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Microsoft Releases a Version of Windows 10 For the Chinese Government (techinasia.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the doing-more-for-the-Chinese-government dept.

Tech In Asia reports that Microsoft has completed their Windows 10 Chinese Government Edition, citing Caixin magazine's interview with Microsoft China's CEO. "Haupter told Caixin that it features fewer of Microsoft's consumer-targeted apps and services," the site reports, "while including more management and security controls, in accordance with the needs of China's government." It was back in December that Microsoft first announced their plans for this joint venture with the Chinese government. While Windows is popular in China's fast-growing market, "piracy of Microsoft's software runs rampant," reported PC World, adding that "in order to actually make money from Chinese consumers and businesses, Microsoft needs them to pay up." Update: 03/28 18:12 GMT by M : Slashdot understands that this supposed special edition of Windows 10 is not ready for the rollout yet.

7 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Lo and behold! by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Interestingly, Microsoft is also producing a version of Windows 10 for the US Government featuring "fewer of Microsoft's consumer-targeted apps and services while including more management and security controls" in accordance with the needs of the US government (I know, I work for the DoD). I'm sure that they will, for a fee, do the same for large corporate clients.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Lo and behold! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well I hope someone puts up a torrent of the damn thing. The only way I'd even remotely think about ever using Windows 10 is if I had the same copy DoD considers secure enough to use.

    2. Re:Lo and behold! by Pikoro · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If Microsoft is collecting anything

      If? 1.2 million datapoints collected from a Windows 10 install with all the privacy settings turned off which had only been online for 6 days: https://init.sh/?p=331

      --
      "Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
    3. Re:Lo and behold! by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 4, Funny

      Honestly, I will take one that reports telemetry to the Chinese govt, and not to microsoft or the DoD. Anyone got a torrent?

  2. Re:MSDN availability? by swb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What do you bet there's part of this agreement that requires Microsoft to NOT make it commercially available to anyone but PRC government-approved customers.

    This would provide whatever nominal security-through-obscurity value not having easy access to it would provide (admittedly small), but it would also give the Chinese government monopoly control over who could develop software for it. For all we know, it could have a built-in whitelist-only capability that only runs applications and drivers with signed with PRC keys.

    And it's probably only available in Chinese language editions, too.

  3. Microsoft Releasesnew Windows 10 For China by SeaFox · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now there are two versions of Windows 10.

    One watches everything your type and listens in on your conversations with the microphone, sending the information to a shadowy information gathering operation.
    The other ships with the UI already set to a two-byte character language.

  4. Microsoft control and security? by khz6955 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Haupter told Caixin that it features fewer of Microsoft's consumer-targeted apps and services .. while including more management and security controls, in accordance with the needs of China's government."

    If you don't want the Chinese Government or Microsoft telling you what to do with your own computer then move to Open Source Linux. Ubuntu