On the other hand I think this will drive people away from Windows and towards OS X and Ubuntu.
Oh right, there is no downside to this!
They already pushed too far. Was a life long Windows user, used at home for gamedev and Steam, chosen at work (mainly QA) because it's what I knew extensively, VS is great and it's what users used. Was literally the only Windows user in a sea of OS X machines at some companies.
Now? All my personal and work devices run Ubuntu or Arch. My partners devices now all run Ubuntu or Arch. Projects I'm planning that were going to be "Windows first" will now be "Linux first".
Sounds silly, but I was enjoying the progress Windows was making security-wise. From Vista to 7 and 7 to 8 (and even to 10) the "under-the-hood" part of Windows seemed to be making great strides in protecting the user, even if they were screwing up the UI.
But everything they've pulled with 10 have completely pushed me away from the platform. Adverts in my OS? The nagging? The "updates can be installed even if you really don't want them"? Phone-homeing I can't turn off at all with a consumer edition? I understand wanting to make it hard to turn it off so they can collect reliable stats or protect the consumer from themselves but as a technical user I want my OS to do exactly what I want it to do. MS completely killed that.
I think it's due to how much of it really does look like malice (or at least disrespect for computer-owners) rather than mere incompetence.
Also I need Remote Desktop Connection to do some contract work. I know other non-Windows remote desktop applications exist but I'm currently stuck with what their IT department will give me. :)
EDIT: Thinking more about the remote desktop connection. I could just use a Windows VM on Linux. Dang, that never crossed my mind before.
[1] http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/08/26/unity-comes-to-linux-exp...
In other words, win/win for security teams fighting botnets.
That makes little sense. If a machine is automatically installing Windows 10, it was already automatically installing security updates. Windows 10 won't make it and less "insecure" than it was with Windows 7.
But if it has, I'd like to know what they are. About all I've heard about Windows 10 are its privacy invasions and its attempts to take control away from its users.
That said, MS does tend to roll out major security architecture improvements between versions. Incremental updates are helpful, but new architectural defenses against malware happen with major revisions.
As a consequence, "old versions of windows" (though admittedly mostly XP) are one of the worst things about the internet right now. As someone who works in security, MS moving to the forced upgrade model that Chrome pioneered will solve one of my biggest headaches in the long run. I know that's selfish, and the tradeoffs for users may not be worth it, but man, old versions of Windows are the bane of my existence.
Anyway, as to specifics, the DEP and ASLR in Windows 7 were the big enhancements, but Windows 8.1 had better sandboxing features that are carried forward, and Windows 10 has improved encryption and authentication. Forcing people away from IE to Edge is huge. I probably can't do this topic justice in a comment, but if you're really interested in more info, lots of info can be found spread across several articles by just googling Windows+10+security.