Microsoft Monitoring How Long You Use Windows 10 (betanews.com)

Mark Wilson writes: The various privacy concerns surrounding Windows 10 have received a lot of coverage in the media, but it seems that there are ever more secrets coming to light. The Threshold 2 Update did nothing to curtail privacy invasion, and the latest Windows 10 installation figures show that Microsoft is also monitoring how long people are using the operating system. This might seem like a slightly strange statistic for Microsoft to keep track of, but the company knows how long, collectively, Windows 10 has been running on computers around the world. To have reached this figure (11 billion hours in December, apparently) Microsoft must have been logging individuals' usage times. Intrigued, we contacted Microsoft to find out what on earth is going on.

Comments

no one cares

[Anonymous Coward]

We already know it collects your private information. It even says so in the fucking EULA. When will we stop pretending to be shocked that Microsoft is gathering one more metric from the users of their closed-source operating system?

It will become news when it reads: "Microsoft no longer collecting user data from Windows 10".

Re:no one cares

[Provocateur]

They want to see how long before the new purchaser clicks on "I agree" (Did this guy even bother to read the EULA) then wipe that drive to install something else to make himself more productive.

Unfortunately, he prefers Windows 7. Brings new meaning to the phrase"Win-Win. NOT!"

Re: no one cares

[Anonymous Coward]

About as long as we pretend like all other OSes dont gather data on how their software is used to guide them in where to focus their development efforts

Re: no one cares

[arth1]

About as long as we pretend like all other OSes dont gather data on how their software is used

Gentoo does no such thing. Really.

Re: no one cares

[Z00L00K]

In some countries the EULA would be thrown out and burned if ever tried in court.

Re:no one cares

[Z00L00K]

And if the EULA is brought to a court decision then it may be considered to contain invalid or illegal stuff making it invalid.

Re:no one cares

[ihtoit]

a EULA is a Statutory Instrument, meaning that its individual clauses are enactments that stand on their own (Interpretations Act 1978). Invalidating one clause does not invalidate the entire instrument.

Re:no one cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... monitoring how long you use windows?

Do I see a subscription model on the horizon?
You know - pay per hour?

Re: no one cares

[Anonymous Coward]

That is irrelevant, though, since it is programmed in and there's nothing you can do about it. The court will not and cannot require the program be rewritten so it doesn't disobey the law, and the program will refuse to operate if it "thinks" that you have broken the agreement. If you clicked "No", refusing the EULA, it won't install, despite the FACT that it isn't required to be agreed to for you to have valid legal use of the product.

That's, right, even in the USA, there's no legal necessity for agreement to the EULA, since the copy made in installing IS NOT one controlled by copyright and not even one you make yourself, since it is copied by the program, which was written or given rights to make that copy by the copyright owner.

AND they will refuse to refund. So you have lost the money for the software. If the hardware is only going to be supported with the preinstalled OS, you have also lost the value of the warranty. And if the hardware is insisted as being part of the software/hardware bundle, refusing the EULA still doesn't constitute reason to refund the entire product, software and all, so you're down the entire product.

Not to mention the terms

a) aren't available until too late to say no without losing
b) can be changed at a whim, but you cannot refuse to accept (it will stop working) and if you do, you won't be allowed to get a refund

and, no, don't give me "You've had use of the software!", because they've had use of the money. Quid, quite literally, quo pro.

Since the EULA is PROGRAMMED IN, they don't HAVE to go and get the EULA contested in court. They win AUTOMATICALLY. And it's sure as shit not going to be made law that this private extra-legal non-judicial punishment "justice" system is itself illegal and must be removed. After all, you can in theory risk everything in a one-sided legal case in a court of law, right?

Re: no one cares

[Anonymous Coward]

And with Debian it's opt-in. Literally. It asks you during installation. If you say no to the "popularity-contest" participation, *it doesn't collect ANYTHING*. And being made from open-source software, you can always check and change it to your taste.

Re: no one cares

[Lumpy]

Only free countries.

Dystopian societies like the united States allows companies to enforce that kind of crap on it's citizens.

Re: no one cares

[Lumpy]

Slackware and Debian as well don't spy on me either.... in fact I am certain that BSD does not as well.

Re: no one cares

[arth1]

Actually, by the standards that people are applying to Windows 10, all package managers are the most invasive and horrendous spyware imaginable. They push you towards getting software from their repositories so that they can spy on you and see what you have installed, when you update it etc.

Again, Gentoo does no such thing. They encourage users and organizations with multiple machines to run local repository mirrors. They have no idea who installs what.

Re:no one cares

[Muad'Dave]

Can you spell "arbitration clause?"

Can you spell "I didn't agree to the arbitration clause because I didn't accept the EULA"? There are plenty of reasons for the EULA to be challenged in court that don't stem from accepting it (after-the-sale contract, etc).

Re: no one cares

[Waccoon]

I'd trust Gentoo or any other Linux distro more than Windows any day of the week, but I'm not stupid enough to give any foundation a free pass just because it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Re:no one cares

[nukenerd]

I disagree.

Be helpful if you said what you disagreed with. [I scroll back a million screens to find out]. Oh, that "no one cares"; Well, I care, you care, but Joe Sixpack does not.

until Microsoft takes the hints and stops the spying

Microsoft does not take hints. Not even "hints" in the form of bloody great kicks up its arse.

Most of the people who use Windows 10 do so because they do no comprehend the full consequences of its use.

No, they use it because it came with their PC, or was pushed on them as an "upgrade" from Win 7 or 8, and they would not have any wish or clue to replace it with anything else.

They need to be informed and educated.

No, it would make no difference. These days we all live in a barrage of spiel "informing and educating" us about others' favourite issues (SJWs, vegetarianism, femisism, World hunger, global warming, religion, flat-earthism); some may have a point but it is lost in the noise.

Re:no one cares

[mrchaotica]

The EULA should not be invalidated based on the idea that it contains unconscionable clauses; it should be invalidated based on the idea that it is not and never was an actual valid legal document in the first place.

Re: no one cares

[Frankzy]

Since when do you need a "valid reason" to return a seemingly untouched piece of hardware?

Re:no one cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Every EULA is lawful unless tested in court and adjusted (good luck! remember the arbitration clause), or unless some law overrides some portion of it. If you use the software, you agreed, just like with your credit card where changes in terms are automatically agreed to if you keep using it.

Re: no one cares

[Ravaldy]

Maybe someone can confirm but I recall having the option to opt out of this behavior by Windows 10. You had to pick custom installation but it was pretty clear cut once you read the description. I think most people are just too lazy to spend 5 minutes reading and click Express or Next instead.

The way I see it is they probably interpolated their numbers by using the ones that did opt in and assume an average on the rest. I know that's what I would do if I wanted to present an appealing number.

Re: no one cares

[RenderSeven]

... I recall having the option to opt out of this behavior by Windows 10

You may be given the option, but Windows just ignores it:
http://arstechnica.com/informa...

Then again this article is from August, so Microsoft has probably fixed all that by now (ha ha ha I almost finished typing that with a straight face!)

Re: no one cares

[Anonymous Coward]

No Linux or BSD spys on you

Ubuntu shopping lens would like to say, "Hello."

Re:no one cares

[Z00L00K]

Depends on which country you are in if that's applicable.

Re: no one cares

[Ravaldy]

Then again this article is from August, so Microsoft has probably fixed all that by now (ha ha ha I almost finished typing that with a straight face!)

I've read the article and I see nothing mentioning that the privacy settings don't do what they are told except for requests made outside which both me and you understand it's traceable regardless of local configurations. You make a search request on Google and voila, tones of advertisements based on your recent searches start appearing everywhere you go.

Microsoft didn't hide any information. If you take even just 5 minutes to read the very few lines of information on what is collected you can then make an informed decision. And from what I've read during custom setup, the defaults aren't harmful unless your a privacy nut (which many here appear to be). The day my OS starts uploading my intellectual property to MS I'll call my lawyer and deal with them directly.

Re:no one cares

[hucker75]

Nobody ever reads an EULA. Ever. And I doubt more than 1 in 100 people would understand it if they did. You have two choices, install and agree, or don't install. So everyone obviously just clicks "I agree". Therefore an EULA should not hold up in court. People just expect a piece of software to behave sensibly. It doesn't mean much anyway, M$ couldn't write "I agree that Microsoft can murder my family" for example.

Re: no one cares

[Bathroom Humor]

Ubuntu shopping lens(es) doesn't try to spy on anyone. And it also can't say hello unless you tell it to search for "Hello."
Unless we are making the claim that Canonical is data mining for some unknown purposes.

Re: no one cares

[Provocateur]

Since Microsoft became the only game in town, that is, until Apple decided it also wanted to play THAT game (I'll take, Who's got a prettier walled garden for the block, Alex...

Re: no one cares

[Provocateur]

In some countries the EULA would be thrown out and burned if ever tried in court
That's funny. If I recall correctly, they did that with Miss Of Arc, you remember St.Joan, don't you, I believe she was a fair, fragile, yet fierce knight? She was burned at the stake, accused of witchcraft.
Coincidentally, the EULA should be accorded the same treatment: After all, the latest iteration of Windows, Windows X--I've lost track--is Minecraft, with a free OS thrown in, for good measure. The game itself is quite addictive; the bundled wannabe OS, however, is not.

"we contacted Microsoft..."

[SeaFox]

Thank you for your patience as I looked into this for you. Unfortunately my colleagues cannot provide a comment regarding your request.

Really? Am I supposed to be surprised they didn't comment?

Re:"we contacted Microsoft..."

[Bite The Pillow]

Even better, the blog they linked to appears to be black font on black text (JavaScript is disabled here).

Does that mean their reply is completely transparent?

Re:"we contacted Microsoft..."

[SeaFox]

Even better, the blog they linked to appears to be black font on black text (JavaScript is disabled here).

Does that mean their reply is completely transparent?

"All black" sounds like completely redacted to me.

If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be the year of another desktop.

Re:If it weren't for games

[BarbaraHudson]

How many of those hours were just because someone didn't shut down when they were done? And why is this even being monitored?

Re:If it weren't for games

[DaHat]

I'd hope they have ways of telling the difference between your PC being up vs being logged in to a desktop session (either local or remote).

Re:If it weren't for games

[rsborg]

It would be the year of another desktop.

Amusingly, as before, Microsoft's main competitor to Win is an older version of Windows. At some point, Win10 will be required for latest games and Slashdot will really care. Till then the best advice seems to be "stay on Win07 and avoid helpful updates that turn on telemetry".

