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Is there reliable documentation anywhere of what the various telemetry settings in Win10 actually do? I.e. with proof rather than sycophantic "only what's needed to improve customer experience!" or paranoid "everything on your PC is uploaded to M$+NSA!"

I've switched off all the settings in Privacy panel, disabled Cortana, disabled the telemetry service, don't have Wifi (desktop), set Feedback to Never, don't use a Live account for login, don't use Onedrive, and turned off peer to peer Windows updates. What else?

Unless you removed Cortana by the roots (and even then, what's to keep MS from silently putting it back after an update?), I'm betting that cortana.exe is still running. Microsoft swears that the .exe isn't doing anything, and you can trust them on this, right?

You also can't turn off 'diagnostic and usage data' without either being an enterprise customer or editing the registry, which no user should ever have to do (nor would most users know how to do). What exactly is sent back? Who knows? What's the retention policy? No clue. How good is the supposed anonymization? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe there are good reasons to leave that on, maybe someone has good reasons to turn that off, but that's the computer owner's choice, not Microsoft's.

See also: AdvertisingID, automatically installing apps for you in your start menu, no way to opt out of updates, uninstalling software it doesn't like as part of its own updates, and so on and so on.

No need to go as far as editing the registry. You can just uninstall Windows Update KB3035583. Just remember to "hide" it when it prompts you to update to it again.

1: this infection defaults to enabled in the optional update list, it's trying to get installed 'by accident'. Trying very hard.

2: it's burning 3Gb of my deliberately small C: partition and every time I deleted the installer it just downloaded it again.

That's not looking like any sort of choice to me unless I revert the entire OS to an unsafe state without security updates. Given I don't have a clean ISO for Win8 with Bing that's going to be a challenge.

They truly are scum.

You can use Windows 8 to make an ISO of itself for backup. See here: http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

Lots
of
downsides

At this point, why would you trust anything they say?

> What's next, different cost based on the amount of RAM installed?

MS already does that with Windows 7 (or previous versions)

I have 32 GB of RAM in my main dev box. You need to run Windows 7 Professional (or better) in order to use more then 16 GB of RAM. You need to use Windows 7 Premium or better if you have more then 8 GB RAM.

Memory Limits for Windows and Windows Server Releases
* https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-...

e.g. x64 version
Windows 7 Professional 192 GB
Windows 7 Home Premium 16 GB
Windows 7 Home Basic 8 GB

Note: For Windows 8 and Windows 10 MS removed almost all of these silly limits.

i.e.
Windows 10 Enterprise 2TB
Windows 10 Education 2TB
Windows 10 Pro 2TB
Windows 10 Home 128GB

Microsoft FY15Q3 earnings report says:
"Commercial cloud revenue grew 106% (up 111% in constant currency) driven by Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online, and is now on an annualized revenue run rate of $6.3 billion "

Will Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella go to prison? Other spyware makers have been convicted.

Will there be an anti-trust case against Microsoft's virtual monopoly?

Articles about Microsoft abusing customers:

Microsoft's Software is Malware. Malware means software designed to function in ways that mistreat or harm the user.

How Can Any Company Ever Trust Microsoft Again?

NSA Backdoor Exploit in Windows 8 Uncovered

Microsoft Gave the NSA Direct Backdoor Access to Outlook, Skype

Microsoft has no plans to tell us what's in Windows patches. Each update is a black box, and it's going to stay that way.

Leaks show that Microsoft writes release notes, so why can't it publish them? The lack of documentation of Windows' updates is a baffling move on Microsoft's part.

Microsoft [lack of] Privacy Statement

Here's how to Block Windows 10 "Spying"

When Microsoft open sourced .NET, they did so under an MIT licence.

I have no idea what you are smoking... here is the .NET library license, and it's *DEFINITELY NOT* the MIT license, and it's *definitely* incompatible with the GPLv2 and GPLv3:

http://www.microsoft.com/net/d...

It's worse than that. 2014 Enterprise costs $7,128 per core .

From Internet Explorer Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ, linked in the featured article:

Beginning January 12, 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical support and security updates, as shown in the table below:
[...]
Windows Vista SP2: Internet Explorer 9
Windows Server 2008 SP2: Internet Explorer 9
Windows Embedded POSReady 2009: Internet Explorer 8

So yes, IE 9 security updates will continue. So will IE 8 updates for those Windows XP users who have applied the "Piece of $#!+ Ready" registry hack.

