There are various tools on the forum like lgogdownloader or gogrepo which would allow this. You could also use pretty much any better (cli) download client to schedule downloads (including those on gog).

It's starting to feel more than like just being treated like an idiot. There is something to be said for making it simple. Most everyday people couldn't use a computer if they had to use it the way dtgreene is describing it, but that's not what is starting to happen. You can default stuff for the everyday man, but a lot of configurables are disappearing, and some that are there are being deliberately reset later. Tech savvy people that don't want win10 and have gone to lengths to stop getting it advertised to them are having their efforts repeatedly circumvented. It doesn't feel helpful, it feels entitled.

A lot of people need hand holding, and that is fine, but if feels less like daddy holding our hand while we cross an unfamiliar road and a lot more like creepy uncle Lou taking us to the basement. I'm not sure what's down there, but I'm pretty sure it's not a pony.

If you can find a way to run the download from the command line (or a tool like gogrepo.py), you can just use cron to schedule it in the middle of the night.

gogrepo.py can be downloaded from:
https://github.com/eddie3/gogrepo

Of note, gogrepo.py appears to have a -wait option that lets you delay the start, if you don't want to use cron or at. It doesn't have an option to stop the download at a specific time, though with a bit of scripting knowledge, you could use "at" to send a signal at the right time. I don't know how well gogrepo.py handles partial downloads.

(Maybe some limiting option would be a good thing to add to gogrepo.py?)

Thanks for the site Gnostic. Already deleted one file. No more Win10 popups to upgrade when I turn the PC on..
Thank mindblast and dtgreene.
Looks like I should change my browser to Firefox. Been using Internet Explorer.
Like the news bulletins, hate the Win10 popups.
Scartch

For a few laughs, you can look into the Links Browser. If you use Firefox, I'd recommend adding noscript and adblock plus. The two work well together, but noscript will require you to make adjustments to make sure it only blocks what you want it to.

In all seriousness, this browser (and others like lynx, elinks, retawq, w3m, etc.) can be useful if you have really slow (i.e. dialup) or limited Internet access, or if your GUI is not working at all (and you need to troubleshoot that problem).

Yep. I also recommended noscript because it helps if your connection is bad. I used it back when I had dial up. For those who want to know what the Chrome counterpart of it is, it's Scriptsafe.

I also switched to Linux as my primary OS back in 2010. Around this time and also before I was using Ubuntu, but when they eventually changed their default desktop (to Unity) in 2011, I was looking for alternatives and decided to use Linux Mint on my PC. The Cinnamon desktop has become really stable by now and I love Linux Mint for it's overall stability, simplicity, consistency (sadly no matter of course for some Linux distributions) and its fast and easy setup. It's suited for beginners as well as for advanced users.

I've tried all kinds of desktop environments and distributions (and I always like to try out new ones in virtual machines), but Linux Mint Cinnamon is still my very favourite desktop Linux. I can also recommend the Linux Mint Mate and XFCE versions for older hardware.

Currently I'm using a Windows 10 PC solely for gaming and a Linux PC for all the other stuff and private data.

Until now I've never had any issues with Windows 10 restarting without questioning or minimizing games for pop-ups, I guess it's a matter of configuration. Nevertheless I hope that there will be a time when Windows is not needed for PC gaming anymore. There is still a long way to go but gaming support on Linux has so much improved over the past 6 years which keeps me confident.

Want to know my personal reason for using Linux? Ricing. I got into making my desktop look good when I was still using Win 7. Takes some time, you might or might not break everything if you don't know what you are doing... good times.

Anyways, I did that for a while, looked at other people's desktop shots and saw that people were doing incredible things with Arch. Tried it on my old laptop, learned a lot and eventually had the ultimate eyecandy.

Anyways, other reasons to use Linux:

- Less malware, as previously stated.

- No bloatware and "required" updates that'll add more stuff you don't want or need, because Microsoft said so.

- Got an old machine you thought you would never use again? There's probably a distro it can handle.

- Free~

- Despite what all the epic maymays say, there's more than enough games that run on Linux.

- Open source, so you can see what's going on under the hood of your OS. Also, you can verify yourself there's no shady business going on.

- (In my experience) Pretty good and helpful community. While the "Linux nerd" stereotype is usually portrayed as an elitist douchebag, in my experience the community was incredibly helpful with newcomer questions.

- No defragmenting. Ever.

