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Ask Slashdot: Can You Disable Windows 10's Privacy-Invading Features?
An anonymous reader writes: I really want to upgrade to Windows 10, but have begun seeing stories come out about the new Terms and how they affect your privacy. It looks like the default Windows 10 system puts copies of your data out on the "cloud", gives your passwords out, and targets advertising to you. The main reason I am looking to upgrade is that Bitlocker is not available on Windows 7 Pro, but is on Windows 10 Pro, and Microsoft no longer offers Anytime Upgrades to Windows 7 Ultimate. However, I don't want to give away my privacy for security. The other option is to wait until October to see what the Windows 10 Enterprise version offers, but it may not be available through retail. Are the privacy minded Slashdot readers not going with Windows 10?
For reference, I am referring to these articles. (Not to mention claims that it steals your bandwidth.) Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.
For reference, I am referring to these articles. (Not to mention claims that it steals your bandwidth.) Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.
Did you even read the articles that you've linked to? They talk about privacy issues with default settings (that is, "Express" install). If you're a regular member of the Slashdot audience, you will certainly pick "Customize" during installation anyway, and you'll get individual switches for all these things combined on the very first screen that you'll see after that, from advertising ID to Cortana. Just disable it all, and you're good to go. For bonus points, use a local user account rather than Microsoft ID.
Something happened.
1. You don't set up a live account. That shuts down most of it.
2. Change the host file to redirect most of the bad domains to localhost.
3. There are going to be endless registry hacks to turn things off or change the way they work.
4. programs are going to be released that change things or replace features with something else that does the same thing but is open source etc.
Basically yes.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
You can disable all this stuff easily.
1. When installing you are asked if you want the default settings. Select custom settings and turn everything off. Things like Cortana that rely on having data about you won't work, of course.
2. Open the Windows Update settings and go into the options. Disable downloading updates from other machines on the internet. You might want to leave the option to get updates from other machines on your LAN enabled though, to save bandwidth.
If anyone is any doubt that you can disable all the "spying" stuff, consider that enterprise users would demand it or simply refuse to use Windows 10.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Windows 10 is fast becoming the worst OS MS has produced, Adware built in, telemetry (new USA word for spyware) sucks in your private data to vortex.data.microsoft.net (not a typo) , its clear Microsoft didnt listen to a damm thing customers were saying and have gone from gatekeepers to poachers, advertising is a disease amongst USA tech companies with a shit business model
things i dont want:
Adverts
Spyware
TIFKAM (metro, aka MediaCenter with a new skin)
activeX gadgets^^H "modern apps"
Bing (shit search engine)
Cortana (that spying bitch)
any kind of "store"
Xbox anything
Forced WindowsUpdates
things i do want:
A proper start menu
Anti-trust investigations
Removal of all phone home code
Removal of Metro
Removal of the "app store"
Ability to stop updates
i certainly wont be recommending it to anyone, let alone pay them a penny for Solitaire, corporate certainly wont stand for this spying bullshit so small companies who dont buy into the licensing game are S.O.L
Nadella needs to realise if he wants to know where we live, now we need to know where he lives, what porn does he like ?, what stock mergers have they coming up ?, what car he drives ?, dont make us tell everybody.
Just to watch the pure freakout.
1. You don't set up a live account. That shuts down most of it. 2. Change the host file to redirect most of the bad domains to localhost. 3. There are going to be endless registry hacks to turn things off or change the way they work. 4. programs are going to be released that change things or replace features with something else that does the same thing but is open source etc.
Basically yes.
Insert at the top of your list, renumber if desired:
0. When the installer gives you the opportunity to customize your setting do so, disable whatever you care too.
Have you considered using something other than BitLocker? https://alternativeto.net/software/windows-bitlocker/?license=opensource&platform=windows
And I'm gonna say it - why not use disk-encrypted Linux and put Windows in a VM for those one or two programs that are Windows-only? This way you have full control of your system, the whole disk is encrypted, and you can stick to Windows 7...
-- "Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability." --Dijkstra
Why does it seem like manufacturers feel that they automatically have a right to your usage data after you buy their product?
Car manufacturers are already making big plans on creating new revenue streams with all the usage data they are collecting on our vehicles. Now, MS is taking the same approach (at least Windows 10 is free). What's to stop other vendors from doing the same? How about that new electric razor you bought; do you really want all your usage information to be sent back to the manufacturer, when you shaved, how you shaved, where you shaved? As more and more products are shipped with internet capability, manufacturers feel that they have a right to collect usage information weather you like it or not.
I'm not liking where this is going...
I just did 2 new Windows 8.1 images and ran WIndows update. It keeps forcing 10 shitware on me! I tried creating and cancelling a reservation and it still tries to open WIndows update automatically to install.
No matter what everytime I reboot WIndows update keeps popping up trying to install Windows 10 automatically.
I guess if you imaged a PC before July 24th you were fine. UGH.
http://saveie6.com/
Because your average user isn't a /. Reader or l33t hax0r... The idea of having settings and data synced across multiple PCs appeals to enough people to warrant it being in the box.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Running it on the machine I'm using to post. Our group got the enterprise iso's and cdkey on the 29th. I did a custom install and said no to all of the bullshit options. So far I'm not seeing any ads.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Err, one of those articles linked to was straight FUD from a Googler. Now we have a link to the old article by "An anonymous reader", just in case we didn't read it the frist time? If it isn't the PR machine of the most powerful Internet company in the world, it sure smells fanboy on Slashdot right now.
Instead of worrying about whether you managed to find every little thing you needed to find to avoid the OS harvesting all your data behind your back, why not just install Debian or Mint and use dm-crypt and/or ecryptfs in place of bitlocker?
SO much simpler and more worry free, and you get to be free of that nagging feeling that you missed one of the privacy settings they buried under that "beware of the leopard" sign...
I have been going through and cataloging everything that Windows 10 does, and looking to end the communication with Microsoft component-by-component. It'll take removing packages with dism, setting group policies and making secure policies into the "default user", blocking employees being able to lock out admin simply because they want to log in to the store etc., turning off the update services, etc. It's a long road to lock down win10. You still can't keep the OS from doing anything it wants though, basically Microsoft has decided that they get to rootkit and keylog your box while background capturing your location and data files.
The first thing that admins should be doing is looking at how MS has invaded windows 7 with it's GMX and telemetry updates for the older OSs. Besides the tray ad, a whole new package of privacy invading phone-home and send your data was included in the "critical updates". There are about eight different tasks added to windows 7 scheduled tasks that even admin can't remove, they have to be manually pruned from the registry.
It takes a good amount of powershell, registry editing, and dism to script-remove this malware from windows 7, and if you were letting windows update since April, the damage is already done.
The 'privacy minded slashdot readers' certainly won't be using windows. It's a stupid question. Any product of US origin, is dubious.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
Mentions a HOSTS file editor, a reply to that will show you how you can block what bothers you.
Microsoft is tricky to block, a lot of the times you end up blocking a certification site.
http://www.nirsoft.net/ has two programs I use HTTPNetworkSniffer and smartsniff (both require Wincap) as well as reading ToS's is how I determine what's needed to be blocked. https://www.robtex.com/ is what I use to make sure I'm not blocking something I shouldn't.
I've no reason to upgrade, Win7 is a fairly decent OS.
8.1 (spare laptop) got a lot easier after learning the Win key takes one to a normal screen and putting a shutdown shortcut on the desktop: Shutdown.exe /s /f /t 10 -But it's just a container for music/movies and not connected to the Internet, no reason at all to screw with it.
Here's the short version. On the starting screens I turned off all but one of the "features" after hitting custom. It still is nagging me constantly about the cloud and smart screen.
In order to use Siri on the iPhone, or Google Home on Android, you have to give up the same information that Microsoft is now requesting with Windows 10.
You can turn off most if not all of the settings, but you loose some of the functionality. It's up to each user to find the "right spot" in this balance.
We all knew that Microsoft has been wanting to switch Windows to a subscription model for a while now. The only question was how to do it without inciting a mass exodus. It looks like they have found the first step. Windows 10 users are now the product instead of the customer. I guess it should have been obvious where this was going...
That assumes that what I need customized is offered in the customization options which I do not assume. As of Windows Vista/7, I had to start heavily modifying the OS to de-crapify it. I'm taking that as the new normal at this point.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
-1: When even gpedit.msc (group policy editor)'s documented behavior for turning off the submission of potentially information-leaking reports to Microsoft is "0 (send no data): Equivalent to '1' (basic) on non-Enterprise systems", you cannot disable everything you want to.
