Microsoft Now Uses Windows 10's Start Menu To Display Ads (betanews.com)

Mark Wilson writes: We've all become used to the idea of ads online — it's something that has become part and parcel of using the internet — but in Windows? If you've updated to build 10565 of Windows 10, you're in for something of a surprise: the Start menu is now being used to display ads. We're not talking about ads for Viagra, porn, or anything like that, but ads for apps. Of course, Microsoft is not describing them as ads; 'Suggested apps' has a much more approachable and fluffy feel to it. Maybe. This is a 'feature' that's currently only being shown to Windows Insiders, but it could spread to everyone else. Will it be well-received?

Comments

If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why it's "free". They're getting their money by selling you.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[dAzED1]

and just how is it that you secure a product that is constantly talking to systems on the internet, and doesn't have a way to disable such communication? An early beta of Win10 did this as well, I saw it - I was just curious what Win10 looked like, so I put it on something. After seeing that, I quickly removed it and any thought I'd ever use Windows for anything ever again.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

That old saw doesn't work in this case.

I (my employer, actually) pay for Windows, get ads. I don't pay for FreeBSD, don't get ads.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Gr8Apes]

By strictly whitelisting what that computer can talk to. Perhaps just tech.slashdot.org?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Saithe]

Win10 ignores the Host-file for certain Microsoft functions and simply bypass it.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

These days you're a product whether you paid or not.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[armanox]

Sounds like a problem to be solved via DNS Servers and Firewalls

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[OrangeTide]

You can avoid being a traded commodity, but it's getting harder these days.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter if you pay. They still collect all data about you and sell it. I have not used Windows in the last 15 years and this sure as hell isn't going to get me to use it...

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[tepples]

Did you mean "DNS Servers and Firewalls" in hardware or in software? If you meant in software, then Windows can go around it. If you meant in hardware, then good luck carrying "DNS Servers and Firewalls" with your Windows 10 laptop when you use public Wi-Fi.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then, you don't secure Windows. You uninstall it and never run anything from Microsoft again.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[GNious]

Sounds like a feature ISPs can provide:

[X] Disable ads in Windows
[X] Disable tracking in Windows

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why it's "free". They're getting their money by selling you.

But Windows 10 is NOT free. If I go to Newegg, Windows 10 Home - Full Version is $119.99.

The UPGRADE is free if you already bought Windows Vista or Windows 7. That is very different from a free product.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

One more reason to relegate Windows to a VM guest position, if you really need to have it, while running Linux as the hardware supervisor...

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[LVSlushdat]

I have a small side business (me and two other techs) doing Windows cleanup and upgrades of older systems still on XP over to XUbuntu. Since about 2011, we've done over 30 such systems, and in most cases, before the upgrade our phone number was on the customers speeddial, due to constant malware infestations.. We rarely hear from those folks anymore... Since Windows 10 has come out, we've had several customers who bought brandnew systems at a big-box store come to us and ask about what they'd heard about Windows 10 and its blabbing everything to MS... We showed them several traffic analysis done on an "uncastrated" copy of Win10. In both cases, the owners opted for us to install Linux on their systems. I told them that we *could* run some tools that would disable the especially blatant spying aspects, but there was ZERO assurance that MS would not come out with an update that would roll our "castration" back... Our recommendation was to stop using MS products if the customer had ANY concerns about privacy and Microsoft...

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

You're that concerned about security yet you use public wifi?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[TheGratefulNet]

nah, problem solved by fresh install of dvd based win7, disable all bad updates (beyond a certain date) and disable update mechanism entirely.

that also means that win systems can't be directly on the net and even allowing them access to the net is not very smart anymore.
whee! its like win95 and win98 days, where every windows box is, by definition, unsafe on a LAN or WAN.

we had a few years in the middle where it was good to enable updates and windows was starting to show some maturity in the computer market. not any more. MS has gone back to its truly evil ways and - funny enough - its starting to make apple look good in comparison! wow, just wow.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why it's "free". They're getting their money by selling you.

Except it isn't free. There is merely a time limited version jump for a set of users to the latest bugfest.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows can't go past a third party software firewall that you set up properly.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Sounds like a feature ISPs can provide for just an extra $9.99 a month:

[X] Disable ads in Windows
[X] Disable tracking in Windows

I think you forgot a piece of your prediction.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Grishnakh]

No, it's easier (at least on desktop PCs and laptops; phones are a different matter). Linux distros have gotten better and better: easier to use, easier to install. Just install Linux and stop using Windows and you don't have to worry about privacy on your PC.

You say you need some software that only works on Windows? Well do you need it so much that you're willing to let Microsoft run a keylogger on your PC and send all your personal data, passwords, etc. to MS's servers, for who knows what purpose?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Penguinisto]

GP most likely meant that you set up a box running a transparent proxy in your house (running NotWindows(R), natch), force all traffic to go through it, then put your whitelists/hosts/etc on that.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like your customers like Cheese Pizza and are afraid of getting caught

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Penguinisto]

...even in the latter case, a 'doze VM with networking disabled will run that precious little snowflake app. I've done that for years to run old CG applications that I can't bring myself to part with (well, down to one CG app for UV Mapping tweaks, but still...)

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[BradleyUffner]

Does this apply to Linux too?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

So much this.

If you never bought your version of Windows, you are more than deserving of being served ads.
This is how "Free Software" works. (free as in up yours for trying to make a distinction, you sentence-wanks)

I'd still never pay for Windows 10 regardless.
I'll wait till everyone either collectively shits it at the ever-increasing spying being done by Win10 so that they never repeat it with Win11, or fully switch to Linux by that time since most of the gaming industry are seriously looking to use it now. (and new software and editors will allow them to develop for it far easier)
Not that I even play any advanced games worth a damn. 90% of every new game released in the past 5 years have been trash. Literally indie games market is the only place where any innovation is actually happening. (and sadly is also full of abuse thanks to groups like Steam making it so easy for shit developers to sell their worthless games because they made the process so stupidly easy to abuse)

tl;dr FREEDUMS

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Njorthbiatr]

And when Google does it, it's a-okay.

How about you guys quit being hypocrites and insisting every end-user must be using linux and be proficient in bash or other forms of masochism.

MS keeps getting unfairly tossed under the bus, again and again and again.

"Oh they're tracking me if I don't opt to disable most of it! Wow look at this friggin' piece of spyware!"
"Oh they're giving me non-invasive ads in my software! Might as well be adware!"

It's also the case that people simultaneously gripe about how underpaid coders are while wanting free products for everything. How the hell do you expect MS to pay its coders? "Oh here you can try working for us for free, and if we really appreciate you we'll give you some donations."

Don't bitch about Windows when you're using an Android device. Like seriously.

And if you're one of those people that doesn't and genuinely cares about your privacy and such, then good for you. I'm happy you practice what you preach. But that doesn't mean everyone has to do it your way. I'm perfectly willing to give some company some personal data so long as it's used responsibly.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

I've met people who've fallen victim to Linux conversation tactics such as yours. The reason you don't hear from those folks anymore is that many of them now do business with someone else.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[squiggleslash]

Every other post about Google is someone bashing it for "selling personal data to advertisers" (which, FWIW, never happens) so I'm not sure where you're getting it from that there's a double standard here.

As for these "ads", I can't comment. What I will say is that if there's no way to turn them off, then it's not a good thing. If I fork out $100-200 for an operating system, whether it comes with my computer or I buy it separately, I don't want ads with it. And no, for those about to say it, I don't consider a "free upgrade" a "free operating system". If you want to call it free, let me dual boot between my existing Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 installs and Windows 10. Replacements are not free. Ever.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to shoot your customers in the foot due to your own bias. The same thing COULD happen in Linux. Lots of things COULD happen. You COULD find that these people never come back to you because you talked them into installing an OS that doesn't run 90% of the stupid crap typical users run. I think the lastest MS hijinks are shitty but just disable it, tell them exactly how shitty and move on. All OS' have problems.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[FlyHelicopters]

and just how is it that you secure a product that is constantly talking to systems on the internet, and doesn't have a way to disable such communication? An early beta of Win10 did this as well, I saw it - I was just curious what Win10 looked like, so I put it on something. After seeing that, I quickly removed it and any thought I'd ever use Windows for anything ever again.

So you installed a beta version of Windows 10, one that told you it had such things in it that couldn't be disabled because it was a TEST VERSION, you didn't like it, and now you hate Windows forever?

Yea, right. You already hated Windows and were just looking for a reason. You're simply doing confirmation bias, you want your existing bias confirmed and this is how you did it.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Set up pfSense on an old desktop box you have laying around the house
2) Set up a transparent proxy on that pfSense box.
3) Set up the pfSense box to handle all of your devices' DNS
4) Set up all of your devices to tunnel everything via "DNS"
5) Watch admins for public wi-fi systems boggle over the metric tons of DNS data your devices are throwing around

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[spire3661]

GOOGLE IS NOT MICROSOFT. They are very different animals. Google doesnt live in my data center, MICROSOFT DOES. This is a massive change for MS when it comes to Enterprise. They NEVER used to do this stuff UNTIL google came along.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[FlyHelicopters]

Since about 2011, we've done over 30 such systems, and in most cases

Wow, you've done... like OVER 30 such things in 4 YEARS?

Yea, that is really gonna cut into Windows marketshare right there.

We showed them several traffic analysis done on an "uncastrated" copy of Win10. In both cases, the owners opted for us to install Linux on their systems.

All two of them, huh?

Yea, the "Year of the Linux Desktop" is right around the corner.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[SQLGuru]

Is the ad tied to a live tile for the store? Most app stores showcase apps in their store app and Live Tiles show updated info......so I would suspect that these "ads" are really just the store live tile showing the content. [I haven't read the article and I'm not running the update.]

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[ewibble]

I typical user runs a web browser. That is 90% of your usage right there. Unless you are playing games you can do pretty much everything on linux.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Phones aren't a different matter. There exist several truly free phones, for example Jolla. Sure, there may be some drawbacks depending on your opinion but those exist with other form factors as well.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't totally stop a Windows 10 install from sending telemetry data to Microsoft servers if you are only changing config and settings on the Win 10 install.

Doing so not only requires the changes you are familiar with on the Windows 10 installation, but also a router/firewall that will block outbound traffic to a long and ever-changing list of Microsoft telemetry servers.

Even if you've done all of these things, Microsoft is rolling telemetry re-enabling 'updates' into actual security updates in order to make it harder to block, refuse or disable them. The only way you win here is to not use Windows 10 on a machine that is ever connected to an outside network.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you (and other posters like you) have stopped hearing from those people because they're under the impression you've 'destroyed' their computer and don't want you to touch it again? No news is not always good news.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[tepples]

You're that concerned about security yet you use public wifi?

In practice, can anybody but a state break HTTPS and SSH?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[The-Ixian]

Operating systems are tools not ideologies.

Use what works for the situation.

You only need web browsing and e-mail? Sure, Linux may be a nice, low-cost solution.

You need a full computer experience complete with video editing and some gaming? Maybe Mac is the right solution for you

Do you need access your corporate network from home or want to run all the latest computer games? I think Windows is the best bet.

All this privacy stuff is good to talk about but at the end of the day, all corporate interests are at least gathering data about you. This is probably not the primary decision point for most people unless you play up the FUD and push an ideology on them.

The fact is, Windows is not that hard to secure any more. I agree, back in the XP days it was a nightmare, I would get calls from family all the time. These days I just set them up with a standard user account, make sure UAC is turned all the way up, install chrome and train them how they go about entering the admin user credentials in case they need to (but call me first if you ever get prompted). The malware issues have dropped off to be almost non-existent.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[tepples]

you set up a box running a transparent proxy in your house (running NotWindows(R), natch), force all traffic to go through it

That sounds like setting up a VPN with an endpoint at home. So if I'm connecting through a public hotspot to this VPN, how would I go about ensuring that these Windows services use only the VPN and ignore the direct connection?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Gr8Apes]

Why on earth would I trust an untrustworthy POS to honor any configuration I set? "By strictly whitelisting what that computer can talk to" I mean an external to that computer router/firewall that can be configured to only allow certain connections. In the case of MS OSes, that appears to be behind a very restrictive firewall on separate non-MS hardware, almost the reverse of a standard network configuration internal to your own LAN.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[tepples]

I typical user runs a web browser. That is 90% of your usage right there.

If 100 percent of use is in a browser, you can use a Chromebook. It's just that the remaining 10 percent of use that's not web-based makes a Chromebook a difficult proposition. Install Crouton and your laptop starts begging you to wipe its drive every time you turn it on.

Unless you are playing games you can do pretty much everything on linux.

Or unless you want a small laptop whose hardware just works. My research through Google has led me to believe that anything smaller than 13 inches, other than the 11 inch MacBook Air, has a chipset that's pretty much Windows-only. Five years ago it was better, with thorough Linux support in the popular netbook chipset. But with the demise of netbooks three years ago, Linux-compatible laptop hardware has begun to command a hefty premium.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[tepples]

You say you need some software that only works on Windows? Well do you need it so much that you're willing to let Microsoft run a keylogger on your PC and send all your personal data, passwords, etc. to MS's servers, for who knows what purpose?

I'm told the PC's owner can dramatically reduce this leakage by turning off CEIP, Cortana, and live tiles. But I imagine that some laptop users do need working Wi-Fi drivers and a working suspend button enough to deal with Windows.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Jerry Atrick]

Except my copy was not free, I sacrificed years of prepaid Win8.x support to install this steaming POS.

(No, I don't have any choice in running it, damn job)

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[lgw]

Why do you think Google doesn't live in your datacenter? They're amazing subtle and invasive. Why do you think this will apply to MS enterprise products? Is is even in WIn10 Pro? Any reason to think it will be in any of their business products, from server to Exchange to anything at all?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Guybrush_T]

Well, depends where you live. In the US, no doubt you'll get that for an indecent price.

In France, french ISP "Free" is proposing this kind of service for free for a long time (ad-filtering) both for fixed and mobile internet.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Njorthbiatr]

The same people who call Windows 10 Spyware tend to be the same people who are perfectly okay with using an android phone or have a far less overblown reaction to Google.

As for the ads in Windows 10, you can disable it by right clicking the ad and selecting, "Don't show ads again."

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off Microsoft shill!!!
Fuck off Microsoft shill!!! [Repeated to beat comment filter and to reinforce my statement]

---
Not APK

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't actually disable Cortana without some trickery that is beyond most normal users, and even then it's not out of the question for Microsoft to push an update that will silently re-enable it anyway.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off Microsoft shill!!!
Fuck off Microsoft shill!!!
Fuck off Microsoft shill!!! [Repeated to beat comment filter and to reinforce my statement]

---
Not APK

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[DarkOx]

That has been true going back at least as far as Win98. Microsoft hard coded IPs for many of the update functions for obvious reasons.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[tepples]

From WernerCD's answer in the linked page, it's "Search > Settings > Cortana > Off". How is this "beyond most normal users"?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

If you meant in hardware, then good luck carrying "DNS Servers and Firewalls" with your Windows 10 laptop when you use public Wi-Fi.

Sounds like a perfect job for a tiny Raspberry Pi model A+.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[s.petry]

Not easy for a novice, but run Linux with VirtualBox and run a Windows 10 VM on top. Or VMWare. This is currently how I'm testing Windows 10, and works pretty well. Just be aware that without VMWare Tools and VirtualBox client software, windows 10 locked up all the time for no visible reason and had to be hard reset.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

The Cortana process is still running in the background and restarts itself when killed. Merely disabling Cortana from the Search Settings window does not keep the program from running. You have to either rename the folder after killing the process and before it starts again, or use a PowerShell command to remove the package (which may end up breaking more than just Cortana). If you're running Windows 10, go ahead and try to disable Cortana.exe from starting by 'turning it off' in the Control Panel and see for yourself.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[tepples]

What has Cortana.exe been shown to leak while turned off?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[The-Ixian]

Just because there are Microsoft products in your data center doesn't mean that Windows 10 is.

Also, the fact that you have MS products in your datacenter sort of implies that your trust them with your data anyway...

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

And just how long has your boyfrind worked for Microsoft young lady?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Irrelevant. If I turn something off I expect it to be turned off. Not still running in the background for whatever reason. Maybe I want to free up the CPU and RAM it's consuming, for example.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[thegarbz]

Windows has ignored the host file for certain functions from back in days of Windows XP.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[OrangeTide]

So you aren't tracked on the web when you use a web browser in Linux?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Gr8Apes]

I'm curious when it was safe to run windows anywhere? IIRC, there's always been issues of pwnage which appear to have been reduced until MS completely pwned their own OS with that Win v7+ update that enabled automatic critical downloads. It's only a matter of time before that backfires.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

I would do that if my CPU supported VT-d. I will make sure my next computer supports it so it can be a Linux box running Windows in a VM at fully native speed.

Until then, I'll have to stick with my optimised (all extraneous crap removed, Classic Shell added and updates disabled) version of Windows 8.1 Pro

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows can go past anything that is running on Windows.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

I typical user runs a web browser. That is 90% of your usage right there. Unless you are playing games you can do pretty much everything on linux.

What about professional/hobbyist photo editing, audio production, video production, CAD, CAM, CAE, architectural design and viz, solid modeling, factory design/sim, CFD, structural engineering, etc. There are dozens more categories not well served or mostly not served at all on Linux, it is still a LONG way behind.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

GP most likely meant that you set up a box in running a transparent proxyyour house (running NotWindows(R), natch), force all traffic to go through it, then put your whitelists/hosts/etc on that.

Yeah, I'll just run right out and do that.

Sure, the technically savvy can do this, but what about the other 99.999999% of users?

I can just see telling my mom, "Hey ma, all ya gotta do is run another computer as a transparent proxy using Linux, route all the traffic through it and spend a few days or weeks building a whitelist and hosts!"

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Impossible to tell since Microsoft encrypts all the data it harvests so the user can't see what it's up to. If you run a packet analyser, you can see that Cortana does continuously send data to Microsoft, regardless of whether you have it set on or off in the placebo settings window.

Also, if I tell something to shut down, it had better well shut down. It's my computer and it works the way I want it to.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[spauldo]

MS keeps getting unfairly tossed under the bus, again and again and again.

It would be more accurate to say "MS keeps getting fairly tossed under the bus, and Google unfairly doesn't."

Based on past experience, Microsoft is fully willing to violate their customers any way they can if it means they make an extra buck. They'd burn their customers for heating if they thought they'd make money doing so. Calling them on it is hardly unfair.

Throwing them under a bus is fine. Throwing Google under the bus is fine as well.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Teckla]

So you aren't tracked on the web when you use a web browser in Linux?

I use Gopher, you insensitive clod!

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[rtb61]

More appropriate good luck when you walk into a place and they start punching your details into a Windows 10 slaved computer, no matter what you do with security and your computer, you are still going to be well and truly probed by windows 10 without your permission or even a free dinner. You seriously think M$ will care one bit about whether or not they have permission to pry into you private life before they start storing and analysing your data gleaned from the entire botnet that is windows 10.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a feature ISPs can provide for just an extra $9.99 a month:

[X] Disable ads in Windows
[X] Disable tracking in Windows

I think you forgot a piece of your prediction.

Great idea! I'll have the start bar ad for this online by tomorrow morning!

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Grishnakh]

Huh? Where'd you get that idea? If you visit someone's web site, they can track you to some extent because they have your IP address (and a lot more if you log in), regardless of your browser and OS. Nothing is 100%.

But that's still a lot better than sending all your keystrokes to MS.

Anyway, you can prevent a lot of the tracking by using an ad-blocker, again regardless of OS or browser.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Grishnakh]

Also, if I tell something to shut down, it had better well shut down. It's my computer and it works the way I want it to.

Not when you're running Windows 10 it doesn't.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[basecastula]

About to say the same thing.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[armanox]

Meh. The lack of Hypervisor support for VT-d is pretty sad.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[armanox]

Alternatively have your personal DNS server externally accessible and hard set Windows to use that DNS server.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[armanox]

I've got a Model 2 B+ that I'm testing that out with actually. I think that those (and similar things, like the MIPS ci20) are perfect for home services (mine's also doing DHCP)

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Waccoon]

What's sad is that since your Home folder is accessible by everything, almost all security is handled at the application level. Even if it were possible to audit Linux (and all the shell layers built on it), that means squat if you use the same applications that you do on Windows. Or, as you're suggesting, any software that's given away for free.

I shrug at people who throw a tantrum over Windows, and then happily use Chrome on Linux.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why it's "free". They're getting their money by selling you.

That's only true with the quotation marks. (as if you are joking) It's as free of charge as any other malware/adware/spyware. Now it is fully global spyware,malware,and adware. You can't take a PC without an OS on it and install Windows 10 for free. It has to have a pre-existing Windows version and somebody paid for it even if it was a bundled OEM version. With Linux? Do whatever pleases you, and it's orders of magnitude better on top of that.

Microsoft is a global back-stab. A global fuck you all version 10.

Heh.. I see this was modded -1 a few minutes ago... then I linked it from another comment.. now it's 0,Troll. It should be 5 and scraped by Google so people around the world can un-fuck their computers. Maybe you non-shills can re-post it with happier language or mod it up so it get's scraped by search engines.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8154117&cid=50706123

Facts make a shill's job tough don't they.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[UncleRage]

Here's the thing...

You're in a community that is long steeped in appreciation of Linux and does not view command line interaction as masochism. Hell, most of the Windows professionals here probably spend a great deal of their time in Powershell or Putty sessions.

There's also a certain amount of joy in bashing Windows. Because, well... dealing with it in the past has been a pain point for many. And, it's fun. Sort of like that kid in school that just didn't get that they harder they tried to be cool, the more awkward they became.

Ultimately, your condescending impression of a neck beard will not magically sway anyone's opinion. It will accent your slicked back hair and Duran Duran shirt, though.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[OrangeTide]

As far as I know, all your keystrokes go to Google and Amazon already. That's the power of javascript and the Web 2.0.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[antdude]

Wait until Apple, Linux, etc. starting do this too. I miss the old computing and video gaming days. :(

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows, hahaha. In the past, you had to pay to get something on your computer. Now, the OS is free but you have to pay to get rid of things. It's the inverted-wedding-cake-model :)

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

It can if you force it to.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Grishnakh]

How? External hardware? Simply selecting a checkbox within Windows isn't guaranteed to do anything, or not be undone when the next update arrives.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Grishnakh]

Then you're really ignorant about how OSes and browsers work. Sure, theoretically, JS can do that within a single browser tab, but that's it. If you're logging into Google/Amazon, then you're already sending your keystrokes there, so what's the problem?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[jawtheshark]

The model A (regardless of +) has no NIC: Wikipedia: Raspberry Pi / Networking

It's a common mistake. The A was thought to be used in schools for "projects", the B is the one that was sold to the public from the beginning (albeit, later you could get an A). I have two B, rev 1.... aka, the "original", which only came with 256MB RAM. The B rev 2 was identical, but had 512MB and only... The Raspberry Pi 2 is an entirely different beast.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

At least with Ubuntu you could just switch to Xubuntu and not have Unity foisting Amazon on you with Windows 10 you're a captive audience and on low resource systems these ads could severely tax your device.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[vandamme]

You mean, "You get what you pay for?". No, it does not.

"Linux is free if your time is worth nothing" doesn't apply anymore either, like t did ten years ago (or even 5 for some distros).

New aphorism: "Windows is free if your privacy is worth nothing."

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Every other post about Google is someone bashing it for "selling personal data to advertisers" (which, FWIW, never happens) so I'm not sure where you're getting it from that there's a double standard here.