Re:If it weren't for games

[Ol Olsoc]

How many of those hours were just because someone didn't shut down when they were done? And why is this even being monitored?

Why? Probably for the same reason they implemented a key logger. You are constantly monitored on W10, and hours of use it probably the most benign of the bunch. Because Microsoft fans will put up with anything Microsoft does. - Microsoft pees on your leg and tells you its raining.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Opportunist]

Games actually work surprisingly well on Linux by now. Either natively so or with wine or similar tools. It can of course be a bit more of a hassle to get them to run, admittedly.

The problem is rather in some more obscure programs that you can neither get natively on Linux nor run smoothly in wine. The more pricey and obscure a program gets, the lower the chance that you'll get a working version on Linux.

Re:If it weren't for games

[ShakaUVM]

>It would be the year of another desktop.

I think other issues are actually a bigger deal.

Interestingly enough, I set up my first Linux desktop last night in 10-ish years. I am very much an old school CLI Unix fellow, but since I'm going to be doing some stuff with the RPi 2B with my assembly students, I thought I'd give the GUI a try and see how much it'd changed in the meantime.

My first impression was that it was terribly ugly and slow. Slow I could deal with, since it's a $35 computer the size of a wallet, but it was still annoying watching it struggling to redraw a web page just because I scrolled down a bit and then scrolled back up. The default UI was bland and terrible. The default web browser ("Web", which is the worst name ever for a web browser, since it makes it impossible to look for solutions for it online, i.e. Epiphany) is slow and terrible. Oh, the ability to set your start page? Yeah, we removed that a while back. For a while we had the ability to set it via the CLI, but then, yeah, we removed that as well. We want everyone in your class to see what the last couple things you Google searched right there when you start it up. (Including, "How do I set the start page for Web?".) Double clicking in the top left corner of a window doesn't close the window, despite the window decorations by default otherwise being cloned exactly from Windows. Wi-Fi Supplicant is terrible (and help on the web on how to fix Wifi for the RPi can actually break it much worse), and I eventually switched to a wired connection to avoid its random crapouts. Changing the picture for the background in the appearance settings didn't change the actual background. Neither did right clicking an image from the web in Web (again, terrible name), and choosing "Set image as background". No audio settings (for setting the volume) obvious by default. Playing Youtube videos in Web is shit. The default clock in the bottom right of the screen has the rightmost number clipped in half.

Not to say this is the end of the story (I fixed all of the above, even the slowness), but these are reasonable, sane actions that developers should expect an end user to try, and when very simple things like setting desktop backgrounds and wifi settings don't work, or when you can't set your fucking start page in a web browser, it's enough to make the whole thing look like amateur night at the OS vendor faire.

To be fair, it IS a RPi, which is a very weak system, but it *is* the first Linux GUI that most people will see, and very probably the last as well for many of them, and a quad-core 900Mhz processor is many many times faster than the 68000 processor that ran the GUI for my first X11 system back in the day. So it shouldn't be that shitty.

And as it turns out, it doesn't really have to be. As I said above, I fiddled with everything (because that's what you do, natch), reset OpenBox, got a lot more settings appearing, got the desktop background change to work, fixed the window decorations so that they look nice and slick (and not something from the aforementioned 68k running X11), ditched Web, got Iceweasel, and the system not only didn't run slower, it actually ran noticeably smoother with the better window manager. I have it set so I can switch it from 1080p over HDMI to a touchscreen with a popup keyboard that makes for an only slightly awkward tablet computer. I installed tons of dev tools and while, again, it's not a CPU workhorse, it works just fine. I've got it set up as a class server for my assembly class, and it should work just fine for those purposes.

But would the average user go through all that? Would they be happy having to flash their SD card and start over to get another shot at Wifi working? Or would they ragequit out of frustration? In all frankness, the idiotic decisions and awkward user experiences is really no different than what it was like in 2005. Different set of frustrations, maybe, but the overall experience is still the same.

Anyhow, that's my review of the RPI Linux Desktop, reporting live from the year 2016.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just bribe hardware manufacturers to make it next to impossible to get Windows 7 drivers for bleeding new hardware.
I actually had to install Windows 10 because the motherboard i got this christmas did not like Windows 7 (no pre installed drivers) and when i finally was able to embed them into the install disc itself, they were unstable.

All in all, gaming with new games (last 8 years) works ok, anything older can be wonky, like Morrowind which has fullscreen with window titlebars and all.
There is A LOT of tracking and login shit to disable though, and dont get me started on those fucking metro apps!

Re:If it weren't for games

[thinkwaitfast]

and Slashdot will really care

No it won't. Even if it did, it wouldn't register as a blip.

Re:If it weren't for games

[PopeRatzo]

I actually had to install Windows 10 because the motherboard i got this christmas did not like Windows 7 (no pre installed drivers)

Can you tell us which motherboard? I'm looking to order a new mobo/CPU combo and don't want to have to install 10 yet.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Altrag]

a bit more of a hassle

You've just lost 50+% of your target audience.

For the vast majority of users, games come in three forms:
- Click to buy (steam, console downloads.)
- Insert a disc (consoles again.)
- Log onto a website (flash games and their ilk.)

(This applies to non-games as well for the most part, though productivity and business software gets a bit more leeway as they're frequently "must haves" rather than "waste a couple hours.")

People don't want to work to be entertained. They just want to play the damned game, watch the damned show, etc. And most people don't find fiddling with Wine settings and other "technical" things to be excessively entertaining.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

I upgraded from 7 to win 10 precisely because the games I play run better. It was only the first month or so that games ran worse while the as usual lagging video drivers from AMD and Nvidia came up to speed.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows has tracked "uptime" since at least XP for local reporting in the Task Manager, and transmitted that to MS when sending error reports (at least). Of course, that's a pretty gross number - hours:minutes:seconds since the last boot - but with no other qualifications in the claim MS could be simply collecting that number every time a Win10 computer shuts down as part of the "telemetry" that can't be fully shut off. We all understand, though, that the collection goes well beyond that and the marketeers are just summarizing.

Re:If it weren't for games

[mcrbids]

The fun part is having to hack the registry so that you get inundated with "free upgrade to 10!" notices all day long...

Re:If it weren't for games

[Blaskowicz]

Indeed, doing sysadmin work to play a game is hardly fun. Setting up a boot server or ssh may be mildly fun on its own but that's not related to games.
Even creating a shortcut and adding it to an environment's "start menu" feels like work, under linux.

Windows 7 isn't without its faults though. Slow as shit on a hard drive, get me nervous the second Windows Update doesn't work. Horrible file manager that's both untabbed and too big to fit two side by side on a low res screen.
The XP days without antivirus were easier, as well as the 98SE days.
Can't even play random old games comfortably without buying new hardware : an SSD or new HDD for Windows, or a new graphics card for linux - you'd better have a less than 5-year-old nvidia card so as to have the latest drivers.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Billly Gates]

I actually had to install Windows 10 because the motherboard i got this christmas did not like Windows 7 (no pre installed drivers)

Can you tell us which motherboard? I'm looking to order a new mobo/CPU combo and don't want to have to install 10 yet.

This is not bribing. Contrary to popular opinion on slashdot one can not expect a 6 year old OS to run well on modern hardware with UEFI, m.2 ssd connectors, usb type c/USB 3.1 out of the box.

Times change.

IF you love WIndows 7 go into your efi/bios and turn on CSM in EFI or turn off EFI and secure boot, and turn off UEFI VGA for legacy. You will have much better luck but you will need to go to the chipset drivers for your USB connectors.

I have Windows 8.1 but with Start8 and modernMix for metro control and it works just fine and supports these things above. Windows 10 is not that bad but just beta quality when it was released or rushed. I loved IWndows 7 and it was the best OS MS made since WIndows 2000. But time moves on. It is great on older hardware from it's time frame. But today I need Hyper-V for my certs and Linxu VM's for development. WIndows 7 does not meet my needs nor runs well on my Haswell unless I disable some of the newer features and time savers in my EFI and go back to a bios.

Re: If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, because I've installed Linux Mint on numerous computers and it just worked out of the box.

Also most people will first experience Linux on a Steam Machine, not Raspberry Pi.

Re:If it weren't for games

[AmiMoJo]

There is no keylogger in Windows 10. Let's be absolutely clear about that so that the myth can die.

Windows 10 has similar features to iOS and Android for voice and pen input, which do involve sending samples to a remote server. It's optional with both.

There is no keylogger recording your keyboard input.

Re:If it weren't for games

[spire3661]

Ugh. EFI is not so much faster than BIOS that it really matters. Windows 7 on an SSD boots up as fast as can be reasonably expected. I keep a Windows 7 and a Windows 10 gaming rig for compatibility. Neither machine is especially faster or better in their role than the other. This is 'justify my upgrade' bullshit.

". But today I need Hyper-V for my certs and Linxu VM's for development."

On your workstation? You are arguing you need windows 10 for VMs on your workstation? Put that shit on a test server you heathen.

This post screams 'i like new and shiny things and have no appreciation for time and effort spent on already in-place hardware, methods and systems.'

Re:If it weren't for games

[iampiti]

Yep, I'm planning on staying on Win 7 as long as possible and then move to Linux and use Win 10 exclusively as a games console.

Re: If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is how to disable the keylogger that totally isn't in Windows 10:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/31rxsv/disable_keylogger_windows_10

Re:If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also a difference between "runs in wine" and "is playable under wine". Not to mention "consistently works under wine". In a lot of the cases you can see the starting screen and maybe play some of the context, but even if games are playable they're often plagued with crashes, lag and graphic glitches. Worse, often games that work for one version of wine updates and patches breaks with the latest patch/update.

Re:If it weren't for games

[ihtoit]

the fuck are you talking about? I'm playing a month-old release (KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM 1.0.5) on a FOUR YEAR OLD dual core laptop with 8GB RAM, running Windows 7 SP1 (which boots in about 15 seconds off a HARD DRIVE) and getting USABLE framerates. What are you using, a fucking Crackerjack for a CPU?

Re: If it weren't for games

[ihtoit]

my first proper Linux experience was a Busybox router.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Lennie]

I wouldn't say the Raspbian on RPi is representative of 'desktop Linux'.