Then there's trying to use USB->RS-232 adapters. Plug it in one port and it's COM1, plug it in another port and it's COM2. Plug it back in the first port and it's COM3. Then you can't re-designate it to COM1 in device manager because it's mysteriously "in use". This is particularly a problem for antique legacy software that only recognize COM1-4, (and suddenly you can't get anything lower than COM12) and generally a pain in the ass because you have to double check the COM port of the adapter before using it in software.

* The best way to rectify it is under environment variables in system properties, set "devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1", then in device manager you can "view- show hidden devices" Delete the multiple copies of your serial port and now you can set a lower COM port.

While you're at it you can clean out every mouse, keyboard / port combination, and every flash drive / port combination since the beginning of time.

* This Microsoft KB talks about setting the environment variable in a command prompt which will work one time. Adding it to system properties leaves that option always in Device manager.

The best source of information about Windows internals is probably the book Windows Internals. The newest edition is apparently split into two parts, but I've got the 6th edition and it's fantastic. One of the authors is Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals fame and it gets into the gritty details, including the startup and shutdown processes.

In no particular order:

C.A.R. Hoare
Perr Brinch Hansen
Gordon Bell
Dave Cutler

It has its charms.

Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications Overview

Block my mail and I'll just stop going to Yahoo altogether.

But how would you notify all your contacts, who have whitelisted your Yahoo address in their spam filters, of your new From address?

I have Thunderbird.

When Gmail upgraded its security measures last year, Outlook users were shown an error message directing them to the webmail interface. Yahoo could make IMAP a premium feature, at which point you'd get an analogous error message when attempting to access your account with Thunderbird until you subscribe.

Apple was actually one of the last of the big companies to adopt the flat UI style. Microsoft was first.

I don't think it's fair to credit/blame Jonathan Ive or any other Apple employee with inventing it. The flat UI was probably invented by someone at Microsoft. MS itself claims that it was a community effort. See here for example: https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

"... I'd rather trust the last official version of Truecrypt [7.1a] (with correct checksums) than any binary downloaded from the Veracrypt website."

When I go to the VeraCrypt web site, NoScript tells me that site uses Javascript from 3 different Microsoft web sites: aspnetcdn.com, msecnd.net, and s-msft.com.

The many connections to Microsoft web sites makes Windows 10 the world's most common spyware. Should you trust VeraCrypt when it is so closely monitored by the world's biggest spyware company?

Mozilla Foundation and Firefox are now controlled by Microsoft. Google stopped giving Mozilla Foundation $300,000,000 per year. Now Mozilla Foundation gets money from Microsoft through Yahoo. Microsoft pays Yahoo to use Microsoft's Bing Search. Yahoo pays Mozilla Foundation to use "Yahoo" search as the default in new installations of Firefox.

One of the effects of the control of the Mozilla Foundation by Microsoft is apparently that the Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs have been damaged, apparently deliberately. Every time you do a file save, the newer versions of both ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen. The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed.

A few of the many, many articles:

Microsoft has no plans to tell us what's in Windows patches. Each update is a black box, and it's going to stay that way.

Leaks show that Microsoft writes release notes, so why can't it publish them? The lack of documentation of Windows' updates is a baffling move on Microsoft's part.

Microsoft's Software is Malware. Malware means software designed to function in ways that mistreat or harm the user.

How Can Any Company Ever Trust Microsoft Again?

NSA Backdoor Exploit in Windows 8 Uncovered

Microsoft Gave the NSA Direct Backdoor Access to Outlook, Skype

Microsoft [lack of] Privacy Statement

Here's how to Block Windows 10 "Spying"

E-mail is for LUDDITES. Modern app appers use apps that app other apps, like AppRaisin, which lets you app apps while apping other apps!

Apps!

Umm..C# is interpreted.

From site:

C# programs run on the .NET Framework, an integral component of Windows that includes a virtual execution system called the common language runtime (CLR) and a unified set of class libraries. The CLR is the commercial implementation by Microsoft of the common language infrastructure (CLI), an international standard that is the basis for creating execution and development environments in which languages and libraries work together seamlessly.

Source code written in C# is compiled into an intermediate language (IL) that conforms to the CLI specification.

There is no such thing as .Net 3 or 4.5 runtimes. .Net Framework 3.0 uses .Net CLR 2.0. .Net Framework 4.5 uses .Net CLR 4.0.