That is total bull shit just run wireshark on the data stream and you'll see. Hell they read your email on a private server if you have that account on your phone or chromebook.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[OrangeTide]

Every site I visit, if it partners with Google or Amazon, is running their tools.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard that you can fix a lot of security problems just by modifying your hosts file.

I don't know how that's done - I really wish someone here would enlighten us.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[tepples]

I've heard that you can fix a lot of security problems just by modifying your hosts file.

Yes, but not this one. See Cederic's post.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

By forcibly ripping files and settings out. Haven't you ever seen tiny versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8? There's already a Windows 10 "privacy edition" making the rounds on pirate sites.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[dbIII]

Do you need access your corporate network from home

Multi-platform if done correctly.
Also the serious stuff on that corporate network is probably running *nix anyway. If you think email is "serious" then you've got a bloated example of it where even the name tells you to swap it for something else.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Samizdata]

Or maybe try something like this?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

"wow, just wow" the ultimate in retarded comments. not surprising coming from someone who can't figure out uppercase.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 EULA: "We will disclose the content of your files in private folders."

Never going to agree to that!

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I use AdBlock Plus, Ghostery, ScriptSafe, Vanilla and CyberGhost extensions.

ABP gets rid of ads, Ghostery gets rid of trackers, ScriptSafe forbids JavaScript, Vanilla cleans up cookies and CyberGhost provides a proxy.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't enter anything into their search boxes. Unless you don't really give a fuck anymore.

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bitch about Windows when you're using an Android device. Like seriously.

The best comparison to the start menu on Windows for Android is the app drawer. So can you please remind me when Google started placing ads in the app drawer on Android? It does look to me like MS are worse than Google, if you want to claim otherwise, you have to show how Google are just as bad.

True, if you really care about privacy you shouldn't be using Google's services. But, at least for some Android devices you can flash a clean Google-free version of Android. Now where can you get a legitimate, reasonably up-to-date version of Windows free of Microsoft's spyware?

Re:If you did not pay for the product, you are one

[Anonymous Coward]

1. That isn't the claim that was made, Google reading your email on a private server is not "selling [your] personal data to advertisers", although if true is a serious claim.

2. I'm not going to create a setup myself just to verify this random claim, if this is true someone would have documented it on a blog or two. All I could find was Google reading email on it's own servers (i.e. if you are using the Gmail service, and incidentally that is why I don't use Gmail for anything other than the Play Store), that isn't the same as snooping on emails on private servers that you claimed. Can you provide links to back up your claim?

A new useful feature...

[slashways]

The OS is now the true ownership of the machine, and will get the ads revenues...

Re:A new useful feature...

[governorx]

I have long felt that as the end user that is forced to consume the advertisement content we should be getting paid for the time and brainpower needed to do so. At the very least it eats the bandwidth we are paying for. Perhaps this train of thought could lead to some interesting legislation.

Anyway, can't wait for the OS to hang like a web page because its waiting for the servers to send advertisement data. Can't wait for adblock and noscript for windows 10 operating system.

-gov

Re:A new useful feature...

[Jason Levine]

Especially when you consider that ISPs seem to be drooling over the prospect of instituting caps with overage fees. If you pay $50 a month for 300GB of Internet Service and your Windows install is using some of your Internet for things like ads, phoning home to tell Microsoft what you're doing, etc. (but not counting security updates), then perhaps Microsoft should pay the users for the bandwidth that was wasted. No, each person wouldn't be paid much: Maybe $1 - 2 a month. Still, multiply that over the number of Windows 10 users and it'll cause some pain in their bank accounts (which is the only way to make a company behave a lot of times.)

Re: A new useful feature...

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely this is the beginning of windows home being free and pro being paid, with the main differences beig Active directory support and no suggested apps in pro.

for all the knee jerk reactions around here about the concept, im reminded of similar knee jerk reactions when the game industry really started pushing the f2p or freemium model on new games. None of that stopped it from taking off.

Lastly, people can complain about this all they want, and suggest linux as the obvious alternative, but that ignores the fact that linux isnt a viable alternative to many people who arent already using it for a reason (or several).

Re:A new useful feature...

[MitchDev]

Send the CEO and other execs to prison, that'll do even more to make the next ones behave...

Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not talking about ads for Viagra, porn, or anything like that, but ads for apps.

First displaying some app advertisements is a nice slippery slope to later transform it to a vehicle delivering all sorts of advertisements.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Not surprising. Had to install Win10 yesterday to test compatibility with some legacy software. What a complete and utter clusterfuck. The amount of telemetry/spying intrusion that Microsoft expects users to accept without question is...staggering. Just trying to keep the firewall and defender off was a major endeavor. And travel/sports/etc. embedded in the OS I paid for to generated revenue via tracking? Facepalm.

And that's the thing, they could have tons of spyware by default and those stupid enough to allow the spying deserve what they get. The problem is automatically turning everything back on after I've made the choice to turn it off/uninstall. And that includes the whole force-fed updates issue.

My humble prediction is that Win10 is going to get much worse beyond just injecting ads into the start menu. So much so that even Aunt Sally is going to get the willies. Most of us know how oblivious Aunt Sally is to this stuff so that will be an accomplishment.

And what will Microsoft do in response? Make up some official sounding names (like WGA) and try to stuff even more shit down the throats of anyone stupid enough to use the OS.

Having said all that, they're obviously testing the waters to see how much shit people will eat then back off. The problem is that there are real alternatives now for the consumer, not like back in the monopoly days.

Bitch about the arrogance of Apple all you want. Microsoft is way worse, they taking coupling arrogance with incompetence to whole new level.

Re:Yet

[LVSlushdat]

Sooooooo nice to see somebody else who sees Win10 for what it is... I moved all my systems over to Linux when I retired in 2010... Could'nt be happier..

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not talking about ads for Viagra, porn, or anything like that, but ads for apps.

First displaying some app advertisements is a nice slippery slope to later transform it to a vehicle delivering all sorts of advertisements.

None of this should come as a surprise. This is precisely what happened with the Xbox 360 dashboard, and, by extension, the Xbox One dashboard. And it's exactly why I refuse to purchase an Xbox One, despite owning an Xbox 360 (which is actually a solid gaming platform), ditched Windows 10 for FreeBSD, and used my legit Windows 7 license to turn my one remaining Windows box into a video game console/streaming box.

The thing that Microsoft doesn't seem to understand (actually, I'm sure that they understand this very well) is that my electronic devices are for my own use. They're not a platform to shove ads in my face.

Re:Yet

[kangsterizer]

And.. you have a smartphone yes? Because all W10 is doing, is gathering similar data to what iOS and Android do.
It's logical, as W10 is to become a mixed base for mobile and regular platforms.

It's not good for our future for sure - but it's not like it was a "Microsoft problem". It's a global problem.

Re:Yet

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Or having the Microsoft servers distributing the app ads compromised and used to show ads for Viagra, porn, the next generation of MMF/419 spam, etc.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried the Solitaire collection add received a gambling style app advertisement after beating a game. Result was a malevolent right click -> uninstall targeted to the figurative ass of the Microsoft app.

Re:Yet

[Penguinisto]

It gets even worse, if you're on rural internet (which is often capped pretty hard) - definitely not fun to watch one's bandwidth cap approach even faster on a monthly basis. My solution? Delenda Windows Est - I don't feel like paying extra in ancillary costs just to use a friggin' OS.

Re: Yet

[Bing Tsher E]

I have seen what they install. It's obnoxious, but not general 'advertising' as most peopLe think of it. They install icons on your start menu for programs you haven't installed. When you touch them (this is on my Windows 10 tablet) the shortcut takes you to the app store to install it. Hardware vendors have been putting shovelware links on their OS prebuilds for years that is the equivalent. The difference is that Microsoft is adding these 'ad' shortcuts in after you've already been using the system. I've deleted the ones that have appeared so far. Hopefully it won't be a continuing thing. It's annoying to find crap in the start menu that you haven't installed.

Re: Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you think. Let's do it. I'm sold. Spam email is so 1990s.

Re:Yet

[spire3661]

My phone is not the same thing as my WORKSTATIONS and SERVERS, you clueless fop.

Re:Yet

[FlyHelicopters]

The amount of telemetry/spying intrusion that Microsoft expects users to accept without question is...staggering.

And yet I don't care.

And millions and millions of people just like me don't care.

I'm a technical user, I have a dozen computers in my home, I build my own machines, I own my own technology business.

I still don't care.

----

Why? Because I see the future that is coming, and I also see the upsides to all this two way communication.

You only see the downsides, you want to keep it the way it used to be. While the horse was nice for personal transport once, the car is much better.

Windows 10 is the future of the car, it is the Model T of what will come.

You don't have to get on, you can avoid it if you want. But you'll increasingly be in the minority, and that's ok. Just don't kid yourself, the benefits and features of the future will sway the vast majority.

The problem is that there are real alternatives now for the consumer, not like back in the monopoly days.

What, Mac? That existed 20 years ago as well, nothing there has changed. Still expensive, still limited in software and hardware choices. Linux? For the desktop? Give me a break, that ship has long since sailed and isn't coming back.

Yes, I would like to see competition in the desktop OS market, OS X could be that competition, but until Apple changes how it does business, that isn't going to happen.

Re:Yet

[The-Ixian]

I would absolutely agree that Windows 10 should not be a server platform... but then again, it is not meant to be.

I have seen the Server 2016 platform yet but I am pretty sure that all of this marketing id and telemetry stuff will not be included.

Windows 10 IS the same thing as iOS and Android... it is Microsoft's unified platform that runs on all devices whether it has big monitors and lots of peripherals attached or is tiny and has a touch screen.

Re:Yet

[Ramze]

You see a very bleak future, my friend.

The future I envision is having Tony Stark's Jarvis personal assistant program open-sourced and running on my personal home Linux cluster behind a firewall with all of my devices connected locally or remotely through that interface... most likely all Linux devices. The computing power is mine, the data is mine, the agent that collects my preferences and conducts searches runs locally and for me, not some third party that wants to sell my information or could get easily hacked and cause numerous headaches.

Windows 10 is the most intrusive software yet -- even includes a keylogger. But, hey... if you want an OS that scans your file contents and file names, uploads your searches (local machine and internet), searches to see what software you're running (and disable any it thinks are dubious), and uploads a ton of personal information (possibly even passwords and your personal files) into the cloud for the world to hack, go for it.

Personally, I don't want to deal with the identity theft, the theft of my intellectual property, and/or threats of blackmail from those that will gain access to that information.

As for Apple, they're so much more popular now than they were 20 years ago. I'm impressed with how many university students have them. Many of my family members have Macs, too. I always tell them that PCs are cheaper, but an Apple will "just work" with less hassle. Apple will lock you into their ecosystem and cost a small fortune for simple cables and adapters, but it's a really nice prison.

I've toyed with Linux for decades, but now that I've found Cubuntu -- Ubuntu with Cinnamon and no zeitgeist crap; I've found a Linux distro that does literally everything I used Windows for. Web browsing (chromium) 90% of my usage, movie watching (vlc) 5%, then libreoffice, steam, wine for a few games, etc.

Linux was always behind in terms of hardware support, but it's mostly caught up. Most hardware "just works" same as with Windows and OSX... and it's getting better every day.

I see a future without Windows. So does Microsoft, which is why they're desperately trying to monetize their users by giving away their OS for free.

Re:Yet

[lgw]

Has MS done this with a server OS? Does WIn10 Pro work this way (not a rhetorical question - I honestly don't know)?

If this is just the free consumer OS, and the OS for workstations and the OS for servers doesn't do this shit, then your rant is way off base, and all the geeks can just run the business version. Does anyone know if Pro does this same shit?

Re:Yet

[FlyHelicopters]

You see a very bleak future, my friend.

What you call bleak, I call exciting. :) Different strokes I suppose...

The future I envision is having Tony Stark's Jarvis personal assistant program open-sourced and running on my personal home Linux cluster behind a firewall with all of my devices connected locally or remotely through that interface... most likely all Linux devices. The computing power is mine, the data is mine, the agent that collects my preferences and conducts searches runs locally and for me, not some third party that wants to sell my information or could get easily hacked and cause numerous headaches.

That sounds great, but it is a fantasy... that will exist of course, but it'll be more like Siri/Cortana/Alexa is today, server driven and universal profiled with an account somewhere.

The number of people who are going to run a "personal home Linux cluster" are the extreme margins, probably less than 1%.

Windows 10 is the most intrusive software yet -- even includes a keylogger.

That sounds SO scary, but it really isn't, it is FUD...

Cortana doesn't function unless it sends your typed or spoken words to MS. Siri and Alexa work the same way.

http://thehackernews.com/2015/...

A whole bunch of "oh my god the scaries" are posted there, but doing what they suggest also turns off a bunch of features. If you plan to use a personal assistant like Cortana, you WANT her to get to know you, it makes her better over time.

This is the same as Google getting to know you, your Google searches when you're logged in are better than when they are not, Google learns you over time and provides a better experience.

As for Apple, they're so much more popular now than they were 20 years ago. I'm impressed with how many university students have them. Many of my family members have Macs, too. I always tell them that PCs are cheaper, but an Apple will "just work" with less hassle.

Don't confuse ancidotes with data. iOS is popular, OS X is not. OS X is hovering around 5% desktop market share, about where it has been for a long time. It simply costs too much to gain much more than that.

As for "just working", that is true, OS X just works, but so does Windows, and has since Windows 7. Win 10 has been by far the smoothest upgrade I've seen. I've installed it on dozens of machines now, as an upgrade, something I never used to do. Windows 7 was a clean install, not an upgrade, but my main machine was several years old, had gone through a motherboard change and multiple hardware changes without a Win 7 reinstall.

Installed Windows 10 on it, 100% of everything worked perfectly at first reboot, nothing had to be touched. MS did a bloody good job with it.

I've toyed with Linux for decades, but now that I've found Cubuntu -- Ubuntu with Cinnamon and no zeitgeist crap; I've found a Linux distro that does literally everything I used Windows for. Web browsing (chromium) 90% of my usage, movie watching (vlc) 5%, then libreoffice, steam, wine for a few games, etc.

Linux had its chance of the desktop market 15 years ago, that ship has sailed and it isn't coming back. Yes, you found something that works, and it does indeed work. But for various reasons that have nothing to do with technology, it isn't going to happen. But you may keep using it of course and it isn't going away, it just isn't going above the 1-2% market share that it has and has had for awhile.

I see a future without Windows.

I don't, and there is the difference. Nothing wrong with your point of view of course, it is colored by your perceptions and biases, as is mine.

Time will tell, but in fairness, nothing you've said is new. Most of those points were made 15 years ago when Win XP launched a

Re:Yet

[yuhong]

Nor will the forced updates either. I checked Server 2012 R2 Essentials and it can join a workgroup and be used as a workstation, though it can't be joined to a domain as anything other than a domain controller holding FSMO roles. Hopefully Server 2016 will be the same.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Android is far far worse than MS Windows. At least I do not carry my PC all over with me. The minute a reasonable linux OS phone is out, I switch.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off Microsoft shill!!!
Fuck off Microsoft shill!!!
Fuck off Microsoft shill!!!
Fuck off Microsoft shill!!! [Repeated to beat comment filter and to reinforce my statement]

---
Not APK

Re:Yet

[neoritter]

Pro doesn't have as many issues from what I can tell.

Re:Yet

[Darinbob]

An ad for an app is already an advertisement. Thus once the first ad for an app appears you are at the bottom of the slippery slope.

Re:Yet

[Darinbob]

Microsoft seems desperate to get alternative revenue sources, rather than just relying on Office and Windows. They look around and see three things that naively look like big money makers: Apple's app store, Google's spying ability, and everyone's ubiquitous advertising (the true high tech money maker). So what new features make it into Windows 8 and 10? An app store along with constant funneling to the app store; integrated bing and voice based bing; spyware/telemetry; and now advertising.

But don't blame Microsoft for this. They're merely copying badly what those other companies already do.

Re:Yet

[Darinbob]

That's not what Microsoft thinks though. They see the PC dying off and they're desparately scrambling to clutch at future revenue streams. They bought and destroyed Nokia in order to get a foot into the smart phone market, they added their own ridiculous app store, they're spying and providing advertisements. The only thing that your workstations and servers are good for, in Microsoft's mind, is as a temporary migration path to whatever the new world is going to be.

It's not just a Microsoft failing either. OSX has evolved into primarily an iOS development platform. Google has removed the "do no evil" slogan. Advertising is ubiquitous along with advertising advocates who plead with us to turn of adblock.

Re:Yet

[Darinbob]

What are the upsides?

Anyway, if you think this is about the desktop you're wrong. All these changes are because Microsoft is giving up on the desktop and turning into a transition platform for phones and tablets and watches and cranial implants and whatever else is in the future. This is why the desktop features were put onto a back burner. Sure, the fired the Windows 8 exec but this was not a one person conspiracy, there are plenty of people still there who strongly want to make a cross-platform "operating system" because they think the desktop is vanishing, they want that dumb app-oriented view that you see on smart phones to be everywhere, they want the advertising revenue, they want to spy and track and monetize the users, and they don't give a shit about user productivity or getting work done.

Re:Yet

[KGIII]

I use Linux on the desktop. Unlike many (weasel word, I know), I don't actually run around advocating its use. Instead, I recommend people use what works best for them. I recommend that they use what enables them to do what they need to do in the most efficient manner. For me, that's Linux. For you? That's Windows and that's okay.

I don't think I got rid of Windows because of any spying. If they want my telemetry data and ask nicely then they can have it. I find Linux easier conceptually. I like being able to interact with more and to learn more. I like to break things in new and unusual ways. I'm not the average user, I suppose.

Re:Yet

[FlyHelicopters]

I'm not the average user, I suppose.

No you're not. But here is the thing... I'm GLAD you have Linux to play with, I'm glad it exists for many reasons. Just existing is enough to make some people aware of it, it provides for good Internet servers, it does provide a small threat to MS to keep them on their toes, and gives people who care something to play with.

I don't want it to go away, it is a good thing.

I'm just saying it'll never becoming a big thing (on the desktop), that's all.

Re:Yet

[FlyHelicopters]

What are the upsides?

Many, but it requires seeing a future that is different than today. Having the Internet of Things all wired up and knowing who you are, making your life easier, and providing you with what you need, when you need it.

The vision is one of services, rather than products. Selling you a box of software (or a download, whatever), vs. providing an ongoing service.

MS Office can be a boxed product, Cortana cannot be... Office is more or less finished in terms of a stand alone product, to really make it interesting going forward requires the always-on, always-connected, datalinked world that some people are afraid of.

Have you seen the tools in Office 2016 that allow multiple people to work on and edit documents in real time, with text, voice, or video links?

This will change how we work with computers, technology, and the Internet.

there are plenty of people still there who strongly want to make a cross-platform "operating system" because they think the desktop is vanishing

The desktop IS vanishing as you know it. Perhaps that is part of the anger over Windows 10, some people don't want it to change. Fair enough, but it is going to change regardless.

My mother has the same problem, she doesn't want a smart phone, she wants a feature phone that takes pictures and does text messages and has a nice physical keyboard. Those are getting harder to find. They exist, but not like they used to.

The desktop is turning into "the cloud", where you have an account and services and they follow you where ever you are, on whatever device you're nearest. That is the future.

Re:Yet

[Darinbob]

Well, they said the mainframe was going to die when the PC came around. It didn't die, it just lost market share.

Re:Yet

[FlyHelicopters]

IBM sold $20 billion dollars worth of mainframes in the first three months of 2015.

I don't think the mainframe went anywhere, the media just stopped talking about it.

Re:Yet

[KGIII]

No, it probably won't. I'd not even be surprised to see Linux (kernel) lose market share on the mobile front in the near future. I don't hate Microsoft. I'm glad they've done what they've done - they are really kind of responsible for putting the desktop into the hands of the average person. Sure, we can suggest it might have gone other ways but we only have history to go by.

Me? I like breaking, learning, tinkering. I love it. It's my enjoyment. If it's not broken then I'm not trying hard enough. Then I fix it. I learn, I grow, then I help others. It works for me. Damned right, I'd not even recommend this to most people. I do, sort of, feel comfortable recommending Linux to some now. It just works for so much of what people do. I've a new lady friend that I introduced to Linux. I've since just bought her a new laptop but she wanted Linux on it - specifically Lubuntu at this point. I like Lubuntu and Mint - Cinnamon.

So, no... I don't hate Window. I'm glad they're there. This? This is something you can just turn off. They've been collecting and managing all this data for years. I'm not entirely sure why it's suddenly a problem. If anything, I'd be happy (as a user - if I was one) that they were being more open about it. The data is trivial enough that I'd give it to them if they asked. I'd turn the ads off though - I hate ads.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, Pro has almost all of the same issues as Home. GPE is included with Pro, but that's not easier to use than one of the many Windows 10 anti-spying applications out there, such as Spybot Anti-Beacon.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, you want a subscription based life with nickel and dime business models everywhere.

No thanks. I'd rather own what I buy and have business transactions that actually conclude instead of being handed a surprise bill or having companies collect personal data.

Re:Yet

[rcase5]

As for "just working", that is true, OS X just works, but so does Windows, and has since Windows 7.

I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with your assessment of Windows 7. I run a Windows 7 VM, and I find that it suffers from the same affliction that all Windows before it suffer. It works great at first, then it starts to slow down until it grinds to a crawl over time. That to me isn't "just working". I never see this behavior in Linux or MacOS. I've had Linux installations running for 9 years with no upgrade and daily use, without any performance hit at all. Microsoft has had 20 years to address this issue in Windows, and they have yet to do so. I find it unlikely they will ever address this issue in the future.

Linux had its chance of the desktop market 15 years ago, that ship has sailed and it isn't coming back. Yes, you found something that works, and it does indeed work. But for various reasons that have nothing to do with technology, it isn't going to happen. But you may keep using it of course and it isn't going away, it just isn't going above the 1-2% market share that it has and has had for awhile.

Why do you say that? What are these "various reasons"?

I see a future without Windows.

I don't, and there is the difference. Nothing wrong with your point of view of course, it is colored by your perceptions and biases, as is mine.

Time will tell, but in fairness, nothing you've said is new. Most of those points were made 15 years ago when Win XP launched and forced the mass consumer off of the DOS/Win 9x line, that was the time to make it happen. We're well past that point.

I find your reasoning flawed. Since most Windows 9x/Me applications were compatible with Windows XP, there was no compelling reason for people to switch from Windows to something else at that point. In fact, Microsoft went through great pains to ensure backward compatibility with Windows XP. So I don't understand why you think that was the time for people to switch to something else. Perhaps you can elaborate?

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

" I own my own technology business."

Sorry, but shilling for Microsoft is not a "technology" business.

Please fuck off Microsoft shill!

--
Not APK

Re:Yet

[FlyHelicopters]

I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with your assessment of Windows 7. I run a Windows 7 VM, and I find that it suffers from the same affliction that all Windows before it suffer.

Then the problem is either having it in a VM, or what you're doing with it.

I've got 12 test machines of various configurations, everything from Windows XP to Windows 10 on them, and Windows 7 was the first version that could be left for years without issues.

Why do you say that? What are these "various reasons"?

There is no "one version" for people to install, there are too many flavors.

There is no "one company" promoting and pushing it, there are many vendors, and sometimes no vendor at all.

Not all Linux software actually runs on all flavors, if the marketshare ever grew, you'd end up having to merge them, or end up not running software on it.

