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With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

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Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#111

Post by mitm2mitm »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #98

I think that Microsoft could fix this fairly easily: make an easy opt out for Cortana and telemetry, offer more control over security options. I totally sympathize with Microsoft for wanting everyone to be on Windows 10, with continuous updates (security and otherwise). Better for them and long term probably better for users. I don't use OS X anymore but when I did, I liked always being at the latest update. Except f…

I wouldn't mind paying twice the price of Windows 10 Pro if I could select what I want installed and the OS respected that. No telemetry, no Cortana, no Windows Stores apps if I need to have a MS account. No missclick-based features (you click yes and suddenly your local account is now an online account).

Since I'm stuck with this crap forever (Adobe, Office, games, etc) at least let me pay you not spy on me and install your crapware. And let ME control MY PC.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#112

Post by tomswartz07 »

graycat wrote: post #96
ghostly_s wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you've listed is addressable by enterprise users in an AD environment. I.E., Microsoft's real customers. Using a copy of Windows 10 with no Cortana, Auto-updates, Groove, or Windows Defender right now.

What is "AD environment"? Sounds like maybe what I want. I want no updates or changes of any kind without my knowledge. Indeed, before any change, I want to backup the relevant boot partition so that I can restore it if any changes are harmful or doubtful. For Cortana, when I looked at it, everything it has I have a lot better with just my favorite programmable text editor and a few simple macros. Uh, to reply, I hav…

An AD environment refers to Active Directory; typically a setup used in large corporations with 100's of users and accounts.

This is wayyyyy overkill for a home user.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#113

Post by dman »

jefe_ wrote: post #110
dman wrote: post #57

I have lost work on Windows 10 because it doesnt seem possible to not have it restart after an update. This behavior being a default from the Windows "Professional Edition" boggles my mind.

The automatic update restarts are the worst. Followed guide here and have not come into work with a restarted computer since (used Method 3): http://www.redmondpie.com/disable-turn-off-automatic-updates...

Thanks - just enabled this and will see how things go.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#114

Post by milcron »

graycat wrote: post #93
jakebasile wrote: post #17

I upgraded willingly so the deceptive upgrade practices, while deplorable, didn't really affect me. What does affect me is that Microsoft refuses to let me control my computer. - If you turn off Windows Defender Real Time Protection it explicitly tells you "You can turn this off, but if it's off for a while we'll turn it back on". It turns itself on upon next reboot, it seems. - You can't turn off Windows Update. It…

What is UWP?

The logical continuation of WinRT. "Store" apps that run identically on Windows 10 Desktop, Phone, IoT, etc. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get-started/uni...

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#115

Post by mitm2mitm »

jakebasile wrote: post #69
jrapdx3 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long story, but my Surface Pro 2 wound up with Win10 Pro. The Pro version is slightly more configurable for privacy than Home, but only the Enterprise version can completely turn off the telemetry and so on. Of course Enterprise is not easily available to end-users and it is expensive. There are some utilities available that are supposed to improve the privacy/security of Win10 installations, e.g., [0]. My wife kept…

Yes I'm strongly considering downgrading to 8.1. It's time for a fresh install anyways. I dread when that goes EOL because I'll have no where else to turn but whatever Windows is out at the time.

What you're going to do when a telemetry patch comes bundled with a security one? MS just announced they are doing updates in bulk for 7 and 8.1.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#117

Post by spyder »

kyberias wrote: post #20
0xmohit wrote: post #2

Some highlights: Microsoft installed an app in users’ system trays advertising the free upgrade to Windows 10. Not satisfied, the company eventually made Windows 10 a recommended update so users receiving critical security updates were now also downloading an entirely new operating system onto their machines without their knowledge. This is essentially equivalent to saying: You've been running whatever version of Win…

> Specifically, when prompted with a Windows 10 update, if the > user chose to decline it by hitting the ‘X’ in the upper right > hand corner, Microsoft interpreted that as consent to download > Windows 10. So what? I clicked that X multiple times and it didn't _install_. It may have _downloaded_, I'm not sure, but did not install.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/03/windows_10_upgrade_s...

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_i...

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#118

Post by wlesieutre »

native wrote: post #25

Not shocking. I'm writing this out of my Ubuntu partition and I'm running Windows 10, forced down my throat to begin with, and it just does what it wants when it wants to. I've had times when I've gone for a break and my laptop has rebooted and installing some updates I wasn't even aware of. And I'm running Windows out of sheer necessity for the time being because I need Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.. But Microsoft ha…

I was thinking of dual booting and relegating Windows to gaming, have you had any trouble with your setup? Especially with Windows updates messing up the boot settings or wiping partitions that they shouldn't?

