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A Naysayer's Take On Windows 10: Potential Privacy Mess, and Worse
Lauren Weinstein writes: I had originally been considering accepting Microsoft's offer of a free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. After all, reports have suggested that it's a much more usable system than Windows 8/8.1 — but of course in keeping with the 'every other MS release of Windows is a dog' history, that's a pretty low bar. However, it appears that MS has significantly botched their deployment of Windows 10. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, even though hope springs eternal. Since there are so many issues involved, and MS is very aggressively pushing this upgrade, I'm going to run through key points here quickly, and reference other sites' pages that can give you more information right now. But here's my executive summary: You may want to think twice, or three times, or many more times, about whether or not you wish to accept the Windows 10 free upgrade on your existing Windows 7 or 8/8.1 system.
Now that we're into the first week of widespread availability for the new version, if you're a Windows user and upgrader, has your experience been good, horrible, or someplace between?
Solitaire is now a separate subscription or you get ads? Lame. Penny wise and pound foolish, MS.
I've been running Windows 10 on a couple of systems that are six years old. Boot and shutdown times markedly better than Windows 7. So far all evidence good and bad on performance on Win10 I've seen online is anecdotal at best and FUD (like her blog post) at worst.
Free is free, meh.
It's also enabled by default if you don't customize your installation settings and in a nutshell, does the following:
- uploads a supposedly-encrypted form of your wireless AP's password to a Microsoft server for safe-keeping
- when enabled, shares your wireless password with anyone on your Facebook, Outlook or Skype contact lists who also has it enabled
- also automatically joins you onto hotspots that your contacts share, regardless of how they are secured.
I'm beginning to understand how Microsoft can afford to offer the "new and improved" Windows as a free upgrade for a year, I'm guessing the military and surveillance agency contracts have more than paid the bill.
tldr; Dont trust Microsoft, Trust Google!
I felt very suspicious about the whole affair to be honest. Microsoft giving me an OS upgrade for free? Yea, that doesn't sound suspicious at all! Turns out I was wright to be suspicious, and will stick with my old version of Windows until they decide to behave. The UI in 10 does look nice, but not at the cost of feeling like my OS will be farming my information. Maybe, hopefully, finally, one day - this will encourage people to invest in and explore ways to improve the Ux of alternative operating systems.
I don't think the launch was botched at all. But the actual point of the article is right - it is a privacy nightmare. I was actually really proud of Windows 8 because the privacy settings were set very private, you could actually skip that screen and be pretty safe. Everything was defaulted to off like sending reports n shit. Then W10 they made the "customise" link just a shade different from the background blue colour and they see to be hoping people wouldn't have noticed that now everything defaults to "PUSH ALL THE THINGS." I was disappointed in that. But I feel the release and the OS itself is solid. It has been solid for several months on the Insiders chain.
The headline blares "potential privacy mess," and the summary doesn't even mention it.
Nice work,guys. :-P
What a crappy choice for an article. It's a bunch of Google shill crap followed by generalizations and no specifics about actual issues users are specifically facing. I'm fairly certain you can opt out of a lot of the stuff he's complaining about.
A negative article about Windows on /. ?!?? Well that's new!
I am not a fan of Microsoft but the Author's trust in Google wrt his data is definitely misplaced, that makes me assume he doesn't know 2 bits about modern day technology (advertisements) and is probably just a MS hater.
I only trust blog posts from Bennett Haselton. I cannot take these opinions seriously, nor are they worthy of my advice.
You are still griping about automatic updates to the system? KEEP YOUR SYSTEM PATCHED. Or don't run Windows. Or run the Enterprise Version. Home users NEED AUTOMATIC UPDATES. Otherwise their systems won't stay patched.
Not that it matters at this point. As was evidenced by the recent OSX one-line-root flaw, security is non-existent.
Typical Microsoft
It's simply not acceptable that an operating system collects data about the user and uploads it to the vendor. If this is in the EULA, it should be disqualified by most companies and governments.
There's going to be a lot of noise. I would suggest taking a wait-and-see attitude for some weeks or months before bringing down the hammer. I have seen others say they had no issue.
My views of Microsoft and Google are pretty much diametrically opposed -- I have enormous faith in Google and Googlers doing the right thing with respect to protecting the data I share with them
She also complains that the default settings are too permissive, so there's that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
My experience was completely botched. I had BIOS level RAID drives for a RAID 5 not as primary hard drive setup that did not come over. No driver download could fix the issue and of course their was no rollback to Windows 7. Unfortunately my Windows 7 was OEM install so I had to reinstall a pirated version of windows 7 where the driver support was present. Now thanks to the changes in migration path, I will no longer be able to upgrade to Windows 10 unless I purchase. That being said everything but the drivers for my RAID migrated beautifully and after stripping out some search the Internet functionality was happy with Windows 10 functionality for the week that I could not access my additional hard drive media RAID.
Maybe it was just poorly written, but it doesn't seem like she has any specific complaints.
Then there was the odd bit about how she trusts Google, so it's okay for them to collect vast amounts of information about her.
Why is this here?
Required reading for internet skeptics
So far, other than Windows 7, I haven't see a windows version work so good at release. 8 was just a miserable UI experience, Vista was a resource hog that refused to run anything and XP actually killed a machine that had to be replaced by warranty (OK that may have been a bad machine but XP never was stable for me until SP1).
I disapprove of the forced updates but I find having all update generally does more good than harm. I've seen updates break computers but I've seen missed updates cause more problems.
I have to disagree and I'm no MS fan. My install went flawless and most people don't understand the while WiFi access thing anyway. Yes, they want to sell you stuff, but who does not? Your not forced to buy! Everyone and his brother wants your money any way they can get it! Welcome to the Net!
People griping about something MS does? How original..
Let's whine about Microsoft's "privacy mess" while using our Android devices and posting on Facebook..