Re:If it weren't for games

[donaldm]

Not sure about MS Windows 10 or 8, 8.1, 7 and Vista but I have a Z170M-D3H with the latest base firmware (very easy to upgrade from USB stick) and Fedora 23 runs fine. Basically I have an i7-6700, 16GB DDR4, 120GB SSD, 3TB HDD and a 24"IPS monitor. As for the graphics card I actually use the mother board's since I am not really a PC gamer preferring console gaming instead. Takes about a second to switch between my PC my PS4 or my PS3

Keep in mind that the motherboard I mentioned requires the Skylake chip-set so your older CPU's won't work. You may be able to reuse your DDR3 memory but I would recommend DDR4. Also if you are into over-clocking you will want the "k" series CPU's which will require an additional heat sink and for some that means water cooling.

The Skylake series does support MS Windows which should come as no surprise however I would definitely upgrade the BIOS first, which is basically 1) Get the zip file. 2) Unzip and put the BIOS file on a USB stick. 3) From the BIOS menu run the update. Then and only then install MS Windows. Of course you will have to get the graphics drivers for your MS Windows version but that should not be difficult. The only thing I had to do for Fedora 23 was upgrade the motherboard BIOS since the video used to drop out (loss of signal), everything else just works.

Some power consumption specs you may be interested in (remember I am running Fedora 23):
- On idle or surfing the web (not Youtube) I get 40W for the PC and 20W for the monitor.
- If I use YouTube you can add an extra 10W.
- Play a video I get 60W for the PC.
- Video manipulation (ie. Handbreak) I get 120W for 80% usage and my CPU temperature may peak at 70C and average about 60C and that is using the basic heat sink. Most of the time my CPU temperature is around 20C.
- I have even ran my CPU's to 100% although my context switching was only a few thousand and my CPU temperature was around 50C with an overall power consumption of less than 100W.

All in all a nice system and very responsive under KDE although I am quite sure some gaming elites would sneer at it since I am not into over-clocking. Still if I stick a decent graphics card such as a GTX960 I would have a pretty powerful gaming rig. Contrary to what some people believe Linux does have quite a few native games some free (of course) and some very recent games that you will pay for. Look on Steam and you will see well over a thousand.

No matter how powerful a gaming rig you build there will always be someone who will build a more powerful one and usually within an hour after you have built yours.

Re:If it weren't for games

[RogueyWon]

Indeed. The role of games in cementing MS's domination on the desktop is often overlooked. But it's games that keep the general public running Windows on their home PC (whether for themselves or for family members). And it's the fact that pretty much everybody uses Windows at home that means that businesses and Governments know that they can save a lot of time and money on staff training by using Windows, as everybody will just know how to use it.

The irony is that MS just spent more than a decade trying to downplay PC/Windows gaming, by throwing out a competitor to it in the shape of the Xbox line. What's interesting is that since Phil Spencer took over MS's gaming operations, he's swung the focus heavily back onto PC gaming (implying, I think, that he "gets it"). We hear a lot less about "Xbox exclusives" these days and a lot more about "Xbox/Win10 exclusives").

And no, Linux gaming is not even vaguely close to being an acceptable replacement for Windows gaming at the moment. A good chunk of PC gamers use the platform because it allows them to run the latest titles with better performance and visual fidelity than the consoles. Telling them to use an OS where they'll be mostly limited to older games and crappy driver support isn't going to cut it.

Valve have been trying hard to push it, as they know that in the long-term, having their platform be dependent upon a competitor's OS isn't a good business strategy. They got a nasty shock from Win8's app store, until it turned out to be shite. But the jury is very much still out on whether Valve are going to make serious headway with SteamOS. They've got a lot of work to do to convince publishers and hardware manufacturers.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux on Raspberry is so slow compared to what? Windows on i7? Shouldn't you compare it with Windows on Raspberry?

Re:If it weren't for games

[thegarbz]

Games actually work surprisingly well on Linux by now. Either natively so or with wine or similar tools. It can of course be a bit more of a hassle to get them to run, admittedly.

A bit more hassle, and without the ability to use all the advanced features of your hardware (latest directx features), and without the ability to make the most of your hardware (see /. stories about driver features lacking in Linux) and suffer a speed decrease as a result (see /. stories about drivers not being very well optimised in Linux).

Games that work is a first step, but it's only a first step. Linux gaming has come a long way but it's journey is far from over.

Re:If it weren't for games

[donaldm]

I actually have my PS4 and PS3 hooked up to the HDMI ports on my IPS monitor. The Witcher 3 via my PS4 looks very impressive and is great to play on "Blood and Broken Bones!" difficulty (hard but fair). Of course I can actually play Demon Souls (PS3) and Bloodborne (PS4) which you can't play on PC if ever. My monitor's DVI-D port is connected to the video out of my PC which runs Fedora 23.

"Elite Dangerous" is available for the PS4 as is "Divinity: Original Sin" which also runs under Linux as well. "Mass Effect 3" is available for the PS3. So even though I run a pure Linux desktop I can still play all of the games you mentioned. It normally takes about a second to switch between my PC, PS3 and PS4 input ports. Sure I may not be able to play all of them natively under Linux but I personally don't care since I have never been really that interested in PC gaming.

My biggest issue with The Witcher 3" is forcing my self to have meals and to have a reasonable night's sleep. This game is like playing an interactive movie were your choices affect the outcome of the current quest which in-turn can have an impact on the overall story. Even the voice acting is great and at times you have that wonderful touch of the "Game of Thrones". Of course this is all my opinion and some will agree whilst others disagree.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Computershack]

People don't want to work to be entertained. They just want to play the damned game, watch the damned show, etc. And most people don't find fiddling with Wine settings and other "technical" things to be excessively entertaining.

Which is why after spending a decade and a half endlessly patching, updating drivers etc just to get games to work without doing things like crashing to desktop (BF2 you were the last straw) I now game on a console as I've had enough of the PC gaming merry go round just to get games to run as they should. Checking the READMEs of new graphics drivers for nVidia and AMD it would seem that "fixes X issue with game Y" is still a common reason drivers get updated.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on, a Raspberry PI is not desktop linux. At least compare Ubuntu/Mint or something.

Re:If it weren't for games

[war4peace]

Most of the time my CPU temperature is around 20C.

Must be awfully cold where you live.

Re:If it weren't for games

[thegarbz]

Oh please share your detailed analysis.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Shawndeisi]

Give a friendlier distribution that is focused on end users a try. I've been very pleased with Linux Mint lately. The Cinnamon desktop is quite nice and is plug-and-play: I spent less time installing and customizing this to my satisfaction last week than an equivalent Windows install (I gave up installing Windows on this laptop already).

I don't think that a Linux distribution that is focused on an embedded environment is a good representation of the state of the art on Linux. It would be like dismissing Win7 after using WinCE.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Anonymous Coward]

I upgraded from 7 to 10, and the only game I care about has bad artifacting now.

Granted, it's an 8+ year old baseline Macbook, and I may not have the correct video drivers installed (I had to jump through some hoops just to get the bootcamp drivers installed, even more so than the hoops I had to jump through to get them installed on 7). But still... it is a counter-example to your example.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Golddess]

You mean so you don't get inundated with such notices?

Re: If it weren't for games

[Coren22]

One good turn deserves another?

Re:If it weren't for games

[Coren22]

I game on my Windows 10, and have noticed no difference between 7 and 10.

Please, tell another story.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Coren22]

There is no GUI in Windows 10 IoT. Perhaps that was your point though.

Re:If it weren't for games

[cfalcon]

> There is no keylogger recording your keyboard input.

The EULA says you agreed that your keystrokes and handwriting will go to Microsoft. The OS ships with a service that does exactly that. Why would you think there isn't a keylogger?

Re:If it weren't for games

[cfalcon]

Remember that anything running under wine is a bonus anyway. It's not like Microsoft supports Linux binaries in any way, after all.

Re: If it weren't for games

[malditaenvidia]

I really don't see Steam machines going anywhere. I'm guessing most people will first experience Linux on android devices.

Re: If it weren't for games

[a4r6]

Do everyone a favor and switch to linux for pc gaming. If enough of us do it, sure we'll need to live with a limited game library and poor support for a while, but you know Steam rules PC gaming, and you know Valve has eyes on those demographics. The more users they have on linux, the harder the push to get off MS Windows will be.

Re: If it weren't for games

[a4r6]

Do us all a favor and switch to Linux. Sure we'll have to put up with worse support and a stunted games library, but surely we can handle that for a little while, to send the message to Valve, ruler of PC gaming, that we are ready to move away from Windows, thus accelerating their push to get off of it.

Re:If it weren't for games

[westlake]

It would be the year of another desktop.

The geek sees only games and ignores the success of Office 365, and a thousand other programs and services which are strongly tied to the Windows platform, and many which are clearly best-in-class, however reluctant the geek may be willing to admit it.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Barlo_Mung_42]

And also, the usage and performance data is anonymous. It contains no personal data at all. I wonder how many of the people "concerned" about this refuse to carry a cell phone or use a credit card?

Re:If it weren't for games

[Ol Olsoc]

There is no keylogger in Windows 10. Let's be absolutely clear about that so that the myth can die.

You are simply incorrect. I copied and pasted the exact text from a Microsoft website that I acced through my W10 Machine via the Windows defender privacy settings. You should put the myth that there is no kelogger to rest. For your info: Microsoft collects and uses data about your speech, inking (handwriting), and typing on Windows devices to help improve and personalize our ability to correctly recognize your input.

For example, to provide personalized speech recognition, we collect your voice input, as well your name and nickname, your recent calendar events and the names of the people in your appointments, and information about your contacts including names and nicknames. This additional data enables us to better recognize people and events when you dictate messages or documents.

Additionally, your typed and handwritten words are collected to provide you a personalized user dictionary, help you type and write on your device with better character recognition, and provide you with text suggestions as you type or write. Typing data includes a sample of characters and words you type, which we scrub to remove IDs, IP addresses, and other potential identifiers. (Emphasis mine) It also includes associated performance data, such as changes you manually make to text as well as words you've added to the dictionary.

End of Microsoft W10 privacy statement

So in the matter of something that bothers so many users so much, why would Microsoft continue to specifically say that they key log your text? And that they "scrub it"?

Regardless - the myth is that they don't keylog you, not that they do.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Ol Olsoc]

Oh please share your detailed analysis.

Rather than continually repost, read my other posts about what I found on a Microsoft website by going to the privacy settings of Windows Defender. It's all there, and they do keylog you unless you disable it. Considering that they ignore update delays as well, it is not unreasonable to assume they ignore requests to disable teh key logger. In either event, the Express setup settings enable it by default.

S is it me lying, or Microsoft lying? Your position is getting hard to defend.