-2: When users suggest removing the files associated with Diagnostic/Tracking/Telemetry servies, note that...
-3: ...on non-Enterprise systems, you cannot disable the forced updates. You can delay them on Pro, but not forever. So eventually, those files are going to find their way back on your system eventually...
-4: ...if they don't get put back immediately because Windows Defender (which also cannot be disabled except temporarily, and then it automatically turns itself back on) could trivially be programmed to categorize user attempts to delete the offending services as "malware" and restore them by itself.
If you consider error reporting noninvasive and automatic upgrade checks non-leaky and of acceptable risk to system stability, you can turn off the offensive stuff in Win10 Pro.
If your requirement is to eliminate error reporting and an at-all-times active antivirus product, then no, it is not possible to turn off the privacy-invading features of Windows 10.
FWIW I will not be upgrading. Even the most basic error reporting like "POWERPOINT.EXE crashed while editing GOOGLE-HOSTILE-TAKEOVER-MICROSOFT.PPT" is unacceptable in financial circles, and the HIPAA laws are even more draconian. Windows 10 is no longer a general purpose computing platform.
Fuck no. Looking for alternatives to windows 10 I actually installed Ubuntu today and found that it is collecting my searches and sharing them with third parties.
I think a lot of us here can figure out our own ways to limit the "privacy leakage", but think of someone that doesn't know much, or even that it's occurring.
You pay a premium for the OS so it should be opt in not the other way around, or "no choice" at all for updates (again you can shut that off but MS suggest there may be penalties for that).
I wonder what may be going on that we don't know about, and why MS has gone as far as it has with this behaviour.
I would love to see a TCP dump decrypted from a Win10 machine.
I also suspect in a few years we will see a subscription based Windows format for the OS as well as Office, etc..
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Why isn't there more consumer push-back?
Because it's not being reported in places that non-technical users read, and if it was, it wouldn't be worded in a way to make them understand and care about the implications....and if it was, there are a ton of people that don't care too much about their privacy anyhow. We'd hear a resounding "meh", rather than any kind of real PR backlash.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
But at least you still have Solitaire. This could be the tipping point we've been waiting for.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Xubuntu, never Ubuntu.
That assumes that what I need customized is offered in the customization options which I do not assume. As of Windows Vista/7, I had to start heavily modifying the OS to de-crapify it. I'm taking that as the new normal at this point.
Then your experience is as relevant as Vista/7. As far as 10 goes the list of issues mentioned by the summary are addressed by the built-in installer options, much if not all of them.
Plus I said insert the built-in options at the top of the list, I didn't say discard the rest of the list. Dink around with host files and registry entries to your delight. But don't suggest others need to go there when installer options, and not entering an MS account as you note, will most likely address their concerns.
Xubuntu, never Ubuntu.
And that is why Linux has no chance...
There is no "Linux", there are 100s of "Linux" versions, it is WAY too confusing for your average customer.
So it just isn't going to happen...
Yup so far, in windows 10. There are 2 folowup settings that I've felt the the need to after turning everything off in the customize privacy screen.
1) Turn off messages about smart screen. (You can turn off smart screen during install, windows evidently thinks this is a security risk, so it's an alert in action center. So you effectively turn off smart screen, and then follow up by turning off messages about smart screen being off. Not a huge deal... since smart screen *is* a legitimate A/V feature. And some non-tech people probably should have it on; despite the privacy implication. Its a standard feature of all modern A/V software. So its not omgz ms is evil.
2) Turn off forwarding windows search to bing. Again, another easy to access setting, but an extra step.
I prefer windows updates on for my personal desktops so I don't worry about that. The risk of a bad update screwing me over has proven to be less than the risk of not having them. In my opinion.
There is some rumbling about some telemetry features that can only be turned off with enterprise. I'd like to know more about that.
sure you can disable some privacy stuff using customize when installing, but windows update stills shares your bandwidth to upload updates with everyone else. you need to configure it in its advanced sharing to stop sharing updates.
Although its "share on lan only" feature seems intriguing, a cheap ass WSUS replacement for companies
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
but instead we dismiss linux and its advocates and such with slurs like "freetard" or "SJW" or "fedora" or "PC".
I thought Red Hat chose the name "Fedora" for its community distro and IBM chose the name "PC" for the model 5150.
You're joking, but *that's* your typical consumer's attitude.
That's really annoying if I'm shutting down to go away for a while
That's what suspend is for.
or because of storm activity
That's what your computer's battery is for. Put it in suspend and disconnect the charger from the mains.
Just put a RED WARNING security patch update icon on the task bar or something.
I've seen people ignore six-month-old red warning icons.
wipe windows-10 off your computer and install FreeBSD-10 instead
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
things i do want:
[...]
Removal of all phone home code
For that, you're probably going to have to switch to GNU/Linux. Phone home code was introduced in Windows XP.
Removal of the "app store"
Do package repositories on GNU/Linux distributions count as an "app store" to you?
Excessive fragmentation is one of the unfortunate issues with Linux.
The odd thing is if they collapsed some of the projects and spent that dev time on a handful of distro's they could really improve things. Instead you have a bunch of very talented people spinning yet another 'fork'.
Flip side, I am a big LINUX fan (but not a zealot, Windows has its place).
I converted all three of my kids over from windows several years ago due to having to fix their issues too often (browser hijacks, etc).
They were given a choice between Mint and Ubuntu (two went with Ubuntu, the third Mint). At first they were hesitant but after all the time spent dealing with windows issues (including the almost-daily updates needing a restart) they gave in.
One time our youngest had formatting issues with a powerpoint in libreoffice so the option came up to move back to windows and she refused.
The only windows PC left in the house is my wife's and she refuses to move over she's not into technology and needs the chinese IME which she knows how to work under windows.
It is far easier to drop in a Linux DVD and restart after like 15 mins with a working system (including office package) then installing windows, the drivers, the apps (probably spending the better part of an afternoon on the install).
YMMV (Your mileage may vary) but i have had pretty good luck with the 5 Linux machines (two ubuntu, 3 mint) in my house.
maybe somebody should make a new linux distribution to solve the excessive fragmentation issue.
I guess it should have been obvious where this was going...
Yeah it should have been obvious where it was going.
We wanted location aware search results, but don't want to send our location to 3rd parties.
We fast accurate learning speech recognition that is context aware, but we don't want to share our speech.
We easy access to share information but we don't want share buttons.
We want handwriting recognition that understands we have polish friends we don't want to autocorrect their funny names, but we refuse to allow it access to the contact list.
We want it all, we want it now, and we don't want to give anything in return.
Windows 10 users are now the product instead of the customer.
A meme repeated ad infinitum by people who don't understand that some people trade things other than money for tangible benefits.
Because it's not being reported in places that non-technical users read, and if it was, it wouldn't be worded in a way to make them understand and care about the implications....and if it was, there are a ton of people that don't care too much about their privacy anyhow. We'd hear a resounding "meh", rather than any kind of real PR backlash.
It is also worth noting that for most people who are getting a free upgrade, their reply might be:
"Well ok, since they gave me a free upgrade, that sounds fair..."
People consent to much the same stuff with Google, in return for free e-mail, search, etc.
You think "most people" need CAD, Adobe apps, MS Office, financial software, medical software or supply chain software?
Most people need a web browser.
You are welcome on my lawn.
YMMV (Your mileage may vary) but i have had pretty good luck with the 5 Linux machines (two ubuntu, 3 mint) in my house.
And that's fine, choice is a good thing....
It is far easier to drop in a Linux DVD and restart after like 15 mins with a working system (including office package) then installing windows, the drivers, the apps (probably spending the better part of an afternoon on the install).
Meh, Windows no longer takes that to install, from a blank hard drive, maybe an hour to a working desktop with everything installed. It isn't nearly as bad as it used to be.
At first they were hesitant but after all the time spent dealing with windows issues (including the almost-daily updates needing a restart) they gave in.
I just don't understand this... What issues, what updates? Windows works very well without getting in the way. We have 7 active computers in the house, 4 of them on Windows 8.1, 2 of them on Windows 7, 1 of them on Windows 10.
They all just work.
I disagree.
I think it'll be a mainstream desktop OS soon after someone manage to get the
word to the masses that they don't have to pay for Windows or Mac OS.
That's nice, but you're wrong.
Why can I say you're wrong? Because people have been saying that for 20 years, it hasn't happened, it won't happen, it isn't even remotely close to happening.
