Ted B wrote:I read on the Forbes.com website several articles referencing that if you decline to install even one Windows 10 update, MS is going to cut you loose and you don't get ANY of the following updates or security patches, ever.
Part of that is correct. If you are really interested in following people who actually follow Microsoft day in and day out follow Mary Jo Foley and Paul Thurott. Forbes' freelance writers time and time again have been getting this stuff wrong or flat out making stuff up. I would personally find another source on the topic.
At this point, if you are on Windows 10 Home or Pro without being signed up for Windows Update for Business, you will be getting all updates, period.
The only people who can even defer Windows 10 updates at all are installs of Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise which are part of the Windows Update for Business (which is free to sign up for) and/or Enterprise/Educational volume license services (not free). They will be able to defer updates for a set amount of time which to my knowledge has not been determined or released to the public yet. When someone on one of these plans defers an update, that will stop them from receiving all future updates until the update which is deferred is installed. So lets say from updates A, B, C, D & E-Z you want to defer update C, if you are part of an approved deferral program, you can defer update C for a set amount of time for Windows Update for Business, or indefinitely for Enterprise program services, but will not receive updates D-Z until update C is installed or if update C is really buggie for some reason, Microsoft can remove it from the update program and design it as a standalone update for those who need it right away to address some pressing issue. In this case, update C would be null, and updates D-Z would then be allowed to come thru and your systems would continue to update as normal. They are doing this to try to keep the masses at the same point in the software updates to keep things more straight forward for overall stability. It's similar to how smart phone OS's and even Datacad works. You can't install Datacad 17 update 17.02 without getting all of the improvements and bug fixes that came before it. This lets Datacad focus on a 'single' moving target rather than many different main & update versions.
For our office, I will be running our Win 10 Pro builds on the Windows Update for Business services so I can monitor updates and keep a buffer between the updates release and roll outs on our systems just in case some update has an issue. We can at least roll back for a short time if needed and that will give me time to find a work around or wait for an adjustment to the update to be made.
Here is an episode of Paul Thurott's & Mary Jo's podcast where they discuss the new Windows 10 update policy in a bit more depth. Jump to about 39 mins in.
Ted B wrote:And that there's strong suspicion that within two years MS will start requiring a pay-subscription for updates. And the next generation after Window 10 will definitely be an annual subscription OS. MS is of-course denying this, in a tepid and weaselly-way.
Suspicion is all there has been on this, so feel free to be suspicious if you want to. I can guarantee Windows 10 updates will not be charged for for the life of the Windows 10 product. Can't say for future versions of Windows, but not worried about it at this point.