- No drivers.

- Package mangers make updating all your software much less of a hassle.

- Theoretically you can leave your computer running for days, weeks, months. No guarantee, I never did that more than a few days, because electricity isn't free, but I know people who do this.

Just for reasons of completion, there's a few reasons why you should (at least partially) stick with Windows:

- Specific software that's not available on Linux (and you can't use the alternatives). This is the main reasons I still dual-boot, since I use Autodesk software for work.

- You want to play the most recent AAA games. Even though Valve promotes Linux (SteamOS is a Debian fork), there's still games that probably won't see Linux support and can't (yet) be played with Wine.

Hope this helps.


Edit:

- I forgot to mention, picking and choosing what distro you are going to use (plus, if you feel up for making that many decisions, picking the actual pieces that make up your OS) is pretty neat, imho. Also, if your current OS implements something you don't like, you can switch pretty easily. Also, if you are lucky, somebody makes a fork without the new unwanted feature.

- The OS is not gonna babysit you and prevent you from doing what you want with your OS.

If you want a program that remove bad update for you instead of check through your list of update, you can download the file from here, unzip and run it.

https://gist.github.com/kulbakin/4e1cf9fd40e950886dde

the obvious answer for me is that it provides you more choice.
assuming you care about maintaining a certain control on your machine, this is just another option you might take if propriety software "restrictions" become overwhelming".

i also think of linux as a DRM free set of software. it comes with all the freedoms we like on gog games and you dont have to purchase it.

i assume a day will come when some of us may have to think hard about completely migrating from Windows and this is the only viable option that i see.

so i suppose coming back to you question, propriety OS' appear to favour more and more uncomfortable policies for some people. while it will take some effort/ learning on your part to get to a point where you dont need windows again, it will be farely simple to run a browser, and some office related work.

hope this helps

my experience:

I started using Linux around 2011, at the time i had a laptop who was very noisy and my great idea was to open it and clean it up.
I actually ended up destroying some plastic parts and managed to wipe the screen backlight ahaha :)
So with no backlight I tried to install a new OS and i choose Linux (just Linux, not dual boot); I guess it was Linux Mint but maybe Ubuntu, can't remember..
I was successful and got it to work putting a lamp on the back of the screen (old school baby), this just to let know how the installation is simple with the most famous Linux OS.
After that I used the same laptop connected to an external monitor for quite a lot until at one point i had no screen output, probably the gpu died, maybe it was the fact that it had no top cover (maybe...)
it was basically fixed upside down under my loft bed connected to a monitor; anyway my housemate had an old laptop with broken display and i installed openSUSE with Kde and put it under the bed eheh; switching to kde wasn't the most easy thing to do but at least i get it.
my main pc usage was music and movies and sometimes writing and stuff, as me and my housemate had no internet there,
Since 1+ year i live in Berlin and i managed to build some cheap gaming pc with the idea to sell them through ebay (ebay-kleinanzeigen), btw no one is buying the because of Linux, i thought germans were more open-minded :)
so i also have experience with games on linux etc.

that said i want to explain why someone should switch or not, and what i like in Linux:

first of all i would like to say that Linux is absolutely NOT user friendly if you switch from window$, and here is why
you can use most of the computer (smartphone also) basically in 2 ways: through a GUI (graphical user interface, mostly point and click), through a terminal or command line (dos like wall of letters)
most of the latest and most famous Linux OSs improved the GUI part and are more accessible to the standard window$ user, you can use the OS as you used window$, going around and doing stuff with you mouse.
This is basically how micro$oft want you to use your pc, they let stuff being easy so you will get dumber and dumber and never leave window$ for something more (or who looks more) complicated
ANYWAY
if you want to have the real control and use all the power of you Linux OS you must use the command line, and at the beginning is like learning Arab or Chinese, it's very difficult to understand what's going on and it's inevitable that you will finish to copy and paste some command from ubuntuforum or wiki.arch and so on.
This is what scary the most of the window$ users who are approaching to Linux, and if you do the switch you can't avoid that, at some point you will need to learn some basic commands at least.
But then when you learn some command and know how to use the terminal you will feel the control of your OS, you can modify everything up to your needs, you can remove, add and modify every part of the OS to get the most out of it.
a really simple example between GUI and terminal:
i did a lot of Linux Mint installation lately and the first thing after a clean installation is upgrading to the latest update and eventually installing some software and stuff.
with GUI only i would need to open the update manager to update and open the software center and search and install something (or use synaptic etc)
with terminal the commands would be (with apt-get):
sudo apt-get update <
sudo apt-get upgrade < get and install the latest OS and software update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade <

sudo apt-get install vlc wine playonlinux openshot audacity etc etc etc < to install whatever software you need