The .Net CLR (the runtime component) has the following available versions: 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 4.0 (Source)

There is also a stripped-down, cross-platform version of the CLR called CoreCLR that is new with .Net 5. This is not the same as the .Net CLR. It's an alternative to it. The fully backward-compatible .Net CLR will not be available on Mac or Linux. Only CoreCLR will, for the purpose of running ASP.Net 5 on a web server that isn't as "heavy" as IIS.

If you think Microsoft has no in-house testing team, you are delusional! Microsoft does not use conventional QA testers, they use whats called SDET (Software Design Engineer in Test), and they have a very large team of that: https://www.microsoft.com/en-i...

That would be:
Android.textbox.Draw(blah, x, y)
{
        PAINTSTRUCT ps;
        HDC hdc = BeginPaint(blah, &ps);
        insert code here to actually paint the window...
        EndPaint(blah, &ps);
        return 0;
}

(relevant MSDN docs: here)

And you'd better only do it in response to a WM_PAINT message, or it's going to absolutely peg one of your processor cores.

What you're describing is what Java tried to do with the AWT. It didn't work then, and it won't work now, for exactly the same reason: ain't nobody got time for that. There are just too many better things to spend time on than to wrangle a hamstrung version of your platform's UI into a shim library to fit a generic, overengineered-yet-underengineered spec that is only going to undercut your platform's competitive advantages.

Swearing at me won't make your argument any more convincing.

Also, extended support for XP only ended in April 2014, more than 12 years after its release to manufacturing, while extended support for Vista still has a year and a half to run despite that one being the turkey and no fewer than four newer versions of desktop Windows being released since then. It's right there on Microsoft's web site.

Or one might conclude that his specificity of the Playstation 4 means that he's been paid off by whomever would benefit from a massive drop in sales/use of said PS4, or any negative publicity.

Now who might that be? I have no idea...

MS has already stated that Win7 sales with new PCs will end in next year, so they are trying to force companies into Win10.

Windows 10 Pro still includes downgrade rights to Windows 7 Professional, and with larger companies reimaging machines to a standard KMS Volume licence image anyways, it won't pose a problem.

Up until 2014 we were deploying machines that sold with Windows 7 licence, downgraded to Windows XP.

Or download the ISOs directly using https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

I used the Media Creation Tool to get it right away. Download the tool, run it and select Upgrade Now. Went flawlessly on our two laptops. The upgrade did change our default PDF reader back to Edge, which I changed back to Foxit Reader. The options to add color to the title bar is off by default. You can click on Personalization and then Color to change the setting. White title bars suck. Mail client, which is improved, is now called Outlook when it's opened. That seems like an odd choice since Outlook is a full fledged desktop app. Never doubt the capability of Microsoft to confuse. The Media Creation Tool download link is: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink...

Actually, as a Windows user I tend to go out and install the msys version of bash on any system I'm going to be doing serious work on. A lot of people prefer Cygwin's bash, but the licensing on msys is nicer, and all you really lose is some POSIX stuff that isn't all that important unless you are trying to perform a Unix port of something. Most of the official gcc compiler installs for Windows use msys/mingwin.

If you don't mind learning a bunch of stuff that's only valid on today's flavor of Windows, I understand Microsoft's powershell is really nice too. Be warned that some sysadmins restrict access to it though. We've run into issues with that with clients and vendors.

try msys2 ORDERS of magnitude better bundle

Actually, as a Windows user I tend to go out and install the msys version of bash on any system I'm going to be doing serious work on. A lot of people prefer Cygwin's bash, but the licensing on msys is nicer, and all you really lose is some POSIX stuff that isn't all that important unless you are trying to perform a Unix port of something. Most of the official gcc compiler installs for Windows use msys/mingwin.

If you don't mind learning a bunch of stuff that's only valid on today's flavor of Windows, I understand Microsoft's powershell is really nice too. Be warned that some sysadmins restrict access to it though. We've run into issues with that with clients and vendors.

http://windows.microsoft.com/e... When you interact with your Windows device by speaking, writing (handwriting), or typing, Microsoft collects speech, inking, and typing informationóincluding information about your Calendar and People (also known as contacts)óthat helps personalize your experience. This information improves your deviceís ability to correctly recognize your input, such as your pronunciation and handwriting. You can turn the Speech, inking, and typing setting (which is called Getting to know you) on or off in Settings.