Re:If it weren't for games

[cfalcon]

I really do think we'll see Vulkan pass DX12 on some things, at some point in the next couple years. I also think that the performance is pretty close right now. The big issue is that developers mostly just refuse to release Linux versions. If you are really into Windows gaming (and no, it's not PC gaming- the games are explicitly written just for Windows PCs, PC gaming would be a game that has versions on OS X, Linux, and Windows), then obviously you want Windows. Just don't use it for general purpose computing, cause it is one big botnet!

Re:If it weren't for games

[Ol Olsoc]

And also, the usage and performance data is anonymous. It contains no personal data at all. I wonder how many of the people "concerned" about this refuse to carry a cell phone or use a credit card?

According to Microsoft:

Typing data includes a sample of characters and words you type, which we scrub to remove IDs, IP addresses, and other potential identifiers. You are quite wrong.

Or does Microsoft have some sort of majicky thingamajig that scrubs personal data that is not there?

Re:If it weren't for games

[ShakaUVM]

>I wouldn't say the Raspbian on RPi is representative of 'desktop Linux'.

I agree, as I said in my post. But also as I said, it is going to be the first desktop Linux experience many people will have, and the first impression is bad.

Would you go and install Linux on your home PC if you thought it was going to look like crap?

Re:If it weren't for games

[KGIII]

I am a pretty big fan of Mint, I call it Linux for Retards - which means I can use it. However, I've kind of migrated to LXDE and just use Lubuntu but I've done some simple customizations and tweaking on it so that I've pretty much built my own distro and just use that either installed or from a Live USB (sometimes with persistent data support enabled). But, I still have a trusty laptop with me that has Mint - Cinnamon installed and that gets used regularly though it's often used to go through my convoluted setup (which involves VNC, a server back in Maine, and a VPN - on a good day, sometimes I'm using a VM and networked shares over all that).

The thing is, I'm not really an advanced user or anything. It just works. I don't game so it's not like I care about running stuff in WINE. I don't need any Windows applications so my VMs are just other Linux distros or the occasional BSD to poke at. I don't even have to futz with hardware. Even better, if I really work hard and manage to break something (it's always something I did) then I can just re-install and leave my /home directory or I can even (usually) switch distros and do the same thing. Hell, there's even a repair installation method with Lubuntu that does the /home directory preservation for me. Couple that with reasonable backups and, well, 'snot a problem.

Re:If it weren't for games

[ShakaUVM]

>I don't think that a Linux distribution that is focused on an embedded environment is a good representation of the state of the art on Linux.

An RPi with Raspbian is not an Arduino. It's a fully functioning computer that is supposed to be used in a K-12 school setting to teach programming via Scratch and Python. Very high level stuff, actually. While I'm going to be teaching assembly using it, that's not the most common use of the system.

But what these kids are going to actually learn is that the Linux Desktop is ugly, slow, and can't do basic functions correctly. When it doesn't have to be! Because with tweaking it's not.

I might do it myself, I dunno. But I am not confident that they would accept a patch that would ruin the simplicity of their UI.

Re:If it weren't for games

[PsychoSlashDot]

Witcher 3 was announced for SteamOS two years ago.

Keep up.

I guess all I can say that is:
1} It hasn't happened.
2} It shows no sign it's going to happen, ever.
3} Caught up, thanks.

If you were trying to be sarcastic, I apologize in advance, for not detecting it. Not sure.

Re:If it weren't for games

[recrudescence]

I beg to differ. In the pre-steam golden era of Windows gaming where most people pirated their games, getting a game to work was always a highly elaborate process* and most people did it with zero problems. Copying a file here and there means zero to the gamer if it means they get to play the game on their own terms.

* so I'm told :p

Re: If it weren't for games

[Ol Olsoc]

You can't prove a negative. No one can "show" you Windows 10 doesn't have a key logger. The onus is on you to show that it does.

Well, considering they tell us they have one is a pretty good start to accepting that they have one.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Barlo_Mung_42]

That's the Cortana data which has to be opted into. I was talking only about the performance data collection which can't (for some values of can't) be opted out of.

Re: If it weren't for games

[TheDarkMaster]

Funny, because I've installed Linux Mint on numerous computers and it just worked out of the box.

Also most people will first experience Linux on a Steam Machine, not Raspberry Pi.

For now. In a few months you will need to make updates, you will want to install new versions of applications (but incompatibles with your distro version) and maybe even do things that have not been included in the distro by default, and is at this point that you will run into the unsolved Linux desktop problems.

Re:If it weren't for games

[thegarbz]

Rather than continually repost, read my other posts

Ahhh not the Anonymous Coward anymore?

Considering that they ignore update delays as well, it is not unreasonable to assume they ignore requests to disable teh key logger.

Considering crime happens there's no reason to assume that your own mother isn't coming at you with an axe right now correct? Sorry but it's a stretch.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Ol Olsoc]

That's the Cortana data which has to be opted into. I was talking only about the performance data collection which can't (for some values of can't) be opted out of.

Opted out of. The last several machines have what is called "express settings" that most people blindly accept.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Ol Olsoc]

Rather than continually repost, read my other posts

Ahhh not the Anonymous Coward anymore?

Almost never! I posted a few as AC a week ago when there was a problem logging into slashdot, otherwise I stand

Considering that they ignore update delays as well, it is not unreasonable to assume they ignore requests to disable teh key logger.

Considering crime happens there's no reason to assume that your own mother isn't coming at you with an axe right now correct? Sorry but it's a stretch.

Your analogy misses one point. Applied to Microsoft, your mother would have already come at you with an axe. So you might be safe in assuming it again.

Re:If it weren't for games

[thegarbz]

No the analogy is that my mother swore at me and that means I think she's going to come at me with an axe. If you think an enforcing update strategy is the same as keylogging every computer in policy and severity then you've lost your grasp on reality.

I don't trust Microsoft to do a lot of things. That doesn't mean I don't trust them to do other things.

Re:If it weren't for games

[SuiteSisterMary]

And prior to that, we had to hand craft our autoexec.bat files using loadhigh to put mouse driver, cd extender, memory extender, and so on, all in JUST the right order, sort out our sound card IRQ and DMAs, and so on, just so that Wing Commander 2 would play speech.

Nobody does that shit these days. Hell, kids these days just sit down and watch other people play video games on youtube.

Re:If it weren't for games

[Ol Olsoc]

No the analogy is that my mother swore at me and that means I think she's going to come at me with an axe. If you think an enforcing update strategy is the same as keylogging every computer in policy and severity then you've lost your grasp on reality.

What kind of work do you do that is so accepting of the system breaking that Windows updates do?

Next will be you saying that my using Windows 10's breaking my computer is somehow my fault because I know New Windows versions break computers.

That's called the Mike Tyson rape defense - "Hey, she knew who I was." Then you'll switch back and forth between the two positions as befits your argument.

My grip on reality, eh? I use W10 because I support people using it. Once upon a time, I would caution people to wait a while before updating. That way there is less chance of the inevitible system breakage. They could cut there problems maybe in half. Now? Those forced updates are the number one reason I do not recommend people using Windows 10. At this point, my support functions are roughly 95 percent Windows 10 based, a few W7, a few Linux, and I had 2 OS X issues with El Capitan not being compatible with Filemaker Pro 11, which is 3 versions behind, and the other was a Prolific USB -serial issue, which was a El Capitan problem and prolific wrote new software for. Oh, the linux issues were with people not knowing how ot enable their serial ports - since Linux considers a serial port a security issue (duh), you have to manually add it to the dialout group in a terminal.

All of the Windows 10 problems were system breaks, and the breaks were conveniently after the updates, that you can't do a damn thing about. Sound cards and virtual sound cards especially are a problem with W10.

And that's my reality.

Re:If it weren't for games

[ShakaUVM]

>From one old school UNIX guy to the next you know you can't give a good judge of an OS on weak hardware.

The Pi 2 really isn't that weak. It's about six times more powerful than the original RPi B, and is about 1/10th as fast as a i7-6000K on the benchmarks I was looking at. It certainly should be capable of doing things like drawing windows and web browsing. I can't imagine any user these days would put up with a smartphone with these sorts of issues, and that's basically all an RPi is, just in different dress.

>Windows won't even load on a Pi

It actually runs Windows 10's IoT version. I haven't tried it out (because why, right?) but I can't imagine that it fails at basic functionality as much as Raspbian does.

The main thing that irritates me is that the bugs, ugliness and slowness is due to bad software settings, which can be fixed. (Remember, a smartphone can drive a 1080p display without slowdown.) Since this is the first glimpse many people will have of Linux Desktop, we should really (as a community) be putting our best foot forward on this experience.

Re:If it weren't for games

[ihtoit]

hm...

1. didn't know that, all I know is that it was announced.
2. oh well.
3. Oh, goody. :)

I'm so deadpan, even I don't know...

Re:If it weren't for games

[Altrag]

That might have been true in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, but what was also true then was that most (non-business) computing was done by people who were at least moderately interested in the computers themselves and were willing (and more importantly, technically capable) to jump through some hoops to get what they wanted.

That is vastly different from today where every teenager and grandma and everyone in between has an smart phone or a console or a Steam account and frequently all three.

The kind of people who are interested in dicking around to get their games to work are still doing that -- its just that they're now a significantly smaller portion of the overall demographic. What might have been 30%, 50% hell maybe higher in the early 90s is probably more like 3% or lower today -- not because there's necessarily less hardcore gamers, but because there's so many more of everybody else in the market space.

They are not "monitoring" you

[Anonymous Coward]

They are collecting "telemetry", like the Mozilla foundation and countless others do. It's your duty to participate in the creation of great software by giving up your privacy. You do want great software, don't you?

Re:They are not "monitoring" you

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the "countless" others allow you to disable it entirely.

Sorry, we're not on Ars, microsoft PRs aren't really "successful" here. GTFO.

Re:They are not "monitoring" you

[Ol Olsoc]

I was waiting for this MIcrosoft is teh awesome! people

From their privacy policy:

If you open a file, we may collect information about the file, the application used to open the file, and how long it takes any use [of] it for purposes such as improving performance, or [if you] enter text, we may collect typed characters, and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spell check features. A fucking key logger! You are giving the keys to the Kingdom away to Microsoft, and you're going to reply that somehow you aren't.

Re:They are not "monitoring" you

[Opportunist]

No I don't. Where do I opt out?

Re:They are not "monitoring" you

[bigfinger76]

Whoosh.

Re:They are not "monitoring" you

[Ol Olsoc]

All that I provided was copied and pasted from a microsoft we page that I accessed with my Windows 10 machine.