The number of ways that is wrong is extensive, but just a few:
1. It costs money to get "word to the masses", a lot of money. Anyone spending that money wants something in return, and giving away free without conditions isn't it.
2. The average consumer doesn't have any issue with the current price of Windows. Windows is either "Free" with the computer, or a trivial cost. OS X is also "free" with a computer.
3. The average consumer has no interest in learning how to install anything, or how that magic computer box works.
It wouldn't take much.
Yep, the "Year of Linux on the Desktop" is just around the corner... you keep that hope alive!
Yep, I did exactly that even when installing the preview some time ago. Using a local account is configured exactly the same way as on Windows 8.1, you just say create new account and then pick local instead of MS account. All the other settings were pretty straightforward, very easy to see and opt out of, and no alarmist anti-MS fear-mongering was necessary to "warn" me about it. I also noticed the update delivery thing right off the bat and turned it off. Even if I had all of that stuff turned on though, I'm not sure it would make a hell of a lot of difference to my individual privacy and bandwidth. They'd have an MS account, which could be named "anonymous coward" and they might have some data on what sites are visited from a computer that uses that account, a couple of nearby computers might download an update through me (hopefully they implemented that securely though, because that seems ripe for hacking otherwise), I might use an MS browser more often, which would actually save a lot of RAM over that mega resource hog known as Chrome (though I still like Chrome in general), and I don't really give a rip about advertising IDs and such anyway. I still turned it all off out of habit, but there are far more intrusive "features" on most mobile devices already, and none of the Windows settings were mis-described or forced. Several of the defaults were even set to not share data and it was very clear about it on the ones that do.
I think what we have here is mostly just some know-it-alls spreading FUD. No, I do not work for MS, and yes I frequently use Linux too. My work PC runs Ubuntu with Windows in a VM for the remaining Windows-only applications I'm required to use. My laptop runs Mint. My servers are Debian and some Red Hat where required for support purposes.
Most people need to be able to run anything they find without worrying if it will work. That means everything from a cross-stitch pattern maker to a Sea World screensaver to Photoshop (the real thing, from Adobe) to any random VPN client for whatever shonky hardware some middle manager at their company requisitioned to the text editor they downloaded (from download.com, complete with malware on the side) to any and/or every game on Steam (including ports of old DOS games) to, well, you name it.
That means Windows, because Linux just isn't up to the task. If you want to solve this problem, it's sad to say that WINE is probably your only hope. Or just buy Windows and get a well supported system with a large user community. Think of it as paying for the support, not for the OS itself. Because, truly, that's what it is. You're not paying for the OS, you're paying for the work that was, is, and will be put into making it. You're just paying Microsoft, not Red Hat... or wasting your own time fixing things. Beyond that, it's all ideology and RMS rants.
You have to spend $10* to have advertising-free Microsoft Solitaire on Windows 8, 8.1, and 10. The download is free. Getting rid of advertising is what costs money.
* Or configure Privoxy on your local machine.
Don't forget all of the viruses, trojans and malware for Windows. People definitely need to be able to run those without worrying.
Lets see... the "last draw" for windows in my house:
The computers are all HP's and came with windows 7 CAL's. Imagine my surprise when one started stating the license expired, and it was not able to run any setup.exe's to fix it (obviously some sort of infection). Odd how the other two identical computers bought at the same time didn't have this "license" issue. More unusual is the problem PC belongs to a 14 year old girl so i am not sure what she did to put it in this condition.
The kids have never had admin access, so it is odd that they have so many issues, especially "system" related stuff (not profile problems).
I havent had to deal with any sort of "browser hijack" nonsense in years now which is also a big time saver for me.
Windows (7 at least) seems to want to install some sort of security update almost every day and needs to restart for it to take effect. Somewhat annoying.
I'm not an anti-windows guy, but just got sick of them always telling me their computer needs me to fix something. I don't seem to have this issue with Linux and they are able to do whatever they need to do.
As I said, YMMV and if you are happy with windows, then you should continue to use it.
I was just about to do that, but then worried someone would fork it ;)
https://www.linux.com/
Just sayin'.
-Styopa
Most people want cloud services for convenience. Or they expect software crashes to magically resolve over time, which involves sending analytics to the developer. There is of course nothing wrong with having a different opinion. Just accept that Windows is not written with you in mind.
You may have better luck with MacOSX. Tim Cook made privacy/not sending things to cloud a big deal lately, partially because Apple cloud services are not very good and this spins their primitive nature as a feature. You still need to avoid adding cloud/store accounts, disable Bing search in spotlight/Safari, turn off diagnostics and probably do a few other steps I missed. But at least it's a much more tractable and documented process than with Windows.
There are Linux/Android distributions where privacy/security are primary features. Feel free to try them and discover usability tradeoffs for yourself. With POP3, e-mail used to be deleted from the server as soon as client had chance to download it. Yet most people choose IMAP, where years of your correspondence is stockpiled "in the cloud". Microsoft just goes where the money of most users is.
And most people just need a web browser. As long as it plays YouTube videos and opens Gmail, most people are satisfied.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes, but keep in mind your household essentially has a Linux system administrator. I'm guessing you probably maintain some sort of home network, handle setup tasks, and solve any issues that come up, correct?
Take yourself out of the equation, and substitute a different household with the equivalent skills/interests of your wife, who actually sounds more like a typical user than you. Can you see Linux working in that situation?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I am a Linux fanboy for sure, and a bit of an M$ hater, but I acknowledge the truth. Linux ain't gonna replace Windows (or Mac) ever, let alone any time soon.
That said, my wife uses Linux, and she is as average a user as it comes, meaning, she needs a browser, a way to view pictures and videos, and not a whole lot more. She doesn't even know she's using something called Linux, and she could care less. And, as she's someone that clicks and downloads fairly indiscriminately, she's relatively safer with Linux (I said "relatively" because things happen everywhere).
What's on Windows or Mac that she "has" to have? How many people really need the high-end capabilities of Photoshop and the like?
The big factor here? I install and support the system. That's a crucial factor for a Linux system, and like it or not, more so than for a Windows or Mac system.
The year of Linux on the desktop as a common thing is not around the corner or around the block or anywhere else. But that doesn't mean Linux is a bad choice for some of us.
The few places I've put linux for a "average user" I used Mint, setup Chrome for the browser and Thunderbird for pop3 mail, set a cron job to download and install updates, and have pretty much forgotten about them. They call me when they need a new scanner or printer installed. It Just Works for them as well as Windows does.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
It costs money to get "word to the masses", a lot of money
Word is out there, if we are discussing the Linux kernel - all those Android devices for a start...
However, my guess is that we are discussing a (generic) Linux Distribution - the kernel, the libraries, the applications, the user interface, the package management system, etc.
For a utility machine - web browsing, email, the occasional document or spreadsheet - several Linux Distributions work great.. but there is no commercial push to them.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
If you read the TOS they explicitly say that *some parts* (undefined) of what you're calling "privacy invading" (and that's being nice) features cannot be turned off.
You can assume that MS will know and record more or less everything you do on your machine and on the internet.
My adivice: stock up on 7 before you can't get it anymore or see if Linux will serve your needs.
You no longer pay for Mac OS, you pay for the computer and upgrades are free, even most Apple Apps. MS office was originally written for the Mac, and is even more ingrained with office 360. Adobe applications were also originally written for the Mac, and creative cloud is best on Mac. There are very small and expensive vertices market applications such as autodesk and Origin and the like that are windows only, but the cost of the computer is less than the software in these cases, and are one reason why upgrades do not happen because these are workhorse production machines that once set up are not changed.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I think the Same can be said for a windows based home setup.
Windows machines also have to be setup and configured, networked, etc.
Before I flipped everything from windows I was the resident "windows system admin" as well.
There is no car, there are Escorts and Fusions and Cavaliers and all sorts of versions of cars; way too confusing for your average customer.
And yet we buy them, because they all basically do the same thing.
Its really quite astounding to me that people think the unified iPhone / Windows approach to computing is better than the everyone-pick-what-suits-you method like vehicles, houses, etc.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Word is out there, if we are discussing the Linux kernel - all those Android devices for a start...
I highly doubt very many people who have an Android phone know about the kernel underneath.
Add to that they have no real control over it either. You buy a Samsung Galaxy S6 phone, you get what you're given and most people are happy enough with that.
If you were to say, "hey, you know that phone you like so much, you can install that OS on your desktop computer!", their likely reply would be, "what? why the heck would I want to do that?!?"
And they'd be right.