If it did become successful, you'd just end up with a commercial version of it that became well known and you'd end up paying for that, and at some point it wouldn't be "open" anymore. The commercial software purchased for it wouldn't run on the other flavors, rendering them useless.

To understand all this, requires that you understand that this is not a technical issue, but rather a business/economic one.

I find your reasoning flawed. Since most Windows 9x/Me applications were compatible with Windows XP

Most? Some, to various degrees... It was the single biggest jump requiring a change of programs since the move from DOS to Windows... If that jump didn't do it, nothing today will...

---

Note: I'm not saying Linux is a bad thing, I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't use it if you like it. What I'm saying is that it has exactly zero chance of becoming a major desktop OS. For reasons that have nothing to do with its technical ability, it just won't.

I see lots of people say, "oh, but it supports more hardware, you have WINE, it is easier to use, etc.". Yea, but none of that matters as to why it won't be successful.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and that's still not good for a workstation.

Re:Yet

[bingoUV]

What would you tell Bruce (https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_pr.html) ? Not an appeal to authority, just that I find most of these arguments valid.

Re:Yet

[FlyHelicopters]

You may "rather" all you like, that doesn't mean it is going to be option. Or at least not an easy one.

But I suppose the Amish exist, so perhaps a version of them will exist outside of the all wired world too.

And that is ok. It just won't be common, that's all.

Re:Yet

[FlyHelicopters]

Bruce is spot on, but he is bring drowned out by mass media and indifference. I think you can have the future and have privacy, but it will require a new situation from what we have today.

I will say, this is the grand flaw of allowing everyone to have one vote, most people frankly aren't paying attention and don't know what is going on, yet they elect our leaders based on media control and spin.

I don't have a good solution for this, I only see the problem.

Why doesn't Bruce run for office? Without people like him in the system, you just get more of Bush and Clinton.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

It will always be an option.

The Amish are like Windows users, clueless and backward.

Re:Yet

[dbIII]

Well mine is (Nokia N900 running a debian variant) which is why I can still get current software for it years after other stuff of the same age has been thrown away and how I can log in to manage WORKSTATIONS and SERVERS with it.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps a nice slippery slope to their own demise if they aren't careful. I suspect many more people will move to Linux or OS X if things get bad enough.

Re:Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Your idealism and optimism make me all warm and tingly inside. ~.~

How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[Cajun Hell]

It'll be years before XFCE gets this. By the time we get ads, everyone else will be all "yeah whatever, anachronistic loser."

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about desktop animations and a non-tearing compositor first... which is what Microsoft delivered in 2006 with Windows Vista.

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[aaaaaaargh!]

Well, I'm glad I belong to this staggeringly low minority, and hope that people like you will continue to use Windows forever. :-)

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[Cajun Hell]

XFCE users are used to being heavily behind the times anyway.

You make it sound like constantly living the nightmare makes us numb to it, no longer suffering because we don't have feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Day in, day out, all I dream of is to some day be able to own a computer that works for other people instead of me. There the damn thing is, awaiting my command, putting me on a pedestal! Sometimes I just want to scream, "Computer, where do you want to go today?! Don't you want to send some spam, or mine some bitcoins to make someone else richer? I'll pay for the electricity. Show me some fucking ads already (I swear, I'll pay for the bandwidth!), so that when I spend time at work, I'll know that there's a purpose to passing away years of my only life at the office: to make the money to give to someone else to buy some garbage that I don't really want, so it can take up more space in my unwanted hoard."

But no, the damn thing is all about me, me, ME! I can't stand it! It's like this fucking codependent computer has no life of its own, and exists on nothing but fulfilling my desires, like some kind of TOOL that I .. I .. (ugh) that I own! It's like I have some kind of mindless robot slave!

"Used to" it." Fuck you, dude! Put yourself in my shoes, in a social situation. There's all these people laughing and having a great time, big smiles on their faces telling exciting tales about the conniving backstabbers on their desks and in their pockets. "OMG, everything is full of ads," they say with a mirthful chuckle, and they all get to nod along in solidarity and comradeship. Then I have to fucking stare cluelessly and therefore stick out like a sore thumb, obviously "one of them" and no longer cool. Or I can fake it, nod and agree, and die a little more inside.

"It got pulled from the app store," they say. I have to pretend I know what the fuck that means or else be alienated yet again.

"It wants me to enter the license and I can't find the package," they say. I'm not sure what entering a license means, but they've phrased the problem well enough that it includes the solution, right? So I wonder: Why don't they just refresh the package from the repo? I might be inclined to suggest that, carefully being neutral and noncommittal so they won't realize that I haven't yet figured out whether the package is a deb or rpm. But go ahead, just try saying that once and see the stares you get, where suddenly everybody knows that you're heavily behind the times.

It's not just social situations, either. Imagine me at an office, hearing "Oh, I can't run that one, because it requires polar lion or bigger, but I only have hill tiger." I don't know what all this technical Felix jargon means, just that some guy doesn't get to do what he wants to do, because he isn't typing apt-get dist-upgrade every two years. He gets to talk about cats all day whereas I have to do my job (to get the paychecks that I don't even know what to spend on), because I'm behind the times.

Ribbons. What the fuck were ribbons? Everyone was talking about them a few years ago, but now no one mentions them. Is this going to be another one of those "the spoon is a lie!" things where I finally get to have a ribbon in the 2022 release and when I go around telling everyone how awesome it is, they look at me like I'm some kind of drunk caveman?

Vistas? Everyone says they suck but they're not specific. That's some kind of MSSQL version of views, right? Other than being nonstandard, I don't know why they'd be so hated, but maybe some say I'll find out when they add it to postgresql.

I'm so heavily behind the times, I couldn't even keep up with the early-21st-century shorthand people were using to paraphrase everything. i.e. I'm totally out of touch with culture and language. I learned some of it

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[lgw]

What's a good distro to run XFCE on top of? Ubuntu has played it's own share of dirty tricks (e.g. sending your file searches to the mothership), and I'm looking for something better.

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[advocate_one]

mint...

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[lgw]

Thanks - I just learned about Linux Mint Debian Edition, wonderfully Ubuntu-cancer-free. I'll have to dig up a VMware image, or ISO, this weekend and give it a spin.

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[DarkOx]

Slackware...For the masses, LFS for the nerds. Nothing else is really trustworthy IMHO.

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[barbariccow]

www.archlinux.org

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[Ramze]

beautiful. thank goodness others with mod points could mod this up.

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[KGIII]

Heh... Now that got you added to my favorite's list.

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[KGIII]

I don't even use the proprietary drivers and I have no composting issues and desktop animations are already a thing - I'm pretty sure (assuming I know what you speak of). I can't imagine why you'd want animated desktops but, you know, you can do it if you want. Once in a blue moon, I come across some tearing - I swap distros until that's not a problem. They're all pretty much similar in my view anyhow. (I know, I know... I'm supposed to root for one or the other. I don't.)

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize you basically validated his silly non-productive assertion by writing a small essay defending your choice? Jesus.

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the AC you replied to, but assuming he uses Windows is silly. I'm a happy Linux user who thinks XFCE users are silly.

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

+10 Awesome

Re:How come THEY always get all the cool stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to be alienated with you so that you won't be alone anymore. 3 3 ~.~

Enterprise users won't tolerate it ... maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt enterprise users would tolerate a feature that advertised third-party apps in the OS. However, if the ads could be configured to display corporate LOB apps + app updates, that might be at least minimally useful for very large corporations.

Windows 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, Windows has become a parasite.

Re: Windows 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm the windows virus jokes just got real.

why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

when you have a near monopoly why not? what are people going to do? run linux? [insert laughter]

Re:why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that Linux has svchost.exe, er um systemd, the transition from Windows to Linux should be a smooth one.

Re:why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

The systemd bashing is getting lame.

Re:why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like a Microsoftie from the 90s

Re:why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only lame because it's true.

Sure we had ads ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... but not in our dreams!

Cannot reproduce

[Rhywden]

Updated both my desktop and my laptop to build 10565 and am not seeing those suggested apps.

Re:Cannot reproduce

[ColdWetDog]

Are you trying to be reasonable again? Look, with your UID, you should know better.

Re:Cannot reproduce

[AmiMoJo]

It looks like you have to be signed in to the Microsoft app store to see them.

Microsoft has started being a bit shitty with ads lately. I used to have OneNote for Android installed, but every time it updated it would generate a spam notification. The normal blocking mechanism didn't get rid of it, so I uninstalled.

Re:Cannot reproduce

[aristofeles]

Personalization, start, "Occasionally show suggestions...". Off by default for me. But I can turn ON. And it appears. How dare MS let me turn on an option for ads!!!

Re:Cannot reproduce

[Rhywden]

I definitely am signed in. Seems that "occasional" means "rarely if ever" for me :)

Re:Cannot reproduce

[Dutch Gun]

Microsoft has set an unfortunate precedent with this sort of thing with their Xbox consoles. I own a 360, and about 2/3 of the real estate is taken up by advertisements, and they're even shoving ads during listings and search results in-between things you're trying to find. It's sort of disgusting. Honestly, it's one of the reasons I'm still not on the next gen consoles, and am leaning more towards a PS4 first, even though I vastly prefer the Xbox controller.

I'm using Windows 10 right now, but I'm keeping a very close eye on things. I'm a Windows developer, so I don't really have a choice if I want to develop and test on the latest OS. Still, other than the privacy issues (you fortunately can turn most of that off), it's actually a pretty decent OS, and I'm a little better off with the pro version. My feeling is that the PC market is precarious enough as is, so they probably aren't keen to piss their users off too much with this, but never underestimate Microsoft's eternal arrogance with this sort of thing - demonstrated aptly by the Windows 8 debacle.

Re:Cannot reproduce

[spads]

Just give it a little time, my son, just a little time...

Re:Cannot reproduce

[Moof123]

Big data says your a cheapskate and not worth the effort.

Re:Cannot reproduce

[Coren22]

http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...

It has to be turned on.

Re:Cannot reproduce

[ezelkow1]

you may also have it disabled. I remember seeing these even before this insider release but there is an option in personalization to disable them, which I did during my first installation. Once again over-blown /. reaction to something that has always been there and is easily disabled (not saying the op, just all these threads in general)

Re:Cannot reproduce

[Cederic]

something that has always been there and is easily disabled

It's not there in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1
It's not easily disabled if Microsoft re-enable it again. Microsoft have demonstrated that they're more than happy to re-enable privacy invading components on Windows 10, overriding the explicit configuration of the users.

I'm not sure that this is an overblown reaction at all.

Re:Cannot reproduce

[Teckla]

Personalization, start, "Occasionally show suggestions...". Off by default for me. But I can turn ON. And it appears. How dare MS let me turn on an option for ads!!!

It was ON by default for me, though I don't recall having seen any suggestions (yet?).

Re:Cannot reproduce

[Gonoff]

It has to be turned on.

Just say "You have beautiful eyes." That might work.

You can choose not to use Win10

[Anonymous Coward]

Just saying. And not complain about it every time.

Re:You can choose not to use Win10

[silas_moeckel]

DX12 will force many

Re:You can choose not to use Win10

[present_arms]

Mandatory since when?

It's here

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Microsoft's Rubicon. And they've crossed it.

Re:It's here

[Coren22]

Rubicon?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I'm confused...

Re:It's here

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Rubicon

Slippery slope

[Anonymous Coward]

Ads for apps today, boner pills tomorrow.

Companies will put advertising anywhere they can. Even new gas station pumps have little TVs that play commercials. It is outrageous.

Re: Islam is a cancer

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupidity is it's own reward ...

Simple solution

[Guspaz]

http://www.classicshell.net/

It's free. I installed it when I got tired of the Win10 start menu lag (if you press the start key and begin typing, the Win10 start menu will delay opening just long enough to miss one or two keystrokes).

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

OK so I'm not the only one who noticed that start menu lag?
Seriously, I installed Win 10 on a test system that's not particularly high-end, but still relatively modern. It ran Win 7 just fine, and while I actually give Microsoft some props for the under-the-hood improvements in Win 10, the lag on the start menu is completely obnoxious.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh thank god they support 10! I was getting tired of the bastardized Start Menu Microsoft came up with.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

That Classics Hell website could use a hyphen in its URL...

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Pathetic. On SO many levels.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't try to operate Windows 10 with under 4GHz processor. It's just not possible.

Re:Simple solution

[FlyHelicopters]

Then something is wrong with your machine...

I've got Windows 10 installed on everything from an i7 Haswell refresh to a Core2Quad Q6600.

No start menu lag on any of them, type as fast as you want.

Unless you're running on an old Pentium 4 perhaps? Then maybe yea...

Re:Simple solution

[nine-times]

(if you press the start key and begin typing, the Win10 start menu will delay opening just long enough to miss one or two keystrokes).

It's even worse than that, at least on my machine. Maybe there's some kind of misconfiguration on my computer, but I used to be able to hit the Windows key, start typing the name of the application I wanted to run, and hit enter. So I'd type "calc", for example, and hit Enter, and it would figure out that I wanted the calculator, and launch it. Not in Windows 10.

Now, in Windows 10, I type "calc", and it pauses for 5-10 seconds (keep in mind this is on a 1 year-old computer with plenty of RAM and an SSD). Then it comes up with some options, the first of which is often to perform a web search for "calc". It's not consistent, but it's constant. I can't just use the search, because I have no idea what will come up. It's even things like, if I want to load the Snipping Tool, I'll type "sni' and the Snipping Tool is the top option. Great! But then out of habit, I continue typing, and as soon as I hit the "p", the Snipping Tool disappears from the search results. For some reason, the Snipping Tool is the top result for "sni" but doesn't exist for "snip"....

... sometimes. Sometimes the search works just as I'd like, although slow. Sometimes the results are nonsensical. This is one of those things where I'm honestly baffled how such a big, successful developer could screw up something so simple.

Re:Simple solution

[Guspaz]

The problem is the delay between pressing the button and the menu appearing. It does not buffer input in that window, and is typically enough time for the first keystroke after hitting start to be missed. It is not related to computer performance.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I have w10 running on an AM2 sempron clocked at 1.6ghz. With 3gb of ddr2. It runs MUCH better than 7 did on that same hardware. That is weird, because I thought you said you can't run it on anything less than a 4ghz? My system at home is an i5 that clocks in a 3.4ghz, how is that able to run w10 without issues? Could it be that you're just really stupid?

Re:Simple solution

[truck_soccer]

I get the typing lag, but only immediately after logging in. This applies to the start menu and any other box that I can type in. After the initial log in though it doesn't come back. I haven't bothered to see if it is a service or startup item, because it really only adds another 2-3 seconds of my boot wait.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed that on Windows 7 as well.

It's insane to the point where the match comes up, then disappears (as you describe) and even typing the full name doesn't give anything, just an empty list.

TOTAL BS.

I know searching in the start menu and searching the file system are different things, but I found I could no longer deal with the insanity of Windows Search so I use "Agent Ransack" to search for things. Absolutely fucking brilliant software and can't recommend it enough.

Re:Simple solution

[FlyHelicopters]

But that is my point, there isn't a delay.

I just tried it on my laptop that I'm typing this on, I pressed the windows button and started typing right away, it catches everything.

Re:Simple solution

[Guspaz]

*shrug* I've got a reasonably modern system (an SSD-backed i7-3770) and there are other people replying to me who have experienced the same thing. This was not a problem on this machine with Windows 7, Windows 8, Start8, or Classic Shell. Only the Windows 10 start menu causes it.

Re:Simple solution

[FlyHelicopters]

I believe you... I don't think you're posting a lie... I'm just sharing what I see...

There could be many reasons for the difference... I'm just saying that I can press the Windows button and start typing right away and it doesn't miss a key stroke.

I can have my finger over a letter, and the instant I press the windows key, press the letter key, and it catches it.

It might take a half a second to show the search results, but that is ok, since it doesn't miss the keys.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

One man's funny is another man's folly.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.classicshell.net/

It's free. I installed it when I got tired of the Win10 start menu lag (if you press the start key and begin typing, the Win10 start menu will delay opening just long enough to miss one or two keystrokes).

That's because it's making a connection to the internet.

Re:Simple solution

[Guspaz]

I just quit Classic Shell and tried out the stock start menu, and it no longer appears to have the issue. It's possible that it was a problem with the RTM version of Windows 10 that they've fixed since. Since it still takes more than half a second before the search box even shows up (with whatever you've already typed in it), they're probably just buffering input sooner now than they were before.

Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

20 years since Windows 95 and people *still* run this botched abortion of an operating system.

Don't complain about ads. Nobody put a gun to you head and made you run this OS. Run Mac or Linux if you don't like it.

Re:Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody put a gun to you head and made you run this OS.

That's like saying that no one forced you to use Cisco Systems stuff for networking. It's the golden standard on the networking field. So is Windows the main OS for personal computers.

Re:Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody put a gun to you head and made you run this OS.

No, but the computer my kids use was installed with Win 7, and a couple days ago one of them clicked on that stupid little "Upgrade your Windows!" icon that showed up without invitation, warning, or any easily findable way to disable. So now it's running Win10, until I get around to re-imaging the system this weekend.

Run Mac

Oh, like that's really all that much better. Have you ever bothered to READ the EULA? You do realize it says they can sew your mouth to some random stranger's asshole, right? (Citation: southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s15e01-humancentipad)

Re:Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody put a gun to you head and made you run this OS.

No, but the computer my kids use was installed with Win 7, and a couple days ago one of them clicked on that stupid little "Upgrade your Windows!" icon that showed up without invitation, warning, or any easily findable way to disable. So now it's running Win10, until I get around to re-imaging the system this weekend.

Maybe your kids shouldn't have admin rights.

Re:Windows

[tepples]

Run Mac or Linux if you don't like it.

On what make and model of 10.1 inch laptop should I "Run Mac or Linux"? Neither Apple nor System76 offers a 10.1 inch screen size.

Re:Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Apple offers 11 inch but you do need exactly 10.1 inch, right?

Re: Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Later in the week he will be complaining it's now part of a botnet. Seriously people, kids don't need admin. My son does just fine logging in as "Mike Hunt". He always asks who that is. It wasn't until he was 14 when I told him to say it slow that he understood it. Smart whipper snapper he is ;). Meesa thinksa heesa genius.

Re:Windows

[tepples]

Mostly it's a matter of how big of a laptop I can easily fit in a bag that I can carry over my shoulder without the bag figuratively screaming "there's a laptop inside; please mug me".

Re:Windows

[KGIII]

You know - it just uninstalls from the add/remove thingie, right? I have this on good authority. Supposedly it works just fine. When done, stop letting your kid have admin permissions or they'll do admin activities. Funny that. If you're going to give them unfettered access to the hardware and operating system, they might break something or make other unauthorized changes.

Full disclosure: I, umm... Don't actually use Windows. I'd been using Linux as my second OS for a very long time. I finally just said screw it one day and ran around reformatting everything. I was high. I'm too lazy to "fix" it. So, well, I have two laptops and a desktop that still, technically, have Windows on them but they don't get used.

Re:Windows

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Don't worry! With Windows 10, it actively start screaming "STEAL ME" at random times.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[Anonymous Coward]

So do the people buying new PCs or buying Windows with a new PC build deal with this too despite paying $100-$200 for it?

Classic Start Menu

[craigg7500]

Download it and get rid of that ridiculous start menu that comes default with Windows 10

Re:Classic Start Menu

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pathetic...
On so many levels...

What could go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

When will this "feature" be used to infect every Win10 user out there? A criminal could not dare to ask for a better way to distribute a malware than a media file that is pushed automatically into people's machines.

Ability to disable feature

[donaggie03]

I don't care what features they throw in, as long as they also let me disable it somehow.

Re:Ability to disable feature

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't really matter, Windows 10 is pure spyware, no matter features you (think you can) "disable".
http://arstechnica.com/informa...

Re:Ability to disable feature

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

On the plus side, it is possible to switch off the feature -- just right click the suggestion and you can opt to hide a particular app, or disable all future suggestions.

You can also opt out of suggestions by heading to Settings > Personalization > Start and toggle the Occasionally show suggestions in Start setting.

That said, I'm finding fewer and fewer reasons why I should upgrade from Win7 for now. From my perspective Win10 has only one or two improvements I actually care about, but a whole load of things which would irritate me and I'd have to spend time getting rid of (assuming I could get rid of them all). The fact they're adding irritating stuff in at a later date is only going to put me off even more.

Re:Ability to disable feature

[Anonymous Coward]

They allow you to disable a lot of stuff, but after a while it gets tedious as they add new garbage every week.

Re:Ability to disable feature

[Anonymous Coward]

That said, I'm finding fewer and fewer reasons why I should upgrade from Win7 for now. From my perspective Win10 has only one or two improvements I actually care about, but a whole load of things which would irritate me and I'd have to spend time getting rid of (assuming I could get rid of them all). The fact they're adding irritating stuff in at a later date is only going to put me off even more.

There are very few, windows 8 is the reason to get 10. End of story.

Re:Ability to disable feature

[EStrat]

You should care about these "features"; it increases the surface area for attacks.

Hypocrites.

[technomom]

Hypocrites.

Re:Hypocrites.

[jez9999]

The ad video is now private. What was the gist of it?

Re:Hypocrites.

[im_thatoneguy]

There's a huge difference between "Ads" aka anyone who wants to market to you and "Hey, you might want to check out this popular app that's *free."

It's in the app section, it features apps you can use. That's barely an ad. And it's a far cry from gathering personal information about you so that Google can target that Viagra commercial at you.

Next people are going to be bitching that Windows Maps uses your GPS data when you're following turn by turn directions.

Re:Hypocrites.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would NEVER want to see any suggestion for apps. They will NEVER be something I want by virtue of harassing me and uglying up my operating system.

Re:Hypocrites.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need to see someone about your paranoia of harassment by suggestions of advertisements. You should see how the world is like outside of your little computer room with all the real harassment going on.

Re:Hypocrites.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, the old "You got stabbed, but don't complain because other people are getting shot" argument.

One misdeed does not excuse another. Sorry, you fail.

Speak for yourself

[An ominous Cow art]

We've all become used to the idea of ads online

It's pretty obvious that many of us are not used to the idea, and block them completely.

Re:Speak for yourself

[myrdos2]

In the future, you'll just need to get an ad blocker for your operating system. Since secure boot will be mandatory and you won't have permission to alter the start menu, it will be a piece of black tape.

Re:Speak for yourself

[Toad-san]

Hear hear! I will NOT tolerate ads online, and I certainly won't tolerate them on my own damned PC desktop.

Re:Speak for yourself

[westlake]

It's pretty obvious that many of us are not used to the idea, and block them completely.

The real question is "How many are blocking adds completely?"

The problem with a forum like Slashdot is that there is never any feedback from the greater mass of users.

Re:Speak for yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Also on Windows you should already be using a software firewall such as Agnitum Outpost Firewall.

It does more than just controlling networking access.

(Suprised APK hostfile engine spamtard hasn't replied to you about ad blocking.)

Re:Speak for yourself

[0123456]

The real question is "How many are blocking adds completely?"

The problem with a forum like Slashdot is that there is never any feedback from the greater mass of users.

Let's see:

1. Don't know about today, but as soon as iOS 9 was released with ad blocker support, the most popular app on the app store was... an ad blocker.
2. We're seeing more and more stories with journalists whining about the EVIL AD BLOCKERS.