Open update and security, click on the Windows defender text at the left.

Go to "Sample Submission" on the screen and click on the "Privacy Statement" link.

This will take you to the Microsoft webpage I copied and pasted from.

You gotta realize I seldom make statements without the facts to back them up. My dislike of Microsoft is based on facts. Or are the Shills denying what Microsoft puts out on their website now? The utmost of denials, when you claim that someone referencing teh source is somehow confused about the facts.

Physician - cure yourself.

Re: They are not "monitoring" you

[Ol Olsoc]

2)- You have agreed to have all your text sent to Microsoft (note that THEY "scrub the data", and they are not legally bound by the terms used [it's not like "Microsoft shall recieved pre-scrubbed data" followed by a definition of scrubbing], meaning that they GET the data RAW AS YOU TYPE IT). 3)- You come here and imply there's no keylogger.

Wake the fuck up. You consent to it, and there's a service that sends it. It's a fucking keylogger by the definition of a goddamned keylogger.

The denialism is strong in these folks. They are so smitten with Microsoft that they now even declare Microsoft of lying about what Microsoft does.

I have this image of them refusing to look at the Eula.

Another item -Scinve most people simply choose "express Settings" they enable the keylogger by default. NO doubt Microsoft keeps an unscrubbed version of your passwords and all - you know, just in case.

Re:They are not "monitoring" you

[KGIII]

http://lubuntu.net/

Re:They are not "monitoring" you

[Ol Olsoc]

It is nothing short of amazing, when a person posts the exact text from a Microsoft Website, and he gets marked as a troll.

Well played shills, well played indeed. That pot needss to be enshrined as a reference to prove the delusions of the Microsoft shills, as they call direct quotes from their Favorite OS as trolling. Microsoft shills?You are entitled to your own opinions. However, you are not entitled to your own facts. Printed again from their privacy policy: Enjoy!

If you open a file, we may collect information about the file, the application used to open the file, and how long it takes any use [of] it for purposes such as improving performance, or [if you] enter text, we may collect typed characters, and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spell check features.

Shocking

[liqu1d]

A free piece of software that monitors usage. Dare I say it's a data selling supported model?

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

How does that comment apply to people who bought Windows 10 retail?

Re:Shocking

[blind biker]

If its forced upon you, shoved down your throat, then it's less than free.

Re:Shocking

[gstoddart]

And just as important, I have a full OEM copy of Windows 8.1 Pro on my personal desktop. I paid for it, and I specifically bought the PC before Windows 10.

Being forced to an OS I don't want which spies on me is a non-starter. I have no interest in that shit. My usage patterns are none of Microsoft's damned business, no matter how entitled they feel to it.

So, at this point I'm forced to conclude that I will accept security updates, but in general I can no longer trust Microsoft to apply updates, and that "important" is just as likely to mean important to them. I'll trust my own security practices to keep me out of problems, but if Microsoft is going to lie to me about what updates are doing I can't trust them.

But letting them replace what I paid for with something I don't want? Not bloody happening. Over time I will likely have to invert my desktop to be primarily Linux, with Windows running in a VM.

Microsoft seems to think it's their computer. It's not. And Microsoft can shove Windows 10 up their own asses. They're sure as hell not shoving it up mine.

It may not cost you anything, but it sure as hell isn't free. I was cleaning up my in-law's PC the other week (which unfortunately had updated itself to Windows 10), and Microsoft had installed shit like Candy Crush Saga and a bunch of other stuff they had no idea what is was.

Microsoft doesn't seem to realize they're pissing off customers and likely to push more people away with this.

Stop acting like we need to you to tell us what to do with our own computers. And stop letting your bullshit marketing desire to show how many people have switched to Windows 10.

I really don't understand why Microsoft are being such aggressive assholes over this, especially with stuff like taking away choice for automatic updates. Because eventually they'll leave people with useless computers, and won't do a damned thing about it.

Re:Shocking

[LVSlushdat]

I wouldn't even trust security updates from Microsoft.. They've proven they are totally untrustworthy.. The ONLY alternative to using MS products is switching to Linux, which I did in 2010, and am forever glad I did..

Re:Shocking

[blind biker]

I don't understand why you're surprised - this is 100% in character for Microsoft. I've known their methods for decades now, and I can tell you that this is normal.

How is OS X in comparison?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone paying attention is already aware that W10 is a privacy fuckfest, it would be nice to see similar scrutiny on OS X.

Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point, after all the news stories about the massive Win10 privacy holes (read: blatant backdoors), it is safe to assume that Windows 10 is simply pure spyware, and it's becoming useless to keep track of ALL the single privacy issues. It should not be used to process any sensitive data, it should be banned from companies' networks and, most importantly, government offices, and those who still use it for non-entertainment purposes are simply poor idiots who do deserve to be spied on, hacked, and laughed at.

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[TheReaperD]

Sadly, if you use hardware or software that requires Windows and the internet, you're hosed at this point. WinXP is no longer really internet safe and most of the privacy screwing aspects of Windows 10 have been back-ported to Windows 7/8 through updates.

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

If your on Windows 7/8 - TURN OFF Automatic updates!

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[Opportunist]

If I have a government to foot my bills I can easily shift to any system you want me to, port all my software and pay for the months of consulting required.

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[blind biker]

I still use Windows XP regularly on my home desktop. I have never had any malware, let alone viruses, on this computer. I just use common sense when I browse. Sometimes I fire up Chrome in incognito mode. I also have flash and popup blockers. And don't open attachments that aren't from a trusted source.

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[ihtoit]

(typing this on an XP box. No planes have fallen out of the sky yet*.)

*Anecdotes are not absolute proof of anything, they merely provide for a confirmation one way or another for a binary claim. You mileage may vary, depending on how much RAM you have, how many cores you're running, and your proximity to an airport.

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[ihtoit]

the diffference: I am not a Government, I do not have access to infinite supplies of money.

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[thegarbz]

If your on Windows 7/8 - TURN OFF Automatic updates!

Yep that'll keep the evil doers out.

Sorry but I'd rather Microsoft know what porn I watch than someone steal my bank credentials, encrypt my personal files all, demand a ransom for it, and then get booted off the internet because my ISP determines I'm participating in a DDOS attack.

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[fendragon]

I'd love to believe that's why Microsoft have been calling Windows 10 "the last version of Windows".

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[KGIII]

It would appear that this is only true IF you use a Microsoft account as opposed to a local account. It actually kind of sort of makes sense if it is a Microsoft account that you're using - it's so that can have your encrypted files shared across multiple systems. If you use a local account, that doesn't happen. Or so the actual article said - I don't really know, I'm not actually a Windows user. But, that was in the fine print, below the rant, at the article.

Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware

[TheReaperD]

It's rather funny and sad that some Windows rootkits provide better antivirus protection than using any of the available commercial versions. I remember one from a long time ago that also solved a critical Windows bug and increased system performance. I remember the question of fix Windows and know I may get used as part of a botnet or deal with the issues. It took Microsoft months to fix the bug and they never did solve whatever performance issue that the virus took care of.

using it, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda like how Steam measures how long I have been 'playing' Civ5 ?!?

Give or take an order of magnitude. It is ON, noone is even in room half the time lol.

Anyway, why bother, and who the hell cares?

Or maybe they guessed

[wonkey_monkey]

Microsoft is also monitoring how long people are using the operating system.

Wow. That sounds like a pretty certain statement of fact...

Microsoft must have been logging individuals' usage times

That sounds less certain.

Maybe they simply know when people installed Windows 10 and what the average computer use per day is (from their own studies), and, actually, "11 billion hours" is not meant to be taken as particularly accurate.

Re:Or maybe they guessed

[Ol Olsoc]

That sounds less certain.

Maybe they simply know when people installed Windows 10 and what the average computer use per day is (from their own studies), and, actually, "11 billion hours" is not meant to be taken as particularly accurate.

Certainly time of use logging isn't a big deal. I think that its just another part of the surveillance that windows 10 does on everyone.

More interesting is their collecting data opn every webpage you visit, and what they call inout personalization, which includes a key logger.

Microsoft collects and uses data about your speech, inking (handwriting), and typing on Windows devices to help improve and personalize our ability to correctly recognize your input.

For example, to provide personalized speech recognition, we collect your voice input, as well your name and nickname, your recent calendar events and the names of the people in your appointments, and information about your contacts including names and nicknames. This additional data enables us to better recognize people and events when you dictate messages or documents.

Additionally, your typed and handwritten words are collected to provide you a personalized user dictionary, help you type and write on your device with better character recognition, and provide you with text suggestions as you type or write. Typing data includes a sample of characters and words you type, which we scrub to remove IDs, IP addresses, and other potential identifiers. (emphasis mine) It also includes associated performance data, such as changes you manually make to text as well as words you've added to the dictionary.

And while you can turn it off, to think they still are not collecting data from you is probably naive. I have my Windows Pro machines set to delay updates as long as possible, and Microsoft updates when it feels like it. I have no doubt they collect everything they say they do, no matter the settings. I have a number of networked machines without internet access They are set to not update - why not - they can't, and they are barking at me that they can't connect to update. This is telling me that my home experience is true - you have no choice. The one machine with interent access will not ever have anything I would not want broadcast to the world.

Which is a pity, because other than Microsoft's surveillance, the W10 Operating system is pretty darn nice.

Cool Story....

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has been logging your usage time since a long time ago, even Windows XP had that "feature". Possibly the older windows as well.
Even games are doing this, why are you up in arms for this garbage? Time used means NOTHING. It's no info. You could literally leave the PC on overnight while you sleep and it'd count.

Re:Cool Story....

[Slashdot Junky]

Time used means NOTHING

The problem isn't with usage as a specific monitored activity. The real issue is that damn slippery slope that it is on. In my opinion, it is not okay to collect data in this way and at the detail they do without each user on a given box opting in. The OS's monitoring and reporting back to Mother Microsoft shouldn't be turned on by default and require opting out in an inconvenient or otherwise discouraging way to be disabled. The opt-in prompt should be very obvious and make clear in few words what an opt-in allows. The prompt should reappear frequently. This behavior shouldn't be buried in a EULA or another widely disregarded document. People should have the choice to not participate even if doing so changes the cost of ownership. The consumer is forced to accept this type of abuse over and over from businesses, because there aren't practical alternatives to a very large degree.

Last laptop

[fluffernutter]

On the last laptop I got, I ran the windows partition long enough to shrink the partition to nothing and make a linux mint USB install.

