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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?
The OS farms your information? That's it, I'm going back to my Chromebook and Android tablet.
Solitaire was originally put in Windows to train users how to use a mouse.
It now functions to train users on how to find free alternatives to the software they want.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
The OS farms your information? That's it, I'm going back to my Chromebook and Android tablet.
Google thanks you for your personal data and promises it will not be evil, perhaps just naughty.
That "naughty" comment has me imagining the different OS makers as hollywood highschool boyfriends now.
Microsoft: Football jock from a rich family. Has problems playing nice with those outside his little world and expects periodic gifts from you. But he does have a nice car and all the cool toys, plus his family just invited you to the bahamas for vacation.
Apple: Eccentric artist. Cute, paints, writes poetry, and can act. But has a HUGE ego due to loyal groupies. Expects you to pay for everything on dates.
Google: Reporter for the school newspaper. Nice guy, gets on well with others. Gives you lots of gifts, though some are not very well thought out. Constantly taking pictures of you, including some you really shouldn't have agreed to.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
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,
...don't bother, unless your time is worthless to you.
just go to this link - https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com] 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.
If you do that, the first thing it does is ask for an activation key. Your windows activation key from your original Windows media is likely to not be accepted. My 8.0 key wasn't.
Although, there is one really interesting thing you can do. Instead of creating an install ISO, take the option to just upgrade straight. Do this from a non-admin account (you know, the way you are supposed to run things for system safety). This will produce what is being argued to be the most amusing error dialog in human history, which reads in big letters "Something Happened", and then under that in smaller letters the clarification: "Something Happened". Years from now, you can tell your grandchildren you personally got this dialog.
But if you aren't aching to participate in the meme, save yourself some aggravation and wait until MS gets their act together.
2 seconds?! Utter rubbish. My Linux machine boots 10 seconds BEFORE I press the power button.
Solitaire was originally to give users something to do while waiting for a program to execute.
Linux: Stoner who hangs out under the bleachers during breaks. Nice guy, a bit odd, muttering about demons and reaping children between bouts of screaming at the sky about something called system dee. Gives you the most gifts, though most are clearly hand made.