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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

I generally agree, but I wouldn't necessarily call Win10 a downgrade - it's definitely better than 8 (I would think twice about upgrading 7 as having Win7 means that you likely have a pretty old hardware).

I honestly don't understand what's going on. This looks like one of the most idiotic thing an IT company has ever done, and Microsoft doesn't care. They don't even try to explain it. And they fucked up big time - rarely any kind of scandal from the computing world reaches the general public, but this one did. I've been asked by random people for advice on whether or not to upgrade; people seem to know Win10 is "evil" and are annoyed by nagging.

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Better than 8? Maybe.

Worse than 7 on the same hardware? Absolutely, emphatically, YES. I.e. downgrade, QED.

"Win7 means you have pretty old hardware" - well, let me see here. I'm typing this on a top-of-the-line 2016 ultrabook, with Windows 7. Exactly because this is a work tool (like "for people to do some productive work on"), enterprise tends to prefer boooooring older OS over colorful cloudcloudcloud spyware.

IMNSHO, this is just a bunch of schmucks with KPIs based on new WinX installs. "Screw the userbase over? No problem, as long as we meet our bonus targets." This feels just like the old Evil Empire, IE6-style. Kudos to the Windows team for single-handedly wiping out all the goodwill the "new and improved MS" has been trying to build up for the past few years: nah, underneath it's still the same MS we used to know, just with a new paint job.

> This feels just like the old Evil Empire, IE6-style. Kudos to the Windows team for single-handedly wiping out all the goodwill the "new and improved MS" has been trying to build up for the past few years

That I agree with, and it's mind-boggling why they're doing this. As you said, it basically wiped out all the goodwill MS was building over the last few years.

I don't think it's the same "evil" Microsoft at work here - they got burned really badly by WinXP's "never upgrade" long tail (and the fact that people tended to just disable or infinitely defer Windows updates, so you also had a huge base of machines with targets painted on them), and are swinging the pendulum HARD the other way to do everything in their power to prevent that.

It's probably not going to work out for them, given the number of issues people still seem to have about 10 even after using it for extended intervals, but I think it's fear of another XP, not malice or anti-competitive practice, that's driving this.

Is it the same no-evil care for customer who pushes them to serve ads in the OS? I am sure they only serve ads "to improve the customer's experience"...

No, AFAICS that part is some combination of trying to mitigate the total cost of {free OS, no-upgrade cost}, and wanting some of the fun information companies like Google get from their more invasive telemetry.

I understand but that makes Windows 10 pretty toxic. I think people would be less bothered (or less people would be bothered) if they were upgrading their users to an awesome OS. In my opinion they are upgrading their users to a piece of shit OS designed to monetize their users. That to me is an "evil" behavior.

Well, technically Win10 looks better and is more awesome than Win8 (which I'd call a half-assed UI that got stuck in the middle of thinking "I'm on a PC" and "I'm on a phone". But otherwise, your point stands. Especially compared to Win7, the gains for users are not obvious.

I agree that it makes Windows 10 highly toxic and unlikely to be touched, and that it's a horrific behavior.

I just think it came about as a result of a number of rational and ethically ~neutral decisions, rather than the level of deliberate malice and anticompetitive practice the Microsoft of the 90s had.

Who cares for the motivation (outside of MS)? End result is identical.

Understanding the motivation and decisions that led to an end result allows you to better gauge whether they're likely to, say, change their stance on a topic, or other decisions they're likely to make going forward.

For example, I submit that it is extraordinarily unlikely that Microsoft will actually end the Win10 upgrade program on July 29th, because their primary goal is to migrate as many people away from their aging older platforms as possible, onto a platform they can find ways to monetize into infinite incremental upgrades.

In other words, whether they're doing it to be Eeeeevil (unlikely), or for profit (probable), the result is still the same: "YOU WILL SUBMIT TO WIN10, YOUR LORD AND MASTER"

Free, yeah right. I'm pretty sure that I have paid the Windows Tax on every (non-server) computer that I ever bought.

And wait for the next shoe to drop. MS is going to want to get paid for this "service"(ads & metrics aren't enough, MORE is always the goal). Despite the cheers of the marketeers, this SaaS is not perpetually "free". Thw more people trapped, the more that will subscribe when the extortion...er...subscription comes due.