So I think the answer is 'quite a lot, and growing all the time'. I block numerous ad sites on every computer I use, I run an ad blocker on my iPad, and I block the worst offenders for every device with firewall rules in my home router.

Where is the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in: free software is ad supported.

Re:Where is the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not. And Windows isn't free software.

Re:Where is the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows10 is not free software, it is adware.

Re:Where is the news?

[LVSlushdat]

Windows10 is not free software, it is adware.

Windows 10 is not free software, its SPYWARE...

FTFY

These ads are only the tip of the iceberg.... It scares me how many supposedly knowledgable techies still don't see the spyware nightmare that IS Windows 10... I'm so glad I decided to quit using MS products when I retired in 2010.. I supported Windows systems (and Linux) for close to 25 years, and in my last job before retirement, I was split 50-50 timewise on Windows and Linux support, I dreaded the Windows support... Looks like I made the right choice when I retired...

Re:Where is the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is not free in any sense of the word.

Re:Where is the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

spyware is a subset of adware.

Re:Where is the news?

[Cederic]

Wtf? No.

In other news, trojans are not a subset of rootkits.

Classic Shell

[Anonymous Coward]

Let Classic Shell replace your Windows 10 Start Menu with an ad-free Windows-7-style Start Menu. No more annoying ads from Microsoft!

Re:Classic Shell

[cfalcon]

> If anyone doesn't like it then just replace the Microsoft start menu with Classic Shell, problem solved.

Don't you get tired of having to endlessly configure Windows? Can't it just work out of the box with sensible defaults, like other OSes?

Re:Classic Shell

[freeze128]

You customize EVERY OS out of the box, why should Windows be any different? Hell, I just updated my smart phone to Android Lollipop, and spent the next SEVERAL HOURS getting it customized.

Re:Classic Shell

[spire3661]

And tomorrow Google could break your shit and you will have to start over.

Re:Classic Shell

[Anonymous Coward]

No, YOU customize every OS out of the box. I expect reasonable defaults.

Re:Classic Shell

[Cederic]

Bloody hell. HOURS?

My phone just updated to Marshmallow, I fucked up re-enabling root, semi-bricked it and spent 40 minutes reconfiguring it - including reinstallation, re-rooting, reinstalling apps, updating data, updating home screens, setting sound profiles, adding email accounts and setting alarms.

You must have some serious customisation going on. Do you update by downloading the source code and starting from there?

Ubuntu + Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Ubuntu do this with Amazon products and everyone still uses... oh wait, never mind.

Get ready for the arrival of Microsoft PRs

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of days ago they flooded a discussion about Cortana, upvoted their own posts (probably they have accounts with mod points) and downvoted any others. I cannot imagine what will happen today.

Sure....

[Anonymous Coward]

... as well received as it was in Windows 8 when they were "showcasing" their new ad API on their apps.

Games, sigh

[Snotnose]

Games are the only reason I still run Windows. I suspect that when my current machine dies I'll be buying a PS4 and going to Linux for everything else.

Re:Games, sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup that's what I did. PS4 is great, and Linux runs almost everything now through Steam Linux. The only thing missing is Blizzard games, sadly that is a pretty big omission. WINE runs them okay but I hate messing with it so don't bother.

Re: Games, sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd switch to consoles but I can't use my 1440p monitor, no true kb/m/trackball support, can't use my Fulla Schiit with DT880s, can't use my X55 HOTAS, etc.

Having said all that, I freaking hate Windows 10. I hope more game developers start supporting Linux, because I'm about ready to jump off the Windows crazy train after 20 years of being a faithful consumer.

Not so different from XBox

[Picass0]

Anyone who's a gamer has seen this enough that it's become invisible. The XBox Dashboard is ~50% user-space and 50% new product promotion.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who's a consoletard gamer you mean.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, steam does the same shit.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[gstoddart]

That's why my XBox 360 got disconnected from the network, and why I'll never own an XBone.

Suddenly my video games had ads inside of them. Sorry, not interested.

My XBox 360 got disconnected from the network, and has never been connected since. And unless they've significantly changed the new version, it sounds like you need either a constant or a frequent internet connection. In which case I don't want one.

I don't want a gaming console with an internet connection if it means ads and analytics. And if our base operating systems are introducing all of this telemetry and tracking shit to benefit Microsoft, I don't with to play that game either.

Microsoft seems to be crapping all over the idea of who owns the computer. If Windows 10 is free but all this crap comes along as baggage, then I sure as hell am never going to upgrade to Windows 10.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if I enable the pop up or go to the store front. Mine is set to go to the library at the start. I don't get ads for games in my game list.

Shove off.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[ilsaloving]

Except that's the *point* of Steam. It's primary reason for existing is to sell games. This is how it's been since it first came to existence.

I've never had an xbox so I dunno what the point of the dashboard is, but to complain about Steam doing what it was designed to do is just silly.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[dpidcoe]

Wait what? I haven't seen a single product promotion on steam except for when I've looked at the frontpage of the store.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Unacceptable.

Time to buy their direct competition.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam is a webpage in an awful browser. You can just launch a game and never see steam. I'd rather they didn't know how much of my life I've wasted on skyrim and the whole DRM stinks; but its why I don't play and buy as many games as I used to.

Crap console ports like Batman arkham shite puts me off even more. It's like they hate their own customers.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[SCPRedMage]

I was about to say pretty much the same thing; set it to open to your Library page and disable the "Update News" popups, and you'll never have to deal with that crap.

Of course, as someone else pointed out, Steam is a store, so getting new games is pretty much half the point in using Steam in the first place; finding out about new games is an integral part of that.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[flink]

When you launch steam there is usually a popup showing what the latest deals are that you have to dismiss. There might be a way to turn it off though. Other than that, yeah, if you are on your library page: no ads.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Khyber]

Bullshit, you get ads directly in your game list, with the "You have 2-3 days left to try out this game" and the game already 'helpfully' added to your damned games list.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[dpidcoe]

There's an option to turn that off right there in the settings. Even with it not turned off it's not invasive in the sense that it takes up other screen space, since it's a separate closable window that comes up once when steam is launched.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

My PS3 starts to a stream of ads for games I don't own. Steam shows them too. But for some reason we only bitch about Microsoft...

Re:Not so different from XBox

[spire3661]

NO it doesnt. I have NEVER seen a self-playing red bull ad (with an out of market language track) on Steam, EVER. Steam and Sony advertise vertically, MS advertises horizontally.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[spire3661]

Yes GAMES, not ads for other things like Redbull. Not even close to the same thing.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[FlyHelicopters]

Fair enough, but then that means you're done with mainstream computing in general, because that is the future and it really won't be avoidable.

Oh sure, you'll fight it and try, but it will be one workaround after another and you'll probably be less effective than you think you really are.

Besides, the marketing companies already know a ton about you, more than you probably think they do.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Nidi62]

I actually like that pop-up and have bought numerous games because if it because it notifies you of sales. Very convenient, if also very tricky because between it and the often sub-$10 price tag of games it definitely facilitates impulse buys. In fact I'm trying to decide if I want to buy FarCry4 off the latest sale.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone plays on Xbox live. Perhaps, there is a reason for that ...

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Khyber]

Games that they should understand I'll never play if they fucking paid attention to what comprises the majority of my games collection.

So no, still useless blatant spamvertising.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit, you get ads directly in your game list, with the "You have 2-3 days left to try out this game" and the game already 'helpfully' added to your damned games list.

That is about as annoying as the "Update Required" tag for games that I disabled updates for. They are also put under the "My Games" header which is quite a bit down the list. Favorited games are at the top.

To be honestly, they do appear, certainly. I can't expect everyone to go out of their way to label their games, or even only show the installed games (like I do, so that thing you mentioned doesn't happen).

There is certainly the very option to not see any unwanted ads on Steam (aside the store front - but that is the point), but the knowledge of the tool that is Steam may be above many users. At what point do users have to reach before you'd be willing to say that the ads are removable? With just interface options Steam's ads are gone. With what I've heard of the XBox start-up screen, you can't get rid of the ads. With the Wii U, you get a single major game notification and some notifications causing the icon to blink. No idea about the PS3/4, don't care. I expect it to be at worst like the XBox and at best on par with the Wii U. Each of these consoles all have forced ads that you can't disable or avoid. Thus, Steam is a better platform as you can avoid them, taking the right steps.

I'm thinking right now is what port / ip settings I need to add to my router's firewall to block everything but software update services. This is a step that shouldn't have to be taken or even thought of.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't see that if you only show installed games. Hell if I show my entire list I have to scroll forever to find the game I want.

But dont let that stop you on your quest to prove steam is just as bad.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off Microsoft shill!!!

---
Not APK

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare they give you free weekends for various games, in your (sortable, filterable) list of games.

Those cunts.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, the marketing companies already know a ton about you

No they don't because I don't just roll over and take whatever is handed out like you do.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[spire3661]

I agree i think Valve broke the interface when they switched to suggested content, but there really is no other way to expose all the product on the store. I dont love their solution, but i understand it.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Forgefather]

wait for the fall / black friday sales or after Christmas. There will be a guaranteed sale for at least 66% off.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Darinbob]

I bitch about Steam, but then the Steam fanboys come out and tell me I'm wrong and that DRM and advertisements are good for my health and well being. All glory to the Hypno-Gabe! Glory to the Hypno-SOE! Glory to the Hypno-Microsoft!

Re:Not so different from XBox

[KGIII]

Heh... If some of these people only knew the data being collected by a modern store or mall they'd shit a brick. My business was traffic modeling and the private sector work was pedestrian trafficking. I retired eight years ago. They were collecting (automatically, too) so much information about you then and I'm sure that it is much more deep and pervasive now. Those cameras aren't just recording video. That video is processed, compiled, cross-checked, and linked to a profile.

That was eight years ago. I helped enable it. In my defense, it was lucrative.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[FlyHelicopters]

No they don't because I don't just roll over and take whatever is handed out like you do.

Do you have any credit or debit cards? A bank account? Reward cards?

A cell phone?

A modern vehicle?

Do you have Internet at home with computers connected to it?

Do you use a DVR box to watch TV with (TiVo, cable company, Dish, etc.)?

Then you already have given the big information companies a huge volume of information about you without even knowing it.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any credit or debit cards? A bank account?

Under a business identity. My bank is based in another country.

Reward cards?

Hell no.

A cell phone?

Yes and my carrier has no idea who I am.

A modern vehicle?

Mountain bike.

Do you have Internet at home with computers connected to it?

Yes, my ISP has the information for my business name and all of my computers are highly secured.

Do you use a DVR box to watch TV with (TiVo, cable company, Dish, etc.)?

Nope.

Then you already have given the big information companies a huge volume of information about you without even knowing it.

No, not really.

Re:Not so different from XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony and Steam only know the games you play. Microsoft has access to all of your files and you agree in the Windows 10 EULA to let them take anything they want and use it for any purpose.

Maybe if you're just a kid who only plays games and looks at Facebook you don't have any data worth harvesting. When you get to be an adult, you'll have lots of data that you definitely want only a select few, if anyone, to see.

Just in time for...

[willworkforbeer]

AdBlocker OS edition.

Re:Just in time for...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up how to stop windows telemetry and use the scripts provided that can do it all for you.

Add entries to your host file (can also use scripts), even better block bad hosts at your router/gateway on your network.
and use spybot search and destroy's immunization feature
and spyware blaster.

Install a software firewall like Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro to monitor and set rules for each program.

Sweet!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ads in the Start Menu is a great idea! Of course, they should only be advertisements that are interesting to you. Because they track you and know you better than you know yourself.

Dad, why are Porn Ads in your Start Menu? Where have you been surfing?

Fuck I love the Internet and Micro$oft.

Re:Sweet!!!

[tepples]

Dad, why are Porn Ads in your Start Menu?

How did you break into my user account?

sucking $$ from an ever shrinking install base

[Anonymous Coward]

With Windows PC sales shrinking around 10% quarterly they have to find new ways to suck more money from that install base. It's either that or reorganize every year to hide the real financials of that business.

The strategy is clear

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm beginning to see why Microsoft is touting Windows 10 as the last Windows version.

Nothing to see, move along...

[Anonymous Coward]

Suggested Apps != Ads

This article is nothing but flamebait. Did they not already endure the million notifications of "Get Office365 Today!" that appear whenever you login to Win10?!?

Snowden is a terrorist.

Re:Nothing to see, move along...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything I've not requested = Ads
Do you want to suggest me new programs? There's windows store or whatever they call it.

Can be disabled

[RogueyWon]

For the moment, at least, you can turn this off. Indeed, you can turn off more of the Windows 10 start menu nastiness than is initially apparent and get back to something fairly civilised without third party addons. For now.

In its current form, it's not completely catastrophic even if you don't disable it. It's significantly less intrusive than the advertising you get on the top-level menus on the PS4, Wii-U and, in particular, Xbox One.

The worry, of course, is about the slippery slope. Look at how advertising has flooded over the menus on the Xbox series:

- Basically absent on the original Xbox and the first-gen Xbox 360 UI.
- Present but subdued on the second-gen 360 UI.
- Completely dominant on the third-gen 360 UI (at the cost of useful navigation features that were present in the second-gen).
- A major presence on the Xbox One.

Actually, now I'm wondering whether my ability to disable the advertising in Win10 has been because I'm both on Professional rather than Home and on an OEM license purchased with a new PC rather than a free upgrade. Anybody applied this patch on the Home edition or a free upgrade yet?

Re:Can be disabled

[Lumpy]

when you run the upgrade on windows 7 pro you get windows 10 pro for free.

Re:Can be disabled

[RogueyWon]

I know, but with Microsoft's apparent determination to explicitly place different value on different users this time around (eg. on the ability to defer upgrades), I was wondering whether there was any kind of differentiation between "free upgrade" and "purchased OEM license" Win10 Pro users.

Nothing would surprise me any more.

Re:Can be disabled

[ilsaloving]

"For now" is the key term here.

Microsoft has set a very bad precedent with this, and I don't see it improving anytime soon. All of their other privacy invading features are on by default, and some of which *cannot* be shut down unless you are using the enterprise version (cause if Microsoft tried to pull the same stunt against big business, they'd be sued into oblivion)

This whole situation is absolutely BEGGING for a class action lawsuit. Once again, Microsoft is abusing their monopoly status for their own gain.

Looks like the new boss really is just like the old boss.

Re:Can be disabled

[yuhong]

At least they do describe the telemetry levels very well now:
https://technet.microsoft.com/...

Re:Can be disabled

[yuhong]

Not as far as I know, fortunately.

Re:Can be disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

Monopoly, use Linux or Apple or Chrome. Unless you like behaving like a lemming.

Re:Can be disabled

[ilsaloving]

Holy cow... Do you really think that the average consumer is going to have a clue on how to read that article? I mean, some of the settings require making changes directly to your registry!

That's like abandoning someone on a boat, in the middle of the ocean, with no gas and only the most basic navigation tools, but "technically" they're fine because they can just paddle to shore with their arms.

Re:Can be disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

his whole situation is absolutely BEGGING for a class action lawsuit.

Fortunately for Microsoft, the AT&T Mobility v. Conception decision has made it so that that will never ever be able to happen.

Re:Can be disabled

[Teckla]

Once again, Microsoft is abusing their monopoly status for their own gain.

I'm so glad I'm not the only person that realizes this. People have forgotten that Microsoft still has a desktop operating system monopoly. I think it's monopoly abuse all over again.

Re:Can be disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

what are you going to sue for, the cost of the free upgrade?

and what are you going to threaten to do, switch to Linux?

so basically, Microsoft is going to give you a coupon for a discount on your next purchase of DRAM from TigerDirect, a few million dollars to your lawyer, and it'll all be over.

Re:Can be disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the new boss really is just like the old boss.

In a business where the "boss" is merely a "bad press puppet" and has _no_other_function_what_so_ever_ within the cabinet walls other than an illusion created of a structure for the masses to finger point to the "top" and to blame.

The head and the tail have become separated, not just once - you could say it has become a mass of organisms to create a single looking entity. An entity whose position for caring is to money.

That is all.

Re:Can be disabled

[ilsaloving]

In cases like this, the point of the lawsuit is to punish, not to get something out of it. This behaviour harms the consumer, and the consumer has no choice but to bend over and take it because, as you've rightly pointed out, there really isn't any other option out there.

The problem is that the DoJ has already demonstrated that they have neither the teeth nor the will to do what's right. A class action lawsuit probably wouldn't even accomplish anything at this point cause (I believe) you have to be able to prove harm has been done, and IANAL so I have no idea how you would go about doing that.

More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

Ever since vista it has been an endless game of whack-o-mole with dumb features that often can't be easily turned off... necessitating registry hacks or third party programs that patch out features... or add back features that were inexplicably removed.

For example... the ability to go "up" in the directory structure or the ability to move files and folders around in a window with the same freedom that you have on the desktop... aka put some files on one side of a folder and some files on the other side.

Long... long list of things that had to disabled/enabled/kneecapped/blocked/uninstalled/manually installed just to get the OS to behave its fucking self.

The good news is that I just slipstream the changes into my install of windows... and the fucking problems are patched by default from that installation package. So... issue resolved.

The only problem is that it is sort of a pain in the ass and I have yet to see any compelling reason to upgrade from windows 7.

I mean... why go to 8? 9 apparently didn't happen because MS doesn't want to have an odd numbered and thus successful release (joke). And as for 10... I'm hearing nothing good about it. Faster they say? They always say that. And what it tends to mean is that the OS is a bigger RAM hog and thus doesn't need to spend as much time caching things from disk because it just keeps more in memory. Yaaay... which is why my next system is going to have to have 16 gigs of ram. Yippy.

I'm not concerned about MS making the OS unusable. I can disable anything they put on it. Even if MS doesn't want me to. Even if they make it a violation of the TOS or EULA or whatever to do so. I'll still turn it off.

Re:More crap to turn off

[cfalcon]

> Even if they make it a violation of the TOS or EULA or whatever to do so. I'll still turn it off.

Why not use a product that doesn't require you to break the law in order to use correctly?

Re:More crap to turn off

[LVSlushdat]

I think, as more and more people come to the conclusion that MS is BAD+EVIL, there will be an exodus away from MS products, at least by those who aren't locked in by reasons... FUCK MS!

Re:More crap to turn off

[LVSlushdat]

AND with MS, you have NO assurance that once you've removed an "update", or run a registry hack, that MS won't come along and shove another "update" on you that turns whatEVER crap you've turned OFF (on YOUR computer) back ON again.. And you'll never know what these "updates" are for, as they seem to have removed all of the descriptions on each update.. Now its just "you'll take our updates and you'll LIKE it!!!".... As I've said before "FUCK MS!!!"

Re:More crap to turn off

[tepples]

Why not use a product that doesn't require you to break the law in order to use correctly?

Recommend me such a laptop and I'll try it. Here is a first draft of my requirements:

• Screen roughly 10 inches diagonal
• Keyboard, whether detachable or not
• Working Wi-Fi
• Working suspend and resume. Barring this, fast startup and shutdown and a session save feature that includes the contents (not just URLs) of web pages open in tabs so that I can read them while offline on the city bus.
• Multi-window window manager, not all maximized all the time
• Capable of running GCC, Python, GNU Make, and emulators for retro computers
• Warranty service available in the United States
• Doesn't require me to break the law in order to use it correctly

Currently I use a Dell Inspiron mini 1012 that shipped with Ubuntu Moblin Remix and currently runs Xubuntu 14.04 LTS. But those have been discontinued by the manufacturer since I bought mine five and a half years ago, and I am trying to keep my options open for replacing it once it dies. A lot of current 10 inch laptops fail the "Working Wi-Fi" and "Working suspend and resume" tests under Linux.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

Sure I do... I don't just leave auto updates on. I update things as I see fit.

Try this out:
http://www.windowsupdatesdownl...

Vet Windows users know better than anyone not to trust MS when they get bossy or start saying "trust us".

We've had solutions to this sort of thing for a long time. This is nothing new. If you're just now encountering something we've been dealing with effectively years and years... then let me say "hello. Welcome. if you have questions as to how to proceed, please ask them and we'll get to you as is convenient."

This is nothing new. This is something that happens on any given day that ends in the letter "y". We know how to deal with this stuff and we have been dealing with it as it has become relevant.

Re:More crap to turn off

[interval1066]

I think, I believe, just an opinion, that Microsoft is in its last gasps of being an IT company. Its tried and failed to fit into the new (well, relatively new/web 2.0/cell phone/Web App/Internet of Everything world, and has yet to even come close to dominating it. Being a long time user of Android tablets after knocking around a local Fry's Electronics one day I got a wild hair up my ass and bought a Windows 8 tablet, just to see. It some English made thing (Backstreet, I think?) on sale for under $70. One thing I liked about it is it has an HDMI port, so I could use it as a sort of solid-state vcr, if nothing else. But I couldn't transfer videos from my pc to its sdcard. Count 1. I also had a real hard time seeing text on the screen, the rez was very high and the screen is pretty small. Count 2. The UI is also very Windows-like and hard to use as a tablet, really. Last count. Even after the free upgrade to Windows 10.1 it wasn't much better. That tablet now sits in my drawer of curiosities.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

Because "breaking the law" in this context is about as threatening as the proverbial "Cyberpolice"... for one thing it isn't policed or enforced. For another thing, they can't and will not police or enforce it for a long long long long list of reasons that anyone could guess a dozen of if they just stopped and thought about it for a moment.

I'll give you that moment.

Okay. Now you know why that isn't a credible worry.

You disable the crap, bypass the windows update... I literally disable the system service in the slipstream installations. The damned thing never even has a chance to load even once.

My systems do not talk to microsoft servers using microsoft backdoors and backchannels. They can access websites on their domains. They can download files on their domains. But they do not send or receive any communication I do not explicitly approve of... it really isn't that complicated. All the ways in which such systems phone home etc are well documented and the means to disable those features are well documented.

So... you just do it. You literally go through the whole fucking list of things and do them all. And when new things come around... you add that to the list.

Its no big deal. I rarely have to add more than one thing to the list per YEAR after going through about 20~40 issues in the initial OS release. All the really irritating issues are in that initial release. You deal with that and there is very very little you have to deal with there after. I think since windows 7 has been released... and since I went through the first 30 or so problems I had with it after the install... I've only had to patch three or four things.

A lot of the MS bullshit after the initial release is voluntary. The security patches etc have never broken one of my other patches. They could... but they never have.

I don't use Windows Update... and the other services that phone home are either blocked at the firewall level, outright removed, or merely kneecapped.

Its not rocket science. And before someone says "wouldn't you rather use linux where you don't have these problems"... I "DO" use linux as well. its not some either/or binary.

I use Windows, Linux, OSX, Android, iOS, and several other operating systems.

Each has something they're better at doing. On my laptop... I mostly run Windows 7 with VMWare hosting about six different virtual machines that have different specialized functions. I even have an OSX VM. Because Steve Jobs can suck it. And

The schemes of MS will effect the walmart users. I'm not a peon so none of this concerns me.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Anonymous Coward]

9 apparently didn't happen because MS doesn't want to have an odd numbered and thus successful release (joke).

Wrong, nasty troll. Windows 9 was skipped because there was already a Windows 95 and to avoid confusion this number was skipped. As usually, trolls rarely have the facts.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

I even said "(joke)" in there... and as usual another fucking stupid AC fuckwit presumes to contradict me.

Seriously. If you spent the first 15 years of your life drinking mercury, eating paint chips, and fantasizing about fucking your sister then have the good grace to stay off the internet.