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/docky < add a repository to get a software that you want that wasn't in the main distro repositories (in this case plank dock, in the repository in ubuntu 15.10)

now you can easily chain all these commands and the pc will execute them all, like that:

(-y will automatically accept every question the OS ask you, like if you really want to upgrade or install a software)

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:ricotz/docky && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade && sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade && sudo apt-get -y install plank vlc opera wine playonlinux audacity bla bla bla etc etc

(it's actually better if you go root and add --install-recommends for mint but this is just an easy example)

when you press enter it will automatically update and install the software that you need, this is something that i learn by using it, do you think that i will use the GUI the next time that i install a new OS?? i don't think so..
once you learn you can use the OS both GUI and by terminal, it's completely up to you, as you prefer.

most of the people are scared by all these commands because they don't understand them and they're something completely unfamiliar, but once you learn some of them you experience will improve and you will be able to communicate straight to your pc.

GAMING:
if you're a gamer and play the latest and greatest games do not expect all of them to run on Linux, as I said micro$oft created a monopoly with directX, they could have easily have created something open to other platforms, but this is micro$oft, they want as much money as possible and they don't give a fork about creating something good (wazzup window$ 10?)
gaming on Linux SUCKS mostly because you have to translate from directX, but the fact that you can play something it's actually a miracle and some games runs great, and thanks to Valve a lot of stuff is coming to Linux as well, native and ported games.
a lot of old games runs great on wine, and you will be able to play most of the directX 9 almost natively with GALLIUM NINE.
in these 3 days i tried some games with wine and i was relatively happy :)

with my radeon 5770 and Athlon x2 260 (a 70€ used pc that i build lately)

STEAM
tomb raider 2013 - 43 fps average on bechmark
tomb raider legends - runs great
tomb raider anniversary - runs great
tomb raider underworld - runs great
dead island riptide - runs great 40 fps avg
dead island - at the beginning great then it looses in the open world part, cpu bottleneck i guess (linux native crashes with opensource drivers)
grid - runs great, very funny game

GOG
far cry 2 - 40 fps runs great
silent storm - runs great installed with gog galaxy
chronicles of riddick - installer fails
stalker - installer fails but it works
etc etc

those are just some example, some stuff works and some will maybe work, wine made a lot of improvement and it's there for you completely free..
GOG installers suck thou :)

At the end
-If you are open to learn something new, that will be difficult at the beginning but also will improve your skills with PCs and other devices than yo can give Linux a try
-If you want a pc just for internet, movies, music etc than wtf are you using window$, you must try Linux who will suck way less hardware than window$ (with its self-destructive tasks)
-If you don't like AMERICAN corporation (like micro$oft, monsanto, mc donald etc etc) whose are a shame to humanity then go to Linux
-If you don't like window$ updates and crazy stuff going on under your desktop environment than you have 100% control with Linux

-do not switch if you care about 3000 fps on the latest AAA window$ only game, it will take time to get it to work on wine

in any case you should dual boot or at least try a Linux distro live, just move your ass, grab a usb key, burn the Linux iso and boot to Linux, do whatever you want and remember that nothing will be permanent, at the shutdown everything will be like before

at least give it a try :)

Thank you gentlemen for your very concise information.
Evidently I didn't clean out enough of W10 updates. Just got a pop-up from W10 when I opened this site.
When I install Linux (no longer if), I'll have to revisit this thread.
Yes, I understand There will be a learning period, but I don't foresee updating my present W7 in the near future. Having experience with Linux will not only make my future O.S choices more relevant, Linux itself may have matured even further.
Cheers!
Scartch...

Game compatability. :D Runs out of the box without needing to learn any kind of programming language to fix any problems, in case you need to learn some stuff like I heard you had in some builds just to open some normal stuff in the OS. No problem for me, but not everyone is tech savvy or able to do that. :D

If u go yer way - be carful about the dual boot options.

And apparently Linux has been made salon eligible because Steam OS. I have my reluctant bone to pick with Valve - but what about this vertical integration, then?