft

dorcom said:

The despotic arrogance of Microsoft came once again to show over this weekend.
On Tuesday evening, August 17 2021 I started QuickBooks as I urgently needed to prepare some statements to be presented Wednesday morning.
I last worked on QuickBooks on Friday, August 13, 2021 and everything worked fine.

On Tuesday starting up QuickBooks (Version affected are 2012 -13 -14 -16 -17 -18 and 2019, and maybe further) I received the following message:
"QuickBooks requires Internet Explorer 6.0 to work...."
What? WTF?
(Please don't tell me I need to go to update QuickBooks so that Intuit can make some money delivering the same crock over and over with a few added bells and whistles every year.)

I know that since I'm running Windows 10 there always is been a copy of Internet Explorer 11 on the system.
So I started looking for it and guess what? It's gone and so is the registry entry for it as well!

The registry entry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\IEXPLORE.EXE]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\IEXPLORE.EXE"
"Path"="C:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer;"
was gone, nonexistent so was the folder and any executable therein.
In Windows features the entry was unchecked and checking it, it would not react or respond to it.

Oddly enough you can still find and download and Internet Explorer 32 or 64 version from Microsoft.
Attempting to installing the 32-bit version does not work as it claims that you need a 32-bit/64-bit OS.... DUH...
The 64-bit version installs but appears to have connectivity issues.

All this courtesy of a recent Microsoft Windows update either over the weekend or on Tuesday "forced down my throat again"
without any announcement or warning.

With a little research I found out I'm not alone with this problem and of course the World Wide Web of disinformation dishes out either outdated and irrelevant information en galore about it i.e. referring to Windows 7 or 8 or being almost 10 years old posts... or refers to links that refer to Microsoft which are of course typically either 404 "this page does not exist" or give you the plane Microsoft welcome support website... Trying to sell you their newest hardware crap.

Just because Microsoft ends the support of Internet explorer and pushes their decrepit "edge" does not, should not allow them to simply going into my system and without warning unannounced delete Internet Explorer 11!

Seriously ask yourself, by comparison would you buy a car which the manufacturer disables the car after they deemed it outdated and not supported a longer by simply disabling the vehicle?
In other words your '68 Mustang no longer works at all...? Because Ford decided so?

I feared the day coming in 2025 when Microsoft decides to end support for Windows 10.
Punishing all those who were not interested in this marketing push of Windows 11, being just a "reheated" souped-up bells and whistles minimum dual core minimum this and that bloatware of its predecessor.
Will Microsoft then in its despotic top down arrogance just going to render all Windows 10 machines as inoperable and useless by deleting the operating system? Or force update you to Windows 11? (Of course you will only be able to download apps from the Microsoft store and of course you will have to pay "rent" to Microsoft for using it)
Seriously!

What saved the day was doing a system restore back to or prior Friday, August 13, 2021.
Everything worked fine again.
Now I need to seriously find a way to absolutely block any kind of imposed and pushed Microsoft windows updates!

Hi there

@dorcom

These companies aren't the "Evil Empires" some accuse them of being. They want to deliver safe modern OS's for their users. Same with other software providers -- and of course being a private (but publically subscribeable corporation via the Stock market) business their function is also to deliver a profit to the owners (the share holders) too.

Nothing on this entire planet forces you to use their products - however if you must have specific versions of Software which need specific versions of the OS older than the current one then it's perfectly possible to run these indefinitely using a Virtual Machine.

If you have specific software that you need to run - then create a Virtual Machine of it running on the latest version of Windows that the package works on, and then if updates on the main Windows machine cause problems the VM will still run your software. VM's these days especially if only using for specific applications can be very efficient.

The third party software vendor also should be making sure that their products are compatible with modern supported browsers too -- e.g edge, chrome, firefox etc. The fault isn't always one of Ms's own making.

I'm still running old Minidisc recording hardware and software on an XP VM without issue -- the last service of XP was way back in 2006 I think !!!!


Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

@dorcom

These companies aren't the "Evil Empires" some accuse them of being. They want to deliver safe modern OS's for their users. Same with other software providers -- and of course being a private (but publically subscribeable corporation via the Stock market) business their function is also to deliver a profit to the owners (the share holders) too.

Nothing on this entire planet forces you to use their products - however if you must have specific versions of Software which need specific versions of the OS older than the current one then it's perfectly possible to run these indefinitely using a Virtual Machine.

If you have specific software that you need to run - then create a Virtual Machine of it running on the latest version of Windows that the package works on, and then if updates on the main Windows machine cause problems the VM will still run your software. VM's these days especially if only using for specific applications can be very efficient.

The third party software vendor also should be making sure that their products are compatible with modern supported browsers too -- e.g edge, chrome, firefox etc. The fault isn't always one of Ms's own making.

I'm still running old Minidisc recording hardware and software on an XP VM without issue -- the last service of XP was way back in 2006 I think !!!!


Cheers
jimbo

I don't need neither want a "corporation" to decide for me what I need or not!
Just like I like to drive my '68 Mustang or Ford model T, it's my decision!

dorcom said:

I don't need neither want a "corporation" to decide for me what I need or not!

Then you are very likely to be highly disappointed with life in the 21st century.

To summarize:
Quick Books updates (new paid-for versions) offer nothing of value, so you don't want to update. I don't blame you.

But Windows updates (new for-free versions) also offer nothing of value. So why update? I don't. I highly recommend.

This board is rife with problems that I and others **do not** have simply because we won't update. This 1809 is running just fine. And now that I look ... IE 11 is still there.

margrave55 said:

This board is rife with problems that I and others **do not** have simply because we won't update. This 1809 is running just fine. And now that I look ... IE 11 is still there.

To be fair, there are some of us on this board who are on updated versions, who don't seem to have many issues at all as well. I have 4 desktops in my house, (mine, son's, wife's and daughters). All machines are used and we also game together (mostly Call of Duty, Cold War). These machines all run Windows update. I think most are on 20H2 (I'd go look, but they are turned off).

IE is still there on all of my machines.

There are some of us on this board who absolutely love to tinker, modify, and change things. People use all sorts of tune up tools, and cleaners, and snake oil applications, and games, and etc, etc, etc. All of these things bring with them the potential for causing additional problems. Others tend to leave things a little closer to stock. Maybe they have fewer problems, maybe they have the same amount, maybe they have more. I'm not saying people "should" tinker less, I'm just saying that who truly knows what impact peoples actions might have on a machine.

pparks1 said:

To be fair, there are some of us on this board who are on updated versions, who don't seem to have many issues at all as well.

Yuppers... it's just another PEBCAK for sure.

hdmi said:

Yuppers... it's just another PEBCAK for sure.

Thank you for character statement and revelation.
Very helpful indeed.

dorcom said:

Thank you for character statement and revelation.
Very helpful indeed.

Well, you rant and rant and complain and whine and go on about the big corporations are out to get you and control you.

90% of your posts.

You did it in the thread here also. And here.

One heck of a way to get help....

tomdsr said:

Well, you rant and rant and complain and whine and go on about the big corporations are out to get you and control you.

90% of your posts.

You did it in the thread here also. And here.

One heck of a way to get help....

Thank you!

The truth is like the rain,
It doesn't care who gets wet.

Solve all my problems 90% and I will have nothing more to say, only praise you.
If I had not any issues with Windows 10 I would not have subscribed to this forum!
How about providing 90% of working solutions?
With kind regards,

PS You seem focused on the negative not seeing any of the working solutions I provided.