However, my guess is that we are discussing a (generic) Linux Distribution - the kernel, the libraries, the applications, the user interface, the package management system, etc.
Yep, and there really isn't a "generic Linux" for people, there are just too many versions and flavors. It is confusing, and frankly people don't like that much choice. It requires they understand the computer more than they want to.
This is why when you go to buy a car, few cars offer more than trim levels and a handful of options. You can get that Ford Explorer in XLT, Limited, or Sport, take your pick. A Honda Odyssey comes in LX, EX, EX-L, Touring, and Touring Elite, pick one. That is 5 choices, probably 1 too many, but there it is...
On average, people want a "cheap, middle, deluxe" option... "Small, medium, large... maybe extra large"... Linux is WAY too fractured for Joe Consumer.
For a utility machine - web browsing, email, the occasional document or spreadsheet - several Linux Distributions work great.. but there is no commercial push to them.
Of course they do, I don't doubt that at all... but no one is pushing them because there isn't any money to be made... not real money anyway... Red Hat tried years ago and didn't get much traction, so they switched to supporting the business/server market and have done ok there.
Dell has tried a few times selling machines with Linux installed, and their return rates were terrible. People want to be able to install "anything", and Windows lets you install (almost) anything. You'd be really hard pressed to find a program that general consumers might use that doesn't have a Windows version.
The only real "compatability" cars require is to drive on roads and consume gas. In some cases, even the gas part isn't required.
But while there are lots of car choices, there is also a wide range of needs in the car market. Small ones, big ones, trucks, minivans, etc.
It is also clear and obvious to a lay person what the differences are. A minivan is clearly for moving families, a Mustang is clearly for 1 or 2 people out to have a nice drive, a pickup truck is for someone who has stuff to carry/tow, etc.
Computers are more complex than this, and frankly can't be made as simple as cars. For example, all cars have a gas pedal, a brake pedal, a steering wheel, etc. They really aren't that complex.
Houses also actually aren't that complex... You have a kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, family rooms, maybe a playroom, etc. When it comes right down to it, we all more or less live in the same boxes. The only variations are pretty simple, is it a 3 or 4 bedroom house, do you have 1 or 2 living areas, etc.
A toilet is a toilet is a toilet, with only minor differences.
Computers aren't that simple and you can't just run a Windows program on Linux.
Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.
+0 Meh
http://hardforum.com/showthrea...
Lots of good tips for chopping out the crap.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
A desktop computer in suspend will draw very little juice, allowing the UPS it's on to be unplugged from the wall. Even if your computer is not on a UPS, does availability of updates block hibernation?
"I really want to upgrade to Windows 10"
Why do you really want to upgrade to Windows 10? Can Win10 do anything useful, that other Windows OS's can't do? Can any Windows OS's do anything useful that other OS's cannot?
It's good that you reject the invasive nature of Win10 - but apparently you accept everything else that Win10 represents. The exorbitant fees for using the operating system(s). The Microsoft tax. The monoculture that has led to almost ubiquitous exploits. The Microsoft lobby/extortion taking place in the world's capitals.
When people begin migrating away from Microsoft en masse, the world will become a somewhat better place.
Bill Gates is a damned smart man. He effectively promoted the piracy of his OS's in past decades, because he KNEW that once hooked on Windows, few would make the effort to learn another way of doing things. Today's marketing scheme for Win10 meshes well with Bill's attitude toward pirates.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
From the article in summery http://betanews.com/2015/07/31...
"If you're a Windows Insider who has been working with the various review builds for some months, this may well not be news"
I created an Insiders account, my hotmail address wasn't accessible so created a new one, which once in references the hotmail account and my real name (I'm a handle person).
I read the ToS which you agree to allow microsoft access to your system, it's microphone, web cam, whatever's connected to it at anytime. I went as far as downloading Win10 in January, but just couldn't agree to the ToS so never installed it and not sure where the file is now (just that it's not where it's suppose to be).
Just the fact I always place electrical tape over a webcam as I never use them, I'd of been violating the ToS (whatever that would mean).
After reading the article, it would be to ones benefit to know the .cpl files for the security options, if you run Win10 you can just call the .cpl files instead of digging around; I'd be looking for those.
The article also answered my question of installing Win10 or not, so just a matter of what the gaming industry does. I prefer playing on a PC but will go to the PS4 if need be.
"3: ...on non-Enterprise systems, you cannot disable the forced updates. You can delay them on Pro, but not forever. So eventually, those files are going to find their way back on your system eventually... "
Not really true.
In the Home version, if you set your WIFI connection to be metered in network settings (so they don't download when they want), then use the KB3073930 to hide updates you don't want (also good for stopping some drivers to update), then basically you can delay the updates.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
for you technologically superior folk..
"Can I completely gut Windows 10 so that it basically just functions like Windows 7 with DX12?"
I own one Windows box. with Windows 7 Professional 64 bit running on it. It is used for exactly 3 things.. Playing Minecraft, and playing various Steam games. Also occasionally downloading mods for those various games from one or two very specific trusted websites.
I have an older box running Arch for everything *else* I want to do, because I'm not stupid enough to trust Microsoft with anything that might potentially have importance.
In the past, before I took the leap into Linux, Whenever I would set up a Windows box, I'd always pop into services.msc and disable a crapload of services.. usually using Blackviper's service guides.. And IE would only get used once to download a real browser, which I would then kit out with adblock and noscript plugins before doing anything else.
And this generally seemed to work pretty well. Even with no always-on antivirus, no security updates (I'd disable Windows Update completely), shut down windows managed firewalls and not replace them... all the things you're generally "not supposed to do".. I'd very rarely run into any kind of problem. (The exceptions being when I'd do something deliberately stupid and risky, fully knowing I shouldn't.. just because my brain went dead for a brief time.)
I found once you gut most of Windows, the security risks drop dramatically. More than enough for me to find tolerable for a dedicated game machine, anyway..
With Windows 10 being the obvious transition to "Software as a Service so we can just keep billing you for renting our product".. (which is where I forsee this going, ultimately..) is it still "old Windows" enough that it can be properly gutted?
I have no use for a sexualized version of Clippy... I have no use for "Edge". I have no use for really any "feature" of Windows 10 besides DX12. And I have a lot of reluctance about some of the features, even when it's only on a machine I use to play some games. So, to free up system resources.. I'd like to rip all that stuff out.. or at least permanently disable it.
Anybody tried playing around with that sort of approach to see if it is still doable? Like disabling Windows Update entirely?
I haven't seen or heard of a virus or malware in over 4 years, including on my parents system who will click anything, or my wife who will download anything and run it.
You're hopelessly behind the times if you still equate Windows with malware. It's almost bulletproof at this point, unless you try really fucking hard.
About how much money corporations spend to cause fragmentation and put people into positions to make shit decisions (Gnome). Yup, I'm sure some of that is simply paranoia. That said, watching some of the shit that gets made on projects like Gnome.. I have no other way to explain what they do.
Paranoia out of the way, I have converted countless people to Linux. They know they are running Linux and don't care. They have KDE so a very nice Desktop, Web Browser, a stack of basic games, GIMP for photo editing, and of course Email. My Kid uses that with Libre Office for College, his professors don't know he does not write things in MS Word.
FUD stops conversions much more than fragmentation. Like GPs claim that there is no Desktop. That claim is complete bullshit, but look at how he's rated up for spinning shit like that.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Ubuntu, which most people use nowadays, has privacy-invading features too in default install. See those Amazon links when you search for something on your machine? That means your query was sent to Amazon.
You think "most people" need CAD, Adobe apps, MS Office, financial software, medical software or supply chain software?
Most people need a web browser.
Most of the people who spend the most on PCs actually do need CAD,Office etc. and they are who drive the market.
And since Businesses spend a shit ton more money on PCs than your average punter, whoever owns that space will control the market.
IN my case, I gained 5 additional desktops which provide the added bonus of actually being useful.
I could gain more, but 6 desktops has worked just fine for me for the last decade or so, so I'll stick with that.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
They were given a choice between Mint and Ubuntu
I have a Windows machine, a Mint machine and an Ipad. Unfortunately all the stuff my kids need to know to get a job is based around Apple, Microsoft and Adobe, so Mint never gets used for anything other than Web browsing when the other machines are in use.
We are not coders nor do we plan to be, for us getting stuff done means using what everyone else is using. This seems to get overlooked by OS ideologues, incumbency carries the most weight.
Thanks for the Sunday morning chuckle.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Why can I say you're wrong? Because people have been saying that for 20 years, it hasn't happened, it won't happen, it isn't even remotely close to happening.