Installed W10 Pro on my PC last night. After all the copying and such, you get a screen that mentions privacy items and offers you the chance to configure them manually. Behold, you can turn off 2 screens of data going to MS and 3rd party applications. I believe the option to turn off wi-fi sharing was there too. So, yes, if you just blindly click through anything that says NEXT, you might have a problem. If you actually read crap, you can avoid most of this mess at install.
So far, I have no complaints about 10. It looks nice and seems to run as smoothly as the Win7 Ultimate it replaced. Previously installed apps and games all seem to work, although I certainly haven't tried them all yet. The only stand out annoyance was that all my media file associations were reset to use stock MS applications.
you mileage may vary...
joke spamming is an art :-) albeit comedy can be a personal opinion.
what shall we buy windows 10 or android ? cant we just buy a new brain all at the same time ?
This.
Unless the article is quite lengthy and repetitively redundant and a shameless presentation of self-promotion, and authored by Bennett Haselton, it has to be pure bullshit.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Anti-Microsoft, pro-Google, and no stated reason for faith in one "doing the right thing with respect to protecting the data" while the other, apparently, will not.
Except for this:
How this suffices for posting on Slashdot with the headline tease "Privacy Mess" eludes me. Google = Bing. Google Drive = OneDrive. Chrome = Win 8+ windows-account-synced favorites and settings. Pot and Kettle both the same color, black or otherwise.
Now that we're into the first week of widespread availability for the new version [...]
Didn't Windows 10 came out like yesterday (Wednesday, 7/29/2015)?
I think the real question is, are you running 7 or 8? I have 7 on my main pcs; that's not changing. I also have a couple of laptops with 8; how could 10 be worse? Those are getting the update.
but I certainly wouldn't mind having a free upgrade to Windows 10 on the one old dual boot machine..
Don't try to upgrade from Windows Update. Just don't. It'll fail. Something is borked with the download process. It'll probably be fixed in a week (or even today, maybe), but for now, to be on the safe side, just go to this link - https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... and download the ISO. Then burn it to a DVD or install it onto a USB drive of sufficient capacity, and away you go. Not sure if it would work if you mounted it to a virtual drive, but worth a try.
I updated 3 systems (a 3 year old desktop, a 2 year old laptop with hybrid graphics, and a virtual machine in VMware on a 4 year old craptop) and did not have any upgrade issues. The only problem I had was on my desktop, where I would occasionally get a MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSOD when viewing the start menu, until I updated my AMD Catalyst drivers to the latest on the AMD site.
Some more pitfalls:
- If you have exotic or rare network cards, graphics cards or printers, you may want to hold off to see if people with your hardware have similar problems. .NET framework, kernel, or other things like that? You should probably not attempt an upgrade, especially if the vendor/developer of these changes is not a well-known commercial entity with an established footprint.
- Is your GPU (graphics card, whether it's on the CPU, on the motherboard, or an expansion card) *more than* 4 years old? If so, you may have some problems, especially if it's by Intel.
- Do you have any programs installed which install custom software into the OS kernel ("kernel modules" / "drivers")? Things like: virtualization software (VMware, Virtual Box), VPN software (OpenVPN, SSL VPN clients, etc.), certain audio / video production software, etc? If you see anything in Device Manager that isn't actually a piece of hardware and sounds like it's associated with a program you have, chances are good that the answer is "yes". You should really consider uninstalling these programs before you upgrade to reduce the potential for incompatibility in the kernel. Then you can try to install them after the upgrade is complete, where the driver will hopefully fail to load "gracefully" and error out of the installer if it turns out to be incompatible.
- Is your system *extremely* "hacked up", with extensive deep-running customizations to the UI,
Summary: If you have a computer that was purchased new with current-gen hardware within the past 4 years, and you don't have anything more than web browsers, office programs, and games installed, you should have no problems upgrading. If you have a much older computer, your risk of breakage is higher. If you have deep customizations to the OS, your risk of breakage is higher. If you're in doubt, hold off until others with similar configurations try it first and report their results. But for the love of God, use the ISO, not Windows Update, to upgrade.
Ever read the 100s of other EULA's you've (apparently) blindly accepted?
Take this sig and smoke it.
That's terrible. But it's exactly the kind of thing you can expect from upgrading a production machine to a wholly new OS without taking, it would seem, even the most basic of preventative precautions. What you did was extremely foolish, and there are lessons to be learned.
Trying to get Windows 10 to run on my older Sempron laptop is nothing but trouble. It meets the specs, but... it's gotten significantly slower from the Insider releases to the 'Pro' release now. If you have an older ATI video card, you will be out of luck with drivers (not MS' fault I know). The last driver AMD released for my card was a Vista one, so I'm stuck with the generic 1024 x 768 driver. I set up this system to try out Visual Studio 2015 after 8 years on Linux and Eclipse, and it is a real disappointment... takes forever to run the installer, setting up a new JavaScript desktop app project and pressing 'build' fails with unspecified, unfixable errors, bing maps samples don't work, etc etc etc... It really hasn't been worth the effort to try going back. I can run Ubuntu and Eclipse on this machine just fine, thanks very much.
... what experiments were performed and what data points gathered, and where are the conclusions based on the study?
I am not implementing Windows 10 because it is a security bitch and I'm not interested in fucking with the drivers that run my peripherals.
I will wait until the early adopters send in their reports.
There.
I just wrote the same goddam article.
yw
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I run Linux as my primary OS. Windows in virtual machines to do whatever. With VT-d passthrough I never need to boot natively to Windows ever again. Fuck that shit!
windows 10 released with a zero-day glitch so severe it showed up on imgurs frontpage and reddit. It has the ability to connect Xbox with Windows, which would make sense in a world where all the titles weren't already ported and working just fine in windows xp/7/8. The start menu still includes a vainglorious middle finger to the customers who refused to accept the Microsoft start "page." A mini version is included for your consideration alongside a useful start bar. Internet Explo--er i mean Microsoft Edge wasted no time doing what IE does best: it removed my start page, failed to import my bookmarks, and immediately decided it would become the default browser instead of Chrome.
and did you hear about the apps store? oh sweet mother mary of christs christmas cookies does Microsoft want you to know about it in this release. Everything, absolutely everything, is tied into their apps store. Did you need games? a word processor? anything? well if the app cant be found, the store shall provide.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Windows "free" edition will write home about pretty much everything you do. The default settings send Microsoft ya unique device ID with everything you type, everything you say, every link you click, and every file name. The settings you can't change send less to Microsoft but still way too much. I'm not comfortable with this level of reporting. More importantly I'm not comfortable with Microsoft having the option (updates you can't disable) to ratchet that up. I'm not a frog for Microsoft's pot.