Why this board has the AC feature is baffling. With almost no exceptions you people are irredeemable. And while some of you might just have more than one rotten tooth left in your filthy mouths... those of you that are so privileged would log the fuck in were that a prerequisite.

Here you're going respond with some pathetic attempt to redeem your stupid ass. Just stop. There is literally nothing you can say besides "sorry" followed by not wasting my time ever again. That's literally the only acceptable response at this point.

And I'm sure some pearl clutching child rapist is going to tell me "oh stop saying mean things to idiots"... Gents, that's like saying don't wash your underwear because you'll kill the fucking bacteria. Imagine any community with literally zero filters on it and you've got a community that has gone to shit. If you want /. to be worth ANYTHING then you have to rhetorically euthanize the fuckwits. No way around it. So please... enough of your pathetic kindergarten bullshit.

And then some retard will go "oh I'm going to mod you down"... to which I give zero shits. Go to fucking town.

Re: More crap to turn off

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude everything you said screams buy a MacBook Air. Seriously make the switch. You won't regret it.

Re:More crap to turn off

[spire3661]

I have several small Windows tablets. Winbook 7, Dell Venue 8 and a full Surface 3. The only problem i have with the small ones is storage space, other than that they work great. HDMI, full USB prot etc.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully the EULA has no legal standing here on the RH side of the Atlantic.
Unfair Contract laws come into play should MS try to enforce the T's & C's in it.
You can't agree to a contract that you can't read beforehand etc etc etc.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Anonymous Coward]

Why this board has the AC feature is baffling.

That's because you're stupid, and are easily baffled. Anonymous posting is necessary for protection. Get a brain, and you might understand things.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

I'm anonymous you complete fucking waste of oxygen. Do you think my mother named me Karmashock? Do you think the US census department has a listing for Mr Karmashock?

You're literally so stupid that you have to be in a mental facility. You're probably typing by bashing that football helmet you wear everywhere into a giant playschool keyboard while drooling apple sauce all over the place.

You're pathetically attempting to conflate REAL NAME posting with what you are... which is an anon-fuckwit-failtroll.

My private identity is protected by virtue of there being no link between my screen name and my actual name.

Were you to login you'd enjoy the same protection which is all you need.

What you want to do is be a complete waste of biomass... say idiotic shit... and then escape any judgement for it because no one can tell you fucks apart. Only it doesn't matter because you're all almost uniformly retarded.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Cederic]

Aren't you pseudonymous rather than anonymous?

Certainly within Slashdot that's the case.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

A difference without contextual relevance. Like a propeller beanie on a charging rhinoceros... the distinction is meaningless.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really that dumb?

Or is all this just some gag?

What do you think you're talking to?

How hard do you bash your keyboard?

Are you psycho, or is this normal for you?

Why do you hate your mother?

Re:More crap to turn off

[Cederic]

You'd never make a good pedant.

I'll pay money to watch the rhino though, get that set up.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

Relevance requires attention to context. Ignoring context... such as the comment the AC fuckwit made applied to a statement that I said while making it that it was a joke... ignoring that does far more to undermine your own claim to protocol or detail or relevance.

As to amusing analogies... Thank you... I do try to stay amusing if only to keep myself amused. God knows damn few others are capable of it.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

Series of stupid questions without any relevance to the discussion... none of which argue against previous points or have any baring on the argument at hand.

You're a waste of oxygen.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Anonymous Coward]

Series of stupid questions without any relevance to the discussion... none of which argue against previous points or have any baring on the argument at hand.

And how much of that comment relates to "Microsoft Now Uses Windows 10's Start Menu To Display Ads"?

Obviously, none of it. But the comment you wrote before that one in this same thread - which has been rightfully knocked down as flamebait - also has no relevance to the topic.

Ever hear the saying about people who live in glass houses? Might want to consider looking it up if you haven't...

Re:More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

Every response was relevant to what it commented upon.

Your inability to understand what "relevance" means argues against either your own personal intelligence or your own integrity.

The FIRST statement I made was in reference to the topic thread. Subsequent comments were in reference to following comments. The above statement is self evident to even the most limited intelligence of any note. That you don't appear to grasp that or are presuming to ignore that... again... idiotic.

As to your belief that karma ratings are any argument in your favor... you're an AC coward... you likely are so merely to avoid a karma response yourself... thus rendering any accusation of anyone else on this ratings basis as at best hypocritical.

Posts like yours demonstrate a fundamental lack of personal intellectual integrity and the fact that you made such a stupid comment argues that you're also not very bright.

This isn't merely my opinion. This is an easy and unavoidable conclusion of logic. If you so much as scum you'll feel shame at this... if not, then you're less than scum.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Anonymous Coward]

why do you get to play by a completely different set of rules than everyone else? you were harping on others for being off topic and now claiming that your comments should be celebrated in spite of being equally off topic. just accept that you are no better than the people who you are angrily shouting at, and move on.

there are clearly more people reading this discussion who disagree with your view than not.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Karmashock]

Wrong.

What I criticized is that the comment was incoherent.

What you are criticizing is that I am responding to other people's comments.

You're an idiot.

Re:More crap to turn off

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take that as a "yes" to the first question. You really are stupid... And a pretty lame troll...

thank Google/android

[dAzED1]

Early on, apps could actually be stopped from within the app in a normal way. They started phasing that out, and hell - at this point, if you start youtube the best you can do is pause the video. You can't actually kill it - without going into the application manager and hitting "force stop" which always gives you a warning message that you could damage your application by doing so. Give me some other bloody method of closing the app, then. I remember when Ingress went from having a close button, to adding a method of switching profiles, and then removed the close button. You're assumed to be in an always-on, always-tracked world now. I'm happy to pay a bit of money for an OS that doesn't invade my privacy, thanks.

Re:thank Google/android

[Lumpy]

then buy redhat linux, Debian, Slackware, or a BSD variant.

Microsoft has never respected your privacy.

Re:thank Google/android

[LVSlushdat]

I'm happy to pay a bit of money for an OS that doesn't invade my privacy, thanks.

Come on over to Linux, the waters fine, and you won't have to pay anything for it, unless you go for Redhat's workstation version... Why anybody would, I'll never know...

Re:thank Google/android

[tepples]

then buy redhat linux, Debian, Slackware, or a BSD variant.

I tried, but neither Staples nor Best Buy carried laptops with those preinstalled, unless you count OS X on a MacBook Air as "a BSD variant".

Re:thank Google/android

[Anonymous Coward]

So order from a vendor that sells Linux pre-installed, or bite the bullet on hardware you do own and install your favorite distro.
I've had a System76 for 3 years now. The machine has held up pretty well.

Re:thank Google/android

[Skater]

Did you really buy your last laptop in a Staples or Best Buy? Try the internet sometime, it's pretty cool what you can find. For example, System76 and Dell both sell Linux laptops. There are probably other brands, too.

Re:thank Google/android

[Anonymous Coward]

Redhat Debian, Slackware, and BSD variants aren't on cell phones. The GP mentioned Android and apps. You can't buy Android desktops. Microsoft used to respect your privacy. They are/were one of the few large tech companies that made themselves selling actual products instead of services.

Re:thank Google/android

[tepples]

System76 and Dell both sell Linux laptops

Anything smaller than 13 inches?

Re:thank Google/android

[Anonymous Coward]

Early on, apps could actually be stopped from within the app in a normal way. They started phasing that out, and hell - at this point, if you start youtube the best you can do is pause the video. You can't actually kill it - without going into the application manager and hitting "force stop" which always gives you a warning message that you could damage your application by doing so. Give me some other bloody method of closing the app, then. I remember when Ingress went from having a close button, to adding a method of switching profiles, and then removed the close button. You're assumed to be in an always-on, always-tracked world now. I'm happy to pay a bit of money for an OS that doesn't invade my privacy, thanks.

Hold the back key dummy.

If that doesn't work, stop using crippled "not AOSP" Android on your device, this is a standard feature, but your handset maker may have taken it away from you.

Re:thank Google/android

[Anonymous Coward]

Installing it is not rocket science.

Re:thank Google/android

[Black LED]

Yes

Re:thank Google/android

[dAzED1]

::blink:: I started using Slackware in 95, have been on several Fedora UGs, and still have my "mother's day release" copy of the first time Redhat was made avail via media. Moved off Linux to OpenBSD after the stupid systemd crap. Did you not see the "android" and "apps that can't close" bit? The phone UX is being slammed into desktops/laptops, has been for years. I have a windows10 vm as a security researcher, but I certainly don't use it for anything...real...

Classic Shell

[NormAtHome]

If anyone doesn't like it then just replace the Microsoft start menu with Classic Shell, problem solved.

APK will fix it!

[Anonymous Coward]

All the corporations out there will be FLOORED by his solution!

Please APK save us!

Re:APK will fix it!

[bmo]

APK is kinda right in his spam.

I've given up on JS based adblocking and gone to blackholing in /etc/hosts, just like it was back in the 90s. The computational load has gotten intolerable for any ad-blocking using JS. It's all ad and tracking networks now, so the /very/ small number of ads directly hosted on primary sites now is minuscule.

However, you can't stop Windows from phoning home unless you firewall it at the router or dedicated hardware firewall. Anything you do to the hosts file in Windows itself will be ignored, and JS ad blocking only works in browsers.

I've tried his hosts file generating software. It works. It is, however, Windows only and since it uses just the hosts file, any hard-coding of IP addresses in .dlls will bypass it. You need a whole other machine to stop Windows from gossiping about you.

--
BMO

Re:APK will fix it!

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, you need YET ANOTHER piece of hardware EVEN WITH APK'S HOSTs bullshit installed.

Then his HOSTs bullshit is USELESS.

Re:APK will fix it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using a combination of Hosts Blacklist and noscript - throw the adblockers out since they keep sellig out faster then you can shake a politician at - just keep noscript in deny all mode and don't auto-update the damn thing. I don't use the ABE settings since I don't allow scripts to run except those I absolutely have to and I know where they're coming from.

Captcha today : augments - quite approps don'cha ya tink?

Live tiles are ads

[Sheik Yerbouti]

The whole idea behind live tiles and the full screen interface that was in Windows 8 was that it was an ad. It was just cross promoting other Microsoft stuff. Bing Maps, Bing Finance, MSN, MS Store, Windows Mobile, Xbox etc... It was always about promoting Microsoft's other stuff in a full screen animated Ad. They alienated their users with a poorly thought out and designed UI including mystery meat navigation in the form of charms bars for the soul purpose of serving their cross promotional interests. Which is why in my opinion they didn't get nearly enough grief for the shenanigans.

Maybe I'll just fire up the old XP box when I want

[AndyKron]

It looks like Win7 will be my last Windows. Maybe I'll just fire up the old XP box when I want to upgrade.

Fuck MS..

[LVSlushdat]

Yet another reason I'm ever thankful I moved all my systems to Linux after I retired from 25 years supporting Microsoft's crap... What with Windows 10 sending everything you do on *your* system to MS (and NSA???) and now this bullshit, I feel VERY sorry for anybody who still sucks on MS's tit...

Re:Fuck MS..

[freeze128]

Ubuntu was the first to do that....

Re:Fuck MS..

[Cro Magnon]

1. Ubuntu is still better than Windows 10.
2. You could always try Fedora/Debian/Slackware/FreeBSD.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[Anonymous Coward]

You could whitelist from the router

Beware of "free" stuff. It always has a price

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I have abandon Windows altogether after Windows 8. I still use Windows 8.1 as it supports some peripherals I still have that need it. But I am certainly looking at anything but Windows 10 as a next OS. I tested Windows 10 for a while and the annoying crap Microsoft kept doing with notifications was far worse then what Apple ever did with OS X notifications. Yes, you could turn off the Office nag, and the One Drive nags. But then again, why should you have to? I concur this is not different then Xbox which does the same thing. Heck I guess even Firefox does it anytime you launch a new tab, so it should be no surprise that anyone does this. The internet and computing devices have become the new path for advertising. Of course, I have other reasons not to adopt Windows 10 but this is not going to persuade me in the least. Microsoft is too stupid to realize that all the negative of a free release of Windows will do nothing but hurt the PC industry as a whole.
But I guess that's the path Microsoft has chosen.

Since Micorsoft is accepting ads for Windows...

[JoeyRox]

Let's pool our money together and buy a Start Menu ad for Linux.

Well, that simplifies things ...

[gstoddart]

I guess it's time to disable Windows Updates entirely on my Windows 8.1 desktop.

Sorry, but no. Don't want crap like this, don't want Windows 10. It's my computer and not yours.

None of their damned analytics, or telemtry, or ads, or other invasive shit they're doing.

I might apply critical updates, but increasingly they've gone to great lengths to hide what the updates are really doing.

I'll take my chances with a desktop behind a firewall that I don't run stupid shit on. But I fear it is no longer possible to trust Microsoft, or allow them to have their bullshit idea that it is their computer and they'll do as they please with it.

I'll stick with my Windows 8.1 which has had Classic Shell installed and all of their romper-room interface crap turned off. Increasingly, I don't see any value in Windows 10 at all, and in fact I see it as hostile.

Thanks, Microsoft. This will be my last Windows desktop unless I run it in a VM.

Re: Well, that simplifies things ...

[Anonymous Coward]

>I guess it's time to disable Windows Updates entirely on my Windows 8.1 desktop.

I just recently did this. I've also uninstalled all of the useless telemetry and Windows 10 ad button updates. Now it's a hassle to update anything because I have to verify what those updates actually do. So, it's going to remain out of date.

Re:Well, that simplifies things ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Running an unpatched Windows connected to the internet is just about the dumbest thing you can do with a computer other than chaining it to yourself and jumping off of a bridge.

Re:Well, that simplifies things ...

[gstoddart]

Running an unpatched Windows connected to the internet is just about the dumbest thing you can do with a computer other than chaining it to yourself and jumping off of a bridge.

Directly connected to the intertubes, you're correct.

But with a sufficient amount of the MS crap disabled so it isn't trying to be "helpful", not running every piece of crap on the internet, and generally not doing naive and stupid things ... you'd be amazed at how many of those vectors simply don't exist.

My machine is behind a firewall. Since my wife and I each have our own wifi, both of our routers are behind the firewall my ISP provides (because we don't trust that), I'm two physical links away from the actual internet. Further, I don't use IE unless it's a site I know I can 100% trust, and those are pretty rate. The rest of my browsers are fairly locked down, and don't tend to trust much. I have no Flash at all on the machine

I have turned off all forms of autorun. Anything sketchy is ran inside of a VM which is even more locked down. The overwhelming majority of attack vectors are eliminated by not using that stuff. I don't allow automatic application of updates.

For the last 10-15 years, I patch at most every month or two, because I don't reboot just because Microsoft wants me to.

Do you know how many times I've gotten malware in that time? None. Nada. Zip. Do I think I'm magic and immune? Absolutely not. Do I think eliminating some of the crap from the equation which seems to consistently be an attack vector helps? Hell yeah.

But on my Windows 8.1 box, I am pretty much reduced to having to read every single update to confirm Microsoft isn't pulling a fast one and slipping in something which claims to be important for Windows, when in fact it's important for Microsoft.

Which means the updates to work around vulnerabilities mostly caused by Microsoft's badly done "innovation" isn't a problem when you don't rely on Microsoft's badly done innovation which adds security holes in the first place.

The problems are as often as not created by Microsoft. And I've found disabling and not using stuff I have no need for eliminates a lot of risk.

But once they started hiding the true nature of updates to push out stuff which is entirely about them, you pretty much have to start treating Microsoft as hostile. And I'd rather take my chances with a machine I've locked down than whatever the clowns and Microsoft think they've created which is supposed to be useful.

Because time and time again, what Microsoft calls "useful" or "convenient" translates into "big giant security hole of badly written software".

I told my wife we'd switch

[macxcool]

to Linux when Windows 8.1 or any subsequent version of Windows became a problem on her little laptop. We have Linux everywhere else, it makes no difference to her. I'm starting to think this might be the time.

Re:I told my wife we'd switch

[LVSlushdat]

I moved my systems in 2010, when I retired.. If enough people move to Linux, I can see where the government will find a way to call us Linux users "terrorists"... There was a time when I'd think my tinfoil hat was too tight if I had an idea like that, but no more.....

And use what instead?

[tepples]

Other than Windows 10, what other operating system is compatible with currently sold 10-inch laptops (including detachable laptop-tablets), including WLAN and suspend? The ASUS Transformer Book T100TA, for example, doesn't appear to work well in Debian (source) or Ubuntu (source).

Or did you mean choosing to do without a laptop entirely?

Re:And use what instead?

[GNious]

http://www.linux-netbook.com/

Re:And use what instead?

[Grishnakh]

Linux generally works very well on business-class laptops like the Thinkpad.

Re:And use what instead?

[horza]

Not on the Lenovo computers. I was stupid enough to buy one because it was on sale, thinking Linux ran on just about anything. Not on Lenovo. If only I'd bought the older Android version at least it would be usable, but Windows 8.1 means it is currently being used as a paperweight.

Phillip.

Re: And use what instead?

[bjamesv]

I run Ubuntu 15.04 just fine on an 1st gen Lenovo Helix detachable (says ThinkPad on the back).

bought it because was cheap & Arch linux guys seemed to have good luck with it. Touchscreen, pen, everything just seemed to work correctly out of the box. http://psref.lenovo.com/Produc...

Re:And use what instead?

[KGIII]

Keep trying random distros. Try Mint, Lubuntu, GhostBSD (not Linux btw), Arch, Debian, Fedora, etc... One of the damned things always seems to work out of the box. Just try live disks and install if you have to. If it works live then it should work installed. One of them works - almost every time. Well, every single time for me - which kind of pisses me off, I *like* breaking and tinkering.

Re:And use what instead?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

LOL, reminds me of Weird Al's "All About the Pentiums"...

Your laptop is a month old? Well that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight

Antitrust

[Anonymous Coward]

so who is first to file an antitrust motion ? this is a classic case of it, levering their (OS) monopoly to enter another market (advertising) , never mind the privacy implications of your doctor/dentist/small business uploading your personal details to a bunch of fucking Americans in suits

fuck microsoft, anon will make sure of it

rhetorical questions

[Tom]

Will it be well-received?

Rhetorical question, very much? When was the last time that people went on the street with signs reading "we want more advertisement"?

The really interesting question is: How do they get this data, which data do they send to get it, and how long will it take until there is the first piece of malware advertisement?

(you think if they limit it to featuring apps, that can't be exploited. You must be kidding. Firstly, someone will be smarter than you are and find a way. Secondly, what makes you so sure it will remain limited to featured apps?)

Well if you can turn them off.

[jimbob6]

Does Clippy show them to me?

beta-texters excluded

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because all the beta-testers have been marked not to receive most hated updated, so that you publish articles saying windows 10 is ok.
And typical users will get hell you don't even know about.
Clever, don't you think? That's what 'innovation' means to microsoft today.

OneNote

[GrantRobertson]

My problem is that I frikin' love MS OneNote on a convertible laptop/tablet with a real stylus. I've been hooked since about 2003. Nothing comparable is available with Linux.

So does my Samsung phone. What's the problem?

[eggstasy]

Seriously. People will complain about everything. Is there a website without a recommendation engine these days?
Google Play recommends me apps. Samsung phones come preinstalled with an app recommendation engine.
Why not Windows? If anything I am grateful to get suggestions, or else I would be stuck playing the same game for ages, like in the DOS days.

Re:So does my Samsung phone. What's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

A website exists to serve adverts, the content is what they use to sell your visit. An application repository is an application you use to look for applications. That pre-installed shit reduced the price of your device. If you can't see the different between that and an OS reporting back to the mothership, you're on the wrong fucking site!

All of your actions are going to be fed back to MS's "recommendation server". All that porn you watch will be in their systems, as will what sites your visit, what media you have downloaded et al. Sure you don't have a problem with it? Or are you really that dim?

Re:So does my Samsung phone. What's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

... playing the same game for ages, like in the DOS days.

And what's wrong with that? A good game is a good game. I occasionally fire up DOSBox to play some classics.

Re:This is it!

[flopsquad]

This is The Year of Linus app, suggested for your convenience directly into C:/Program Files (x86). Download it today by not clicking cancel 3 seconds ago!

The Year of Linus adds in the frequently requested functionality of replacing the standard Windows calendar with 365 days of Met Life advertisements featuring beloved Peanuts character Linus.

You're welcome. Love,
Microsoft

Watch out, you might catch systemd.

[Hognoxious]

The ads are the least of your worries.

Someone will find an exploit (maybe an intentional function put there "just for testing/troubleshooting/essential updates") and the shit will really hit the fan.

Massive Omission

[Revarg]

If you read the article it clearly shows that this is a feature that can be easily disabled. People are just looking for reasons to be angry.

Re:Massive Omission

[ledow]

Do you have any idea how many "easily disabled" features I have to turn off on every copy of Windows deployed in my corporation?

How many "not easily disabled" features?
How many "You shouldn't disable this" features?
How many "This is a feature you don't want masquerading as a security update"?
How many "You used to turn off this feature here, but you can't any more?"
How many "This feature cannot be disabled"?

And there's nothing yet to say the ads aren't coming down, they just aren't being shown. That's different. Several thousand machines all downloading unnecessary ads that are never shown is probably worse than the burden on the poor webfilter through normal browsing alone.

Things that are "easily disabled" should be given as choices. Because if it's easily disabled, then it should be just as easily enabled if the USER actually wants it.

Ads are "easily ignored" too. It doesn't mean you want them.

And the stuff about Windows 10 popups? That was "easily disabled". Except when it wasn't. Except when domain-controlled machines (which were supposed to be exempt from it) started popping it up too. Except when you turn it off and still have to turn off three "security updates" that don't even MENTION it to stop it trying to pre-download gigabytes of Windows 10 files that it won't install.

Such things just shouldn't be happening, "easily disabled" or not.

Re:Massive Omission

[Anonymous Coward]

If you bothered read their EULA, you'd know they categorically state anything you disable can be silently turned on and you have to agree to it by your usages of win10. Perhaps you need to stop being so dim and learn a little more about the subject, rather than being a stool brushing it away because you're pretty ignorant on the matter to hand.

Re:Massive Omission

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how many "easily disabled" features I have to turn off on every copy of Windows deployed in my corporation?

Exactly 0. This is because if you had an appropriate IT department, those features would be controlled at the Active Directory level. Every user in your company would have those features not just disabled, but completely blocked so they'd have to petition for an exception to gain access to the 'feature.'

Re:Massive Omission

[spire3661]

So just fuck small businesses, right? You dont need AD for the vast majority of small business out there, which accounts for a MASSIVE chunk of the market.

Re:Massive Omission

[Anonymous Coward]

My new alarm clock harvested my kidney last night -- but it's no problem, there's an option I can set which easily disables the Harvest Organs feature.

Re: Massive Omission

[Anonymous Coward]

That's mighty fine for business use. Not everyone uses AD. I've seen some companies who don't use AD. Just a bunch of workstations with local users. Small companies with 1-20 employees don't really need AD.

Re:Massive Omission

[Anonymous Coward]

So a free utility to coordinate hardware for up to 500,000 user/privilege pairs is somehow out of reach for small businesses? (For the math challenged, that means that if you do not use any global restrictions and insist on defining everything individually, a 20 employee small business can have 25,000 AD-configured controls. You won't need that 500,000 except in the most awkwardly tyrannical 500+ employee situations.)

Either you disable everything unwanted on each piece of hardware, or you use the tool to configure it all in one place. If you think it's not worth your time to learn how to use the centralized configuration tool, then accept that you have decided it is worth your time to do the configuration manually on each system.

