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

[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

[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

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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?

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...

[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

[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

[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

[spire3661]

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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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?

[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.)

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.

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

Classic Start Menu

[craigg7500]

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

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

[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.

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

[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.

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

Just in time for...

[willworkforbeer]

AdBlocker OS edition.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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]

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.

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

[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

[tepples]

System76 and Dell both sell Linux laptops

Anything smaller than 13 inches?

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.

Re:You can choose not to use Win10

[silas_moeckel]

DX12 will force many

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.

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?

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 ...

[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: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.

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

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?

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:Sweet!!!

[tepples]

Dad, why are Porn Ads in your Start Menu?

How did you break into my user account?

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.

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: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

[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

[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: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:Fuck MS..

[freeze128]

Ubuntu was the first to do that....

There's an off switch...

[Ayanami_R]

use it. This can be disabled, easily.

Re:You can choose not to use Win10

[present_arms]

Mandatory since when?

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.

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

[NatasRevol]

They didn't pay for a windows license, so yes.

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.

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.

Re:Classic Shell

[spire3661]

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

Dear Microsoft,

[Ralph Spoilsport]

FUCK YOU!

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?

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".

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.

"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.

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

[sonamchauhan]

You could also install win 7 ...same effect :)

Re:This is it!

[flopsquad]

Whoops, backslash fail. I blame mobile symbol keyboards or Obama.

Another reason not to upgrade.

[Chas]

Seriously.

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.

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.

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 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.

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: 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.

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.

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:Fuck MS..

[Cro Magnon]

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

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..

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

[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.

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.

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!

[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: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:Where is the news?

[Cederic]

Wtf? No.

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

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?

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

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: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

Re:Windows

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

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

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: 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. ;)

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.

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!"

[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!"

[tepples]

Because of incompatibility with hardware.

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!"

[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