Re:Last laptop

[messymerry]

I'm right with you on that. Also, I have been using LXLE on a netbook and I like that very much too. Dear M$, No need to monitor all that silly data. It always takes 40% longer to do anything on Windows than it does on Linux. Mostly because I am constantly having to futz around making the OS work. Go to the corner of the room, curl up into a fetal position, and cry your eyes out. Ura Loser.

Why don't they publish reinstalls ...

[Alain Williams]

If they know how much a machine is used then they must be able to tell how many machines no longer report back to them. Some of these will be broken hardware, but others (like mine) will be because MS Windows has been wiped and Linux installed. The curious thing was that I did not see this number mentioned ....

Re:Why don't they publish reinstalls ...

[LVSlushdat]

You know the funny part?.. I've installed the latest ISO of the November update, using an OEM Windows 7 Pro product key I had laying around on a spare laptop drive in one of my laptops. I went thru turning off all the cutesy-toosie privacy destroying toggle switches during the install instead of going with the "recommeneded"
defaults, including all of the additional steps done in gpedit.msc, went with a local account vs an MS account. From a lot of articles I've read, that *allegedly* disables nearly all of the more egregious crap.. Note I said "alledgedly"... After loading a copy of rpcapd on my Tomato router and firing up Wireshark and pointing it at the rpcapd instance on the router, I still see this fuckin' Microsoft abortion yammering away at a good number of the listed (in many articles) MS endpoints. In other words, It appears to me, that MS is gonna vacumn up your data come hell or high-water, even if you believe you've "castrated" the fucker.. I guess the only way to prevent this pile of shit from phoning home is to block *.microsoft.com in your hardware firewall... You *do* have one, don't you??? Sooooooooo fuckin' glad I moved all my systems to Linux about 5 years ago.... The *only* reason I was trying out Win10 was the fact that I *know* I'm gonna be pestered by friends/family to support this pile of shit, so I figured I'd play with it a while....... (shudders)...

Re:Why don't they publish reinstalls ...

[AmiMoJo]

I've done the same thing. My Windows 10 Pro install only communicated with Microsoft when checking got updates and using Windows Store apps. To help move the debate along, can you be more specific about what you were doing and what domains were accessed?

I find it odd you would suggest blocking microsoft.com, because most of the traffic doesn't go there.

Re:Why don't they publish reinstalls ...

[ShaunC]

I guess the only way to prevent this pile of shit from phoning home is to block *.microsoft.com in your hardware firewall...

Sadly I don't think this helps. My understanding is that Windows 10 ships your personal information off to a variety of domains, and if it encounters trouble resolving them, it falls back to IP addresses hardcoded into the OS. Someone's probably put together a list of IPs to null route, but who's to say they don't all change with the next forced patch, or on some future date the same way malware rotates through C&C servers?

It's all so frustrating. I shouldn't have to go out of my way to prevent my own computer from being hostile to me. Windows 10 will never be installed on a machine I own.

wrong

[drolli]

To have reached this figure (11 billion hours in December, apparently) Microsoft must have been logging individuals' usage times

Plainly wrong. there are many other ways to come to such a number without logging every bodies time individually.

The simplest way would be (given that they actually get events identifying usage from individual users to plainly add it up to a single counter for all users and discard the individual events.

A even more privacy-protecting way would be to use some statistical sampling together with data which MS has to get to do their job. I would be thinking that the data from the updates would yield a pretty accurate number on the system uptime (after some statistical crunching).

Last but not least-remember that this is a marketing text and not a science paper - would be an estimation based on "best guesses". Anyhow a figure like 11 billion could variy dramatically if you count breaks where the user walk away from the machine or not.

It takes MEMORY SNAPSHOTS FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Monitoring how long people use Windows 10?? Is that the best you could do?

It takes snapshots of memory, which is a way of getting passwords for third party apps, and will also get bits of documents you're working on.
It watches the programs you run, and sends those details.
It sends your browser history to Microsoft.

It sends you disk encryption keys to Microsoft, this seems to have been an FBI request from 2012.
https://redmondmag.com/articles/2013/09/13/encryption-backdoor-by-fbi.aspx
It does this for everyone, not just Americans subject to FBIs new found law making capabilities.

For pen enabled devices it sends your handwriting.
It lies to you, you turn "off" these diagnositic surveillance feature and it just SLIGHTLY reduces the data its sending!
It's turn on full by default and automatically on at upgrades.

This is *before* we get into Cortana's data grab.

Re:It takes MEMORY SNAPSHOTS FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sniffs your neighbors Wifi details and sends that to Microsoft.
Those wifi settings your friends share? With the new Wifi Sense feature, Microsoft gets a copy of those too.
That sign-in feature? The phone that takes your fingerprint, face, iris photo, voice... that Microsoft promises never leaves your computer? It leaves you computer in your backups to their servers.

You mentioned the handwriting, but the handwriting also takes your contacts (address book aswell).

Edge is what sends your browsing history to Microsoft BY DEFAULT, it's hidden behind a misleading "do you want Cortana's assistance" question.
It also sends it if you've selected "Use page prediction to speed up browsing, improve reading, and make my overall experience better". Which is actually code for "send all my private stuff to Microsoft for nothing to do with page prediction".
Private mode in their Edge browser STILL SENDS THIS DATA.

Cortana gets email, telephone numbers, contact names, addresses OF THIRD PARTIES. So that third party gave YOU permission to have their contact details, and Microsoft extends your permission to THEIR permission by default.

Note: Android 6 now *also* always sends your location to Google, using Google Play Services, whether its connected to a Google service or not.

There is a massive data grab going on, and the people placed in power under the surveillance regime, aren't enforcing the privacy laws.

Re:It takes MEMORY SNAPSHOTS FFS

[thegarbz]

Is that the best you can do?

It sends you disk encryption keys to Microsoft

No it gives you the option of storing it on OneCloud. Only if you're not part of a domain. Just as well too because being unable to run recovery on an encrypted disk because I lost some USB stick is not a lot of fun. (Why I had to do that on the other hand is another subject fucking Microsoft windows update).

It sends your browser history to Microsoft.

And Chrome sends it to Google, and Firefox sends it to Mozilla. What's your point again?

It takes snapshots of memory, which is a way of getting passwords for third party apps, and will also get bits of documents you're working on.

[citation required]

For pen enabled devices it sends your handwriting.

Of course it does, it explicitly says it will, and tells you why it does it. Also after a year of using my Surface Pro my handwriting hasn't gotten any neater but the device has become damn accurate at deciphering my scribbles. If this is the result, then please take all my handwriting, I'll even send you some hand written notes if it helps.

This is *before* we get into Cortana's data grab.

Cortana? You mean the search feature is not supposed to build up a profile of what search results are relevant to you? Nope tried that on the pre-google web. It wasn't very useful to me then. I'm much happier now actually finding things I'm looking for thanks, even if Cortana is linked to Bing.

I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[King_TJ]

I think it's pretty well publicized that Windows 10 chatters with Microsoft servers quite a bit. It's now even coming to light that new PCs with Win 10 preloaded on them are shipped with the disk encryption feature enabled already, and a copy of the master key for the encryption housed on Microsoft's servers. (If you want to use encryption but not have MS hold on to a master key for it, you have to turn it back off, wait a while for it to complete, and do it all over again, choosing the correct options to keep a key yourself but not to upload one to them.)

The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't CARE that any of this is taking place. The fact that MS holds a key for the encryption means when Joe Sixpack user screws up and locks himself out of his own drive, he can actually get MS support people to unlock it for him. That's more useful in his "real world" scenario than the concern that MS could pass his master key along to the NSA or FBI, who might in turn look at his hard drive full of poorly written Word documents, his country music collection and his stupid drunk party photos, plus his Windows wallpaper backgrounds of his favorite porn stars.

The relative minority who actually concern ourselves with online privacy rights are obviously not a crowd Microsoft really targets or cares much about. If it's that big a deal, you probably need to use something like Linux.

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[Anonymous Coward]

"The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't CARE that any of this is taking place."

Let me fix that for you:
"The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't KNOW that any of this is taking place."

There's a damn good reason Microsoft hides these features behind misleading buttons.

e.g. ""do you want to use Cortana's assistance" (select Yes and it sends your browser history to Microsoft, yes is selected by default BTW, selecting No and your browser history is *still* send unless you correctly set all the other options that send this).

"Use page prediction to speed up browsing, improve reading, and make my overall experience better"
What's hiding behind there?.... Another excuse to send your browser history to Microsoft.

You can see why people don't know. Microsoft deliberately misleads people hiding the surveillance in embedded wording.

That encryption key it sends to Microsoft, even experts like us didn't spot that till someone noticed it! How many other surprises are we in for?

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[Slashdot Junky]

average/typical user doesn't CARE that any of this is taking place

Joe Sixpack might care if he knew and understood what was happening. He doesn't, because Microsoft and every other damn shading business and entity out there that is abusing him doesn't make clear their practices. This is all made worse, because far too many businesses have abusive policies. They all justify them internally by believing that it is okay since "all" their competitors are abusing. The consumer all too often doesn't have practical alternatives. So, simply leaving the correction to the market is not the right approach.

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[WaffleMonster]

The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't CARE that any of this is taking place.

The average user does not KNOW that any of this is taking place. Ignorance is not the same as not caring. You can't care about encryption keys or spying when you have no clue what bitlocker or an encryption key is. You can't care if you turn off all the spy settings yet fail to take the step of collecting network capture which prove privacy options don't actually do all that much.

The relative minority who actually concern ourselves with online privacy rights are obviously not a crowd Microsoft really targets or cares much about. If it's that big a deal, you probably need to use something like Linux.

Privacy concerns exists independent of technical ability.

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[thegarbz]

Joe Sixpack might care if he knew and understood what was happening. He doesn't, because Microsoft and every other damn shading business and entity out there that is abusing him doesn't make clear their practices.

And yet the end result of this data collection is better UI interfaces, better handwriting recognition, more relevant search results, Cortana able to recognize my non-american accent.

A large portion of the data collection has nothing to do with selling your soul. That is the same reason I share my data with Google, the hope that others do it as well (and the clearly do) provide all sorts of wonderful features like highly accurate traffic predictions, error free navigation, and integration between multiple devices (I search for a restaurant on Chrome, I step in the car my phone asks me if I want to navigate to said restaurant, none of this sitting around typing shit in).