Yes I know all about Microsoft's use of their telemetry tools and it's not at all what you've purported it to be. Most people hear "keylogger" and think "zomg Microsoft is recording everything I type!!!111" when that's in fact not true. When you read all resources and not just some vague article on the internet on some silly tabloid site that says "Microsoft is using a keylogger to record all of your typing" you realize that it's not that at all and that people have blown it out of proportion. By the way if you've ever spoken to or used Siri or Google Now then you've basically allowed Apple and Alphabet (Google) the same access.

To be precise, I didn't write what you said I wrote.

Well...

[...]allowing people who you allow access to your network to share your password with everyone on their social network, and a couple other things I had to turn off on all of them.

You did conveniently leave out the fact that it's the Wi-Fi password and conveniently placed that sentence right after mentioning a keylogger, which would give the idea that the supposed keylogger is being used to give the password you just used to login to your computer to someone else.

Do you read that? Do you comprehend? Here, I'll just put the expressly relevent part of the statement:

You and your friends get Internet access without telling each other your passwords.

Yep I can read just fine. They mention it in an FAQ about Wi-Fi Sense, not vaguely insert it into an FAQ about your login credentials for instance.

If you are going to contradict what I write, at least be prepared for the cites I'll give. This is not bulllshit, this is settings that I have had to deal with in several W10 setups.

You've given some good cites to re-state everything you've said in the proper manner and not just vaguely placing words and sentences in a way that creates FUD. It's not a matter of contradicting someone but more like correctly conveying the right message, which you've now done with your cites.

If you do an express setup, and most peolpe will, you'll have all the telemetry goodies, the key logging, and share your password. This is information that is freely available on Microsoft websites, this is without a doubt, and with provable and admitted actions that Windows 10 performs. Its a spying system that you have to opt out of, if you don't do the work to opt out, it is what you get.

There you go again with this "spying on you" nonsense. You make it seem as if Microsoft is now going to turn on your computer's web cam if you're not careful or that you shouldn't make any web transactions on your Windows 10 machine because Microsoft will steal your bank account details and passwords since they're listening to each and every keystroke, statements that are utter nonsense and simply not true.

On a side note if you've been installing Windows 10 on so many machines with this supposed keylogger that is listening in to every key press and that has all sorts of invasion of privacy then that would make you a very irresponsible tech.

A keylogger????

Why don't you put a few more question marks on that? You are really going to hate what comes next, chachalaca.

From the Microsoft website at:

http://windows.microsoft.com/e... When you interact with your Windows device by speaking, writing (handwriting), or typing, Microsoft collects speech, inking, and typing informationóincluding information about your Calendar and People (also known as contacts)óthat helps personalize your experience. This information improves your deviceís ability to correctly recognize your input, such as your pronunciation and handwriting. You can turn the Speech, inking, and typing setting (which is called Getting to know you) on or off in Settings.

Unless you are going to resort to some sort of semantic mincing tap-dance "typing information", is indeed recording what you type on the keyboard, and sending it to Microsoft. Keylogging.

Shares your password with everyone???? BAHAHAHAHA!

To be precise, I didn't write what you said I wrote. But to my actual point, Windows 10 has a feature called Wi-Fi sense. And here is another reference from bing.com:

https://www.bing.com/search q=wifi+sense+windows+10+how+to+turn+off&form=WNSGPH&qs=AS&cvid=36a91072f2bf4740a1b373ef5412aff8&pq=wifi%20sense&nclid=6B4114F0D3A80D5981E134EFC2BF77F3&ts=1447346824415

What is Wi-Fi Sense in Windows 10?

Wi-Fi Sense in Windows 10 connects you to more Wi-Fi networks. You'll get connected to open Wi-Fi hotspots that Wi-Fi Sense knows about. And if you share access to a Wi-Fi network with your Outlook.com contacts, Skype contacts, or Facebook friends, you'll get connected to Wi-Fi networks they've shared using Wi-Fi Sense. You and your friends get Internet access without telling each other your passwords.

Do you read that? Do you comprehend? Here, I'll just put the expressly relevent part of the statement:

You and your friends get Internet access without telling each other your passwords.