I can remember much the same being said about Internet Explorer, which went from well over 90% usage share to more like 20% over the last 10-15 years (with much of the decline happening before mobile became an important factor).
An entrenched monopoly can be difficult to dislodge, but that doesn't mean it will last forever. Microsoft has also lost a lot of ground that would have protected Windows had it held onto them - control of the web browser and wordprocessor being the two main ones.
(Imagine if every website used ActiveX - that would be a problem for competitors. There are plenty of market niches were similar problems still exist, but for mainstream users I don't see any insurmountable barriers to migration now.)
Now it may very well be that what replaces the Windows desktop isn't called Linux. It might not even be Linux-based, or run on what we would currently recognise as a desktop PC. (The most effective challengers so far have been Android and IOS, which satisfy two and three of these conditions respectively.) Microsoft could also stay there longer by upping their game. Nothing lasts forever, though.
Windows 10 is no longer a general purpose computing platform.
This is it in a nutshell.
Ever since Win3.1, Windows was the General Purpose OS for the masses. Win10 had the opportunity to reclaim this after they lost a lot of ground with Vista and Win8. But it appears they just can't help themselves. All this behaviour from technology companies is turning me off the industry altogether. If I didn't have a mortgage I've give this career away.
you can run quite a lot of Windows programs on Linux by using Wine or you can have Windows in a VM.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
It's a subscription, not a one off purchase though, right?
That's a couple of clicks to disable.
And you can't just drop a Ford motor into a Chevy and expect to drive it away, either.
You're the one dwelling on complexity, not the average user, to whom a computer is a thing that you turn on, it shows you little pictures on a screen and you click on one or more of these in order to view web pages or email, write an office doc, make a Skype call, etc. Whether the logo on the case is a little window, a little apple, a little penguin, or the likeness of Kim Jong-Un, it's still a computer, and this is what computers do. End of story.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
We're all glad to hear that you and your family don't watch porn or visit church websites, now stop ignoring things like Cryptolocker and it's spawn that many businesses have been hit with over the last few years.
Imagine my surprise when one started stating the license expired, and it was not able to run any setup.exe's to fix it (obviously some sort of infection).
Naturally Windows systems are full of malware and viruses if you simply assume that any problem that occurs is "obviously some sort of infection". If something goes wrong with a Linux setup, I'm sure you would assume that it couldn't possibly be due to "some sort of infection" and would actually take the time to find out what had happened.
When you finally found the problem you could then rest assured that your belief in the superior OS was justified, and the circular logic would finally be complete.
you can run quite a lot of Windows programs on Linux by using Wine or you can have Windows in a VM.
Yes you can, sort of, most of the time, kinda, with various amounts of tinkering required...
All of which brings up the point... "why?"
Linux's primary reason to be used can't be "because it isn't Windows". You don't switch TO something because of that, you switch away from something.
OS X on the Mac has FAR more chance of attracting interest from Joe Consumer than Linux does.
Even TurboTax doesn't run on Wine properly without a lot of tinkering. That sort of thing is a deal killer. "Kinda sorta maybe works some of the time" is not an acceptable answer.
Just run Windows, then it does work.
Whether the logo on the case is a little window, a little apple, a little penguin, or the likeness of Kim Jong-Un, it's still a computer, and this is what computers do. End of story.
Linux 1.5% desktop marketshare vs. Windows 94% desktop marketshare would seem to dispute your arrangement.
Linux desktop marketshare hasn't budged in over a decade. If it were going to take off, it would have by now. It is actually worse than it used to be, now that Windows is actually really good and now mostly free.
All of the above was a reason to us a *nix workstation instead of a toy like Win98. Massive amounts of PR spending changed that.
Hello Mark, this is the chance you were not waiting for. Give up on Apple as a model; realize that one single interface for phones and PCs is an absurdity; accept that Windows is universal; move Ubuntu in that direction and get a sizeable chunk of the desktop market.
OpenSUSE.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Two words: Virtual Box.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Seldom have I seen a response that so completely and utterly missed my point.
Where shall I send the cigar?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
That's basically a strawman argument. You've put mainstream use [text/program editor, surfing] up against a load of specialised tools [CAD, photo etc.]. FYI, I've had a Linux Mint desktop for about five years, I'm very happy with it. I'm not a gamer or a CAD person, I am a contract programmer, it's just a daily workhorse.
I'm expecting a lot of shilling and sock-puppetry in this thread anyway, money is at stake. Incidentally, from further up the thread, I'm 64, we have no problem with Linux because we started with Unix and derivatives, using the [makes air bunnies] 'command line'.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
For last 9 years I've been using combination of Mac and Linux (Ubuntu Gnome). When I see people discussing these interesting features of their brand new versions of Windows ... 7 then 8 and now 10, I sometimes wonder if I left Windows behind or is this really the case that Windows has left me behind.
And most people just need a web browser. As long as it plays YouTube videos and opens Gmail, most people are satisfied.
I think geeks tend to seriously underestimate what "most users" need from a computer in terms of diversity. People have hobbies and interests, there is a whole range of devices and software that they might want to use that each on its own is very niche, but the sum is pretty significant.
OP mentioning cross-stitching is on the right track. Probably not what geeks first think of related to computers, but for some it is what they want to use it for. I know quite a lot of "regular users" who would not want a computer they could not connect their fitness tracker to and run the related software on. etc. etc.
Sure, they mostly do email and web based stuff, but they also really want to, and expect to, use their fitness tracker and software. And similar things. For myself a similar example is my scuba dive computer, being able to co connect my dive computer and run the related settings and logging software is something I want, and expect, to do with my PC (and, it is much more important to me to select the right dive computer for my needs, and let that dictate PC OS, vs. the other way around)
Stop with the friggin' agism already.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Don't worry, your Win 7 will cease to be functional soon, and you will be assimilated. The coming shit-storm of security "upgrades" and bug "fixes", as with previous releases of Windows, will ensure that your system will slow to an unacceptable crawl and reliability will drop rapidly.
I haven't seen anything about Win 10 that makes me want to "upgrade". If anything, my years of experience with Windows have defined upgrade to mean leaving windows behind as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there are still just a couple programs that keep me stuck with Windows. I am always on the lookout for ways to replace those programs and when I find them it will be goodbye MS forever.
I refer specifically to CAD (Onshape looks like a possible replacement that I can run in a browser under Linux), and the software for my 3D scanner (Fuel3D). I'm not real big on the whole cloud thing, but I'll accept the risks involved if it lets dump Windows. I can do everything else I need to do under Linux.
OK, astroturfers, come and get it...
The editions for which "Free" upgrade options have been provided, Microsoft makes money by seling your data, and ensuring you don't run away to Linux. If you want all these controls and fancy stuff, you must pay about $800 for a copy., and get Enterprise edition.
Malware has given a very bad name to Microsoft. This is because of the immense, needless complexity in the so-called OS which contains linkages to non-essential things for an OS. Like the browser, Office, Email client, device drivers, etc. Even Enterprise users are afraid to apply latest patches due to stability issues.
But Enterprise users usually have firewalls in place, so atleast for them, MS provides complicated round-about methods to bypass snooping. To fix the malware problem permanently, Microsoft will have to reveal source code and truly give full vontrol to the users of their software. Neither of these will happen. So the control is with hardware vendors who have to write device drivers, and malware writers who have figured out the chinks anyway.
Thus MS is now in a race of continuously patching their shoddy OS, at your expense, your bandwaidth and your privacy. Live with it. Or go to another OS that runs on PC hardware, aka Linux. Or get a Mac for twice the price and half the funstionality and features. Or shut up and put up with Microsoft.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Did you read the part where I said I am not an anti-windows guy?
I use it every day at work, the kids use it at school. One computer can dual boot into windows (olders kid plays Minecraft once in a while).
I'm going to buy two new computers before school starts and they will come with Windows. I intend to dual boot them as well so they can choose what to run. Suspect they will run Linux more then windows.
So, you tell me how you fix a system which will no longer run any setup programs?
Either there was an infection, or it did that by design or a bug... Which is it?
WOW...
Perhaps you misread, but I never said either Linux or windoes are superior did I?
Interesting how you critize "circular logic" yet can't see the flaws in your own logic. Here is a hint....nthere is no superior OS.n they all have pros and cons and a different design philosophy.
I never found the problem. After spending hours trying to fix it I gave up and put ubunto on it.
I put Ubuntu on the same drive and it is still running fine 2 years later.