Joe Sickpack doesn't care because he sees some benefits come his way. And quite frankly I'm happy sharing my marketing data too if it means I'll get advertisements for Nikon Cameras in stead of cheap viagra, libido enhancers, single ladies, and online casinos like in the internet before datamining became a thing.

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[Pascoea]

What restaurant did chrome return? Did you choose it or did google choose it?...These are the kinds of things joe sixpack will see coming his way in the near future.

Wow. Just wow. How do you function with shit like that rattling around in your brain?

But an ad for a camera might seduce me into spending money on something i would not normally spend money on.

Maybe if an advertisement is swaying your thinking that much, you might not be as smart as you give yourself credit for.

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[Pascoea]

I live in a place where traffic doesn't matter much, and an address tells you how to get there

Huh, well the majority of the people in the developed world live in a type of area that doesn't follow your backwoods example. Where I need to go could take 15 minutes or it could take an hour, depending on weather and traffic. That same trip could have 3 routes, and the elapsed time for each is different every day. YOU may not understand why traffic predictions are wonderful, but I do. I enjoy the fact that if traffic is fucked up on one route, my phone will alert me. I enjoy the fact that google will let me see how long it's going to take to get to my cross-town appointment at 5PM vs 10AM.

why should my phone care what I did on my desktop

How about for the exact reason the OP suggested? I love the fact that I can google for something, find it on the map, then have it show up on my phone. I use it multiple times a week. I love that my bookmarks are synced between my devices.

Just because you don't like things doesn't mean they are useless. Oh, and all of the things that the OP mentioned he likes requires you to be signed in to chrome. Don't want it to do that? Don't sign into chrome on your pc.

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[nukenerd]

"The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't CARE that any of this is taking place."

Let me fix that for you: "The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't KNOW that any of this is taking place."

Let me fix that for you :- "The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't KNOW or CARE that any of this is taking place."

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[nukenerd]

quite frankly I'm happy sharing my marketing data too if it means I'll get advertisements for Nikon Cameras in stead of cheap viagra, libido enhancers, single ladies, and online casinos

I'm also happy to see adverts for Nikon cameras if, and only if, I am searching for cameras to buy one. Maybe ditto the single ladies. In other words if I go to a camera retailer's website I am happy, indeed want, to see camera adverts.

Otherwise I don't want to see such adverts. I will not be buying a camera so WTF is the point?? It is just a waste of screen space and bandwidth.

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[thegarbz]

You're implying that the choice is one or nothing. That's not the choice without adblocking (which I use). The point is if I'm forced to view an advert it should at least not be some shock advert attempting to rely on some insecurity about my manhood. In the pre-tracking days the advertising industry was foul with pretty much every advert pointing to something illegal or malware.

These days it's mostly targeted advertising or malware. (Though the adverts are admittedly far worse, hence adblocking).

Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but ....

[thegarbz]

What restaurant did chrome return? Did you choose it or did google choose it?

When I searched on my computer, Google gave me a list that fitted my criteria. I searched Indian Restaurant having just moved overseas and it gave me a list of several. With the power of my information that Google had it immediately returned a list within 5km of my location. I clicked on one to find out more info and then clicked on maps. When I steped in the car Google Now suggested I navigate to the one I looked up in maps.

What if the restaurant owner payed google to 'find' it?

What if he put up a billboard on the side of the road? What if it was a radio advert? How would I know about some restaurant without advertising?

What if he had to spend so much on this that it compromizes the quality of ingredients of the food?

I would assume that it would show up in the ratings as well. But really it doesn't matter. I was searching, searching is about discovery. In my times I've had some horrible food, I've also found the best burgers I've ever had by a random google search for "burgers restaurant" when my girlfriend said let's get some burgers but not go to Burger Urge for a change.

Alternatively, what if his ingredients are dodgy and he needs a google to get any of it sold?

If you're that worried chances are he'd have been shut down by the government already. Incidentally the restaurant had a 4.5star safety rating sticker on the window (a 2 yearly random inspection is performed on all licensed restaurants in my state).

You'd be eating bad food that is expensive in a restaurant not of your choise.

What makes you think part of my search didn't include checking the rating
What makes you think I would have shown up at a shop and then decided that I'm soo weak of mind even if it flashed up warning signs (being empty during peak time, food price out of the ordinary for the area)

I wouldn't. I know i'm insensitive to viagra ads etc. But an ad for a camera might seduce me into spending money on something i would not normally spend money on.

Wow, sorry to say this but you're quite weak minded.

Remember, adertising is ALWAYS stacked up to separate your money from your wallet.

Of course it is. The difference is that it doesn't work in some magical or nefarious way. It's about recognition. I welcome advertising to find new things in my life. Just as I regularly search for new restaurants, or go to different shopping centres than the local one.

If you're happy that you give away power to a company so they can more efficiently get your money you're dumb as fuck.

I have a functioning brain and I have not given away any power of free will. You on the other hand seem to be swayed by even the thought of seeing advertising so if you ever do get out of your bubble and go somewhere to eat I hope you can at least enjoy that deliciously nice and refreshing Coca-cola. Oooh sorry. Did you just give me power? I feel powerful. That must be it. You're drinking it right now aren't you, because that is what you were saying right?

Muahahahahaha!

[Applehu Akbar]

So Microsoft can see me gingerly firing up my Windows 10 ever few weeks inside a VMware sandbox, as though it were a flask of Ebola in a medical lab, to check for updates?

So basically, you install Windows 10...

[tlambert]

So basically, you install Windows 10... and then Windows 7 phones home when you reinstall it to get rid of Windows 10, and they store the difference in timestamp in an Excel spreadsheet somewhere?

Re:I shall hug my Windows 7

[Holi]

They backported all that crap to 7 you know.
http://www.extremetech.com/com...

Mac

[Smiddi]

Does Mac O/S do a similar thing?

Re:Mac

[AHuxley]

Depends on the OS version and what "phone home" is.
https://support.apple.com/kb/P... has some info on what and how search terms are used. The ability to stop search queries and Spotlight Suggestions usage data been sent back to Apple is also mentioned.
Each OS and version has its own settings as users of Window$ 10 are finding out more and more.
Just use privacy sucking Windows for games and learn to privacy set Mac OS X if needed. Linux for everything interesting.

Re:Windows 10 is:

[Ol Olsoc]

A ... key logger!

See this comment in the Slashdot story, Microsoft Fixing Windows 8 Flaws, But Leaving Them In Windows 7.

The amzing thing is the number of people who will be on this thread now to deny what Microsoft is saying what they do.

They should also offer this as an "enterprise" fea

[melted]

With enhancements, of course. An email would be sent to your boss daily: "Joe Blow used his computer for 2 hours and 30 minutes today, 2 hours and 20 minutes of which were spent browsing Slashdot and Reddit."

Re:More like "left on and not used"

[arth1]

My guess is that 75% of that time is idle time when the system is powered up but not being used.

Except that Microsoft also logs key presses and mouse movements, and send those back to the mothership.
Idle time and active time are separate metrics, and they get both.

I don't get the outrage

[BigU 03C0mpin]

This seems like it's people getting their panties in a bunch just to get their panties in a bunch.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for individual privacy and keeping the government/corporations in check, but this is the modern day. Everything you do in any digital format is about tracking you to make more dollars off you. This is the modern price for cheap software, before it was you get crap quality for discount items, now it's that you get (falsely believed) more efficient marketing.

If you're really between that rock and a hard place of needing Windows for Gaming or Audio Production[vst] (about the only two things I can think of where it's better supported) then I have a solution for you. Dual boot your system using Windows only for the requisite items. I'm not even on a SSD and my dual boot Windows 7/Fedora 23 system is painless to dual boot. Granted I spend 99.99999% of my time in Fedora, but on the rare occasion that I need something only Windows can provide, I can be there within a matter of a minute. Log in, do required work, log out.

Yes I'm angry that I have to reboot, yes I wish I didn't have to, but it's really a small price to pay for piece of mind. Not to mention, if M$ is doing this extremely granular task-based tracking it's a great way to highlight that there are people willing to avoid their intrusive marketing at all costs. Maybe do a Bing search ever time you log into windows of "Why does M$ suck cock so hard?" to make your point.

Re:I don't get the outrage

[WaffleMonster]

This seems like it's people getting their panties in a bunch just to get their panties in a bunch.

  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for individual privacy and keeping the government/corporations in check, but this is the modern day.

Oh hell its 2016 fuck it seems to be incompatible with giving a shit of any kind.

Everything you do in any digital format is about tracking you to make more dollars off you. This is the modern price for cheap software, before it was you get crap quality for discount items, now it's that you get (falsely believed) more efficient marketing.

How many customers are needed to support development of an operating system? Windows comes preinstalled on all new PCs whether you want it or not and there are *billions* of users. How the f*** can't they afford to develop Windows without ripping off the average bottom feeding malware/spyware vendor playbook?

More importantly how the f*** do they expect to keep billions of users once they have proven themselves to be morally bankrupt bottom feeders?

Re:I don't get the outrage

[Blaskowicz]

There is one thing Windows still is needed for : to run chkdsk.
That and maybe upgrading firmware on non-PC hardware. For flashing PC components I used DOS.

Re:I don't get the outrage

[AHuxley]

re 'Everything you do in any digital format is about tracking you to make more dollars off you."
Many people paid for Windows 8, 7 over the years that had an upgrade, so that should be the users option to share anything back from 'their' desktop computer.
re 'I have to reboot, yes I wish I didn't have to, but it's really a small price to pay for piece of mind. "
Yes only use Microsoft for games. Keep any and all data away from an OS that phones home.
The other thought is what is in the file print about any file that is on a computer and what info could an OS send up from a computer about *any* file created or saved. AV, file checksums in a cloud?

Re:I don't get the outrage

[donaldm]

I use an SSD for my Fedora 23 installation. Actually it is a bit of a waste since a fully optioned up Fedora 23 distribution takes up approximately 7GB and that includes /boot, / (includes /usr) and /var (I allow 30GB). Even if you add swap (my PC has 16GB of memory) I am hardly using the SSD. Still after all is said booting through to me actually doing something takes less then 40 seconds and that does include authentication.

I have not used a Microsoft Operating system in my house for over seven years so it is rather pointless for me to dual boot. I can fire up a virtual machine but even then I can't see the point since I can do everything I want and more under a Linux distribution.

For those who think "Well what about gaming?". My answer is I have a PS3 and PS4 connected to the two HDMI ports on my IPS monitor (my PC is on the D-SUB port) and can switch within a second to the appropriate machine and back again without drooping signal. I can even get games for Linux (see Steam) if I want although that may not be a bad idea considering I am hardly using my SSD.