Re:Massive Omission

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how many "easily disabled" features I have to turn off on every copy of Windows deployed in my corporation?

What is a Group Policy Object, Alex?

Re:Massive Omission

[ledow]

Please show me the group policy object for preventing the sidebar appearing. Or the group policy object for specifying the login image (or whether the login image can be changed by the user, etc.) on Windows 8. Hell, try getting the LDAP jpeg attribute to be the login image.

It sounds *really* easy. You probably think you already know it. You might even link to something that claims to do it. Now try it. Without bodges, scripts, and it only working in some instances (Disabled the side bar? Fully? Think so? You might hope), it can't be done.

Do you know where the settings for default printers are in GP? Hint: Nowhere near the print management settings. Do you know how to stop Windows 8's accessibility menu appearing on login (because it allows you to cock up the login screen with High Contrast, voice, etc. that stays until someone undoes it)? The "semi-official" fix is to rename or ACL-protect an .exe in the Windows folder.

Think group policy is the fucking be-all-and-end-all of every setting in Windows? Go run a network. Fuck, you can't even get it to do simple things.

Re:Massive Omission

[yuhong]

Server 2012 R2 Essentials isn't that expensive though, and provides you with a AD domain complete with group policy etc. It even provides WSUS to control updates.

Re:Massive Omission

[Anonymous Coward]

People are just looking for reasons to be angry.

Well, EXCUSE US.

There are times when Slashdot articles gin up faux outrage over some topic, but this is not one of those times. Don't you get it? The fact that this capability even exists in the first place is what the community is collectively offended by, for legitimate, well-considered, historically sanctioned reasons.

We really don't care that it can be flipped off. We care that we're being flipped off by Microsoft. (After all, if it's disabled, is it still downloading updated versions of the ads?)

Re:Massive Omission

[Anonymous Coward]

I get it. You're so used to the garbage on your phone that you think it's normal to have it on your PC too.

In a Word

[Anonymous Coward]

NO

I loaded all the "apps" I needed when I built the system. After that, churn should be minimal. I don't need the latest and greatest crudware - spent enough time getting rid of that after getting the computer.

There's an off switch...

[Ayanami_R]

use it. This can be disabled, easily.

Re:There's an off switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

The license you agreed to allows them to re-enable it though.

Re:This is it!

[kheldan]

This is the year of Linus!

No kidding. Can someone suggest a good book to get started with Linux? The next box I build is looking to have some flavor of it instead of any version of Windows.

and 20 Minutes into the Future ...

[fahrbot-bot]

We'll be living in the world of Max Headroom:

The series is set in a futuristic dystopia ruled by an oligarchy of television networks. Even the government functions primarily as a puppet state of the network executives, serving mainly to pass laws — such as banning "off" switches on televisions — that protect and consolidate the networks' power.

And who controls the TV networks? Advertisers

Re:and 20 Minutes into the Future ...

[spire3661]

When i was a kid and I watched this show i said 'How can corporations run everything, wouldnt the government stop them?" I simply couldnt accept it.

"This isn't so bad"?

[Scroatzilla]

It's weird that pro-Windows folks are saying "this isn't so bad," pointing out how easy it is to turn off. Why would my operating system recommend apps in the first place? Others are suggesting that "perhaps I'll find an app that I never would have noticed with these suggestions." When I have a need for functionality, I will actively research apps! Do Windows users really sit around waiting for "surprise apps"?

IMHO, starting with Windows 8, Windows began transforming into a steaming cesspool of unusable crap. Recently, when faced with having to drop some money on a new computer, I switched from Windows to Mac. I'm not a fanboi, but because Windows started to dumb desktops down into the smartphone form factor, I figured: If I have to learn a new UI anyway, why not just switch? Now, I very much appreciate using an unobtrusive OS that lets me load files and run applications, and that also allows me to update the OS when I want to, at no additional cost.

I'm still forced to use Win8 at work (we're completely entangled in Office365 now), and to support my wife's Win8 machine at home, and that is enough Windows for me.

Re:"This isn't so bad"?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's this guy going around kicking people in the nuts.
It's not so bad though, if you ask him to not kick you in the nuts he won't.
So that's OK then.

Re:"This isn't so bad"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu has ads. Every app store has ads. All the browsers show ads on 'empty' start pages. Microsoft is simply removing the requirement to open the app store.

It's a big deal for businesses, not a big deal to the 'younger' generation of computer consumers.

Re:"This isn't so bad"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's weird that pro-Windows folks are saying "this isn't so bad," pointing out how easy it is to turn off. Why would my operating system recommend apps in the first place?

Because they're desperately trying to get traction for their "app store". They really want Universal Apps to take off. Partly for security reasons, and largely for that sweet, sweet vig that all the other "app stores" are getting.

Personally, I don't see how this is in any way indicative of some ad-blasted future Start Menu. I mean, it *could* lead to that, but I think it's far more likely that it will be used solely to promote the Windows Store.

Re:"This isn't so bad"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but if it weren't for the games! The ONLY reason I hold on to Windows desktop right now is 99.9999% Steam. OSX is light years ahead at tending to my needs on my notebook (aka MBP) it just simply isn't funny. Apple got spotlight right, MS are either broken or dead on the searches topic. There are a number of reasons an operating system can hate you, the user. Microsoft is PE number one.

Any others care to share why they hold on to Windows? or even to just one OS?

Self promo

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice promo of your own article, Mark... Hope you made lots of ad revenue on it!

Our turn to throw chairs

[sinij]

I think it is our turn to throw chairs over this. OS is sacrosanct, is MS is mucking with it then any device running Windows no longer can be trusted. That is, after all these years of being laughably wrong, desktop Linux zealots now would be correct in their claims that Windows OS is malware.

Linux

[fluffernutter]

Switched the entire house to Linux Mint MATE last year. Love it.

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tested different Linux distros over the past 15 years. Hated all of them. Half-baked desktop environments and poorly thought-out design. Not to mention the culture of Linux is soaked like a urine stained diaper with Toe-Jam eating Stallman, Torvald's childlike rage, and a legion of zealots and trolls who spread FUD and spew lies about everything else that's not GNU/Linux. You can take that shit, the rest of us don't want it.

Re: Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

But let me guess, you love Windows right? Because the sames true for Windows. Goto any pro Windows site and you will see the same shit.

Don't you think it's apt that /. Is a tech neutral site, yet almost everyone here agrees Microsoft blows. It's no coincidence man. mS blows. Deal with it. If you can't trust the people in the field using these machines and developing hardware and software, who can you trust? Sure as hell not MS.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[NatasRevol]

They didn't pay for a windows license, so yes.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/784060-the-complete-beginners-guide-to-linux

It's not a book. But a good read. Linux.com has tons of tutorials.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[Anonymous Coward]

Squid FTW. Extra point if you name it squirt.local :)

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how that works. Honest companies do honest things. While shady companies do shady things.

Thanks bmo (hosts = faster & more efficient)

[Anonymous Coward]

"APK is kinda right" - by bmo (77928) on Thursday October 15, 2015 @11:30AM (#50736071)

See subject: Hosts are faster & more efficient than other methods - Hosts also do far more for added security, reliability, anonymity and again, speed online.

* :)

APK

P.S.=> I'm not just "kinda right" man - I am DEAD ON right... always have been on this account!

... apk

Thanks, Microsoft

[Chris Mattern]

For so thoroughly validating my decision not to upgrade to Windows 10.

Screen Background Ads

[mtrachtenberg]

I think Microsoft is missing out on opportunity by not putting advertising on the background screen. Who wants to look at grandchildren when they can see a tasteful ad for Viagra or incontinence products? And, yes, Microsoft Marketing Man, don't call it an ad -- just point out that Microsoft, as a service to humanity, puts incontinence suggestions on screen for *all* its users who have been prescribed incontinence medications.

To stop Windows 7 "phoning home" do this

[Anonymous Coward]

IMPORTANT ONE IS GROUP POLICY (gpedit.msc):

Go to Control Panel, Administrative Templates, System
Internet Communication Management, Internet Communication Settings

ENABLE (to turn it on, it is a disabler)

"Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program"

(IF YOU HAVE Windows "home" (less than Pro models), export the section of the registry involved from a Pro system & merge the .reg file you exported - should work well enough to do the job here for those of you using that lesser model of Windows)

---

TO REMOVE THE BOGUS OPTIONAL TELEMETRY HOTFIXES MANUALLY:

Open command prompt
Type powershell
issue these commands

---

TO SEE WHAT ONES ARE INSTALLED:

get-hotfix -id KB3035583, KB2952664,KB2976978,KB3021917,KB3044374,KB2990214

---

TO UNINSTALL THEM (these for sure, per url next below):

wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583
wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664
wusa /uninstall /kb:2976978
wusa /uninstall /kb:3021917
wusa /uninstall /kb:3044374
wusa /uninstall /kb:2990214

per http://www.ghacks.net/2015/04/...

---

DESCRIPTIONS OF EACH (these uninstalled properly):

KB3068708 (Telemetry)
KB3075249 (Telemetry)
KB3080149 (Telemetry)

KB3022345 (Telemetry)
KB2977759 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)
KB3021917 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparatioon + Telemetry)
KB3035583 (Windows 10 upgrade preparation)

---

I GOT "NOT INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER" ON THESE INITIALLY SINCE I HAD IE11 installed (PROBABLY ONES FOR IE9/10/11 &/or Windows 10 (I use Win7 here)):

KB3075249
KB3080149
KB2505438
* KB2670838 (See IE 9/10/11 notes below)
KB3044374
KB2990214 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)
KB2505438 (Although it claims to fix performance issues, it often breaks fonts)
KB2976978 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)

---

I GOT "NOT INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER" ON THESE (*PRIOR* TO PULLING KB2670838):

* KB2670838 (This update often breaks AERO on Windows 7 and makes some fonts on websites fuzzy. A Windows 7 specific update only
                        (do not install IE10 or 11 otherwise it will be bundled with them, IE9 is the max version you should install to avoid this).

THESE RE-APPEAR AFTER UNINSTALLING IE11 RIGHT ON RESTARTING & CHECKING WINDOWS UPDATE:

* KB2952664 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3021917 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3068708 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3092627 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)

---

run cmd as administrator

sc stop Diagtrack
sc delete Diagtrack

---

*Task Scheduler Library:

Everything under "Application Experience"
Everything under "Autochk"
Everything under "Customer Experience Improvement Program"
Under "Disk Diagnostic" only the "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector"
Under "Maintenance" "WinSAT"
"Media Center" and click the "status" column, then select all non-disabled entries and disable them.

*services.msc:

"Remote Registry" to "Disabled" instead of "Manual".

APK

P.S.=> See subject & "there ya go..."

... apk

Re:To stop Windows 7 "phoning home" do this

[bmo]

Useful but...

It's merely playing whack-a-mole with Microsoft. They can stick their spyware in any upgrade, especially an important security upgrade.

And you won't know next time. It'll be obfuscated with some sort of encryption within the .dll. (hey if I can think of it, it will happen.)

I think it's disgusting that they hard-code this shit. It's anti-user, anti-everyone.

--
BMO

Re:To stop Windows 7 "phoning home" do this

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

(hey if I can think of it, it is already in development at Microsoft, no matter how horrible an idea it is.) there, FTFY lol

So long, and thanks for all the malware!

[Anonymous Coward]

The camel's back is broken! Outta here! *exit... stage left* Ciao, y'all!

Re:This is it!

[AntiSol]

I can't recommend a book. My advice is to pick a commonly used distro with good documentation and more importantly a good community. Ubuntu is good in this respect (or xubuntu or kubuntu if you want a more familiar interface). I've also heard good things about mint and arch. Introduce yourself, say you're a newbie, and ask questions. Be polite and try not to be stupid or lazy if you can help it - try to read documentation, and always do a search before you ask a question (it's faster than waiting for a forum response anyway). There are also rooms on IRC where you can get help. In my experience people tend to be friendly there. I think the days of "RTFM" are mostly over. You might still get the occasional "RTFM" response or links to the relevant manual, but you'll usually get a helpful response.

IMHO the easiest way to learn Linux is to not have windows installed. It forces you to learn rather than being lazy and retreating to familiar territory.

It's not that scary these days anyway, there's a GUI for most things and you're rarely forced to use the command line (unless you want to) or mess around configuring hardware.

Die In a Fire

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertisers should consider if they want their customers hating them.

I've boycotted more companies because of annoying ads, than I've tried because of good advertising

Dear Microsoft,

[Ralph Spoilsport]

FUCK YOU!

Re: Thanks bmo (hosts = faster & more efficien

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that Microsoft ignores your host file and does what the fuck it wants to do.

Re:This is it!

[smooth wombat]

My advice is to pick a commonly used distro with good documentation and more importantly a good community.

So none them.

Be polite and try not to be stupid or lazy if you can help it

Strike 1.

try to read documentation,

Strike 2. (see above)

and always do a search before you ask a question (it's faster than waiting for a forum response anyway).

Strike 3. I'm outta here.

The whole point of asking questions is because one doesn't know and/or hasn't been able to find the answer elsewhere. Sometimes you find the answer but it's so convoluted you still don't know how to do what is being said (I've seen tons of such documentation).

Considering everyone at some point in their lives has asked a stupid question, telling someone who doesn't know the answer not to ask a stupid question is essentially telling them not to bother asking in the first place.

This is one of many reasons there will never a Year of Linux on the desktop.

Classics Hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we really want to install something from Classics Hell? That sounds like some kind of Sisyphean nightmare... though I suppose that can't be much worse than normal Windows.

Re:This is it!

[FlyHelicopters]

This is the year of Linus!

I imagine you were joking, or I hope...

That ship has sailed, Linux had its chance about 15 years ago, if the launch of Windows ME, Windows 2000, and even the RTM version of Windows XP didn't do it, Windows 10 won't either.

OS X actually could have a decent chance, if Apple would be willing to change how they sell it or how they build and price computers.

A decent Mac desktop computer for $599, $799, and $999 at those price points would sell, and sell a lot I believe. But the lowest price Apple tower is several thousand dollars, it is just silly.

Trojan Horse

[mutherhacker]

Brilliant Trojan Horse move by Microsoft. Kudos :)

Re:This is it!

[Joce640k]

Will it be well-received?

NO.

But the bosses will discard the Pesky Facts and do it anyway. Just to show people who the boss is.

Re:This is it!

[GTRacer]

A few months ago, my main Windows laptop died and my wife uses the other one for work. I had an old Dell e6400 I got in pieces that I managed to cobble together, and I threw Mint 17 on it. I used it off an on as a basic net / email appliance, but as of a couple weeks ago, I set it up for development with Eclipse, Postgres and Squirrel. I also dove in and got my keybinds done the way I wanted and made a few tweaks here and there.

I also got my hands dirty getting Wine up and running to play Final Fantasy XI. After much driver work, log diving and a failed RTFM on my part, I succeeded!

After putting my hands on a couple of Win10 machines lately, I am *so* glad to have this one Microsoft-free.

Re:This is it!

[buchner.johannes]

Doesn't Ubuntu have suggested apps already?

I also vaguely remember that they were trying to introduce a marketplace for commercial software.

Re:This is it!

[dixonpete]

PCLinuxOS is absolutely dead easy.. Stable as heck as well. Great community. Never thought to look for a book on it. Never needed to.

Developer mode Chromebook nags user to wipe it

[tepples]

Essentially all the laptops on the front page of that site are Chromebooks. My problem with Chromebooks is that as I understand it, you need developer mode to run any application other than Google Chrome. And if you have developer mode turned on, then every time you turn the laptop on, it nags you to press space to perform a factory reset. I imagine that this would make it far too easy to accidentally lose everything until I can get back home to my backups. What's the preferred workaround for this?

they think they're pulling a Google

[chilenexus]

Google makes its income off of advertising and can offer programs and services for free. MS wants to compete with Google, so they're sticking their feet in the water of offering the OS for free and making their income off of advertising. Likewise, plumbers are going to fix your bathroom for free, but your toilets will start playing advertisements when you sit on the pot or step into the shower. You'll see toothpaste and mouthwash ads when you use the bathroom sink. You don't want to know what will pop up when you use the bidet.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think MS is giving Dell, et. al., free Windows 10 licenses, you are effin crazy.

"Press space to reformat"

[tepples]

So order from a vendor that sells Linux pre-installed

I've had a heck of a time finding a vendor that sells subnotebooks with Linux preinstalled, unless it's a Chromebook that begs the user to wipe the drive every time the user turns it on: "OS verification is OFF. Press space to re-enable."

or bite the bullet on hardware you do own and install your favorite distro.

That's the problem: I'm trying to find a replacement for when "hardware [I] do own" dies.

Re:"Press space to reformat"

[0123456]

That's the problem: I'm trying to find a replacement for when "hardware [I] do own" dies.

But... but... but... the fanboys kept telling us that Microsoft would never, ever allow OEMs to make Windows Boot mandatory on PCs. It was a slippery slope argument, which, as every SJW kno, is a logical fallacy, so it can't possibly happen.

I'm guessing my next laptop will be from somewhere like System 76, as PCs rapidly become Windows-only.

No fix for the Start Menu overflow showstopper

[BenJeremy]

Don't have more than 512 items (who would ever need more?) in your Start Menu, because Microsoft won't track them, and Cortana won't find them, and random items will disappear.

Also not fixed, probably never will, the "designer" decision to flatten Start Menu's folder structure to one level max, because mobile users are apparently morons who cannot handle the complexity of subfolders.

Ignores hosts? How so??

[Anonymous Coward]

I use hosts on Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003/2008 & 7 just fine here.

Users of VISTA, 8.x, & 10 can also. As far as tracking -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... That removes it completely & easily!

So your 'point' is moot...

APK

P.S.=> I ought to port my program to MacOS X + Android (Linux eventually as well) since it's written in Borland's Object Pascal & Delphi pretty much does ALL the "major platforms" out there from 1 compiler + language easily (& for Linux, though Borland used to make Kylix, there's FreePascal & it's Lazarus IDE - almost a perfect Delphi 2.x clone in the IDE + the language used in FreePascal is VERY FAITHFUL to Borland's Object Pascal also).

Hard parts (not SO hard) to port?

Drive letters in Windows vs. mounted devices in *NIX (easy).

API calls specific to Windows I'll have to port to *NIX 'counterparts'

&

Socket differences (Winsock 2 to *NIX socket work - which I've ALREADY abstracted away in preparation for it)...

Only thing "holding me back"? Delphi itself... I'm waiting for them to rebuild (again) Linux support into it (odd it's not in it already - as it does ANDROID already)... apk

Re:Maybe I'll just fire up the old XP box when I w

[The-Ixian]

Bye, have fun.

You give just as much, if not more, information away browsing the internet or going out to get your mail in the morning that Windows is collecting.

In my opinion, it is what is done with the data that is important, not the collection of it.

I choose to trust Microsoft just like I choose to trust the manufacturer of any number of items I use every day. They are all motivated by money which is antithetical to your interests... that is the society we live in for better or worse...

Re:This is it!

[flopsquad]

Think you're right about both but can't confirm.

What really?

[roc97007]

> If you've updated to build 10565 of Windows 10, you're in for something of a surprise: the Start menu is now being used to display ads.

What, seriously? Ok, I'm officially staying on 7 for the foreseeable future. After that I think I'll buy a (probably used) mac. I've put up with a lot of pain from Microsoft because my apps run on Windows and I don't like the hipster culture of Apple. But this is the final pain point. It's bad enough that Win7 is now pleading with me to upgrade to 10. But ads in the start menu? This seems as much a gaffe as eliminating the start menu was in Win8.

4 Win Update it's good & to remove tracking?

[Anonymous Coward]

IMPORTANT ONE IS GROUP POLICY (gpedit.msc):

Go to Control Panel, Administrative Templates, System
Internet Communication Management, Internet Communication Settings

ENABLE (to turn it on, it is a disabler)

"Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program"

(IF YOU HAVE Windows "home" (less than Pro models), export the section of the registry involved from a Pro system & merge the .reg file you exported - should work well enough to do the job here for those of you using that lesser model of Windows)

---

TO REMOVE THE BOGUS OPTIONAL TELEMETRY HOTFIXES MANUALLY:

Open command prompt
Type powershell
issue these commands

---

TO SEE WHAT ONES ARE INSTALLED:

get-hotfix -id KB3035583, KB2952664,KB2976978,KB3021917,KB3044374,KB2990214

---

TO UNINSTALL THEM (these for sure, per url next below):

wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583
wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664
wusa /uninstall /kb:2976978
wusa /uninstall /kb:3021917
wusa /uninstall /kb:3044374
wusa /uninstall /kb:2990214

per http://www.ghacks.net/2015/04/...

---

DESCRIPTIONS OF EACH (these uninstalled properly):

KB3068708 (Telemetry)
KB3075249 (Telemetry)
KB3080149 (Telemetry)

KB3022345 (Telemetry)
KB2977759 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)
KB3021917 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparatioon + Telemetry)
KB3035583 (Windows 10 upgrade preparation)

---

I GOT "NOT INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER" ON THESE INITIALLY SINCE I HAD IE11 installed (PROBABLY ONES FOR IE9/10/11 &/or Windows 10 (I use Win7 here)):

KB3075249
KB3080149
KB2505438
* KB2670838 (See IE 9/10/11 notes below)
KB3044374
KB2990214 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)
KB2505438 (Although it claims to fix performance issues, it often breaks fonts)
KB2976978 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)

---

I GOT "NOT INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER" ON THESE (*PRIOR* TO PULLING KB2670838):

* KB2670838 (This update often breaks AERO on Windows 7 and makes some fonts on websites fuzzy. A Windows 7 specific update only
                        (do not install IE10 or 11 otherwise it will be bundled with them, IE9 is the max version you should install to avoid this).

THESE RE-APPEAR AFTER UNINSTALLING IE11 RIGHT ON RESTARTING & CHECKING WINDOWS UPDATE:

* KB2952664 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3021917 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3068708 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3092627 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)

---

run cmd as administrator

sc stop Diagtrack
sc delete Diagtrack

---

*Task Scheduler Library:

Everything under "Application Experience"
Everything under "Autochk"
Everything under "Customer Experience Improvement Program"
Under "Disk Diagnostic" only the "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector"
Under "Maintenance" "WinSAT"
"Media Center" and click the "status" column, then select all non-disabled entries and disable them.

*services.msc:

"Remote Registry" to "Disabled" instead of "Manual".

APK

P.S.=> ... & "there ya go", tracking's "gone with the dawn" easily - per my subject, it's GOOD they bypass EVERYTHING (hosts & firewall) for Windows update (security updates only), but NOT for the tracking... apk

MS Fluffiness

[fyngyrz]

The "Suggested Apps" fluffy nomenclature reminds me of another recent instance from Microsoft:

The XBox One offers something Microsoft calls an "Energy-Saving Feature" where it doesn't listen for your voice to turn it on.

Previously, manufacturers, and consumers, have clumsily and misleadingly calling this feature "the off switch." Microsoft has saved them, bless their civic-minded hearts.

When not in "energy saving mode" (meaning, it's on), the XBox One draws quite a bit of power. Because, you, know. It's on. :)

Re: MS Fluffiness

[Anonymous Coward]

You can install classic shell on windows 10 and not have to worry about any ads on the start menu.