That alone is reason for me to either pay for the non-shit version or only run it on a separate computer for testing and learning the OS. It looks like a fine OS, but it's not a free OS.
linky
linky
linky
Read their privacy policy here, it's a litany of ass covering that boils down to, "we'll collect all the data we can and use it any way we please but hey, we won't send you ads that creep you out".
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
From this article;
You can deactivate that by hopping into settings, but I’d argue that it should be opt-in rather than on by default. Many users won’t get round to turning it off, even though they would probably want to.
I would argue that most of the people who have an issue with the default sync option are the ones that would know how to turn it off and would do it. Conversely, most of the people that would benefit from the sync, that being most of the users of Windows 10, would not know it exists and/or how to turn it on.
Microsoft had to choose whether to cater to the average user or the security conscious user that does not trust Microsoft. Microsoft chose the former.
Or they would have noticed that during windows 10 install, a big fuggin screen with options to disable all the telemetry stuff. Complaining that it's "enabled by default" is just a way to say "I am too lazy to read on-screen prompts and will blindly click the next or ok button until I get to a screen that is familiar to me".
I successfully and easily installed 10 on two machines (HP Envy laptop and a home built core2duo box) with only the slightest of hiccups. Th home home built box had a brief vid driver issue but it resolved itself within minutes.
Using TFA method, I declare Windows 10 a massive success and a beacon of hope for all computer-kind.
It still handles wi-fi better than OS X discoveryd.
You asshat. Why wouldn't you check to see if your RAID setup was compatible first? This isn't a windows problem, this is classic pebcac.
Where is the executive summary? No information to support his claim
It could not have been TFA because there are only 2 mentions of Google in the whole post. One of those is a disclaimer that the person has consulted for Google but is not doing so presently. The other is: Being careful with your data isn't just a Microsoft thing. My views of Microsoft and Google are pretty much diametrically opposed -- I have enormous faith in Google and Googlers doing the right thing with respect to protecting the data I share with them, but even in the case of Google -- with whom I share a great deal of data -- I'm selective about what I do share.
I put the parts you didn't read or didn't pay attention to in bold so that even a moron can find them.
You would have been okay if you had said she favored Google in the article, but to claim it's a shill is completely dishonest.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I only used it for a few hours last night but here's what I got so far: I disabled a bunch of the data collection things during the installation (I think I left usage stats or something like that...I like to give something back). The color schemes aren't that great. The start menu/search has been easy enough to adjust to. the UAC stuff messed up a few of my programs that didn't have permission to write to their own directories in Program Files. I don't use media center so I don't care about that. I heard that people had graphics problems with NVidia cards so I tried some games out. I think the drivers for this version of Windows actually enabled some new AA options for games. TF2 looked smoother. Dota 2 was where I had problems. I have DSR enabled on that and it couldn't properly translate my mouse movements. The cursor showed up in the right place but the game thought I could only access the top left quarter of the screen with my mouse. I couldn't get to the exit button. I turned DSR off and it was fine until I closed the game. It hung for a while but eventually closed. The install also didn't copy over my Realtek equalizer settings but that was a quick fix. I did an update after clicking around a bit and then restarted. The startup time seemed slow. I'm expecting a lot of updates but so far I think it's pretty OK for free. It looks different and that might scare people but you get used to it quickly enough. I'm not too jammed about anything except that little graphics problem.
Nice idea. For Microsoft. A shit one for their customers. Better is to tell them to fuck off. Lose the millions you spent developing it,assholes.
I tried to use Windows 10's Media Creator to create a .iso I could burn to upgrade multiple computers. It threw the trending "Something happened" error message. Great start.
I later figured out that this error is thrown if you try to save the .iso to a directory junction. It's probably not the only cause, since directory junctions that aren't preinstalled are rare, but it is one of them.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Does it run Minesweeper OK?
I have been running Windows 10 on my desktop for the last couple of months and it has been an interesting experience.
I am a WoW player and will sometimes jump into Dragon Age. I also played the SWBF Alpha which ran just fine. My system is an 8 core AMD CPU with a Radeon HD 7900 on an Asus ROG motherboard. There have been definite issues with system stability related to graphics drivers even though the performance has not been noticeably slower.
I was running Windows 7 before and attempted to do an in-place upgrade initially but it failed despite trying many different things. I ended up installing clean from an ISO and have been on the fast ring ever since.
I have enjoyed seeing the evolution of the desktop and the changes to the UI over the last couple of months and I am really happy with the smooth transition from insider to "RTM" bits.
I like Edge even though I will stick with Firefox until there are some key extensions available for it.
I kind of liked the "modern" version of Skype that they then took away.
I am not really sure that I like Cortana integration.... I just am not really sure how to utilize it fully.
I do REALLY like the MSA authentication and Azure cloud services integration though... It is really neat to have seamless integration between my Nokia windows phone and my desktop without having to install any 3rd party stuff.
I used to be like most /.ers and hate MS and Windows, but over the years I have changed my tune. I spent many years running a Gentoo desktop and working through all kinds of problems, but I have sort of come full circle now. My first OS was DOS 6 + Win 3.1... I bought Windows 95 on 20+ floppies then 98 then moved on to Slackware 3 and stayed in the Linux world for several years before returning to Windows 7 on my desktop.
This is the first time I have ever been a beta user of Windows and I have to say it was a fun experience.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
The driver model did not change for storage devices (In fact it hasn't changed since Vista). That means that windows 10 uses the exact same drivers as Windows 7 for things like RAID controllers. You should have been able to simply install the same driver that you had been using on Windows 7.
