Curious what you want to remove in Windows 10. Not an evangelist, just set it up on a dual-boot refurb for a friend and thought the initial experience wasn't bad.
I clicked the Start Menu. Fully half of it was made up of flashing animated crap - things moving about, very colourful adverts, the actual things I wanted to do were obscured by it.
I tried a few machines. They did the same thing. Maybe it's a manufacturer default.
Hey, maybe it's customizable. I don't know. It just struck me as being so far from what I think of a computer as being - not a tool to be used, but a flashy, childish entertainment box, like a children's rainbow cake.
My ego betrays me at this point, I suppose. I don't understand how the engineers at Microsoft got to this point.
It reminds me a lot of the Xbox 360 dashboard. That was the point I left 'mainstream' video gaming - it felt like my hackery, fun world had turned into a world of consuming advertising, of subscribing, of being someone else's plaything. Perhaps it was always like that, and I was too young to see?
> I don't understand how the engineers at Microsoft got to this point.
It was likely the marketeers driving the engineers.
What I'd want to know about Windows 10 though, and Google seems not to deliver anything beyond bullshit articles on how to disable it or useless scaremongering blogspam - clearly enumerated and sourced list of information telemetry subsystem captures and sends back to mothership and what parts can be reliably disabled without resorting to shady third-party apps.
WRT disabling telemetry - probably the best way to go about it would be to set up a firewall or similar and try to kill all outgoing to microsoft.com. Turn it back on for updates and hope that they don't just send everything then, I guess. Disabling individual parts sounds like a losing game - you're running an MS kernel, if they want to do it they'll just do it.
Not really. You mentioned Linux, you should be able to right click.
> probably the best way to go about it would be to set up a firewall or similar and try to kill all outgoing to microsoft.com
It wouldn't be.
1. I don't want to kill updates. 2. I'm more interested in whether I should trust Microsoft. If the telemetry sends how many times I opened built-in whether app and such then I suppose I'm fine with that. I'm also fine with online searches in start menu if they can be turned off, as well as services related to Cortana if they can be turned off. I wouldn't be okay with Windows scanning my computer and sending telemetry on what third-party software I use or documents I view. There were articles on the internet that were later debunked, but I can't seem to find something well sourced on what exactly is going on beyond tutorials on how to turn various knobs.
Also, see: https://github.com/dfkt/win10-unfuck
For example, I can configure a VPN adapter in one Control Panel (Legacy) but I have to go to the other Control Panel (New) to connect or disconnect it or anything like that.