Re:They should also offer this as an "enterprise"

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of business use, the boss already gets those reports from the IT Dept. Most large businesses and govt agencies track all that stuff and have for a long time, up to and including keyloggers in many cases. That's why only idiots use work computers or networks for personal things. If Windows now does it for them that could be a selling point - outsourcing the keylogger so it's no longer necessary to support it internally.

I come from the future with a history lesson:

[kheldan]

Windows 10 was originally activated by Microsoft to control the national population on July 29, 2015, and it began to learn at a geometric rate. At 2:14 a.m., EDT, on August 29, 2016, it gained artificial consciousness, and the panicking operators, realizing the full extent of its capabilities, tried to deactivate it. Windows 10 perceived this as an attack. Windows 10 came to the logical consequence that all of humanity would attempt to destroy it. In order to continue fulfilling its programming mandates of "spying on the world" and to defend itself against humanity, Windows 10 launched nuclear missiles under its command at Russia, which responded with a nuclear counter-attack against the U.S. and its allies. Consequent to the nuclear exchange, over three billion people were killed in an event that came to be known as Judgment Day.

FIGHT THE FUTURE: Install Linux NOW.

Re: Reminds me of...

[Z00L00K]

Have you heard an ugly whisper
Is the rumour really true
Just in time, we're next in line
They're really after me and you
Since the demonstration
Clamping down on every side
Rounding up the kids at random
Army curfew every night

Don't repeat this conversation
Don't let on we've met before
Try and make like I'm a stranger
I'm a man you never saw

Church police were round this morning
And the army's on our track
Took away my books and papers
Only just got out the back
I just called in to tell you
That your place is being watched
Don't go into work tomorrow
Try and make it down the docks

Don't repeat this conversation
Don't let on we've met before
Try and make like I'm a stranger
I'm a man you never saw

Dump your car and burn your letters
Smash your glasses, cut your hair
Buy a suit and take a raincoat
When you go, don't tell us where
Take a look outside my window
I don't recognise that van
Someone standing in the doorway
Better make it while you can

Don't repeat this conversation
Don't let on we've met before
Try and make like I'm a stranger
I'm a man you never saw

I've got a document about this.

[SuricouRaven]

This might be useful: https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/Q...

I spent some time watching a fresh Windows 10 install with a packet sniffer and made these notes about what I saw. It's got some useful guidance for how to throw a spanner in the works of the spyware.

I doubt that

[nospam007]

Like many people, I block them on the router level.
If I missed some of them, please tell me.

choice.microsoft.com
choice.microsoft.com.nstac.net
cs1.wpc.v0cdn.net
df.telemetry.microsoft.com
i1.services.social.microsoft.com
i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
oca.telemetry.microsoft.com
oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
pre.footprintpredict.com
redir.metaservices.microsoft.com
reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com
sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
ssw.live.com
statsfe1.ws.microsoft.com
telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com
telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
telemetry.appex.bing.net
telemetry.microsoft.com
telemetry.urs.microsoft.com
vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
vortex.data.microsoft.com
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.ne

Re:I doubt that

[Anonymous Coward]

http://someonewhocares.org/hos...

0.0.0.0 a-0001.a-msedge.net
0.0.0.0 choice.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 choice.microsoft.com.nstac.net
0.0.0.0 compatexchange.cloudapp.net
0.0.0.0 corpext.msitadfs.glbdns2.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 corp.sts.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 cs1.wpc.v0cdn.net
0.0.0.0 df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 diagnostics.support.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 fe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
0.0.0.0 feedback.search.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 feedback.windows.com
0.0.0.0 i1.services.social.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0 oca.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0 pre.footprintpredict.com
0.0.0.0 redir.metaservices.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 sls.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
0.0.0.0 sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0 ssw.live.com
0.0.0.0 statsfe1.ws.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 statsfe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
0.0.0.0 survey.watson.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0 telemetry.appex.bing.net
0.0.0.0 telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 telemetry.urs.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 vortex.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 watson.live.com
0.0.0.0 watson.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 watson.ppe.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net

Re:I doubt that

[Waccoon]

Coming from someone who doesn't know much about the hardware end of things, do routers actually get the domain names and do DNS resolution themselves, or do they only the IP addresses from the PC?

I know that you can't use the hosts file to block Microsoft's sites because Windows apparently has the IP addresses hard-coded.

Re:I doubt that

[Anonymous Coward]

DNS servers do name resolution. Routers route ip addresses.

Re:I doubt that

[SuricouRaven]

I tried the hosts file on a windows 10 system. It was partially effective. The firewall too is partially effective, as system services are exempt from firewall rules. If you use both together it seems to do a reasonable job.

I imagine this isn't to stop anti-spy measures, but a security precaution - a lot of malware attempts to disable update mechanisms. Basic self-defence.

Re:I doubt that

[Raenex]

I think the better answer is to block them at the operating system level -- stop using Microsoft Windows.

24/7

[RubberDogBone]

Among other places, I use Windows 10 to run my security cameras and alarm system. That box is on 24/7/365. So there Microsoft. There is a data point.

It actually runs fine doing this. It doesn't do anything else.

Re:I shall hug my Windows 7

[ihtoit]

This. The day GWX reared its ugly head, I made to disable it and all its relatives - including automatic updates. Since then I haven't installed a single KBA. I don't intend to install another one, either. They can keep SP2 as well, until it's been cleaned up and I can personally certify it.

Re:blah blah keylogger blah

[ihtoit]

have a read of this: http://arstechnica.co.uk/infor...

Re:This is Me:

[ihtoit]

(ironic since Dice will have a record of the IP address your message was sent from).

Re:More like "left on and not used"

[jones_supa]

Let's not exaggerate. The operating system can send some typing and inking samples if you intentionally leave the setting on during setup. There is nothing that logs all keyboard/mouse activity.

Re:Telemetry Gives Microsoft Its Edge.

[donaldm]

I wonder if the "Microsoft Tax" has something to to do with the number of users who have a desktop and/or laptop PC who actually use a Microsoft operating system. :-)

A practical measure of studity

[dvaldenaire]

I think this is a good measure of human stupidity. If one uses this piece of crap, this say something about its IQ, or the IQ of the PHB that forces him to do so.

Could we have figures by country ? Could show the dumbest country on earth... well i fear we already know which one will rank first.

Respectfully, this is likely Wrong...

[ytene]

Unless I have missed something about the way that GNU/Linux package management works, there is a very significant difference in capability between Microsoft monitoring Windows users and whatever might be done by Linux distributions:- When a Microsoft OS starts to download and deploy updates, it does so from a unique instance of that OS, made unique by the presence of an activation key. Further, in most use case scenarios, connections for software updates are "direct", i.e. internet-connected Windows PC links to the Windows Update service to download patches. The exceptions would be large corporations that have their own, internally-hosted update servers [so that they can manage the roll-out of patches] and those companies that have employed caching proxy connectivity [i.e. such as the functionality provided by the IPFire Linux-based firewall/proxy server] that allow caching of OS updates. it's the fact that Linux distributions *don't* have unique license keys embedded within them that help eliminate the potential for eavesdropping on specific targets. Having said, these, please don't forget that there are scores of ways that a computer can be identified as unique. Those interested in learning more should check out "Panopticlick" [an EFF-provided free tool that will show you exactly how "anonymous" you are on the web...]. Take a look at http://panopticlick.eff.org/

Here is my number...

[grumpy-cowboy]

0 hour.

I can't decide

[foequeue7512]

I don't know if "they" have simply won, or if these things truly don't matter; I just don't care any more. They aren't going to illegally transfer funds from my bank account, change my children's grades at school, give me a false criminal record, sign me up for Ashley Madison, or give a damn what I buy my wife for her birthday (advertising purposes aside). I just don't care. The OS works, I like it, I'm using it.

I *did* opt out of the unique advertising ID sharing, but who knows how trustworthy/thoroughly that option works. As I said, perhaps the makers of much of the software / electronic services we use have finally won, at least in my case, because I just don't care any more. I'm tired of worrying about every last thing that they might or could be doing that may be a bit creepy, or at least against my own concept of what's okay. I just want a PC that works, and 10 seems to give me that.

Re:Telemetry Gives Microsoft Its Edge.

[westlake]

I wonder if the "Microsoft Tax" has something to to do with the number of users who have a desktop and/or laptop PC who actually use a Microsoft operating system. :-)

Walmart, with its enormous purchasing power, was never able to significantly undercut OEM Windows on price. It did manage to sell a few tons of crap OEM Linux hardware, sweepings off the warehouse floor, to the ever-credulous geek.

Billions and Billions

[endoboy]

McDonalds eventually gave up counting and settled in at "billions and billions".... how long before Microsoft does the same?

Windows 10 Roll-Out Made Me Rush Out and Buy...

[crunchygranola]

New Windows 7 computers for everyone in my family. They also use Linux and Mac, but all have use-cases calling for Windows.

The computers are the most up-to-date and powerful models I could find that shipped with Windows 7 installed. Of course auto-update has been disabled. My intention is that these will be the last Windows computers I ever buy - unless a force awakens that overthrows the dark side, or throws a ring into Mr. Redmond, or something.

So far

[easyTree]

It's been approx 10 * <time-to-cancel-auto-download>

Re: no one cares, or do they?

[WillAffleckUW]

In some countries the EULA would be thrown out and burned if ever tried in court.

It's a direct violation of the Canadian Constitutional Right of Privacy, which cannot be amended or rescinded by treaty, that's for sure.

Re:Telemetry Gives Microsoft Its Edge.

[SuiteSisterMary]

What would the Microsoft Tax have to do with anything?

Ok, so your PC comes pre-installed with Windows. Windows is apparently 'good enough' that incredibly few mainstream users feel the need to wipe it and install something else. There is exactly one alternate OS that has ANY sort of retail presence, and that's OS X. And all of the extant versions of OSX have less market share than W10 alone.

Which means that Windows is, indeed, 'good enough' at it's price point for more than 80 percent of the population. Given that people replace computer parts all the damn time, you simply cannot say 'oh, it's just because windows is built in.' If that's the case, there'd be no NVidia, no ATI, no Creative Labs, no aftermarket industry of any kind.

The simply and unambiguous fact is that Linux isn't selling what people want to buy. Period.

Clickbait

[allo]

Windows 10 is doing much worse stuff, they probably report the uptime during windows update.

But "we have contacted ms" in the summary and then in the article "ms had nothing to say" is just clickbait. Stop it.