I had a similar issue on one of my systems. Windows 10 had a built-in driver for the Intel ICH series controller on the motherboard but not the Intel SAS controller I had. I simply installed the same driver that I used on Windows 8 and everything worked just fine.
I am very pleased with Windows 10. I am mainly a OS X user, since the first Mac 128. However, I have had to use Windows on occasion professionally and I play several games that require it. I do not claim that I am a good example for others, I run fairly new equipment, with lots of ram (for me, 16GB) and lots of disks (10TB total). I run multi boot, OS X 10.11, OS X 10.10, Debian, SuSE and Ubuntu, Windows 7, Windows 8.1 (couldn't stand 8) and Windows 10. I always apply all upgrades/updates I can find - I love being a beta site.
All in all, on my system with daily use, I have found Windows 10 to be stable, and easier for ME to use than Windows 8(.1). Windows 7 was the first Windows I ever endorsed, I found it to be stable and "easy" to use. I expect Windows 10 to be the second Windows I endorse after using it for another 6 months or so.
From TFA: "I have enormous faith in Google and Googlers doing the right thing with respect to protecting the data I share with them,.."
"Heh, dumbass." - Beavis
I read through some of the privacy documentation. Buried in the mass is basically, MS reserves the right to share your information with whomever they deem necessary. But they want to assure you they won't be abusing that right. And they want you to feel rest assured that opting to give up your privacy will give you a more pleasant experience using your computer.
I think it's pretty funny that out of the box Windows 10 comes with a 3D prototyping and printing utility, yet when I try to modify my appearance settings I seem to be restricted to a pre-selected palate of exactly 24 colors that I can make my desktop if I don't use a photo. Most are garish yellows, fuschia, etc.
The All Programs list is still horribly alphabetized, complete with space wasted headers. Those theme settings I talked about? You manage themes from a classical Control Panel window, but the desktop wallpaper is handled separately but a 'Windows UI' app. I found various settings for data collection that are all enabled by default, from Cortana using the internet to augment search results, to Windows usage feedback, to URL checking, and more. These are only shown if you select Advanced setup, and the default is to send everything back to MS. Disabling Cortana and Bing searches takes additional config after installing. Now add in the fact that MS wants you to use a Microsoft email account that physically deletes your local user account... and I have totally had it with MS. No way would I install this on my personal machines at home.
Convenient as I just got a new job and am being given a choice of Mac or Windows. I pretty much never in my life would have said Mac... but that's what I am going to do. At home I'm moving to Linux, with a Win 7 VM for support of a couple devices that require Windows.
Maybe 10 will get better over time, but I don't agree with the MS path to a walled garden and data collection. Buh bye MS. Signed, a reformed former MS platform user and .Net developer.
The level of data collection and sharing enabled by default in Windows 10 is truly scary, as I mentioned in a comment yesterday (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7759605&cid=50205063). But that blog post is snarky and awful. There is a decent article about it, which belongs in the summary, ironically one she linked herself: http://thenextweb.com/microsof...
There may be a valid point or two in that blog, but the Google drool all over it makes it truly terrible.
"I have enormous faith in Google and Googlers doing the right thing with respect to protecting the data I share with them"
Umm yeah...
"Users with Home versions of Win10 will be required to accept automatic updates, including drivers.
And here's a biggy. If you don't want Microsoft installing updates automatically -- if you're a user who has chosen to take control of this process up to now -- you probably will hate Win10.
In some environments, this is unacceptable from a support and security standpoint, and reports are already coming in regarding driver related issues."
The cesspool that is the average Windows Home machine can only be improved by automatic updates. Just heard from someone a couple of days ago that they disabled Windows Update completely because it made their computer slow.
Many users -- especially on somewhat under-powered systems -- may find Win10 to be a painfully slow experience compared with Win7, irrespective of MS' claims.
Weasel worded nonsense - most factual reports suggest the opposite.
First things first. It's obvious from my email today that this icon and MS pitch alone are confusing many users. They've never seen anything like this appear before and many think it's a virus or that their system has been otherwise compromised.
Ah I wish the average user was that suspicious about actual threats. That corner on the average Windows machine is taken up by about twenty background apps.
The privacy issues in Windows 10 are quite fucking terrifying, and matter far more than one more icon hidden in a corner.
The issue for me is that I use Windows because I have to, Android / iPhone / GMail / Siri / Google Now etc. are a choice. And if I am not wrong, these are all opt in, you get notices when you first start up your phone / iDevice. Also a quick read suggest Microsoft's data collection goes far beyond anything I have seen even from Google.
"Windows 10 generates a unique advertising ID for each user on each device. "
"We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services."
tl;dr Windows 10 privacy issues are scary, but that blog post is garbage, try here: http://thenextweb.com/microsof...
Problem Exists Between Chair And Chair? pebkac
Wait, why couldn't you roll back to Windows 7? I installed the Windows 10 update on Windows 8.1 Pro and was easily able to roll back after I determined that Windows 10 is a steaming pile.
To get clicks.
One Ring 0 to rule them all. One ring to wiretap them.
One Ring 0 to spy on them all and in adware f... them.
Unique ad ID for every user, forced updates, harvesting and sharing our data. Come on guys, you must know where this is going. IMHO it is all targeted at future advertising and monetising us. They might have finally realised that there are tools like adblock that won't go away easily and the only sure way to present us with crap is to firstly deprive us of ways of fighting back (eg. uninstalling unwanted bloatware) and then make advertising a part of the system which I am pretty sure will start appearing sooner than we think..
And that's a worrying idea. It seems that soon they may not only have our data but our hardware as well. You'll be buying a shiny new unit just to let someone else tell you what to run on it. Imagine ads popping up while working in Excel.
And when you think about it, there is no real alternative. Even though there other OSes available for our own tasks, the majority of the world runs on Microsoft products. We cannot simply dump and ignore them if we care about our jobs.
