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Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

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Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#21

Post by nickjj »

I would consider things like automatically searching Bing for typing anything into the Windows search bar a pretty annoying feature. Especially when 99% of the reason to use such a search is to find a local program or Windows setting to open.

Problem is with the 20.04 edition of Windows, there's no user friendly way to do turn that feature off.

Putting all of the privacy settings to the most restrictive values doesn't disable it, nor does turning off internet search in search in the policy editor. You have to dig around and create manually named registry keys. IMO that's unreasonable behavior.

But that makes you think there's likely dozens if not 100+ other things like that. I hope Windows tool makers don't stop uncovering these things.

I wonder if anyone will call out MS for having an option in the policy editor to disable internet search when using Windows search, while it doesn't actually disable it. What would the legal action be there? Maybe a GDPR violation since now the personal things I type into my computer are sent to Bing without my consent.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#22

Post by lostgame »

jeroenhd wrote: post #16

The website is down, but yeah, offering customised ISO files with Windows and some tools is clearly a breach of license. You can't just take a paid OS distribution, add some config and plonk it onto github. There's been people patching and customising Windows for many years, but most of the time that was done in the form of gaining an official ISO, patching it with a program on your computer and then using that to in…

I’m not sure, but is Windows 10 not slightly different from previous releases insofar as you can directly download the ISO for Windows 10?

Unless you had an MSDN subscription it was a little more difficult to grab an ISO back in the day.

Of course, it’s still illegal to modify and upload the modified version...but you’d think the patcher would be an even more obvious route than normal these days if it’s so easy to download an ISO.

I’m not a Windows person, could somebody explain this a little bit better for me?

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#23

Post by unicornfinder »

nickjj wrote: post #21

I would consider things like automatically searching Bing for typing anything into the Windows search bar a pretty annoying feature. Especially when 99% of the reason to use such a search is to find a local program or Windows setting to open. Problem is with the 20.04 edition of Windows, there's no user friendly way to do turn that feature off. Putting all of the privacy settings to the most restrictive values doesn'…

If memory serves the group policy setting does work but only on the Enterprise version of Windows 10.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#24

Post by unicornfinder »

lmilcin wrote: post #13
henearkr wrote: post #4

Microsoft hasn't changed after all... I used to like what they were doing with WSL, but now on the contrary it starts to worry me, because it can become an avenue of evil behavior against users/devs/open-source/...

Microsoft did change. But then it looked how Apple and Google did the same thing, successfully, and sailed away in terms of market share and now it wants to replicate the success. The thing is, I don't think it is going to succeed. The likely thing that is already happening is that power users are leaving Windows and once power users leave the platform will die.

From my perception the power users already left years ago. It's just that with WSL they're very slowly starting to come back.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#25

Post by dogma1138 »

alkonaut wrote: post #18

It's not quite clear what is published here. What copyrighted material is it that is accessed through somme kind of "circumvention" and what is the circumvention?

I’ve tested this OS a few times as an alternative for Kali/BBL for environments where Linux hosts would raise flags.

The distribution was a fully fledged ISO install of Windows 10 with the activation feature disabled.

I don’t think the authors here have a leg to stand on.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#26

Post by anonymfus »

> At first view, some may conclude that Ninjutsu OS amounts to a heavily modified yet pirated version of Windows 10. However, a video explaining how the software works suggests that users will actually need their own license for a genuine copy of Windows 10 to get the modifications up and running properly. Ninjutsu’s creator informs TF that’s indeed the case.

That is literally opposite of how it works. As Windows EULA does not give you rights to distribute derivative works, sharing practically any kind of modified Windows image is illegal, ever if you only change default desktop background image. But circumventing activation for yourself can actualy be legal in some specific scenarios.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#27

Post by qilo »

lostgame wrote: post #22
jeroenhd wrote: post #16

The website is down, but yeah, offering customised ISO files with Windows and some tools is clearly a breach of license. You can't just take a paid OS distribution, add some config and plonk it onto github. There's been people patching and customising Windows for many years, but most of the time that was done in the form of gaining an official ISO, patching it with a program on your computer and then using that to in…

I’m not sure, but is Windows 10 not slightly different from previous releases insofar as you can directly download the ISO for Windows 10? Unless you had an MSDN subscription it was a little more difficult to grab an ISO back in the day. Of course, it’s still illegal to modify and upload the modified version...but you’d think the patcher would be an even more obvious route than normal these days if it’s so easy to do…

Yes, now Microsoft allows everyone to download ISO.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#29

Post by nickjj »

unicornfinder wrote: post #23
nickjj wrote: post #21

I would consider things like automatically searching Bing for typing anything into the Windows search bar a pretty annoying feature. Especially when 99% of the reason to use such a search is to find a local program or Windows setting to open. Problem is with the 20.04 edition of Windows, there's no user friendly way to do turn that feature off. Putting all of the privacy settings to the most restrictive values doesn'…

If memory serves the group policy setting does work but only on the Enterprise version of Windows 10.

Right, but this should be on the purchase page of the OS. No one would know such a thing beforehand.

It's a combination of a purposeful lack of information and a sketchy UI decision because the option in the policy editor is there to interact with on the Pro edition of Windows. It should be at least greyed out like other Windows settings are when you can't use it for your edition of Windows.

You shouldn't have to pay $84+ / year (Enterprise edition) to disable having everything you type into the Windows search menu get searched on Bing. It used to be something you could turn off on all editions of Windows in earlier versions of Windows 10.

If MS were more open about user privacy, users wouldn't need to develop third party programs to discover and disable all of the traps MS lays in their OS to spy on folks.

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