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Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

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Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#201

Post by pgreenwood »

erentz wrote: post #180
koyote wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things that any semi-power user will notice and get angry at: * Needing internet and a microsoft account to install the OS * Start menu now requiring two clicks to get to programs list * Right-click requiring two clicks to get to the options you most likely want to use (e.g. 7z unzip or opening in a specific program) * Task manager being slow and laggy * Random ads asking you to install a game pop up in the noti…

> And then there's little bugs everywhere that just grind away at you on a daily basis: When I create a new folder or file in a directory in explorer it hangs for a bit and doesn’t show up unless I click refresh. Ditto if I save a file to a directory that is open in explorer. Thinking about trying to get a copy of Win 10 IoT LTSC instead at this point.

The Win 10 IoT LTSC iso is on archive.org (from microsoft)

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#202

Post by bpye »

edg5000 wrote: post #167
repiret wrote: post #41

I agree with all of the articles points except for the first one: TPM and Secure Boot do not reduce user choice or promote state or corporate surveillance. If you want to be able to prevent root kits you need secure boot, and if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM; or you need substantially similar alternatives. I would s…

> if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM I had a Win 7 system and just entered a password on boot, this decrypted the disk. It was supported without mods or TPM (maybe some registry tweaks though). On Ubuntu I do the same, no need for TPM. Am I missing something? My disk is encrypted. If they take it apart, they need my p…

> Am I missing something? My disk is encrypted. If they take it apart, they need my password to crack the encryption.

You’re not protected from an evil maid attack. An attacker with physical access could make your device boot their own payload to capture your encryption key and install a rootkit.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#203

Post by morshu9001 »

Loughla wrote: post #19
trinsic2 wrote: post #2

I am a IT solutions provider for the public and small business. I think the changes to Windows 11 is gearing up to work with organizations to create a surveillance state. So I have to decided to promote Linux over Windows for computers I build for customers. If you have any suggestions on how I can make this promotion, better let me know.

Choose the right distro and automate updates of possible. Mint is the softest landing for Windows users. But they never ever ever ever update anything on their own. Ever. Forever.

Mint still being on Xorg sounds like a rough ride when it inevitably goes to Wayland, which seems to be the more common default elsewhere.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#204

Post by toast0 »

tombert wrote: post #128

Even if I didn't give a shit about the privacy stuff, I would like to just reiterate something I said a few days ago. My mom got an automatic update to Windows 11, and it bricked her computer. It wouldn't boot; it would spin and then say it needed to go into repair mode, and then doing repair mode didn't do anything. My initial thought was that the disk was hosed, but of course my parents had a bunch of priceless doc…

> Why the hell isn't there any kind of "Live USB" version of Windows? I mean officially, not some hacked thing? Why is the best way to fix Windows to use Linux?

The windows installer image includes repair tools (which probably wouldn't work much better than the automatic repair), and you can get a command prompt in there and do whatever.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#205

Post by bee_rider »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #101
magarnicle wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Windows of 15 years ago, maybe. Using Ubuntu now does not feel anywhere near as bad as using current Windows.

You may feel so right now, but wait until it's time to do a dist-upgrade... https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/02/05/done-with-ubuntu/

I switched from Arch to Ubuntu a while ago (switching from desktop to laptop, thought the batteries-included experience would be easier). I had, I want to say, a decade old (maybe more like 7 years) Arch install… never experienced a computer thing more annoying than updating Ubuntu.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#206

Post by dataflow »

IlikeKitties wrote: post #87
heavyset_go wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would say that specifically with Secure Boot, Microsoft actually promoted user choice: A Windows Logo compliant PC needs to have Microsoft's root of trust installed by default. Microsoft could have stopped there, but they didn't. This was not the case with the initial rollout of Secure Boot, it was combined with locked BIOS to lock PCs so that they could only boot Windows 8 on some devices. This was the case on W…

> There is also a real potential for abusing TPMs or cryptographic co-processors to enforce remote attestation. People here REALLY need to start understanding this issue. Remote Attestation is the kind of tech that if abused will end free computing over night.