Modern slavery.
The "thenextweb" link has the following excerpt from the Microsoft Privacy Statement and Services Agreements:
We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services.
The author notes a concern about relying on the “good faith” of corporations. I'm more concerned about the phrase "to protect our customers". Microsoft is giving away Windows 10 for free, so who do you/we think their customers really are? I'm pretty sure it's not us. Even if we are, how would accessing and/or disclosing our data protect us?
Also questionable is that they will access, disclose, preserve personal data when they believe it's necessary to "enforce the terms governing the use of the services". Not sure how personal data is needed to do that, unless it has to do with providing that data to other entities involved in the agreement.
All in all, I'm pretty sure I won't be upgrading my Windows 7 Ultimate system to Windows 10 - ever. If for no other reason than the phrase "freemium solitaire". When the time comes, I'll switch to a Linux or BSD only solution - come what may.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Everything I've read said WMC (Windows Media Center) is gone in Windows 10.
As someone who actually uses it, I've been looking for alternatives. There look to be some good ones out there.
However WMC has been getting worse over the years, mostly because MS more less stopped supporting it or making updates for it a long time ago, and it (and Media Player in general) has't kept up with evolving codecs (likely due to copyright issues and the MPAA).
So while it isn't all that sad that the final nail has been put into the WMC coffin, I've found myself using VLC more and more simply because WMC would mess it up one why or another anyway an increasing amount. One of the reasons I still use it is I have a remote that is compatible with WMC, and with WIndows 10 would likely have to use alternative software, and go out and spend the 50$ to go get myself a new remote or media keyboard like the KT400. Perhaps I'll find a way to hack my current remote... we'll see.
I've registered for the Windows 10 update, but I'll likely wait a few weeks to see what others experiences end up being like.
I installed it today on two separate machines, one a Win 8.1 fresh install (to get the update) and one a Win 7 install. Both worked in a very straightforward manner. The only issue I had was that the fresh install machine somehow unmounted one of my secondary drives, so I just had to reassign it a drive letter. Then everything worked just fine.
I RTFA and read the links. They're shocking and I don't use that word casually. I am posting the direct links here with the excerpts from the license agreement.
No human being who had these explained to them in an ordinary setting by someone they knew and trusted would knowingly agree to them.
Here goes:
From:
Sign into Windows with your Microsoft account and the operating system immediately syncs settings and data to the companyâ(TM)s servers. That includes your browser history, favorites and the websites you currently have open as well as saved app, website and mobile hotspot passwords and Wi-Fi network names and passwords.
To enable Cortana to provide personalized experiences and relevant suggestions, Microsoft collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device. ...
Microsoft can disclose your data when it feels like it
This is the part you should be most concerned about: Microsoftâ(TM)s new privacy policy assigns is very loose when it comes to when it will or wonâ(TM)t access and disclose your personal data:
We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services. ....
Cortana also learns about you by collecting data about how you use your device and other Microsoft services, such as your music, alarm settings, whether the lock screen is on, what you view and purchase, your browse and Bing search history, and more.â
The author goes on to note:
Lots of things can live in those two words âoeand more.â Also note that because Cortana analyzes speech data, Microsoft collects âoeyour voice input, as well as your name and nickname, your recent calendar events and the names of people in your appointments, and information about your contacts including names and nicknames.â ....
The updated terms also state that Microsoft will collect information âoefrom you and your devices, including for example âapp use data for apps that run on Windowsâ(TM) and âdata about the networks you connect to.'â ...
Windows 10 generates a unique advertising ID for each user on each device. That can be used by developers and ad networks to profile you. ...
They intend to completely remove the notion of privacy from the tools we use to create share and store the most private thoughts we have.
This is Linux's Big Chance. People will reject this massive barefisted amoral invasion of privacy and flee- if they can get a decent computing experience out of some UNIX clone.
Not to turon this into a "What['s wrong with Linux" discussion but I have sincerely tried to move to Linux repeatedly and just found the experience awful. I am nto interested in learning a CLI to get normal stuff done-at all. The performance compared to Windows has always been terrible, my software is slow, the drivers are missing etc etc.
Perosnally I feel like Ubuntu is somehow in the thrall of a culutre of devs who are not interested in accomodating the masses and take it as a point of pride that finding getting installing and using applications still requires exiting to a CLI, which knowledge they love. Yes, many of them do want to share the love with you, but many people wanted me to share their love the Grateful Dead's music with me too and the thing is, I just don't like it.
Does Chip's Challenge still run?
64-bit Windows has never supported 16-bit executables, except for Windows 7 Pro that came with a coupon to download Windows XP into a VM. To run the Windows 3.1 game Chip's Challenge on 64-bit Windows 10, you'll need an emulator, whether it's an Atari Lynx emulator or a PC emulator with a copy of Windows 3.1.
If you need your laptop ready to travel in a hurry, close the lid. It'll go to suspend. Then open the lid at work, and it'll resume.
In my one and only encounter with Windows 8, I discovered that it refuses to acknowledge that ad-hoc wireless networks exist. It won't list them, and you can't create them, without going into the godawful Windows command line! Meanwhile, my Ubuntu laptop can create one in three clicks, and it's only a little more annoying to do the same in Windows 7.
So my question to you Win10ers out there... have they corrected this glaring flaw*? Dropping down into the terminal to fix a network connection is something I haven't had to do in Linux for years, and Linux's terminal emulators are at least pretty good at what they do. Having to use the Windows command prompt to do something is absolutely agonizing, and the knowledge that it was completely unnecessary in previous versions of Windows is infuriating.
*which, by the way, I'm sure is rooted in the idea of "all our users are drooling idiots and all ad-hoc wireless networks are malicious"
to the update not being required to install right at this instant and they need the bandwidth for something else (hello 300mb "ms word 2010 help file" update) due to being in a low connectivity area.
Then you should let Windows know that a particular SSID is "a low connectivity area". See Microsoft's page about Windows 8 and metered connections. The page states that when only a metered connection is available, "Windows Update will only download priority updates."