"Can You Disable Windows 10's Privacy-Invading Features?"
Just install Linux.
I can't see that many people installing a Linux Distribution over MS Windows since most people have no idea how to even install MS Windows from scratch or even do a recovery. Even for those people who have a MS Windows OS most have no Idea how to backup much less do a recovery. As for dual booting again the majority of PC users have no idea and even if they had someone do it for them they would just stick to MS Windows.
Actually Linux is probably easier to install than MS Windows and as an example I can install Fedora in about 30 minutes, plus 30 minutes to customise (I do document all my customisations), then about 40 minutes to update and during the update process I can use all my installed applications. In fact because my machines are Fedora only I never bother with an upgrade to install the latest version of the OS I just install the latest version in the appropriate system file-systems without impacting any data which I want to keep.
If you are a PC gamer and your favorite games are "Games for Windows" then switching to Linux is definitely not for you although there are hundreds of millions of gamer's who play on Android which has a Linux kernel and IOS which is based on BSD Unix devices. In fact you can download some quite good games for Linux from "Steam" although I won't deny that Microsoft based gaming dominates the PC.
If you are looking at businesses most opt for the Microsoft OS and like it or not you will use the OS that is dictated for you especially if your PC is company owned. If you own your PC (normally a laptop) that you use for business then choosing or installing a Linux distribution is your decision as long as you can do your job.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
"This seems to get overlooked by OS ideologues, incumbency carries the most weight."
Does it?
First i am not arguing about ideologues. I have stated many times i don't believe there is a "perfect" OS. One of the issues with Windows is actually its popularity. If i am going to write a virus/malware/browser hijack or whatever I would target what everyone uses.
To your point about the usability of Mint, it is somewhat odd and not consistent with my own experiences.
Small example:
We live in Ontario and the kids are required to take French class.
I recently rebuilt the middle kids computer to upgrade to the newer Ubuntu and move her to a spare SSD drive I had kicking around to hold her over until I buy her a new computer.
So, as she's working on her French assignment for summer school she notices it is not doing any grammar/spell checking.
She googles "libreoffice French dictionary" , downloads it and installs it and moves on.
Had she used MS Office, she would have had the same issue (missing dictionary) and installed it in a similar way.
I don't prevent them from using windows. As i said earlier, when one of them had powerpoint issues i offered to convert her back but she found an alternative instead (borrowing her moms computer).
They can open their MS Office work from school on LibreOffice, edit it and save it back and for the most part it works fairly well (powerpoint being the big exception where some of the formatting gets all weird).
I will leave windows on their new computers and give it half the drive (500GB) so it is fully usable and let them decide which to run.
No one in my house are "coders" either (Obviously I am in IT but not a dev) but as someone else said their career choice is up to them and they have made their choices which are solid jobs with good future potential.
PS
My two desktops at work both run windows and i have used Windows for my entire career. Having my kids use Linux at home doesn't harm their ability to use windows, but it does give them another prospective on how to solve issues.
I try to encourage them to think "outside the box" and not just go with the flow.
In general, Microsoft's hubris is quite amazing. I know this is slightly off-topic but I am completely Microsoft-free and am able to function quite nicely. Say what you want about LibreOffice 4.4 but its come a long way and is effectively a drop-in replacement for MSO. I use a Macbook Pro and NONE of the software I actually use (save for the operating system and its components) are proprietary. LibreOffice for Productivity and Thunderbird for Email/Calendaring work just fine and don't even cost a wooden nickel. Am I one of the few out there that HATES the ribbon interface?
It is so simple. many of the people on Slashdot have the real answers. Get rid of all Windows products and never think about them again. Take Linux. Take BSD. Either way you have just taken the cure. Yes, things will change a bit but in the end you will have a stable, secure system that does not require throwing hundreds of dollars at it every year or so. And for most users you won't even need the latest and greatest hardware either as many non Windows OSs do pretty darned well on older gear.
You think "most people" need CAD, Adobe apps, MS Office, financial software, medical software or supply chain software?
Most people need a web browser.
Most of the people who spend the most on PCs actually do need CAD,Office etc. and they are who drive the market. And since Businesses spend a shit ton more money on PCs than your average punter, whoever owns that space will control the market.
No they don't. Most home users only need a web browser, file explorer and possibly a video player and Linux distributions have those as well.
If you need CAD then I assume you mean AutoCAD, you can get a commercial equivalent although like AutoCAD you have to pay for it. With a Linux distribution you can get some fairly sophisticated free versions such as LibreCAD which took me about 2 minutes to download and install and is now part of the LibreOffice suite of software.
As for an Office suite there is LibreOffice which is functionally equivalent to Microsoft Office. If you use Photoshop which you have to pay for there is always the GIMP which is almost as good and it is free. As to which is better, my answer is "the one you feel comfortable in using" and for me that is the GIMP.
When you say "etc" in the majority of cased you can either find a commercial equivalent which you pay for or a free one which is normally just good enough. Of coarse the old "It does not look like and function like [inset software here]", then the only thing people like me can say is that you have locked yourself into the Microsoft ecosystem and it's not my problem.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Golly! You do have a long memory.
You would think, and then Apple decides to solder the RAM onto the Mac Mini and the Mini I can buy today configured as close to identical to my buddy's Mac Mini from several years ago (quad core i7, SSD, upgraded to 16 GB) costs half a grand CAD more today than it did then.
Because of this stupid speed bump, the small office where I'm presently working went back to Windows in a recent IT refresh after we had all pretty much convinced ourselves to make the collective jump to OS X.
Maybe we could have made the initial outlay work at 8 GB per machine instead of 16 GB (saving ourselves CAD $240 per machine) but then we would have ended up with boxes permanently capped at 8 GB.
If we were certain out company would double in size over the next two years, we could have handed the RAM-crippled Mac Minis off to junior staff and brought in another wave of less-crippled Minis at that time for the regulars.
Wouldn't it all have been so simple if we had an Apple-like certainty concerning our future staffing levels and revenue growth?
Just think, we could have used the Mini as a corporate status symbol to keep new employees in their proper place, instead of having a culture where an employee says "hey, I need to test drive all these memory heavy apps to get my work done, can we rush out and get me some fat sticks at a fair street price?" (In our shop, we tend to run beefy compute on actual servers, which is where we'll spend the money saved on the client side.)
No wait!
Using RAM-crippled hand-me-downs could have negative impact on corporate culture. I know! We'll give everyone an identical, over-speced OS X mini tower so no-one complains.
No wait, second edition!
We'll get a pickup truck full of cheap-ass used Windows 7 boxes with four memory slots each and treat them as interchangeable and disposable. Then when we're back in a revenue-positive situation, we'll take a look at the post-Skylake landscape to see whether Apple has regained its sanity.
Whether "Linux" is a good or bad choice, or whether it will become a mainstream desktop OS is besides the point. At least, if we want to stay on topic here.
The original question was whether you can disable Windows 10's privacy-invading features. Some posts argue that you can (by changing settings or by cutting off network communication with Microsoft e.g.). While there are things that you can do that appear to increase the user's privacy, it will always be necessary to trust the company that you bought your proprietary software from to believe that you actually have privacy.
This is where the free software argument comes in. You can debate whether it is a good competitor or which GNU/Linux distribution or BSD is better (for whatever reason), but the point here is that if you are using software (and you are connected to the internet at any point), it must be free software in order to be reasonably certain that you can protect your privacy.
Yep, I can remember all the way back to 2013!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Dual boot? Are you like 80? Run a VM. On modern hardware you can easily run two OSes at once with undetectable performance hit. Spend a little extra on a SSD or extra spindles and RAM and you have no performance hit and you can easily switch back and forth.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Too much choice! Does that ever stop people from buying cars?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
And its clear by now that its never going to change.
Good-bye
Why this will never happen: 1. It is too fucking difficult. I know 3 programming languages and I've been building my own boxes for a decade now. I've tried several kinds of linux, and they all fucking stump me. Too much searching for drivers to get anything and everything to work, even fucking USB ports or to get videos to play. It is a never ending shit fuck trying to get the operating system to actually do anything at all and is absurdly time consuming. If I can't put up with it, you sure as hell know that the typical users couldn't possibly even get through installation, much less routine use of the software. 2. Doesn't run industry software. ERP systems, accounting software, CAD software, almost none of it works on any flavor of Linux without extensive posturing to force it to work. If somebody does more than browse the web and very basic spreadsheets and word processing, it just isn't good enough. 3. The hugely fragmented and confusing linux marketplace with hundreds of flavors and just as much fuckery and corruption as Microsoft and Apple, navigating it, finding the downloads, installing and maintaining a Linux OS is damn near impossible if somebody isn't very experienced with Linux or relying on somebody who is, and googling problems like you can with MS and Apple takes you to the most esoteric, impossible to understand sources that offer no real solutions. The year of the Linux Desktop isn't going to happen until all of the esoteric fucking nerds come together and build a reliable, out of the box functional OS that doesn't fail users, that doesn't make them search out dozens of drivers because, *gasp* a few might be proprietary. The only successful flavor of linux is android, and it is successful because it just works, all the time, with no user effort whatsoever. And it is *the* big, solid competitor, the standard to be reckoned with, because they avoid the problems above.
ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Yeah, because there are few things a 14 year old girl wants to learn more then how to use virtualbox?
Starting in windows 8, Bitlocker "backups" your key in the MS cloud, so I certainly woyuld not trust this.
If it's for home use, find some Pirate Bay copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.
You generalize too much. I use it daily for work, so it depends on what you're doing. People have different computing needs.
What if you just don't connect it to any network, ever?
How do you stop it from connecting? These days most laptops, at least, have WiFi, Bluetooth, BLE (really distinct from classic buetooth), and maybe other radio-networking capabilities (GSM, LTE, ZigBee, 6LoWPAN, 6LoWPAN-over-Bluettoth-4.2) built-in. Also infrared and ultrasonic-capable audio interfaces with microphones and speakers. Even with the ones that DO have a switch to turn the radios off the switch normally just tells the software not to talk on the radio - which the software is free to ignore.
(Not to mention that the remote-administration hardware/firmware built into the chips by the major manufacturers can, and does, listen on the radios these days for remote-administration commands, comes in UNDER the OS, and can't be disabled.)
Then there's the question of what good the computer is to you if it's NOT connected to a network?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Make a script that starts the VM and have it save state at close, then Windows is just another program.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You would think, and then Apple decides to solder the RAM onto the Mac Mini and the Mini I can buy today configured as close to identical to my buddy's Mac Mini from several years ago (quad core i7, SSD, upgraded to 16 GB) costs half a grand CAD more today than it did then.
I hear you. I hear you.
I honestly think that if Tim Cook can get over Steve Job's desire to only play in the niche market, Apple could have a winner on its hands.
While they won't remove Windows from the market, if they can get their market share to 20% or so, then companies would start having to come out with Mac versions more often, it become self sustaining at that point.
The fact that the Mac Mini is so "fixed" in terms of what you can do with it makes it nothing but a toy. The iMac as well, it is just a laptop that you can't move around.
The only Mac towers are insanely expensive, beyond reason.
For $600 I can get a very nice Core i5 Windows 10 box that has 8GB of RAM, but can be expanded to 32GB if needed. I can put my own SSD in, my own video card in, my own upgraded power supply, etc.
Apple isn't even close, which is why their market share is in the sub 5% range.
Seldom have I seen a response that so completely and utterly missed my point.
The irony is that I didn't miss your point... Your point was wrong...
You said they are the same, icons and programs and a desktop. My point is that they AREN'T the same, if they were, Linux wouldn't be at 1.5% and Windows at 94% marketshare.
The fact that Linux has essentially no share of the market indicates that they are in fact not the same, and that your point was incorrect.
I disagree.
I think it'll be a mainstream desktop OS soon after someone manage to get the
word to the masses that they don't have to pay for Windows or Mac OS.
It wouldn't take much.
"You don't actually have to accept Windows or Mac as your OS when you buy a computer. - You are free to ask for your money back and install your own." - News @ 11
Freedom to accept the only option, or do nothing at all, is not freedom. And the masses already know they don't have to pay for Windows or Mac OSX.. in Windows, illegally, but regarding MacOS, legally if you have a mac, and "grey area" legality if you have a macintel. Furthermore, Linux isn't necessarily free. If you know your way around the software repository, IE, a "geek" then sure, but the "Great unwashed masses" will probably want a distro, including all the accompanying licences, for , OK, maybe, often only $10, but that ain't "free" Even so, for years (it's terribly obsolete now, though) during the first decade there was a stunning OS available for free. Didn't help, even though it was better (IMHO) than OSX 10.0 and possibly 10.1, better than the linux distros available then, and MUCH better than Windows ME. And it was FREE, being given away in virtual installations that could easily be installed onto a harddrive later. I'm talking about BeOS, of course. And "free" didn't help a bit. They "got the word to the masses" that it was free. Lots of folks had that "virtual" partition with BeOS installed. DIdn't help, free or not.
Too much choice! Does that ever stop people from buying cars?
Yes, yes it does... I've seen it, people get overwhelmed and either make no decision, or pick the simple decision instead...
I can remember much the same being said about Internet Explorer, which went from well over 90% usage share to more like 20% over the last 10-15 years (with much of the decline happening before mobile became an important factor).
Changing your web browser doesn't change your computer.
You can have 5 web browsers installed side by side, it doesn't break anything else.
Changing your OS isn't the same thing. Installing Chrome or FireFox doesn't break TurboTax.
> [Linux] doesn't run most of the software people need
That depends on what people. Most people need a browser, possibly an email program (although I suspect most people use a webmail interface). Those of us who do more things are in a minority. I typically have an email client, a file browser, a PDF reader/ annotator, puTTy connecting me to a Linux system, a programmer's editor...maybe a few other tools (LibreOffice, my banking app); but I'm not average. And you probably aren't either. Average is very over-rated, but in this case the average wins.
MS has made statements to the effect that they did not realize the 'advertising potential.' Looks like advertising platform is a VERY good new name for Win10. Of course they (M$) will tout the mass acceptance of their "free upgrade" that will arrive someday soon to my reserved tag. THE BIGGEST DOWNLOAD IN HISTORY! Maybe the LONGEST running. I hope their servers choke on it. Have you noticed M$ is giving away the win10 upgrade to the 'least needed' crowd? And that M$ was listening when most of us said every newer version of windows is like an upgrade from the last. Why should we buy a new windows version when it's basically an upgrade? Point taken...thanks Bill G
OS X on the Mac has FAR more chance of attracting interest from Joe Consumer than Linux does.
By talking about your office:
the small office where I'm presently working went back to Windows
That's not consumer use. That's business use.
For $600 I can get a very nice Core i5 Windows 10 box that has 8GB of RAM, but can be expanded to 32GB if needed. I can put my own SSD in, my own video card in, my own upgraded power supply, etc.
Just what an average user wants. To replace his power supply.
I did the free upgrade on our guest lobby computer. After seeing the fallout, including guest account disappearing and other issues, I think I'll just use the restore utility (this was an el-cheap HP Black Friday special from a few years ago running an AMD E-300...yes, it's VERY slooowwww...) to put win-7 back on it.
Apple has over $200 billion in cash, a good desktop OS, and a well known brand. If Apple could get off their horse long enough to see that, they could give Windows a real run for its money. Price is the real problem, Macs are expensive, really expensive, stupid expensive.
Offer a Mac for a reasonable price or license the OS or something, and Windows would have a real challenger.
Yup. 200 billion in cash and most of the industry's profits. They totally need to completely turn over their business model. Unlocked $199 phones, a $299 laptop or even better, license the OS for $50 a head to companies so they can make the hardware money instead of Apple. Seriously... what they are doing works very, very well. Making it a commodity item won't increase their profits, it would dilute them. There is a market for cheaper Apple hardware. It's just not one they want to do.
Most people need a web browser.
That's for the tasks common to most people, not representative of the entire scope of thing most people do with their computers. The corporate world probably makes up a significant portion of "most people" anyway so the categories listed above probably do apply. But it isn't just the professional market, also amateur developers, artists, photographers, audio producers, videographers, product designers (particularly the maker movement), gamers, etc...
I'd be interested to see where you get this perception that "most users" - however many this might be - just need a web browser.
Just what an average user wants. To replace his power supply.
Of course not, but I was replying to someone who wanted to be able to upgrade his computers, so that does apply in his case.
Yup. 200 billion in cash and most of the industry's profits.
Most of the cell phone and tablet business profits... While Macs make money, by themselves Apple wouldn't be a very interesting company, it is all iOS devices.
The Mac could vanish tomorrow and Apple would still be one of the most valueable companies on Earth. Without the iOS devices, it is just another computer company.
