[Digital-Citizen]

> This is still user-hostile bullshit and some people > at Microsoft really need to be beaten with a rubber > hose until they get it through their heads that they > don't own our devices.

If you run proprietary software on a computer, the proprietors have far more say in what that computer does than you do. This is true regardless of which proprietor is involved, the user's ostensible control over updates, and the ostensible high-level purpose of the software (an OS, an application, a word processor, a flight simulator, etc.). This particular proprietary software gives Microsoft a universal back door through which Microsoft can impose any change they wish (see http://www.informationweek.com/microsoft-updates-windows-wit... for an example). Even if update control were respected in full, update control does nothing to change the fact that what's running is proprietary software -- user-subjugating software.

The frequency or UI of updates is a minor detail. It's the least the proprietor can get away with to give the simulacrum of user control. Microsoft has tried other means to do less but they were discovered and news reports effectively outed Microsoft (for instance, there's the time Microsoft had Windows send reports even when configured not to per http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/even-w...)

So rather than engaging in harsh language or threats of physical abuse, I think a more productive way to address your understandable frustration is to switch your remaining proprietary-driven computers to a fully free OS running on fully free hardware (such as an FSF-approved free software distro -- https://www.gnu.org/distros/ -- running on a "Respects Your Freedom" device -- https://www.fsf.org/ryf ) and then install only free software on top of that.