I don't have Windows 8 or 10 in front of me as I type this, but the steps to mark a connection as metered in Android 5 are as follows: In Settings > Wireless & networks > Data usage, open the overflow menu and choose Network restrictions. It gives you a list of all the SSIDs you've seen, with a checkbox to mark each as metered. The notice at the bottom states: "Metered networks are treated like cellular when background data is restricted. Apps may warn before using these networks for large downloads."
The most common error I am seeing is people grabbing the Windows 10 PRO ISO, and trying to install it on a Windows 7/8/8.1 Home install, then bitching that "It won't accept my Product Key!"
Here is the upgrade matrix.
Windows 7:
Windows 7 Starter will be upgraded to Windows 10 Home
Windows 7 Home Basic will be upgraded to Windows 10 Home
Windows 7 Home Premium will be upgraded to Windows 10 Home
Windows 7 Professional will be upgraded to Windows 10 Pro
Windows 7 Ultimate will be upgraded to Windows 10 Pro
Windows 8:
Windows 8.1 will be upgraded to Windows 10 Home
Windows 8.1 with Bing will be upgraded to Windows 10 Home
Windows 8.1 Pro will be upgraded to Windows 10 Pro
Exluded Editions:
Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 Enterprise, and Windows RT/RT 8.1 are excluded from the free upgrade offer.
your constitutional right to a trial. They make you agree to binding arbitration instead. (Section 10 of the EULA).
That one really burns me. It's pretty unAmerican to say "Give up a constitutional right or you can't use our product." (Was that there before?)
How can this be legal? There's got to be a way around that. I have no intentions of ever suing Microsoft, but this rubs me the wrong way. What's next, you have to give up your right to freedom of speech?
Windows 10 is "secured" against use with hobbyist hardware. It requires new device drivers to not only be signed with an Authenticode certificate but more specifically to be signed with the more expensive EV certificate. (Source) The cost of obtaining an EV certificate and of setting up a corporation or LLC that qualifies for an EV certificate can make it cost-prohibitive for hardware hobbyists to produce low-volume peripherals that work with Windows 10.
Microshaft don't want to be left behind since almost everyone is building databases about everyone already, ISP sniffing user data - check, antivirus guys sniffing files, urls - check, malware guys, well those do that too, did i forgot apple massive sniffing procedures? - check that one too, CC guys also have massive db's basically this is huge business so they are like fuck it we will make some $$$ too bro and its also good for security of the country ;)
If you don't have outgoing or upstream firewall blocking all this interesting stuff, well you don't have to worry about anything anymore with win 10, all your stuff is already up-there...
Upgrading was one of the worst decisions I've ever made. Windows 10 is slow, ugly, and a privacy nightmare. It makes Vista look like a beautiful fast privacy advocate's dream.
You're not stuck with no upgrade path later. Once you do an in-place upgrade from Win7 to Win10 and activate online, you can flatten the box and do a clean install with no key.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-win_upgrade/reinstalling-windows-10-after-upgrade/578d0b7f-57e4-4893-b9d1-6cfac0d6290a?auth=1
you'll need [...] a PC emulator with a copy of Windows 3.1.
Just get Dos box
Exactly. Here's a guide to getting it working. But you still have to buy a genuine copy of Windows 3.1 and a USB floppy drive to read it into your DOSBox. I don't think Windows came on CD until Windows 95.
sack 'o' pus updates often don't say whether they are working, don't shut down. I have had to pull the battery out of my laptop to be able to eat supper or go to bed so many times the gold is probably rubbed off the contacts. there is no excuse for hijacking the computer and not saying a damn thing about it, Softies....
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Unfortunately, it has a tendency to blow up.
Constitutional rights are between citizens and the government, not citizens and other citizens, or citizens and corporations. Slashdot removing your comment is not a violation of your freedom of speech.
I decided to take the plunge and installed today. Unfortunately, explorer was completely locked up and non-responsive from the first boot: no start menu, no systray icons, no clock. After managing to get firefox open, I was able to do a little research and find a similar issue reported with the preview version with older Nvidia drivers. Sure enough, I upgraded to the latest Nvidia drivers and explorer works again.
Shocking that the issue was reported and the driver was not blacklisted, but glad I was able to resolve. Of course, someone less computer literate probably would not have been able to get a browser open without explorer working...
If I was running 8 or 8.1 and could not conveniently or inexpensively go back to 7, then I'd upgrade the machine to 10. Or put Linux on it, maybe, depending on what I was using it for.
I have a copy of 8, upgraded a win7 laptop to it, fought with it for a month, upgraded to 8.1, fought with that awhile longer, and ended up restoring back to Win7. And that's where it sits now. And my copy of Windows 8 sits on the shelf. Had I bought the laptop with 8 already on it, yeah, I'd move to 10. 8 is such a dog that it would be worth time and energy to work through the teething problems with a 10 upgrade.
On the other hand, a stable system running Windows 7, on which I do actual work, yeah, that's not going to get upgraded to 10 anytime soon. More than anything else, there's no *reason* to do so.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Yes, but the other games that still worked with everything between XP and Windows 8.1 stop working, or work only in a window, to put it rantingly. On the plus side, instead of games I'll have to settle learning Haskell for fun since I now have the time.
In the US, with the current Copyright laws in place and other laws,
My father bought XP for me when I was a baby, say just at the end of its
retail life - but we'll use 2010 for round numbers. Current US law says
I can skip only one generation in a will; I have a child at age 70 and leave
the un-activated XP to his son. My family follows the same pattern of
children. So that's 140 years (plus a little more - who knows) or 2150
MS will have to keep their activation server alive for my legal copy of XP
to be activated. Wonder if Bill understood all of this. They really should
just supply an End-of-life patch that removes the whole activation requirement --
Bill's going to be pretty old by time that XP copy gets activated!
This blog doesn't exactly read like the writings of a Nobel laureate. This guy (and wtf kind of name is Lauren for dude anyway?) seems to just likes to repeat stuff he's heard other people say in his own rambling semi-coherent style.