Re: MS Fluffiness

[sonamchauhan]

You could also install win 7 ...same effect :)

Re: MS Fluffiness

[Anonymous Coward]

And lose all the benefits at the same time. Some of us actually make use of Hyper-V and "GPU debugging" in Visual Studio, neither of which work on 7.

Re: MS Fluffiness

[Anonymous Coward]

GPU passthrough to an isolated virtual machine on Win7/8, Mac OS or Linux and you're done. Enjoy.

Re:This is it!

[flopsquad]

Whoops, backslash fail. I blame mobile symbol keyboards or Obama.

Another reason not to upgrade.

[Chas]

Seriously.

No Way In Hell is thias acceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

You have got to be kidding - Looks like Micro$oft is determined to put itself out of business,because I won't accept it at all - and neither will the thinking public.Need another excuse to switch to Linux? This is it.

Nothing hosts & firewall don't handle

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Plus, I posted how to easily remove Win7 tracking -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so what's your point?

Windows bypass of BOTH firewalls + hosts for WINDOWS UPDATE is a GOOD thing - but the tracking? Not so good (stick to ONLY security updates).

However/Again: I show how to EASILY remove that in the link above!

APK

P.S.=> Use WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE NATIVELY BUILT-IN THAT HAS DECADES OF REFINEMENT BEHIND IT vs. stupidly & ILLOGICALLY Bolting on 'MoAr'" that's inefficient + doesn't do a fraction of what hosts can for LESS RESOURCES USED no less, & addons are usermode slower & SLOWER operating vs. hosts in kernelmode... It's just good sense & "less is more" = GOOD engineering!

... apk

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu has great documentation ! Are you on crack ?

It's just different costs.

[tepples]

I don't feel like paying extra in ancillary costs just to use a friggin' OS.

Compare the price of a MacBook or System76 laptop to the price of an entry-level Windows laptop, and you'll find that people who don't use Windows are also "paying extra in ancillary costs just to use a friggin' OS." It's just different costs.

Re:It's just different costs.

[Penguinisto]

True to a point, but the costs in those costs are one-time (as opposed to ongoing), tend to pay themselves back in other aspects (such as longevity), and don't involve the loss of privacy along the way.

Re:This is it!

[kheldan]

More specifically I need to be able to hack the OS at however deep a level as necessary, just like I do Windows, and a Guide to that would be helpful. The last time I tried dinking around with some distro of Linux (think it was some version of Redhat) I would get totally lost just trying to navigate around the filesystem, whereas I know where everything is in any version of Windows. Also I found something even as simple as installing software to be kind of confusing, believe it or not.

Re:This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's called "Choose Any Linux Distro: If all you need is a server or a basic email/web browser."

Size matters

[tepples]

I'm guessing my next laptop will be from somewhere like System 76, as PCs rapidly become Windows-only.

If only System76 had something smaller than the 14 inch Lemur...

Re:This is it!

[Cro Magnon]

Win ME, Vista, and 8 reeked of incompetence. Win 10 smells more of evil. Granted, it probably won't drive Joe Sixpack to the good side, but it bugs me more than those previous Microsoft failures did.

From installed to working

[tepples]

Installing it is not rocket science.

Getting it working, on the other hand, is. A freshly installed copy of GNU/Linux on an ASUS Transformer Book will have broken keyboard, broken Wi-Fi, broken rotation, broken suspend, and broken pretty much everything else.

Bluecoat does this for their customers

[rsborg]

You're that concerned about security yet you use public wifi?

In practice, can anybody but a state break HTTPS and SSH?

A Bluecoat device will seamlessly MITM any HTTPS for a corporate network. From their website (my emphasis added):

"From simple web-based threats to advanced network threats, you get complete visibility into your encrypted traffic and get to enjoy the peace of mind that comes with working with the best in the business of network security."

Re:Bluecoat does this for their customers

[Cederic]

Well, yes, if I install their CA in my browser then they can MITM me without me realising.

Otherwise my browser yells loudly that someone's fucked with the certificates. That's not breaking HTTPS, that's it doing its job.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[Anonymous Coward]

> If you think MS is giving Dell, et. al., free Windows 10 licenses, you are effin crazy.

They gave OEMs free 'Windows with Bing' licences.

http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-81-bing-costs-10-oems-10-configuration-discount

Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care about the windows 10 start menu because I never need to use it. The windows 7 start menu was simply my gateway to the search bar, and everything else was either accessed through explorer or the run box. And really the 'classic' start menu was just a neutered/anemic version of the windows explorer file tree interface. How useful is that really? Appstore advertisements getting you down? Use a local account! The appstore is totally optional, and 99 percent of the apps available there (exclude the "appy" games) have more full featured counterparts/alternatives available as traditional programs. Their intent was to unify the interface across multiple hardware platforms, and they have done that, so if you're running w10 on a desktop computer - use it like a standard windows desktop - and stay out of the appstore environment all together. Posted anonymously because you're not allowed to like microsoft products when you're a tech.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need to ask a question so bad, google responds well enough to typing a question in the search box. Plus, it's only so easy to ask questions about windows or Mac because so many people use it. Once more people use Linux regularly it will be easier to find people who will take questions.

Not Your Father's Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

When Satya Nadella took over as CEO from Steve Ballmer, everyone thought "here's a guy who we can work with, a real man of the people -- employees and customers". I, too, thought Microsoft, being under new management, would improve from both a software quality standpoint as well as how they are perceived, act, a whole litany of things I could name. I'm not a happy camper and likely most IT people are not, either. Steve Ballmer seems like a yper puppy who is just going through growing up while chewing the side of the couch off, pissing on the rug, etc. This new CEO seems aggressive in comparison, doesn't seem to care about user privacy, security, you name it. Microsoft seems to be insanely jealous of Google, Apple, and other companies who collect boatloads of data on their customers.

Can Blue Coat MITM without installing a cert?

[tepples]

A Bluecoat device will seamlessly MITM any HTTPS for a corporate network.

Provided that Blue Coat's root certificate is trusted on all machines on the corporate network. The root certificate of some random public hotspot is unlikely to be in my certificate store.

This may be my last straw

[Cro Magnon]

I've been considering getting a replacement for an aging laptop. My experiences installing Linux have been variable, even on desktops, so I'm thinking about pre-installed. Does anyone have any experience with those? Are System 76 or EmperorLinux any good?

Re:This may be my last straw

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't spend the money unless you have to. Honestly, openSUSE would likely run like a champ on your machine. It's a very polished Linux distro that just seems to work with the lion's share of hardware. With Linux, the older the hardware the better the support since the distros will have all the drivers by default. openSUSE is gorgeous especially their KDE desktop. Worth a go, mate.

Re:This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, the entitlement. It is no one else's job to educate tou for free. If you want a good answer, at least try to look it up. Being a proudly ignorant fuck and demanding answers is just plain disrespectful

Re:This is it!

[FlyHelicopters]

Win ME, Vista, and 8 reeked of incompetence.

Agreed...

The irony is that only 8 cost Balmer his job, when Vista should have done it...

But the big pushback against 8 was the interface, and MS fixed that and in that way, admits it was a mistake. Firing Balmer is another way of saying, "yea, we messed up".

But MS hits on enough cylinders to keep going. Win XP, Win 7, and now Win 10 are good enough that people don't need anything else.

Win 10 smells more of evil.

What you smell as "evil" others smell as "progress".

Cortana is wonderful, I look forward to future versions that work even better. But Cortana really doesn't work without the cloud, the datastreams, etc.

At some point, you either have to accept that this stuff exists, or unplug it all and stay where you are.

You DO have that choice, some people still run Windows XP after all, that is an option. But the percentage of people doing that continues to drop.

An always online, connected world with shared data and personal assistants will require all this. Security is of course an issue, but clearly MS has been on that path for awhile now. It isn't perfect, but at least they know it is an issue.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Install cent os and just use it. It's a bit different but when you want to "have fun' with it you can. Don't think about it too much.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fucked and stoned. I meant linux mint.

You can opt out

[vergeme]

I worked on this feature, it's designed to optimize engagement, not monetization. What's the difference? You can opt out if you don't want to see it. You can right click on the "Suggested App" and choose to not see the suggestions.

Re:You can opt out

[Opportunist]

Forever? Or just until the next update?

Or can I just not see THIS "suggestion" and get a different one instead?

And, a personal question, how does it feel to be responsible for a "feature" like this? I mean, I've written a lot of useless code in my time, but never code where I at least had to expect some users to get pissed.

Re:You can opt out

[Anonymous Coward]

"Optimize Engagement" is the new buzzword for "Soliciting" and "Advertising". I don't want to OS to engage me to apps. I want my OS to do what I want it to do. Anything beyond that is unwanted. If I go to the App Store, and it suggests apps, that's a different matter.

Re:You can opt out

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a better idea. Why not have users opt in if they want to see "suggestions". They can download an app that shows ads on their screen. What's that? No one would voluntarily sign up for something so stupid? Yeah exactly.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[barbariccow]

They didn't pay for a windows license, so yes.

Try finding any prebuilt desktop/laptop hardware without the "Windows Tax"

Re:This is it!

[AntiSol]

That's some nice snark there.

So none them.

Community Help Wiki
Ubuntu Desktop Guide
Community Help & Info

Yep, horrible, nonexistent documentation. The community help wiki is particularly useless, what with the comprehensive guides to just about anything you can imagine. Would you believe it's actually text? I mean - they expect you to actually read! They're so crap that they don't even beam knowledge directly into your brain with zero effort on your behalf. Sheesh.

The whole point of asking questions is because one doesn't know and/or hasn't been able to find the answer elsewhere.

Not always. People are lazy, and will ask a question to which they could easily find the answer by typing the exact same text into a search engine. Hence my "try not to be lazy" comment. Asking questions is fine - it's why the community exists. All I'm saying is that you should always make at least a minimal effort to find an answer yourself before imposing yourself on someone else's time (which they are giving you for free). You will get a better response if you say "I googled for 'X' but didn't find anything useful". Also in many cases you'll find the answer you need by searching, and if you do it's faster and easier for you than posting on a forum and waiting for a response.

Sometimes you find the answer but it's so convoluted you still don't know how to do what is being said (I've seen tons of such documentation).

So you ask questions about the answers. You put a post on the community saying "I found documentation X but I'm stuck at Y. Can somebody help? I don't understand Z". You will get an excellent response to this kind of question.

Considering everyone at some point in their lives has asked a stupid question, telling someone who doesn't know the answer not to ask a stupid question is essentially telling them not to bother asking in the first place.

You seem to have missed a critical word which I included in my sentence: try. I didn't say "don't ask stupid questions", I said "Try not to ask stupid questions". Everyone asks stupid questions, it's inevitable. But you will get a better response from the community if you put some minimal effort towards thinking for yourself and try to avoid asking stupid questions. I know, it's difficult, but if you use the energy which you'd otherwise expend spewing vitriol you'll manage to figure a surprising number of things out by yourself.

I'm outta here.

Good, off you go. Enjoy your horrible unconfigurable spyware. We don't really care what you use that much. Just don't come crying to us when you're butthurt about (insert this week's awful thing forced on users).

This is one of many reasons there will never a Year of Linux on the desktop.

It was 2003. Sorry you missed it.

Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

App menu apping apper apps, APPS!

Re:This is it!

[Darinbob]

I'm not sure I want Linus on my desktop.

Not like Android

[simpz]

People say that Windows 10 is just doing what Android does. Just not true.

Firstly this is my PC so I do more on it.

But mainly as far as I'm aware Android is reporting back to Google only when I use Google services, so I'm aware they are doing this (gmail, maps and Google now etc). Not when I'm using non Google apps. I can guarantee this with Cyanogen. But even the base Android source is examanable.

But with Windows 10 it seems to be reporting from the base OS (illustrated by even reporting back when running something like calc. There is no source to examine or Windows Cyanogen.

This is a big difference that no one is pointing out. And the reason Win10 is truly nasty don't for privacy.

Re:This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just head over to linuxmint.com and download the latest "Cinnamon" 64 or 32 bit image. Install on a PC or in a VirtualBox on your existing PC.

No books needed. Just install and enjoy.

Who has the bias?

[s.petry]

Windows IS spying on people and IS feeding them ads. This is not the potential we are discussing, but the processes actively running on people's computers.

In Windows7 I am seeing regularly "Get Windows 10 FREE" messages. Oh I know, I could have avoided that if I had done what everyone tells you not to do and ignore patching but that's not the point. Nowhere does it tell me that the "FREE" really means WE SPY AND GIVE YOU ADS! Go ahead and watch what GSX.exe tells you, except of course for how to download it.

The EULA gives a few hints buried in the legalese language, but until you do a custom install it's really not clear to people how much they are being monitored by Windows 10. Most people lack the expertise to block TCP/IP connections they don't recognize, and lack the hardware capable of doing this.

Back to your but another operating system COULD do the same as I was once wisely told as a young shit. "Wish in one hand, and shit in the other. Which gets full first?" The thing that "could" is obviously the wish, and the shit is MS. Just in case the metaphor was not obvious enough.. and based on the post I responded to you could be pretty slow.

Re:This is it!

[BenLutgens]

Now days I do a lot less "RTFM" and more "You know you could have answered this yourself with a quick google search. Click $HERE, it was the top result for exactly your question"

Re:This is it!

[AntiSol]

I know how you feel, I had a similar experience at first. I think Linux is actually more difficult for advanced windows users than for novices - advanced users are used to feeling like they know all the answers and being able to just get things done, so it's more daunting coming to an unfamiliar environment.

If you want deep knowledge and you're technical and patient, you might want to check out Linux From Scratch, which is a book that goes through building your own Linux system from the ground up. It's probably more involved than what you're looking for at the moment - it's probably something better suited to someone with at least a few years Linux experience under their belt, but it does give you a really good understanding of a lot of stuff.

There are a lot of guides out there. Search engines are your friend. Search for [distro] [problem], e.g "ubuntu install software". also searching or "howto" is helpful, e.g "ubuntu apache howto".

One site I have used is the linux documentation project. They have a bunch of guides. In particular, Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Sounds like one which would be good for you. I have referred back to their advanced bash scripting guide many, many, many times over the years.

On the command line, man is your friend: type "man [command]" to get the documentation for most commands, e.g "man ls". There is also "man -k [searchterm]" if you don't know what command you want. It's dry reading but usually pretty detailed.

But I think perhaps what you really want is IRC. Pick a distro and jump on to the freenode IRC server and look for a relevant and active channel, e.g #ubuntu. Ask questions. You'll find someone (or a group of someones) who will be happy to answer questions. An advantage of IRC is speed - you get a response more quickly than on a forum.

In terms of installing software, it's not like windows - It's much, much better. most distros have a pretty user-friendly GUI for it these days. It'll offer you tens of thousands of apps with search and screenshots and ratings and all kinds of bells and whistles. And if you use the command-line you'll soon get the hang of apt or yum (depending on which distro you choose).

Go with a distro aimed at newbies. They are all very configurable and it's unlikely you'll need to switch for a technical reason, the community is the biggest difference IMHO - the distros aimed at newbies have better documentation and more helpful communities. I don't want to tell you what to choose (it's all about it being your choice after all), but IMHO you should choose ubuntu or one of its variants/derivatives.

It's not easy at first, but as your knowledge builds up it gets easier and easier. You will hit a point where you feel comfortable and then you will start learning a lot of things really quickly and then suddenly you'll feel really comfortable and you'll never want to go back. Don't give in to the initial frustration - stick with it, it's worth it.

Re:This is it!

[Pseudonymous Powers]

I can't recommend a book...It's not that scary these days anyway, there's a GUI for most things and you're rarely forced to use the command line (unless you want to) or mess around configuring hardware.

One, I mostly agree with your post. But...

Two, if the guy is building his own boxes, as he said in his post, he's likely going to be messing around configuring hardware. Which means:

Three, he's going to be doing a whole lot of command line stuff. Actually, I imagine pretty much any Slashdot reader, even one who's not already using Linux in 2015, is going to be the kind of person who ends up having to use the command line almost immediately. Granted, it is a lot whole lot better than it used to be. Unfortunately, it used to be so bad, you guys, and even just ten percent of "an inconceivable amount of command line" is still "quite a bit of command line".

I'd recommend O'Reilly's Linux Pocket Guide, which if I remember correctly is just a list of the most common commands. And has a cowboy on the cover. And is small and not that expensive. I'm sure you could get the same information online somewhere, but I don't know where.

The most important commands for a noob are going to be "su" and "sudo", "ls" and "ls -la", "cd", "pwd", "cat", "nano", "less", "chmod", "find -name <filename>", "grep", and "apt-get install <packagename>" or "yum install <packagename>", depending on whether your distro is Debian- or Fedora-based. You should learn how to use shell scripts, which have the file extension ".sh" and which are the Linux equivalent of batch files. You have to make them executable with "chmod a+x <scriptname>.sh" first, and if they're in the current directory, you have to run them with "./<scriptName>.sh". You will also be unable to avoid learning "vi", because it is TEH AWSAM, we have all agreed to believe; to get you started, the first vi command you should know is ":quit!".

Every program puts its files into about a dozen different directories, scattered all over the filesystem. This is the Linux way; there is no way around it. The error log files are typically in /var/logs/<applicationName>/. A particular user's desktop is at /home/<username>/Desktop. Good luck.

Re:This is it!

[Pseudonymous Powers]

Oh, also, "mkdir", "mv ", "rm ", "rm -rf ".

Re:This is it!

[KGIII]

Perhaps Linux isn't for you. It does require (at times) that you know what you're doing or at least know enough to be able to diagnose a problem - as does any operating system. If you're unfamiliar with it and unwilling to get past the learning curve then, no, it's probably not for you.

Re:This is it!

[kheldan]

Thanks sincerely for the useful information and helpful comments, which is noteworthy in this day and age when the Internet is so full of jerks and losers. :-) Now, if I ever get around to having spare cash to build a new box..

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cortana is wonderful, I look forward to future versions that work even better. But Cortana really doesn't work without the cloud, the datastreams, etc.

And it doesn't really work in most parts of the world. Even the English speaking countries like Australia and Canada can't use the basics of Cortana.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm paying for my copy of Windows 10 Enterprise via my MSDN subscription. And yet I'm still the product.

Naive question about Apple

[rcase5]

MS has gone back to its truly evil ways and - funny enough - its starting to make apple look good in comparison! wow, just wow.

Okay, I'm going to ask a really naive question. I really want to know the answer, I'm not trying to be a troll or start a flame war.

What is so bad about Apple? Is there something about their practices and policies that everyone should be wary of? I keep seeing digs about Apple and their policies, but nobody ever elaborates. It would be nice to know the nitty gritty details so people can make a more informed decision about whether or not to patronize Apple.

Inquiring minds want to know...

Re:Naive question about Apple

[david_thornley]

As far as I can see, Apple is a highly successful company that caters to ordinary people (who are willing to spend a little more) rather than geeks like most of us.

Re:Naive question about Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has always been known as an idiot's computer. The entire marketing behind a Mac has always been that it's easy for anyone to use because the user gets no choices, Apple controls all. That's why they suck.

Re:Naive question about Apple

[nobodie]

As far as I can see, Apple is a highly successful marketing compnay that caters to ordinary people (who are willing to spend 2-3 times a reasonable price) rather than geeks like most of us.
Not only that, they are focused on maintaining control over anything they touch by claiming intellectual property rights and screwing people who don't accept their IP claims. It is this attitude about IP and closed source applications and kernels (when their kernel was sourced from an open project) that makes them the pariah of thinking people, geeks or not.

Kinda Like Ubuntu Software Center?

[johnwerneken]

Kinda Like Ubuntu Software Center?

Ubuntu has a similar listing of OS-vendor available add-ons. I doubt anyone objects, except maybe add-on vendors lol, as one need not look at it unless one wishes to.

I use Ubuntu, Mist, and just about every version of windows, some on drive partitions on various drives/devise, some on VMs. I do have Win 10 Pro 64 Build 10565, but on my experimental windows partition for the moment, so Iâ(TM)ve spend only about 20 hours with it â" so far, all good.

Iâ(TM)ve only used Apple stuff in institutional settings, where the school or firm either outright forbad software additions, or strongly discouraged it, but I understand Macs and iCrappers have a similar feature, offering Apple-approved add-ons on various kinds.

I havenâ(TM)t even looked at a Windows start menu in years, except maybe once each time I get a new build, or maybe if working on the phone with someone Iâ(TM)m helping, or who is helping me.

I canâ(TM)t see and objection â" except maybe from excluded vendors of add-ons â" to a device or OS vendor supplying a place to view whatever add-ons they currently choose to recommend, as long as one need not see that place unless one wishes to (the variations Iâ(TM)ve actually noticed work that way, itâ(TM)s voluntary).

Iâ(TM)ll take another look at the 10565 MS Start screen; perhaps the ads get in the way if one actually tries to use it; I find the whole idea of scrolling repulsive and would rather avoid such screens. Facebook is bad enough in that regard lol.

Re: Kinda Like Ubuntu Software Center?

[Anonymous Coward]

Something's wrong with your keyboard. Just sayin'.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

For me it was the 2.6 kernel days! I think it was around '05. In 10 years as a Linux user I have to say things have improved enormously. I was surprised at how easy it was back then and can't believe how easy it is today. Most of my problems back then were sound related, but haven't had any since '08.

Are you shocked? Me neither.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Seriously, who didn't see this coming? Ever since Windows 8 the whole thing has been nothing but a thinly-veiled ad platform.

"Live tiles", AKA "a space on your desktop to display ads". Gee, who wouldn't want that?

This latest move should surprise no one who has been paying even the slightest attention.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you buy a new box, play with a few distros in virtual machines. Take snapshots as you go, so you can mess with anything you like and be able to roll back if needed.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing wrong with CentOS either -- just a matter of preference.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, oh. I think you are trying to call out that APK troll.

Beetlejuice, beetlejuice, beetle...

Re:This is it!

[AntiSol]

if the guy is building his own boxes, as he said in his post, he's likely going to be messing around configuring hardware.

I missed the "builing his own boxes" bit. But I disagree about configuring hardware - It would need to be pretty exotic hardware to actually need configuration, especially requiring the command line. You slap in your live cd, run the installer, and you're set. You'll be prompted to install the proprietary driver for your graphics card. You click 'Activate' and enter your password, and that's about it. There are GUIs for just about everything. You don't even need to understand partitioning these days - the installer has an option labeled 'use the entire disk'. I haven't configured hardware in a long time.

I imagine pretty much any Slashdot reader, even one who's not already using Linux in 2015, is going to be the kind of person who ends up having to use the command line almost immediately

Quite possibly, but you can get a lot of basic stuff done without it. It comes down to preferences and if the user really wants to avoid the command line it is very often possible. I'd argue that it's more like one percent of "an inconceivable amount of command line" where it's mandatory and there's no gui conig tool for it.

I'm not advocating avoiding the terminal - I adore my terminal, but I think you'd get along fairly well without it if you were in the 'terminal is scary' crowd. As I say, there are GUIs for most things these days. Personally I find the command line more convenient, But living without the command line is much more possible than it used to be.
Yes, the instructions they're likely to get from people will tend to be command-line, but that's due to the preferences of the people giving the advice and it's also done to minimise dependencies (i.e "you can use the command line or install this gui").

I would amend "ls -la" to "ls -lah" - human-readable file sizes are much better to deal with

Re: This is it!

[corychristison]

You mention nano early on in your post, then go on about learning vi.