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My point was simply that if ANYTHING was going to give Windows a run for its money, it would be Mac and OS X, not Linux. I didn't say Apple SHOULD do this, I said they COULD do it. :)
The irony is that the iPad is actually really decently priced, all things considered. For $500 you get a REALLY thin tablet, good triple core CPU, enough RAM to be interesting... a very nice screen, and a very nice OS that is responsive. The one short aspect is storage, which at 16GB is no longer enough, 64GB should be the base these days.
You can get cheaper tablets, but not ones nearly as nice.
The iPhone is massively overpriced, but everyone knows that. :)
Apparently Redundant is the new "I'm a chicken-shit with a chip on my shoulder and no good response" mod of choice.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
No they don't. Most home users only need...
The argument is about "most people" not "most home users". The biggest spending on PCs is by business, therefore their needs represent the biggest demand.
When you say "etc" in the majority of cased you can either find a commercial equivalent which you pay for or a free one which is normally just good enough.
No you can't. We hear this all the time from the FOSS crowd, but anyone who thinks Libre Office is functionally equivalent to MS Office is someone who has never relied on an Office app to do their job.
Article:
Parent:
Google: Because apparently someone needs tp be spying on you.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Microsoft even admits that Windows 10 is a marketing platform
... here is the link : http://www.linuxmint.com/ ;)
The average user does not give a shit if it is Xubuntu, KDE openSUSE, Some basterd Debian version with GNOME or RedHat with Enlightenment.
They do not care. All they care about is pre-install.
They bought a Windows phone; next they bought an Iphone and then they bought an Android. And next week they will buy the next new thing.
Pre-install is what it is all about. For the majority of people going from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 is just as difficult as finding the Internet Icon in any other desktop management system.
Apple and Windows do not care for the few million people who have an OS preference. They are not their market.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Citation? AC troll.
True, but it's not just MSFT but also Apple who reset your privacy features to "send us all your data so we can sell it".
Always check all of your app and OS settings after any upgrade.
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The average user does not give a shit if it is Xubuntu, KDE openSUSE, Some basterd Debian version with GNOME or RedHat with Enlightenment.
They do not care. All they care about is pre-install.
Maybe, but the flaw there is that Dell and HP tried twice in the past 10 years to sell machines with Linux on them. The customer uptake rate was low and the return rate was multiple times that of Windows machines.
It sounds nice, right up until someone needs to run a program that is Windows only, then they balk.
Paying $469 for a computer vs. $499 because the cost of Windows is saved doesn't matter to your average consumer if there is even a single program that it can't run.
The example I like to give is TurboTax, it doesn't run on Linux, or even Wine, without a lot of kicking and screaming.
This is unacceptable for a large percentage of the population.
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What I would submit is that if you think there is a market for this, start a computer company and sell machines with Linux preinstalled. If there is demand, you'll do well. If there isn't, you won't.
Isn't capitalism grand? :)
Apple's not going for mass market.
First, Apple is not going for the low end no matter what. Those things are commodities with narrow margins. Think about their iOS devices: maybe 20% market share, but most of the profit in the field. Samsung makes some profit on mobile, not nearly as much as Apple, and most of the rest of the manufacturers are worse off. Apple likes it that way.
Second, Apple is not going to allow Mac OSX to be run on non-Apple hardware. By limiting the hardware the OS runs on, they make development easier. By controlling the hardware, they can make sure the OS doesn't have to cope with anything it'll find flaky. Besides, while Apple looks like a software company, they make most of their money on hardware. That's how they're set up.
Third, Apple is NOT going to allow OSX to run on low-end computers. That would mean some Apple consumers are running on crappy computers, and would give them the feeling that OSX wasn't such a slick experience.
What Apple could do is become more enterprise-friendly, and I'm not sure why they don't.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Computers do other things. They run a whole host of applications, and most people are going to want to run some. Maybe Turbo Tax, maybe Guild Wars II, maybe SolidWorks, maybe Visual Studio, maybe something else. The large majority of users are going to want to run something that doesn't run easily and reliably on Linux.
If you're dealing with somebody who wants to use email, web surfing, and Facebook, and nothing more, by all means set them up with Linux Mint or something similar. For light word processing and spreadsheets, LibreOffice will be fine. You can probably find enough stupid little games, assuming they're not already paying them on their phone rather than their desktop or laptop. Beyond that, they're probably going to need Windows-compatible software, and therefore Windows.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If that were true, why haven't Chromebooks taken over? That supplies a web browser, plays YouTube videos and opens Gmail. Why didn't the original Linux netbooks succeed? They seemed to do reasonably well when they started to run XP.
Most people have some sort of Windows-compatible software they want to run or might want to run.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Second, Apple is not going to allow Mac OSX to be run on non-Apple hardware. By limiting the hardware the OS runs on, they make development easier.
That was more true in the past, but the business has changed.
15 years ago you had a dozen or more chipset makers for motherboards. Now you really have 2, AMD and Intel.
Lets be honest, there is little difference between various Z97 and 990FX motherboards these days, even more so from the point of view of Windows.
Video cards? Do you remember 15 years ago? I do, nVidia and AMD didn't own the whole market once, now they do. Well, Intel too, but they aren't hard to account for.
Most desktop and notebook PCs these days aren't that unique.
Motherboards, you have Intel and AMD chipsets.
Video cards, you have Intel, AMD, and nVidia.
Network you have Intel and RealTek (more, but they are the main ones).
Sound, you largely only have RealTek left.
What else is there? You could make OS X work on your average modern Intel or AMD machine without much trouble. There is a middle ground between supporting everything and supporting 5 machines.
Besides, I never said they had to support everything, I said they needed to offer more choices. For less than $2k, you really have two choices, a Mac Mini or an iMac, both of which are expensive and limited.
My first computer was an Apple II, I love Apple stuff, but I don't like the limits which is why I run Windows.
It's true that that happened with Internet Explorer, but it happened mostly due to complacency by Microsoft. If they hadn't literally just outright CEASED development on IE for like 5 straight years while other development teams were vigorously and actively pursuing newer better browsing technologies, then it's likely they never would've been supplanted by anyone else to any meaningful extent.
The only reason that was able to actually happen is because they completely quit working on IE, and in the intervening years, huge amounts of malware exploited IE's ancient lack of security. And even that might've been largely avoided or mitigated had it not been the default browser that shipped with every single version of Windows, which represented more than 90% of the global consumer install base.
Your points are all correct though-- just that it may somewhat understate Microsoft's own role in IE's fall from the vaulted pillar upon which it once sat, and at least somewhat overstate Google's and Mozilla's roles in gobbling up what IE lost.
Keith D.
Pretty sure I'm using an iPhone.
Pretty sure I had to reset privacy setting after iOS upgrades a few times.
Maybe, in your magical world, Apple can do no wrong and none of the apps every do that?
Are there unicorns there, too?
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The power of marketing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Wow, I'm really collecting the butt-hurt Troll mods today, eh...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Yeah, things went so well the last time Apple licensed its OS.
That said, I would like to see Apple license Mac OS X _for non-competing machines_ in form-factors which Apple doesn't manufacture. I'd buy an Apple Tablet Mac if it were more reasonably priced than Axiotron's Modbook.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Yeah, but Apple isn't making a tablet w/ an active stylus. I prefer to write over typing mostly, and I have to have a stylus which will allow drawing, sketching and annotation. Probably my next machine will be an Axiotron Modbook.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Yeah, things went so well the last time Apple licensed its OS.
Yes, but that was another time...
I found the following instructions:
https://fix10.isleaked.com/#12
It looks like it gets everything that is currently known about, but no idea how much spyware is hidden in Windows 10 that isn't known about yet.
The link above actually contains 0 trackers according to Privacy Badger, one of the few Web sites where that has been the case.
There is a tool that was mentioned on Fox News (I don't watch, but I heard about it), DoNotSpy10 by pxc-coding, that is supposed to make it easy. Of course DoNotSpy10's installer itself contains spyware (OpenCandy), so using a tool to remove spyware that installs spyware is just lame.
This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
So do not use "Linux", but use "Xubuntu" (or whatever somebody recommends to you). To look though a list of 100 distributions is a privilege, not a duty.
Do you need to dual boot to play minecraft? As a java program can't it run on linux?
is it?
https://minecraft.net/download
Minecraft for Windows
Download and run Minecraft.msi. This will install Minecraft and create a shortcut in your start menu. If you'd like a version without an installer, you may use Minecraft.exe instead. You do not need Java installed to run either of these.
Click the little "show all platforms" text underneath, and it shows the mac os x and linux downloads.
Coz VMs are such a great idea, they just make things better!
The cheese stands alone...