I'm not one to defend MS, however, and I certainly don't miss Windows which I abandoned as my primary OS 10 years ago last month. I do still have a Win7 partition that I keep around for playing games, but that's it. btw if you're using Windows, then you really should be using Win7, that shit just works.
I read that as between computer and chair. Between chair and chair could apply to Steve Ballmer at Microsoft though.
Was this even an article? No citations, some (extremely) biased personal opinions where MS is bad and Google is good. Way to waste my time Slashdot. What's next? Chemtrails?
Having been a long-time Windows user (business requirements) I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. It was quite good actually, after a day or so, my daughter and I found out where everything is. MS .. good job ! Wouldn't be giving up my Linuxmint17 desktop and/or my Fedora 21 desktop and laptop though, but Windows 10 seems fine at this point.
My two bits/
Clive DaSilva Email: clive.dasilva@gmail.com Ubuntu 18.10 Kernel 4.18
You won't get to the post button as the government will have already scanned what your trying to post and seized you and your computer.
And people though Canonical was bad with its silly search feature spying on you when you entered anything into it.
Humorously one of my least liked distributions due to the bundled malware is now one of the most privacy friendly: Hint, it's Linux Mint. While it include a bunch of non-free parts, at least, any spying those non-free pieces are or aren't ding isn't so obvious.
I'm still working on moving to 100% free distribution, but I'm practically there. I don't have Adobe Flash installed and that was the last piece of non-free software I was really using. I already removed all the non-free firmware and use the Linux-Libre kernel. Now I just use the FireFox MPV plug-in to watch videos online. There are plenty of non-DRM infected sites for content (though most use Adobe Flash video player, but with MPV you don't need it installed to watch). And yea- I don't have a Windows/Mac computer nor does anybody I know. My primary work computer is free of all the proprietary bits too (at least anything I use)!
Needs to be downloaded from the windows store as a Metro App. It's annoying as shit. The new minesweeper is more annoying than the metro menu.
Has this ever been tested? I know there's somethings you can't give up your rights to, and in Australia I believe this is one of them. Anyone know about the USA?
I cannot STAND all the windows 8.0 8.1 bashing All and i mean ALL that operating system was/is a PUG on top of 7.
Runs games like a champion and hurts to stare at unless you drop to desktop, they forgot to screw up the hot keys
so what does it even matter windows + r is still run box and all the old stuff still works. call it the next vista isnt even close
personally as a gaming pc goes 8.0 and 8.1 i think they did a hell of a job.
and......
so far......
I'm not hating it. Holy shit - I'm not hating it! I have been able to find my way around, the whack-a-mole Windows 8 system controls are gone, and I haven't had to go to the internet once to find out how to do something, also a W8 SOP.
But I set up and used some programs I expected might have trouble, and did a remote cotrol session across the country training a person, and it all worked. I'll note that there are a few things yet I'm really concerned about, like the update process, and Wi-fi sense.
And lest anyone call me a shill, I'm an old school Microsoft basher.
But I could actually use this damn thing. sheesh, I need a beer now, I'm all shook up....
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Here we go:
http://windows.microsoft.com/e...
Lets do a little walking here:
----
Data We Collect
Microsoft collects many kinds of information in a variety of ways to operate effectively and provide you the best products, services and experiences. We may combine this data with information that is linked to your user ID, such as information associated with your Microsoft account.
When you acquire, install and use the Program software and services, Microsoft collects information about your use of the software and services as well as about the devices and networks on which they operate. Examples of data we may collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; location, browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; voice, text and writing input; and application usage.
----
Is literally anyone here ok with this? "name, location, every file you access, every search you do, every call you make, every text you send, everything you say, anything you type into any application, and every executable you run, correlated with your MAC address, IP address, and timestamp".
That's LUDICROUS. Am I missing something here? Who cares about a wifi password that you have to opt into, when sharing EVERYTHING YOU EVER DO AT ANY TIME IN MELEE OR DETECTION RANGE OF YOUR COMPUTER, is something you just legally agreed to share with Microsoft?
It then gives examples, right below, that make it sound like this is about performance monitoring. But those are examples, not what you just agreed to share.
Am I missing something? Shouldn't this be the story?
Not when Windows 10's BRILLIANT feature of having drivers automatically download and install is constantly overwriting your legit drivers with broken ones...all with no way to disable that from happening.
Unplugged, boxed, 3 layers of scotch tape and back it goes!
You haven't kept up with EULA's, have you? It's in every piece of software for a few years now.
It doesn't sound like it ought to be. Perhaps it's not? Like, yeah, you go to "binding" arbitration, but.. if that doesn't resolve the issue to your satisfaction, you go to a real court and tell them, "well, we tried to work it out, but just couldn't." An annoying extra step if it doesn't work out, but both sides save on lawyers if it does?
Just an observation: Windows 10 release has been placed exactly in the midway (July) between Ubuntu releases (April and October).
I know it's trendy to argue as if the past does not matter but both companies have a reputation and that is VERY OBVIOUSLY what is being referred to.
Being a fanboy is cute even if it means writing stupid things. Being a "social media worker" paid to write such stupid things is a lot less cute. When the obvious is being ignored it's sometimes a bit hard to work out if the perpetrator should be pitied like a puppy that has pissed on the kitchen floor or a source of anger such as a crackhead who has walked in and is pissing on the kitchen floor.
Just had enough of the Microsoft formula... and I was a hardcore Microsoft/.Net programmer.
Mint 17.2 Cinnamon hits the sweet spot for me now... it does what an OS should and it does it exceptionally well. It surprised me, on how good it has become...
Windows 10 is like taking a depression tablet.
It's actually almost uniquely American. Such clauses are unconscionable in most other developed nations and are as such non-binding.
As one who has literally never encountered a problem with OS X WIFI since it was available on a Mac... (did I mention I do tech support for mac and windows?), I am curious about your claim.
