Windows 10 is designed to be the next step for Microsoft’s operating system, with internet functions built-in alongside apps and new gaming technologies designed to help users make the choice to move that little bit easier. With Windows 10 now a recommended update you would expect that some users would be hopeful of the new operating system, something that may not be the case if it keeps removing programs from your system without telling you.
So the major benefit of the internet is that you can quickly update your system, no longer do you have to wait weeks for the latest security patch or game update as you can quickly update anything you need or download something entirely new within hours or even minutes. It may come as a surprise then with groups like LifeHacker noticing that some programs they have on their system seem to be removed after doing an update. In this case, they found the system information tool Speccy had been removed, giving you only an empty file icon and a question of why?
The current theory is that it is removing outdated apps and drivers when it does an update, a good theory but still one that should worry people. Hopefully, this is not an intentional feature, otherwise, users could soon find their programs and software removed from the system, finding out only days later when they need them the most.
I’ve yet to upgrade to Windows 10 personally, and with “features” like this, I can’t say I will be anytime soon.
maybe you could reach out to Micro$oft and ask why it would do such a thing… it seems that is not how it should happen…
Would make sense why today my home computer took 2 hours to update. And then afterwards the tap function on my touch pad stopped working. Couldn’t for the life of me work out what had happened. Had to uninstall logitech setpoint and re install it. Settings for the touch pad and keyboard had gone and disappeared.
That makes perfect sense though, there’s probably been a change to the code needed to utilise your touchpad’s hardware and obviously Windows isn’t responsible for updating that. Can you imagine how massive and complex the Windows installer would need to be in order to identify every obsolete hardware driver and contain the software to update it for you? That’s just asking for failure, and it would be a licensing nightmare. Not to mention power users and enthusiasts might require specific drivers for connecting specialist hardware, which may still serve the purpose but will be silently updated because there’s a newer version available. However, the installer likely has something in it to perform a rudimentary scan of installed software and drivers to identify known problems with the new version of Windows and to remove them.
This makes zero sense of any kind. The Windows installer does not need to be removing anything, especially not third-party applications or drivers. It would simply flag the item for the users attention and leave it at that, so I have no idea why you are banging on about licensing, or Windows needing to contain drivers for everything.
If you really have no idea then you should look into the concept of hypothetical situations. Do you really think the majority of Windows users are knowledgeable enough to or capable of sorting things out if they’re bombarded with a massive list of obsolete software and drivers immediately after the upgrade? No, consumers these days expect almost everything to be done seamlessly for them, which would require Windows doing something about all that software which could cause crashes, thus the installer must either uninstall such software or upgrade it automatically, hence what I said.
Again, users expect Windows to work without crashing and software (especially drivers) which work on Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 aren’t guaranteed to work on Windows 10. Should Microsoft do nothing about this and leave it entirely to their users, or is it reasonable to expect they might decide to remove problematic software during an upgrade? I’d agree with the latter, and while I don’t agree with doing it silently I don’t know what would be the best way to handle it.
What are you babbling on about? I’m telling you that Windows literally does not need to remove third party drivers or apps. Ever. Period. Disabling them is as far as it ever needs to go. Anything else is a gross overstep on Microsoft’s part and this behaviour should be halted before it goes any further.
Maybe you’re right, and for drivers that is certainly possible. Does Windows have the ability to permanently disable third party applications without removing them though? Not that I know of, but it does have the functionality to uninstall them. Windows is monstrously complex and I imagine adding such a disable feature would require modifying the fundamental way applications are handled in the core of the OS which would not be a small task. Why don’t you go do it for them?
The installer likely has something in it to perform a rudimentary scan of installed software and drivers to identify known problems with the new version of Windows and to remove them. Better that than you firing up Speccy only to trigger a drive-corrupting meltdown.
Couldn’t they at least just drop a message about whatever it wants to remove, so people aren’t left in the dark about it happening? Only reason it’s getting negative press is because it’s removing the things without alerting people
Well, …it is breaking my nerves when reseting files associations that I have changed from inside irfanview so I can open images with that program. No surprise if it is removing programs too. I don’t see me upgrading to 10 from 7.
My w10 pro has never done that with any program, I even have speccy installed
My win 10 is bugged and no left click capability on start bar, indeed no start menu either…. Crappy update.