Why, that sounds like exactly what I wrote, Microsoft is sharing your wifi password unless you don't allow it. If you do allow it, and your so called friends allow it, it's out there, and since you won't have any control over it, you could have a real six degrees of Kevin Bacon wifi router. Your friends and their contacts might not specifically know your password, but then Microsoft does. I mean if you have a password login, it has to be looked up from somewhere. Then again if they are keylogging you, they do have it anyhow. Oh pardon me - "typing information"

If you're going to bash on Microsoft at least try to sound more intelligent and believable.

If you are going to contradict what I write, at least be prepared for the cites I'll give. This is not bulllshit, this is settings that I have had to deal with in several W10 setups.

If you do an express setup, and most peolpe will, you'll have all the telemetry goodies, the key logging, and share your password. This is information that is freely available on Microsoft websites, this is without a doubt, and with provable and admitted actions that Windows 10 performs. Its a spying system that you have to opt out of, if you don't do the work to opt out, it is what you get.

This will leave Windows Vista users without security fixes for Google Chrome, while security fixes for Internet Explorer 9 on Windows Vista continue until April 11, 2017, according to Microsoft's life cycle fact sheet.

See subject: Dependencies only on native system level API from libs/dlls already present in the OS. "Web apps" stuff? Too many "moving parts" - sorry webboys, but this is part of the price you're paying for "convenience & ease" which this article evidences.

So what else can do what these things do? DCOM/Corba!

However - to master them is more difficult (by far) but webservices type design made it easy for just about anyone to join the party (which I suppose, has its merits) but this article's topic's the price paid.

Yes DCOM uses rpc. Rpc has some 'holes' too but then again, how many of those do you see in comparison to 'web app' flaws popping up for years now? Not that many.

Plus, you can stop them by following 'best practices' shown here @ Microsoft https://technet.microsoft.com/...

This also goes for using unproven libs/dlls in "standalone" programs. I rarely did, but sometimes I had to (Crystal Reports in what I did for a living in MIS/IS/IT business development - Saves time & proven - company who produced it kept up on it, had a fortune to build & LIABILITY).

However:

What if development, support, or patching them stops/company goes under etc.?

You're up the shit creek minus a paddle.

E.G. -> I built this as "1 moving part" only APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit http://start64.com/index.php?o... & that's the reason why - I also have TOTAL control over its code.

One of my 'competition' doesn't (HostsMan which lacks features mine has in hardcoded favorites @ top of hosts added speed above adblocking + reliability vs. DNS security issues or exploits (many)) & they used SQLite (many browsers do also) - that's fine until they go away (they probably won't though but you never know) OR don't go 64-bit (I have no idea if they do or not to be honest - feel free to enlighten me on that front) - if those things happen to it? For HostsMan it's "out go the lights".

APK

P.S.=> Want a job done RIGHT? Build it, ground up hands-on, yourself... apk

See subject: Dependencies only on native system level API from libs/dlls already present in the OS itself. "Web apps" stuff? Too many "moving parts" - sorry webboys, but this is part of the price you're paying for "convenience & ease"... so what else can do what these things do?

DCOM/Corba!

However - to master them is more difficult (by far) but webservices type design made it easy for just about anyone to join the party (which I suppose, has its merits), & again - this is the price paid.

I noted DCOM which rpc it uses has some 'holes' too but then again, how many of those do you see in comparison to 'web app' flaws popping up for years now? Not that many.

Plus, you can stop them by following 'best practices' shown here @ Microsoft https://technet.microsoft.com/...

This also goes for using potentially unproven libs/dlls in "standalone" program. I rarely did (Crystal Reports in what I did for a living in MIS/IS/IT business development - Saves time & proven - company who produced it kept up on it, had a fortune to build AND LIABILITY).

However:

What if development, support, or patching them stops/company goes under etc.?

You're up the shit creek minus a paddle.

E.G. -> I built this as "1 moving part" only APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit & that's the reason why - I also have TOTAL control over its code, myself.

One of my 'competition' doesn't (HostsMan which lacks features mine has in hardcoded favorites @ top of hosts added speed above adblocking + reliability vs. DNS security issues or exploits (many)) & they used SQLite (many browsers do also) - that's fine until they go away (they probably won't though but you never know) OR don't go 64-bit (I have no idea if they do or not to be honest - feel free to enlighten me on that front) - if those things happen to it? For HostsMan it's "out go the lights".