I have to say, my experiences since the release of Windows 10 have been thoroughly positive. Everything just works, applications load fast, all the tools are there from the start, or freely available for easy download. Admittedly, I do run Debian, and this may have influenced my experience somewhat. Windows, you say? I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. A sledgehammer, yes, and with some emphasis, but not a bargepole.
Can I have some of what your smoking?
I've been dual booting WinXP/Win7 with Kubuntu for 10+ years and it's never required using a CLI to install much less -use- applications. The CLI is the fastest way to do some things (like adding a PPA repository) but is seldom the only way to do something. Getting my Lexmark All-In-One working under Win7 was a MAJOR pain but it "just worked" with Linux.
I updated a vanilla laptop running win 7, had problems with AMD drivers and ended up in continuous BSOD-reboot -loop. Next thing is to try clear install from the ISO version, but MS servers seem quite slow to download anything. I'd advice against updating in near future.
Well at least they did something right in Windows 10.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
sure, microsoft has a history of giving user-data to governments. but google has a history of making it's business off user-data. i wouldn't trust both of them with my data, but if i had to decide, i'd rather give it to microsoft.
How? That sentence in the summary basically linked to itself in TFA.
Credibility lost....
Xbox probably lacks the metered connection control because Xbox is designed to operate with wired Internet. Not only are the most commonly metered connections (cellular and satellite) unsuitable for bulk downloads, but they're also unsuitable for Xbox Live online gaming. Windows 8 and later have it because Windows is designed to operate with either a wired or wireless last mile.
Last time I checked (the constitution), there was no constitutional right to a civil trial.
There is however a constitutional right to a criminal trial, but that is something completely different and not governed by a Windows 10 EULA.
Regrettably, US courts have upheld arbitration-only agreements.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I have been working with the Windows 10 builds since last fall and so I have had a chance to watch it grow into the present product. One of the best tools they gave the Insiders was a feedback app that not only let us sound off about what was working and what wasn't but also let us see others feedback as well. As the new users are upgrading they will find that the feedback app has been retained in the final product as well. This goes along with Microsoft's claim that there will not be a Windows 11 but rather a continuously evolving product that modifies and adds to itself as our needs change.If they continue to listen to our feedback I have high hopes for a much smoother adoption cycle than we have seen in the past.
I have seen most of my concerns with the various components addressed and problems that came up with various builds were quickly repaired either directly by the development team pushing out the fixes or through easy to follow instructions in the support forums. In the middle of the beta testing I found that the mail app stopped synching with my Google accounts and this continued almost up to the end making me wonder if we were going to have a revisiting of wrangling that became the hallmark of the browser wars of the 90's. With the final build mail was repaired and my last major issue with the new OS was laid to rest.
Edge has impressed me so far and I am finding myself using it more and more as I go along.The movie viewer still needs work as several formats/codecs have hung up the app.
I have heard some complaints that the new settings are hard to navigate but since you can pull up the old control panel with a single right click on the start button I do not give that a great deal of concern. The privacy issues used to concern me but I both understand what they are trying to accomplish with WiFi Sense and I do not see it as being much more of a security risk than we already face. Anything we transmit can be intercepted and anything intercepted can be eventually cracked. It is a trade off between utility vs.security, if you make a system totally secure it is no longer likely to be useful.
Will there be issues? definitely, I am not sure that there will ever be a flawless launch. Will this be a successful? Definitely, they have put the tools in place to be more responsive to issues and suggestions.My advice to the home user, upgrade, you will not be sorry you did.
Nope. Unfortunately the Supreme Court thought it was a good idea to let corporations be unaccountable to anyone.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
This was a home PC not production. I didn't have a spare 3TB to back it onto. It was just a media box nothing I couldn't get back.
You would think the exact same drivers would work, but they did not. I went to the motherboard manufacturer and tried everything under the sun. Re-installing windows 7 on the non RAID Operating system drive picked up the RAID 5 drives instantly, no install. I am telling you there is driver support that is lacking. I have been a system admin for years. This was on the technical preview about 4 months ago.
With the Pro version I infer you have downgrade rights, not available on the Home version.
This icon leads to MS' colorful spiel for why you want to install the free Win10 upgrade.
First things first. It's obvious from my email today that this icon and MS pitch alone are confusing many users. They've never seen anything like this appear before and many think it's a virus or that their system has been otherwise compromised.
In fact, this notification is triggered by a Windows Update that MS slipped into their update stream some time ago, which the vast majority of users probably accepted without realizing what it was.
I'd go as far as saying it was KB3035583. I did the alerts and all the expected actions, just at some point I began referring to it as CWX; and wondering why it wasn't taken seriously.
C:\Windows\System32\GWX was added by KB3035583. April 4th for 24 hours it recorded your cache and actions preformed (you can view my installation of new video drivers), my HOSTS file kept the file from being sent out so I'm able to view what was collected. Everybody else in the world sent it out to a third party after it had collected what it was after.
The file in control and file sent were named the same config.xml, there were two other config.xml files which I saw as future events (I have long since removed the GWX directory), this must be one of it's actions.
It's in my journal, just always referred to as CWX instead of GWX, I have since had my cataracts removed.
I'd go as far as saying it was KB3035583.
Just looked at the update description, it's since changed; it used to read "it was to allow for an easier upgrade to windows 10" nothing else just that.
Updated update https://support.microsoft.com/...
My lowly powered Celeron HTPC is SO MUCH HAPPIER!
The upgrade was smooth. The system is more responsive. The new Tablet Mode solves a GUI issue for my usage scenario. No complaints from me.
I have a Gigabyte BRIX N2807. That's an Intel Bay Trail-M (Valleyview) SoC Celeron/Atom 1583MHz. It seems to me at first blush, the big improvement comes because the OS prevents background services from competing too vigorously with foreground apps. E.g., Win 8.1 allows the various startup routines to peg the CPU, making the system unresponsive for many minutes. By contrast, Win 10 moderates these resource hogs. After 2 days, I have NOT ONCE found the UI unresponsive!