I've had to remove the Windows 10 updater (kb.... gwx.exe) 3 times from my desktop to prevent it from trying to upgrade.

Will that happen?
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On a somewhat similar note, a recent M$ update "broke" many Windows games games. Though I am principally using Linux (Ubuntu 14.04), I went to play a game of Civ 1V. After the M$ update it would no longer load, even-though we had saved the game and then attempted to pick-up were we had left off. At the time, I had no clue as to why my game would not load. No notice, no pop-up notice, much research frustration and wasted time, etc.

After doing some internet surfing, I started to run across posts that pointed to an M$ update that caused the problem. I also just received today confirmation from the game manufacturer that the problem was the result of an M$ update.

Unfortunately, it appears that the game manufacturer does not intend to fix the DRM issue, meaning that you are screwed. (They did offer as an alternative to use a "steam" online version. That is unacceptable to me.)

That brings me to this post at TechDirt: DRM Still Breaking Games Nearly A Decade After Purchase.

To conclude. The game manufactures and M$ want to use DRM to protect their so-called property rights, yet they use DRM to deprive the customers of their property rights. If companies wish the customers to respect the companies property rights, the companies need to respect the customers rights. When a company breaks a product, they need to fix it.

Well there is FreeCiv as the alternative.

Hi...

Is there a way you can uninstall the update?

If you paid for the right to use the software, then I totally agree. I'm sorry this happened to you.

Regards...

That's very simple: ask them to release technical specs of their amplifiers (and possibly for other things too), so anyone interested can make new programs. So, if they cannot make a *nix compatible program, someone else will. These specs does not reveal the core of their business, so, why not? If they don't do it, don't buy their produts, find something better around. Sound is not a secret, there are many decent things to buy - and they will improve themselves if we choose them better.

Further, you may try running it with Wine. Have you ever tried? Although I doubt a bit it will work, I never tried .NET programs with Wine (and the Fender programs I found needed it, in Windows). Did you know there are many programs and games that (surprisingly) run with better perfomance in Wine than in Windows itself?!

securom, safedisk, etc will all break on Windows 10 by design. They functioned via insecure hacky methods and have now been replaced by content delivery systems such as Steam.

If you have old windows games and expect them to run on the latest hardware and windows release - you're quite simply out of luck. Running an older version of that OS or seeing if wine is an option are probably the only options you have to use your existing installation media. Otherwise you will have to get the steam release (and pay again of course!). games developers are pretty much in the business of milking as much money as possible out of gullible people. They will only patch it and support it to the minimum extent required and then happily abandon it, and the people who paid for the right to run it, once they have made the next big release and netted the next generation (rinse and repeat).

This has always been the case for windows gamers and is nothing new at all.

It's ironic that many Linux users blast microsoft yet still hand over 1000s of their hard earned cash to play proprietary games and accept some of the most invasive DRM there is...

It can be done, but it would be a somewhat useless exercise as the update would automatically be installed later. See the solution posted by Calibar. Since I have moved onto Linux, I haven't kept up with the finer points of M$ Windows to get around this type of issue.

In thinking about this, I have only bought one M$ Windows game in over 11 years that has been subject to this DRM abuse. While this issue may be nothing new, one can hope that complaining may sway public opinion; even if the probability of success is low.

The computer games industry is mostly dependent on successive generations of male teenagers and "pester power", so it's unlikely that a minority complaining about DRM or copy protection, which the majority just accept or don't care about, would have even the smallest effect. A computer game is for the most part a throwaway product anyway with a short lifespan - only a select few stick to playing "classic" games and they are a tiny market which the industry has traditionally ignored.

Except gog.com, who I love. Nothing like being able to buy a DRM-free classic game for $3-$5 and not worry about the discs anymore.

Why on earth is this forum so polluted with whining about Windows? I've been using Linux since 1993 without problems. If you want to play games get a Playstation or Xbox. Then you don't have to risk playing Windows on a machine intended for real work.

Quite frankly, I don't give a toss WHAT Microsoft do with Windows - a couple of years ago I suffered through a couple of months trying to achieve useful work on a machine running Windows (pro bono work writing course administration software for an education estlishment where I had to use Access). If I were of a sensitive nature I'd still be having nightmares over the experience. Not only that, but the later versions of Access look terriible compared to the earlier versions.

I have been enjoying this thread. Really too much.

I love MS and Windows. If it weren't for Vista I might well be still running that crap. I am grateful to the MS devs for their fine work in developing Vista. It was bad enough for my wife and I to decide anything would be better.

See no point in Windows now what so ever. Might if I were a gamer.

But this really has been pretty much the obvious route for MS to take for years. Gamers could simply have refused to buy games unless ported to Linux years ago.

Been reading about how "the only reason I use Windows is to play games" for years. One year of purchasing no games and letting the folks that make them know it was because they weren't ported for linux would have gotten their attention if that many people really gave a damn.

So I really don't feel to sorry for them now.

I do worry about people being "upgraded" automatically. But there has been a choice out there for years.

We looked into Linux in 98 and decided against it. Our choice was W98. This was not the fault of Windows. It was ours.

We would like to have a good 3D CAD application. They are available for Windows but we can't afford them anyway. Don't see a damned thing other than that offered for Win that isn't really well available for Linux. No they are not the same. There is a learning curve.

I had a learning curve to learn to use MSDos. Then to learn to use W98. Then to learn to use Linux. Learning is good for you.

We live in a very, very conservative and very agricultural area. I am a ranch hand and weed control guy. There are, suddenly, people that listen to us when we mention Linux. These folks may be conservative but they aren't stupid. They can stick with Windows or they can do something else.

Most will stick with Windows because that is simply human nature. Or, more accurately, herd mentality, something we do understand here.

You can choose not to be part of the herd.

As was said before; format your drive and install a real OS that belongs to you instead of the people you lease it from.

MS owns Windows, read the EULA or what ever they are calling it now. I have. For years. They can do any thing they want with it. You can do nothing with it at all except what they say you can. It belongs to them. There is really nothing wrong with their attitude at all.

Doesn't mean you have to pay them for the privilege of installing it on your hardware.

How many of you Win users have taken the time to disable the spyware that was installed, very impressive data collection, starting with Vista? It can be done. Not sure it can with W10 at all. They make money on that data that you supply. This is not their fault either. It is simply yours and no one else. Are your games really that addictive that you can't put the slightest bit of pressure on game producers?

Apparently so. This is also fine. That is your choice and I am perfectly happy with it.

Whining about it is just kind of sad and maybe you should really take some time to think about that.

It's not that bad actually.
These days - I agree. In the past I would have argued that PC gaming was different and aimed at a different class of game player - not so anymore.

+1

What you are perhaps missing is that windows gamers, for the most part, are just consumers of media, rather than computer users, administrators, geeks or people trying to get work done. They usually don't care what they run as long as the game will run - this is why consoles are a better choice for the majority of them.

"1% of the desktop market" - much less than 1% of which are gamers - not buying games due to the lack of a Linux port - is not going to hit the profits of the games industry or give them cause to lose a minute's sleep.