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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

#51

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.

Having that choice only be available to 'real' customers, while giving personal users no choice, is bad.

You've misread my comment if you think I'm defending the practice. Merely saying it's a long established standard practice for MS.

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

#52
post #33
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS is the new "new" Microsoft.

Nope, there have been multiple Microsoft's that have been in conflict with each other for years.

That's probably true on some level, but from the outside, M$ now is M$ then.

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

#53
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I buy a computer and/or pay Microsoft money, I think it's reasonable for me to expect my computer to do what I'd like it to do (and only what I'd like it to do). The problem isn't data-driven design, it's how the data is being collected. I'd be annoyed if my home builder occasionally came through my house while I was gone in an attempt to analyze how I was arranging furniture and using my space. They could, undoub…

I don't understand why you think you're entitled to that expectation. If you don't like what Windows does, buy an OS from someone else.

I'm not saying that I'm entitled to an exception (and do use desktop Linux and macOS in any situation that allows me such a choice, gaming and Office usage being my primary barriers - and I'll leave aside whatever Apple may be doing with my usage statistics there, which probabally isn't great).

Rather, the comment that I'm replying to infers that there is nothing wrong with what Microsoft is doing because they are using all of this data for some sort of Good Reason, and I personally think that their methods of data collection are shady enough to make whatever good they may be doing with that data irrelevant.

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

#54
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely understand why this is the default behavior, but there should be an "I'm not a normie" switch somewhere that allows me to control my experience. The Pro edition was originally that way, but as I understand it this is no longer the case and is similarly controlling.

>but there should be an "I'm not a normie" switch somewhere... Which will then summarily be used by malware authors and we're back we started.

I wish I could upvote this about 30 times. For every real Windows security expert slash power user in the wild, there's about 30 pimple-encrusted besotted teenagers out there who just want to run some warez on their parent's computer and will click whatever setting, run whatever software and make whatever Registry edits are necessary to get the game their parents won't buy them up and running.

The typical home user is not a sysadmin, doesn't want to be a sysadmin and will not put in the effort to be a sysadmin. Microsoft is building Windows to be safe for them. This is a net good for all of us. And underneith it all, Windows is still Windows, which puts it miles ahead of its real competitors (Android, iOS and I guess ChromeOS) in terms of allowing users to really own their device.

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

#55
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I buy a computer and/or pay Microsoft money, I think it's reasonable for me to expect my computer to do what I'd like it to do (and only what I'd like it to do). The problem isn't data-driven design, it's how the data is being collected. I'd be annoyed if my home builder occasionally came through my house while I was gone in an attempt to analyze how I was arranging furniture and using my space. They could, undoub…

>I'd be annoyed if my home builder occasionally came through my house while I was gone in an attempt to analyze how I was arranging furniture and using my space. They could, undoubtedly, use that data to better their future work - but I'd still feel violated. Too bad. If you sign a contract with your builder allowing him to do this, or you sign a contract allowing him to change your agreement and force new terms on y…

> Too bad. If you sign a contract with your builder allowing him to do this

Did we? There's a quite a bunch of lawsuits going on right now regarding that topic.

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

#56
Framed this way, I cant believe there is no class action lawsuit. I remember my mother in law said she was being asked to upgrade from 8.1. She said she didn't want to. I actually willingly installed win 10, and was across the country. She then called me one day and said "windows 10 installed anyway and I clicked the X to get out of it". At the time I just chalked it up to user error, but thanks MS, now I owe my mother in law an apology.

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

#58
post #37

Microsoft paid $10k [1] to one single count of this deceiving practice and decided to settle not to pursue further. Me and my young children see Transvaginal Mesh Implants class action lawsuit invitation few times a day for probably a year now on multitude of national TV stations. When will some tech-literate lawyer start gathering evidence to file a class action lawsuit over what MS just did?? [1] http://www.theverg…

The EULA you agree to during Windows 10 installation prohibits class action lawsuits, but Windows 7 should be fair game...

Is it really an End User License Agreement when Microsoft worked hard to circumvent your desire not to have Windows 10 in the first place. I would think that the change to the red close this box X would be somewhere in exhibit A to F in any class action.

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

#59
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely understand why this is the default behavior, but there should be an "I'm not a normie" switch somewhere that allows me to control my experience. The Pro edition was originally that way, but as I understand it this is no longer the case and is similarly controlling.

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…

> Note: Windows Defender may report the EXE as a trojan (Win32/Pocyx.C!cl), and may therefore prevent you from extracting the EXE to anywhere on your computer. Set up an exclusion in Settings > Update & Security > Windows Defender > Exclusions by adding the folder you intend to extract the EXE to.

I swear, it seems like people are okay with the idea of everyone BUT Microsoft have access to all their personal information on their PCs. Why would anyone install software that has this kind of recklessness in the official documentation?

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

#60
post #33
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS is the new "new" Microsoft.

Nope, there have been multiple Microsoft's that have been in conflict with each other for years.

They are large, they contain multitudes.
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