Seems particularly risky now that MS is pushing out regular "major updates" like the anniversary update, which get handled like a system reinstall.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#119

Post by graycat »

y4mi wrote: post #109
graycat wrote: post #90

Gb abbreviates gigabit or gigabyte? What does GB abbreviate? ===================== In update: PLEASE stop down voting me for my simple, nice, courteous reminder to the person who wrote the post I replied to. I was NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT ignorant of the meanings of Gb versus GB and was NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT asking for a tutorial on the difference. I am not an ignorant newby on HN knowing too little to be posting here. Just w…

G stands for giga, exactly 1000 units. the general understanding is 1024, but this would technically be a Gibi- (abbreviated to GiB or Gib) the small b stands for bit, which is an eighth of a byte. a big B stands for byte. So a GB is exactly 1000 bytes, or 8000 bit

> G stands for giga, exactly 1000 units.

Actually that is the meaning of K, as in Kb or KB. Giga is not for "1000 units" but for 1 bilion "units" or, for the power of 2 approximation 2^30 = 1,073,741,824.

I was just trying to be nice to the person who wrote the post I responded to.

It seemed to me that their post needed to distinguish between Gb, gigabit, and GB, gigabyte. Not strictly, of course, because in principle the post could have been correct with either Gb or GB. But usually communications speeds are in terms of bits, and file sizes in terms of bytes. So, monthly download limits are commonly in terms of bits or bytes -- i can't say. But the file sizes downloaded for Windows 10 are likely usually in terms of bytes. So, if Windows 10 needs 10 billion bytes, then that is 10 GB. Then that would need communications of about 80 Gb (less in case of data compression; more for overhead for TCP/IP, etc.). Or 10 Gb would be only 1.25 GB which seems small for copy or full update of Windows 10.

So, net, I was guessing that the Windows 10 size would be about 10 GB, not 10 Gb. Then for the communications limit, that could be in Gb or GB.

That is, I was responding to

> My 4Gb per month download limit doesn't like secret 10Gb downloads, that's what.

So, for Windows 10, the 10Gb should likely be 10 GB? Right? For the 4Gb, that might be correct but then it is only about 0.5 GB.

Yes, currently and at least back to IBM System/360, on systems from IBM, DEC VAX, Prime, Data General, Intel, and AMD, nearly always a byte has been 8 bits.

Yes, the original ASCII character set needed only 7 bits; the DEC PDP 10 had 36 bit words, and DEC commonly stored 5 ASCII characters in each word.

Communications speeds are commonly in terms of bits per second, and maybe communications data limits are also in terms of bits. File sizes are commonly in terms of bytes. So, maybe for communications, say Gb, and for file sizes, say GB.

Giga abbreviates 1 billion or 2^30 = 1,073,741,824.

Apparently some reader got totally torqued at me for trying to be nice. I was not asking for a tutorial on Gb versus GB but was trying nicely to suggest to the writer of the post I responded to that maybe they were not fully careful in using Gb versus GB.

MOD: I'm being attacked for no good reason. Please intervene and clean up these attacks.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#120

Post by bitL »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #63
jakebasile wrote: post #17

I upgraded willingly so the deceptive upgrade practices, while deplorable, didn't really affect me. What does affect me is that Microsoft refuses to let me control my computer. - If you turn off Windows Defender Real Time Protection it explicitly tells you "You can turn this off, but if it's off for a while we'll turn it back on". It turns itself on upon next reboot, it seems. - You can't turn off Windows Update. It…

I see so many people stuck in the gaming situation and there are no practical solutions, the only way out involves an entire industry changing direction together. I'd like to see a video card manufacturer (probably AMD since they seem to be the underdog in a 2 dog fight) start a Linux-first campaign, even if it's only for select cards.

I am running SteamOS on Zotac NEN with currently 39 AAA games and frankly barely spend any time on Windows for gaming, and prefer buying games that have announced SteamOS support. I also have Win 7 & Win 10 on that computer just in case I need it for Uplay/Origin stuff or DX12-only (1TB M.2 SSD with 500GB for SteamOS, 250GB for either Win 7 and Win 10 and 2TB HDD for storage). Surprisingly, everything works just fine (I had one complete freeze in the past few months). It can work nicely even in 4K in Tomb Raider, GRID Autosport or Metro, though on lower details. Frankly, I know I can get 25% more fps on Windows, but what difference would it make for me to run GRID at 120fps when it runs on 90fps already? And Linux can only get better so why sticking to Windows?
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