As a 10+ year user of Linux, I can say I have successfully made it this far without learning vi or emacs, as nano works for what I need it for (typically just editing config files over ssh).

at least provide keywords

[laurencetux]

Google (and other non-telepathic search engines) require you to be able to construct a decent search string.

in sewing knowing about "darts" and "seam allowance" is a big help in adjusting the fit of clothing

i would bet that most stuff has nonstandard uses of words

like in Linux "RPM" has nothing to do with spinning things

Re: at least provide keywords

[AcerbusNoir]

And "yum" has nothing to do with taste. And gnome isn't a statue of a dwarf. And gimp isn't some weird sex fetish.

Re: at least provide keywords

[AcerbusNoir]

And yum has nothing to do with taste. And gnome isn't a statue of a dwarf. And gimp isn't a fetish. And bash is a shell, not to be confused with snapping turtles you have to bash to get them to release their ferocious jaws from your writhing hand.

Re:This is it!

[spauldo]

You'll like Linux/UNIX once you know it, then. The level at which you can get into the internals is considerably deeper than what's possible with Windows.

There are conventions for most stuff. They're not totally consistent, but you get a feel for them pretty easily. The base system is generally pretty logical (more so on BSD, but I wouldn't recommend any of the BSDs for a home desktop, much as I'd like to - they just don't have the driver support). For example, you should get a good feel for the filesystem layout in a relatively short time, because each part of it has a purpose. For config files, remember "man 5 configfile" - most everything in /etc should have a man page for it.

As far as installing software goes: that's a very distro specific thing. Fortunately, most distros are actually based on other distros and use the same package management and often the same package repositories. If you choose a distro that has a good package system and a large package repository, you'll have an easier time finding and installing the software you want. I'd recommend something Debian based - Mint is pretty well polished, and pulls from both Debian and Ubuntu package systems (it's based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian). I use Kubuntu, but I won't recommend that because 15.04 sucks goat balls.

I haven't used Red Hat or Fedora in years, so I can't comment on it, but last time I used it (Fedora Core 4, I think?) you still had the whole RPM hell thing going on. Unless they've changed it, I'd recommend avoiding it for a desktop. I'm sure others will argue otherwise, though.

The hardest part is the GUI; there's pretty much no consistency there between X and all the desktop environments, at least from a user's point of view. Knowing FVWM really well won't help you with GNOME, and knowing GNOME really well won't help you with KDE. Things are a little better from the programmer's point of view, but for a user it just sucks. My advice is to pick one (try a few first) and stick with it.

A word of advice; learn to compile software from source. It's different (and much friendlier) than on Windows. You probably won't have to do it very often, but it's a useful skill and will serve you well if you decide you want more customization than what packages give you. It'll also serve you well if you transition into the BSD world later.

Re:This is it!

[AntiSol]

You're welcome, happy to help :)

A VM is a good place to learn and play around without worrying about breaking things. Take a snapshot when it's in a good state and restore it if you break something. Set up a bunch of VMs and try a bunch of different distros, see which one you like. VirtualBox is free and works well.

Will it be well received?

[Opportunist]

Have ads ever been well received?

But... "Microsoft says app suggestions aren't ads"

[wilsonmark]

http://betanews.com/2015/10/15...

Sigh...

[koan]

"Will it be well-received?"

Fuck no, no ones wants "suggestions" (ads) in their GUI.

Re:This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the opposite approach is more sane, I direct my newbie friends straight to Arch.

Re:The best custom hosts file in ~ 10 minutes

[Cederic]

Erm. Windows 10 bypasses the hosts file to access Windows services.

You're going to need to devise a whole new set of spam.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the 411.

Even the enterprise version!?!@

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

"We are now rolling out App Suggestions to Windows Insider Program participants running Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise as well." This will KILL any upgrades in many corps, no sane IT will allow their users to install random, non-standard apps in this manner. If it can't be disabled at the GPO level, this will be a deal-breaker. My corp (HPE) already has an approved Application Catalog, and people have gotten written up for installing non-standard apps, especially on PCs located inside our various command centers. It's specifically mentioned in our cyber security policies.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

All of what you said about certain things requiring access to servers is true. That's not the evil part.

The evil part is that if I don't want that in my life (and a lot of regular people wouldn't either if they really knew how it works) then I shouldn't have it, and I shouldn't have to stay on XP to be that way.

Simple 'turn this stuff off' switches that actually turn that stuff off would not be hard to put in. What we have with 10 is a mad number of settings that sometimes don't actually accomplish the goal of turning of data feeds to Microsoft. As much as I love granularity, I'd love even more a kill switch for all remote server based everything. Instead we have granularity all over the place that doesn't do what it says sometimes. Not good enough.

All this 'progress' you speak of is being brought in by deception, not by informed choice. That is the evil part.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is exactly why the common user will never use Linux. You're right, it's not their job to hold my hand, but Microsoft and Apple DO. So you keep being a jerk and us normies will use what just works.

Re:This is it!

[Waccoon]

Animated cartoon characters running around on the desktop. All installed without my permission.

Ah, such memories from browsing the web in the university computer lab in the 1990's.

Re: This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, can you believe those idiots at ms missed the year of the Linux desktop?? It's been 12 years and boy, every store i see only sells boxes with Linux on them. What an unprecedented success it was, I can see how you'd be surprised he missed it!

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[BurningFeetMan]

Hmm, who was the richest man in the world again? What was his name... Can't recall, as I was too busy working and not complaining of the invasion of my privacy & intrusive ads on my Start menu.

Re:This is it!

[antdude]

Too late. He's in your Linux kernel. ;)

DNS security, speed & power issues hosts beat

[Anonymous Coward]

Kaminsky redirect poisoning - 99.999% of ISP DNS aren't patched vs. it.

Open DNS resolvers (not OpenDNS) get exploited by malware A LOT!

Rogue DNS servers are DNS exploit (even in routers not just system IP stack settings).

* Using hosts w/ fav sites you hardcode in 'em YOU AVOID ALL THOSE DNS SECURITY ISSUES ABOVE easily & IT RESOLVES FAR FASTER THAN CALLING TO REMOTE DNS SERVERS (especially exploited or downed ones noted (dns goes down a LOT)).

---

Hosts combined w/ OpenDNS compliment one other.

I don't resolve 'every host-domain there is' via hosts, only my favs @ top of hosts (20 of 'em beating indexing past 2++ million records).

It's where ANYONE spends MOST OF THEIR TIME online - & it's faster + more efficient vs. calling to remote DNS servers.

Placement of favs thus, for FAST RESOLUTION from memory locally (hosts cache like any file) additionally saves CPU cycles, RAM, + I/O turning off a slower usermode clientside DNS cache service instead opting for the kernelmode diskcache (no context switch overhead to the IP stack either this way).

The rest of my hosts files' entries are 3,782,195++ blocked entries vs. malware & ads of many kinds.

I use REMOTE FILTERING DNS SERVERS blocking out malicious sites/servers/hosts-domains via DNS blocking (not locally here as a separate redundant wasteful recursive server or a service/daemon).

---

OpenDNS:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

---

It LIGHTENS remote DNS loads - admins of 'em should like it! Especially since DNS goes down a LOT!

How do I make my hosts (& do reverse dns pings for FAV sites for faster, more reliable, & safer connections)?

APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit http://start64.com/index.php?o...

With much easier understood & edited data vs. DNS rules by far.

APK

P.S.=> Locally setup DNS eats more cpu, RAM, & I/O needlessly (hosts do the job w/ less complexity + room for exploit, actually COMPLIMENTING remote dns) & MORE ELECTRICAL POWER (especially if setup as a separate machine)... apk

Win10 BLOWS due to what this gets rid of

[Anonymous Coward]

IMPORTANT ONE IS GROUP POLICY (gpedit.msc):

Go to Control Panel, Administrative Templates, System
Internet Communication Management, Internet Communication Settings

ENABLE (to turn it on, it is a disabler)

"Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program"

(IF YOU HAVE Windows "home" (less than Pro models), export the section of the registry involved from a Pro system & merge the .reg file you exported - should work well enough to do the job here for those of you using that lesser model of Windows)

---

TO REMOVE THE BOGUS OPTIONAL TELEMETRY HOTFIXES MANUALLY:

Open command prompt
Type powershell
issue these commands

---

TO SEE WHAT ONES ARE INSTALLED:

get-hotfix -id KB3035583, KB2952664,KB2976978,KB3021917,KB3044374,KB2990214

---

TO UNINSTALL THEM (these for sure, per url next below):

wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583
wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664
wusa /uninstall /kb:2976978
wusa /uninstall /kb:3021917
wusa /uninstall /kb:3044374
wusa /uninstall /kb:2990214

per http://www.ghacks.net/2015/04/...

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DESCRIPTIONS OF EACH (these uninstalled properly):

KB3068708 (Telemetry)
KB3075249 (Telemetry)
KB3080149 (Telemetry)

KB3022345 (Telemetry)
KB2977759 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)
KB3021917 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparatioon + Telemetry)
KB3035583 (Windows 10 upgrade preparation)

---

I GOT "NOT INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER" ON THESE INITIALLY SINCE I HAD IE11 installed (PROBABLY ONES FOR IE9/10/11 &/or Windows 10 (I use Win7 here)):

KB3075249
KB3080149
KB2505438
* KB2670838 (See IE 9/10/11 notes below)
KB3044374
KB2990214 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)
KB2505438 (Although it claims to fix performance issues, it often breaks fonts)
KB2976978 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)

---

I GOT "NOT INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER" ON THESE (*PRIOR* TO PULLING KB2670838):

* KB2670838 (This update often breaks AERO on Windows 7 and makes some fonts on websites fuzzy. A Windows 7 specific update only
                        (do not install IE10 or 11 otherwise it will be bundled with them, IE9 is the max version you should install to avoid this).

THESE RE-APPEAR AFTER UNINSTALLING IE11 RIGHT ON RESTARTING & CHECKING WINDOWS UPDATE:

* KB2952664 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3021917 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3068708 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3092627 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)

---

run cmd as administrator

sc stop Diagtrack
sc delete Diagtrack

---

*Task Scheduler Library:

Everything under "Application Experience"
Everything under "Autochk"
Everything under "Customer Experience Improvement Program"
Under "Disk Diagnostic" only the "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector"
Under "Maintenance" "WinSAT"
"Media Center" and click the "status" column, then select all non-disabled entries and disable them.

*services.msc:

"Remote Registry" to "Disabled" instead of "Manual".

APK

P.S.=> Do that & "poof" - no more spyware-ness in Windows... apk

Safest = ONLY do SECURITY updates

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: You have that option (as they put telemetry ones in "optional" updates). They don't dare do it to SECURITY ones (they'd be violating them).

APK

P.S.=> It IS disgusting they're stooping that low, & it's WHY I stuck by Windows 7 64-bit & haven't upgraded since - I doubt I'm alone in that (& neither are you), & sooner or later (like they have before) MS learns its lesson on that account... apk

The best custom hosts file in ~ 10 minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit http://start64.com/index.php?o...

---

FREE & not 'souled-out' to advertisers + adds speed, security & reliability & does FAR more w/ FAR less more efficiently vs. redundant browser addons & locally installed DNS servers @ home + fixes DNS' many security issues!

---

It obtains its data vs. many types of online threats & for adbanner blocking from 10 reputable sites in the security community!

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It SPEEDS YOU UP 2 ways (adblocking + locally cached in RAM favorites placed @ the TOP of hosts for fastest resolution speed vs. remote DNS also aiding reliability) vs. other "so-called security 'solutions'" SLOWING YOU!

---

It does all that via something you already natively have vs. "bolting on browser addons 'MOAR'" that's usermode slower & increases messagepassing, cpu + ram overheads!

---

MalwareBytes' hpHosts Admin (MalwareBytes employee) hosts & recommends it -> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl... & MalwareBytes = BEST antivirus per this VERY recent testing of them all http://www.av-test.org/en/news...

&

It's safe proven by 57 antivirus programs recently in BOTH its 64-bit model https://www.virustotal.com/en/...

+

In its 32-bit model too https://www.virustotal.com/en/...

---

* "The premise is quite simple: Take something designed by nature & reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it..." - Dr. Alice Krippen: "I am legend".

APK

P.S.=> By "yours truly" - "The Lord of Hosts" so-to-speak:

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:

"The image this title brings to mind is of a mighty military commander, one who can at a mere word summon rank upon rank of protective power" from https://answers.yahoo.com/ques... & THAT WORD = hosts!

(Accept NO substitutes!)

...apk

And they keep wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

...why people keep telling them to fuck off. Microsoft, if you really want that huge launch that you so desire, pull the privacy issues, stop the ads, and give them, at the very least, the same experience they had on their old OS.

Re: This is it!

[Pseudonymous Powers]

You mention nano early on in your post, then go on about learning vi.

I mean, I don't use it either. I mostly just mentioned it to make fun of it. But there's no doubt that it's culturally significant in this context. And who knows, maybe this guy is the vi kind of Linux user. There's nothing wrong with that. Some people are just born like that.

C'mon Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu has been doing this for years. Linux wins again.

Re:This is it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu also shows ads in its search results but that country is run by a con artist in south africa so that makes it a Good Thing.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[NatasRevol]

That's not the same thing.

Re:This is it!

[dl_sledding]

You should have posted AC, because your ignorance and bias is showing.

Everything that AntiSol suggested is commonly known as good forum and community etiquette. Doesn't matter what the subject is: an OS, an application, or a motorcycle forum. And if you don't already know that, you need to get out of your mother's basement before making idiotic statements like you have above.

As far as documentation, the Linux world is much more open and free with documentation than either the M$ or Apple worlds. Again, if you don't know that, then you shouldn't be commenting. Because obviously you haven't even tried.

If a commenter has researched and have done due diligence, and still doesn't understand, and they express that in their question, typically people will help. They understand that they tried and won't ding them for asking an uninformed question. I don't consider ANY question stupid: that's the absolute wrong attitude. Especially when I am dealing with someone who is trying to learn something new to them. For you to even suggest that there are stupid questions makes you part of the problem. Unfortunately, there are a lot of "you"s out there.

You are proving that you're a fanboi of (most likely) Microsoft, since that's what the original article was about. Your post needs to be modded highly troll.

Strike 3 indeed. Please get outta here. And don't come back if you don't have anything more helpful to add.

Re:Maybe I'll just fire up the old XP box when I w

[vandamme]

Windows 7 was my last Windows, but no way would I go back to XP. I'm fine with Linux Mint, which looks a lot like a cleaned-up XP but is so much safer. And I get updates, but they're polite and informative.

If you're a noob, Zorin, Mint, or Elementary would be good to try. You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Re:This is it!

[vandamme]

I have the famous picture of him visually expressing his discontent with NVidia as one of my desktop pictures.

Re: If you did not pay for the product, you are on

[BarbaraHudson]

Most users don't use any of that, which is why smart phones are the go-to device for most users.

I haven't used my laptop in almost half a year.

All I wanna do is clean the gene pool!

[martinfb]

Hey. If "suggesting something for you to buy" is not advertising, then killing an idiot is NOT murder, yet merely cleaning the gene pool! RIGHT?!

uhh

[drizuid]

i've been on 10565 since release.. never seen anything abnormal.

Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[tepples]

You linked to a list of mostly Chromebooks. A Chromebook has two modes: non-developer mode and developer mode. In non-developer mode, the only app it can run is Google Chrome, which means I would have to rewrite all my programs from scratch in JavaScript as Chrome apps before I can run them. In developer mode, a Chromebook begs you to erase its hard drive every time you turn it on, with a message to the effect "OS verification is turned off. Press Space to perform a factory reset." Others have run into the same problem: "The user I lent it to pressed the spacebar at the scary message prompt and erased my entire Chomebook" [sic].

Narrow to "Linux" (by which I think they mean X11/GNU/Linux) and there are only six results, mostly either used (and therefore out of warranty) or over $500 (when they were $300 two years ago).

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[Black LED]

Actually most of them are Windows machines. On the left hand side of the page, you can choose the checkboxes for your criteria.

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[tepples]

Actually most of them are Windows machines.

I thought we were already excluding those with checkboxes because "Microsoft Now Uses Windows 10's Start Menu To Display Ads".

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you unable to select anything but Windows 10?

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[tepples]

Are you unable to select anything but Windows

When I exclude Windows and Chrome OS, I'm presented with options that are used (and thus unwarranted), expensive, or used and expensive.

10?

If you're making a distinction between Windows 7 and 8 on the one hand and Windows 10 on the other hand, let me take this opportunity to remind you that Microsoft has recently made the mistake of pushing the upgrade from Windows 7 and 8 to Windows 10 as an automatically selected update and may end up making this mistake again.

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can't install your own OS because?

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[tepples]

Because of incompatibility with hardware.

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Incompatibility on _all_ of the 13" laptops for sale? Are you sure?

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[tepples]

On each Windows laptop smaller than 13 inches that I've investigated, there has been something important that did not "just work" after installation of a Linux distribution, such as the keyboard (for detachables), Wi-Fi, or suspend. There used to be good 10" Linux laptops, such as the Dell Inspiron mini 1012 that I have, but they're discontinued, and I wonder what I'll be able to use to replace mine.

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's a no then? Why don't you go on Amazon and post some questions there regarding Linux compatibility on the NUMEROUS laptops that fit the criteria?

It sounds to me like you don't want to lift a finger to solve your own issue. Instead of fabricating ever more tenuous excuses, why don't you go do something about it?

Re:Chromebook begs "Please erase my hard drive!"

[tepples]

Why don't you go on Amazon and post some questions there regarding Linux compatibility on the NUMEROUS laptops that fit the criteria?

I just did. Thank you for letting me know that this feature existed. But I'm not sure I'll be able to ask about every single make and model that Amazon sells.

Re: This is it!

[dbIII]

Yes you don't need them but they have a pile of features that are useful. Just like sed, grep and awk, you don't need them but they can save you a lot of time sometimes.

It's the "where is my flying car" problem as well

[dbIII]

Instead of the shiny possibilities that were hinted at in the 1990s we get a half arsed copy of an iPhone interface ported to a desktop - that's part of why we yell at the dragging anchor of computer technology.
Since we are helping out people neck deep in a malware swamp can you really expect anything more than contempt for those that created the situation instead of delivering actual improvement?
Their "solution" to malware is to make their own stuff act like it!

Re:This is it!

[el_chicano]

Good, off you go. Enjoy your horrible unconfigurable spyware. We don't really care what you use that much. Just don't come crying to us when you're butthurt about (insert this week's awful thing forced on users).

Hmm... I am a big Linux guy and haven't gotten butthurt about anything from Micro$oft yet.

I am running Server 2012 with the Desktop Experience as one of my desktops, it is running Hyper-V on that box (with another Server 2012 instance running an Active Directory server plus a couple of CentOS, Scientific and Fedora Linux installs), it is also running Synergy controlling several desktops, it is also running Adobe Creative Cloud (mainly Photoshop these days) and Paint Shop Pro 6, plus it is running the latest Flash and Silverlight for Hulu and Netflix.

Guess what? Everything works great. I don't even run an AV program on it. But I know what I am doing. Professionally I am an Linux admin and I am about to get a BS in Computer Security so I know how to lock a box and network down. I know how to configure a firewall and run a caching DNS server that filters out a lot of bad sites APK style.

On Windows I can use puTTY and VNC to work on Linux boxes so I can get work done. Linux-wise I just got off of the Fedora rat-race and standardized on CentOS and Scientific 6. I use very light desktops (Fluxbox or Xfce) and I can use RDP to hit Windows boxes from Linux.

Here are a few clues for you:

1) Quit being such an OS bigot. I am bilingual, two languages is definitively better than one. I can drive manual as well as automatic transmission cars, it comes in handy to drive both. I can get work done on a computer as long as it is not a Mac (not being able to move the minimize/maximize/close buttons to the right side of the window? really?).

2) Quit spreading anti-M$ FUD. M$ makes stuff that works, heck I am even impressed with Windows 10 and I never have nice things to say about M$, and

3) I just had to laugh when you said "Enjoy your horrible unconfigurable spyware" because I immediately thought of systemd! That is the main reason I am standardizing on CentOS/Scientific 6, thanks to systemd BSD may become my next OS.

Different stroke for different folks, some of us don't want to limit ourselves when we use our computers...

But can you test keyboard and screen through net?

[tepples]

Did you really buy your last laptop in a Staples or Best Buy? Try the internet sometime, it's pretty cool what you can find.

If only I could feel the keyboard and look at the screen through the Internet, that'd be even cooler.

Re:This is it!

[AntiSol]

1) Quit being such an OS bigot. I am bilingual, two languages is definitively better than one... I can get work done on a computer as long as it is not a Mac

I'm entitled to express my opinion and somewhat qualified to have one: I've run large windows networks, written tens of thousands of lines of code for windows, and had productive work environments on windows. I've run large websites on many flavours of Linux and I don't particularly care what distro I'm using. I've administered BSD and Solaris machines. I have administered ancient legacy government UNIX servers that everyone else was afraid to touch. I can even get stuff done on a Mac and I'm familiar with mac servers. I've configured and administered just about every type of server you can imagine - database, web, mail, LDAP, VPN, DNS, proxies, routers, firewalls, etc etc - even active directory. I've built a secure government network (which involved defending my design against a panel of technical/security people asking hard questions). I've worked with huge ESX clusters and even a small beowulf. I've used just about every toy OS out there (minix, ReactOS, AROS, Morphos, MenuetOS, etc). I can use OS/2 and AmigaOS, CP/M and DOS v2. And these are just the ones that spring to mind immediately. I can use pretty much any desktop/server OS. I'm qualified to have an opinion. Granted, I'm not qualified to talk about supercomputers...but who rules that niche again?

In my (limited) experience and (not very professional) opinion, windows is the worst of them all (except maybe some of the toy ones). If having an opinion based on 25+ years of experience makes me a bigot then so be it. If you haven't managed to get butthurt over anything then congratulations. I suspect you're not doing anything particularly complicated or important, and/or you're not doing anything MS hasn't anticipated, or being a "big Linux guy" you're doing everything important elsewhere). Or perhaps you're just not very passionate. I endured a lot before I vowed never to touch it again. I could give you a list of things to get butthurt about but I don't have the next decade free for typing and I'm sure slashdot has some kind of size limit on posts.

But my point when I said "We don't really care what you use that much" is that I really don't care what you use, because I don't - they're your computers and you can run what you like on them. If you like windows, then use it, more power to you. But do not complain at me when you do inevitably get butthurt, because I will have zero sympathy. And don't spread FUD.

(not being able to move the minimize/maximize/close buttons to the right side of the window? really?).

This is particularly funny given that windows has no option to move the titlebar buttons either. Hence my use of the term "unconfigurable".

2) Quit spreading anti-M$ FUD.

Everything I said is true and has nothing to do with being anti-MS or FUD. It's horrible, it's unconfigurable, and it's spyware. Granted, the first is an opinion, but the rest is demonstrable. Granted, I am anti-MS, but it took about 10-15 years of their abuse for that to happen.

M$ makes stuff that works

Sure, it works. For you. At the moment. And it will just as long as MS supports solving the problem you're trying to solve. And as long as you don't run into arbitrary restrictions based on the license you have. And assuming you have something in place to deal with rebooting every time you install an update. And assuming that the next update/version doesn't remove features you rely on. And as long as you pay. Every couple of years.

heck I am even impressed with Windows 10 and I never have nice things to say about M$

Contradiction much?

If you're impressed with windows 10 you're either not paying attention to the news (e.g articles like this one), or...you're not paying attention to the news (e.g articles like this one). Or