APK

P.S.=> Want a job done RIGHT? Build it, ground up hands-on, yourself... apk

Those sorts of people should just install one of the free VM products (QEMU (linux) Virtual PC (Windows)) available for their machine, install the os and only use it when required. There are also a few paid ones available. Do this would provide a greater level of security.

ranks of people holding on to WinXP virtual machines

It's not quite so bad as you think, then :)

Those sorts of people should just install one of the free VM products (QEMU (linux) Virtual PC (Windows)) available for their machine, install the os and only use it when required.
There are also a few paid ones available.
Do this would provide a greater level of security.

My experience of these changes is that you'll be forced to click through a warning in your browser even if you installed the certificate (or the root CA signing the certificate). The Microsoft page about no longer trusting SHA1 certs is confusing in this respect because it includes information about signing Windows binaries but it does say

Windows [...] will no longer trust any code that is signed with a SHA-1 code signing certificate and that contains a timestamp value greater than January 1, 2016

That document also says it only applies to certs that are in the Microsoft Root Certificate Program so ones you've manually installed might not be affected.

This is slightly different to the Mozilla's SHA-1 deprecation information:

After January 1, 2017, we plan to show the “Untrusted Connection” error whenever a SHA-1 certificate is encountered in Firefox.

Perhaps this isn't the override you were thinking of but it doesn't sound like a total block.

My experience of these changes is that you'll be forced to click through a warning in your browser even if you installed the certificate (or the root CA signing the certificate). The Microsoft page about no longer trusting SHA1 certs is confusing in this respect because it includes information about signing Windows binaries but it does say

Windows [...] will no longer trust any code that is signed with a SHA-1 code signing certificate and that contains a timestamp value greater than January 1, 2016

That document also says it only applies to certs that are in the Microsoft Root Certificate Program so ones you've manually installed might not be affected.

This is slightly different to the Mozilla's SHA-1 deprecation information:

After January 1, 2017, we plan to show the “Untrusted Connection” error whenever a SHA-1 certificate is encountered in Firefox.

Perhaps this isn't the override you were thinking of but it doesn't sound like a total block.

Can it really play music without your phone? It does not appear to support that: http://www.microsoft.com/micro...

If MS put real effort into providing good security [...]

You're bitching about an OS with mandatory access controls, DEP, ASLR, virtualized filesystem access, application whitelists, secure boot, and that runs its own authentication daemon in a VM so that not even the kernel itself can directly manage password hashes. You're doing this bitching in an article about a tool they maintain so you can harden and sandbox third-party programs, even when those programs weren't built with stack smashing or ASLR or all those neat Visual Studio canaries in mind.

[...]it would destroy the lucrative market for anti-malware software.

They bundle anti-malware software with the OS. They're, clearly, very concerned about not destroying all that filthy McAfee lucre.

https://support.microsoft.com/...

It is false advertising to say it's unlimited and then institute limits on the existing contracts (accounts).

Yes, but that's NOT what Microsoft is doing. They are letting people know, well in advance, that their terms are changing, and customers are given a year to either accept these new terms or find another service.

You can't one sided make changes to agreed to terms and services.

Of course you can, if the original agreed upon terms say that you can:

"7. Updates to the Services or Software, and Changes to These Terms.
a. We may change these Terms at any time, and we’ll tell you when we do. Using the Services after the changes become effective means you agree to the new terms. If you don’t agree to the new terms, you must stop using the Services, close your Microsoft account and/or Skype account and, if you are a parent or guardian, help your minor child close his or her Microsoft account or Skype account."

And...

"c. Additionally, there may be times when we need to remove or change features or functionality of the Service or stop providing a Service or access to Third-Party Apps and Services altogether. Except to the extent required by applicable law, we have no obligation to provide a re-download or replacement of any material, Digital Goods (defined in section 14(b)(v)), or applications previously purchased. We may release the Services or their features in a beta version, which may not work correctly or in the same way the final version may work."

source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

The JPG format and EXIF information are separate - just to be sure that's understood - and the EXIF information is typically associated with any photograph file format (TIF, BMP, etc) taken from any modern digital camera.

In some cases - the EXIF information contains orientation information - which makes it possible to have technology like Microsoft Photosynth.

Photosynth stitches 2d images together to create realistic panoramics AND 3d views leveraging 2d imagery. Having the exif information to process makes it much easier for the stitching process to correlate position and orientation to the process, but isn't necessary.

Here's the link: http://www.microsoft.com/web/s...