> People here REALLY need to start understanding this issue.

The idea that understanding is the problem feels like a fallacy. People need to upgrade hardware, and when all chips contain such functionality, consumers won't have a choice of alternatives. What you want is legislation (or a dominant competitor lacking such features, which doesn't exist).

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#207

Post by glaucon »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #199
glaucon wrote: post #126

It seems to me that he's missed Teams off his list of "where this might not work for you" situations. A lot more than half my money comes from clients who know of nothing else. I'm not pleased about this, but it's another part of their grip on their more-or-less monopoly.

I would also say that the desktop version of Microsoft Outlook is much better than the web app. Can you even drag and drop emails to attach them from the web app? I never tried it. (It always bothers me that I cannot do it in Gmail. Attached emails are so common in the business world.) Also: Almost all replacements for Excel are much worse, and incompatible with existing VBA macros that run a lot of HR, accounting, b…

| Regarding Teams desktop app vs web app: Is there a big difference? I don't have experience with the web app.

I seem to recall : it would only work on Edge; and you couldn't share your screen in the web environment.

I say "only work on Edge" but, to be fair, it's possible I may not have tried Chrome as I never use it. It didn't work on Firefox.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#208

Post by danparsonson »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #133
socalgal2 wrote: post #117

I'm sure I will regret this, something will change and I'll be "F.U. Win11!". But, I'm on Windows 11 Pro (upgraded from Windows 10 Pro) and I have barely noticed a difference. Maybe because it's Windows Pro, not Home? Maybe because I have 2 profiles. The one I used to install it which required a microsoft account, and a separate, local only account which is the one I use always. I can't remember the last time I had t…

It just sounds as if you haven't reached whatever your capacity is for "having to setup the OS to get out of your way". And that's a personal choice for everyone. Windows 10 eventually breached my capacity due to the number of defaults I had to change post installation, and then often, again, post-patch/update. This was very soon after Windows 10 was released, and I already didn't like Windows 8's hybrid monstrosity…

Forced updates were the last straw for me - after several iterations of using my machine until late, then being forced to let it update itself for another 30-60 minutes when I just wanted to switch everything off and go to bed, and noting that Proton made almost every game playable on Linux (thanks Valve).... the switch was a no-brainer.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#209

Post by morshu9001 »

socalgal2 wrote: post #117

I'm sure I will regret this, something will change and I'll be "F.U. Win11!". But, I'm on Windows 11 Pro (upgraded from Windows 10 Pro) and I have barely noticed a difference. Maybe because it's Windows Pro, not Home? Maybe because I have 2 profiles. The one I used to install it which required a microsoft account, and a separate, local only account which is the one I use always. I can't remember the last time I had t…

Might have to wait and see. I recently installed Win10 on my spare PC that previously had Ubuntu. Thought it was remarkably clean, but then the nagging about backups etc started coming.

The PC also had Win10 before Ubuntu, and I remember that being way worse because of the constant updates which always triggered more nags and resetting my default browser.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#210

Post by [deleted] »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #133
socalgal2 wrote: post #117

I'm sure I will regret this, something will change and I'll be "F.U. Win11!". But, I'm on Windows 11 Pro (upgraded from Windows 10 Pro) and I have barely noticed a difference. Maybe because it's Windows Pro, not Home? Maybe because I have 2 profiles. The one I used to install it which required a microsoft account, and a separate, local only account which is the one I use always. I can't remember the last time I had t…

It just sounds as if you haven't reached whatever your capacity is for "having to setup the OS to get out of your way". And that's a personal choice for everyone. Windows 10 eventually breached my capacity due to the number of defaults I had to change post installation, and then often, again, post-patch/update. This was very soon after Windows 10 was released, and I already didn't like Windows 8's hybrid monstrosity…

[deleted]
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