What's neat about this technology is - as Oculus VR and other forms of immersive technology become more popular, you're going to see technology like Photosynth used to form fully immersive 3d scenes from real world locations based on 2d pictures people have taken the world over.

Now need for 'new 3d cameras or expensive gear. Cities are already mapped in their entirety based on existing photos.

Wht really cool is - geo and time tagging in photo imagery makes it possible not just to paint a picture of a physical location at a single physical period of time, but over a period of time.

What this means is - once the photosynth technology matures - not only can you see what a place looks like today. but you will be able to 'rewind it' to see a complete history .

Being honest with you, I am not really concerned about privacy at all. If you want to watch me and learn about why I do what I do, then feel free.

Is it possible to get a 40gbe uplink to Amazon ? Any cloud service ?

Azure has ExpressRoute https://azure.microsoft.com/en... which looks like it would cost $20,000/month for 40gb/s. They have several ways to connect your network to their internal network.

Amazon similary has DirectConnect which lets you plug straight into a 10gbe port in select buildings.

Looks like 40gb/s of connectivity would cost you around $6,500 a month.
https://aws.amazon.com/directc...

Only the devices running Windows RT had secure boot forcibly enabled, the rest are just regular PCs with BIOS or UEFI options to disable such things... something I have done before on my SP3, something those evil folks at Microsoft even point out on their own website: http://www.microsoft.com/surfa...

There is a hack-around way to get a remote command line but it's painfully obtuse and makes no sense.

A hack-around? No, it's one single, built-in command:

Enter-PSSession -ComputerName COMPUTER -Credential USER

Instant access to an interactive shell on a server. To borrow the example from Microsoft's page, the following lists all the Powershell processes on the server and saves them into a file (also on the server):

PS C:\Users\Anon> Enter-PSSession -Computer Server01
[Server01]: PS C:\> Get-Process Powershell > C:\ps-test\Process.txt
[Server01]: PS C:\> exit
PS C:\Users\Anon>

The only complication comes from the fact that remote access is turned off by default, so you have to configure your server to accept connections. But that is really how you want a server to be; secure by default.

You're right. Windows would never do something so careless as sharing network passwords in an insecure manner.

We all just need to get over it.

For any rule you can come up with, you can probably find a valid case where breaking the rule would result in better code. Even GoTo can be useful in certain circumstances. Most of the good uses of GoTo have been codified using other key words. .C# has the continue keyword. It's basically exactly the same as using a GoTo to skip processing the current item. GoTo would have accomplished the exact same task, but people have such a dislike of GoTo that they had to create a whole other keyword that does exactly the same thing.

See subject: It's your resolver of host-domain names to IP addresses & 1st source queried by default = hosts (over DNS, especially remotely, as it's slower & prone to many security issues such as the Kaminsky redirect poisoning flaw, Open DNS (no, NOT "OpenDNS", they're great & filter vs. threats too - they're what I use in fact combined with hosts locally first)).

Hosts are part of the IP stack - in fact, hosts are a "firewall BEFORE the firewall" (operating on the MOST used threat vector in host-domain names vs. ip addresses by malware in MOST forms by FAR) since firewalls use layered drivers BEYOND the ipstack (ipstack resolver = tcpip.sys in Windows), & hosts operate WITH the ip stack itself as a filter...

SOURCE = MICROSOFT -> https://support.microsoft.com/...

APK

P.S.=> Hosts get CACHED into memory, like any file (the way I do it is to TOTALLY bypass SLOWER usermode in the faulty with large hosts files dnscache clientside service & instead, I opt to use the kernelmode diskcache - THIS MEANS NO TRANSITIONS TO USERMODE & context switch overheads involved) - plus, I "up" the priority of the read in the registry (ask if you want those settings)

+

I put my FAVORITE SITES @ THE TOP OF HOSTS cached in RAM as noted above for more speed & reliability!

(They are where I spend a GOOD 95++% of my time online like most people do so they resolve MEGA fast - far faster than calling out to remote DNS servers - between that & adblocking? I fly using hosts & do it FAR safer + more reliably via this very technique as well which proofs you vs. DNS exploits)... apk

Many employers require staff to run earlier versions of Windows to maintain compatibility with certain software. I could see how this could severely interrupt workflow if pushed too aggressively.

I don't think this happens on corporate networks that use WSUS. Doesn't happen on ours, we don't even get a chance to upgrade to 10. Which is decidedly a good thing. Microsoft may be crazy, but they're not stupid.