> they got burned really badly by WinXP's "never upgrade" long tail (and the fact that people tended to just disable or infinitely defer Windows updates

Well, there's a reason for that. Software seems to change way too fast and it breaks the most basic expectations people have (which I think are very good) - that if a piece of software works, it should continue to work. If I buy a machine that has Windows and Microsoft Word on it, I should expect the OS to boot up and Word to open the documents I made with it for as long as the hardware itself doesn't deteriorate. My programs shouldn't suddenly stop working because they don't feel like it. My OS shouldn't suddenly update to a different looking one because "fuck you, that's what you want anyway". And they definitely should not do any of that in the middle of you working.

I am one of those who often disable / delay auto-updates. Because of the times I had my computer reboot when I stepped out to get a tea. Because of the times I auto-updates for apps burned significant chunks of my transfer when I was using a mobile connection.

Particularly with Windows 10 (maybe 8?), Windows will try to guess when your (desktop/laptop) computer is unused based on knowledge of when you've been actively using it, and default to that as an update install time.

But more generally, it's a balancing act - for everyone who is running in an environment where they have everything locked out and they just want an application to keep running, there's also plenty of people who leave their machines running public services connected to the Internet with no firewall, antivirus, or anything of that nature, and refuse to install updates because it interrupts the service.

I think Microsoft decided they'd rather be shit on by consumers for forcing automatic updates than be shit on by everyone for a poor security record ever again.

Which sounds all reasonable; great even. But then MS adds the secret ingredient, which completely breaks it: mandatory autorestart that can't be switched off without also breaking the autoupdate (or at least, I have yet to see a way to do that in WinX). "Oh hey, while you were out to a meeting/lunch/sleep, we decided that nothing you had open was of any value, and threw it away. Shouldn't have been using that software if it didn't provide autobackups, eh?" (Even with software that does have automatic backups to guard against unreliable machines (sic!), it's an emergency measure, not something I should want to use)

Better than 8? Possibly, except that Windows update in Win10 is out of control - nagging, forcing reboots, quietly resetting itself to more liberal settings if you ever try to restrict it, and pegging your CPU the second you go idle for more than 15 seconds. I need a Windows VM for Visual Studio and have both a Win8 and a Win10 one sitting around. While the Win8 one does look silly compared to Win10, it also manages not to antagonize me on a regular basis.

Win 7 became available starting at late 2009 and was popular well after 8 came out, I would suspect most computers that sold with it preinstalled would have no problem running 10.

Does 10 even have higher system requirements than 7?

They only just moved them up. 10 I've found runs better on older hardware than 7, it's was the same story for 8.

I don't know about the requirements; I did upgrade from 7 to 8 (while also replacing a hard drive) and then to 10 (because I wanted Bash for Windows). It works very well, but my computer is a desktop, and I did pay a bit for it back then. Meanwhile, a lot of computers had Win7 preinstalled, and I wouldn't call most of them powerful. Hence the caution - OEMs don't give a shit, they'll happily sell a laptop that can barely lift its own OS[0][1], so if you upgrade that kind of equipment you risk basically bricking it.

[0] - Just recently I've been "fixing" such one laptop for a friend of my mother - it was barely strong enough to lift its own Windows installation. I made it much more useful by just replacing the RAM die with a one I pried off a broken laptop that serves as an "organ donor". Hell, I found getting moar RAM to be a quick solution for most of the lower-end laptops that get "too slow".

[1] - this happens for mobile too (as I experienced first-hand), so my rule of thumb is that in terms of computers and smartphones, buying cheap is worse than not buying at all

They just increased them. You now need 2GB for the 32-bit version of Win10, iirc. That's the only change, though.

What would someone with 2GB memory do with a computer? State at the desktop? Once you start opening tabs, Firefox and Chrome can easily take up 4GB memory if available.

Isn't it only 1.5GB that'd be left for user apps? I seem to recall 32-bit windows only had 3.5GB total accessible for some reason.

32bits can only address max 4gb ram and I think video ram was counted for or some other overhead. With 2gb the 32bit maximum should have no effect.

If available. If not, you'll quickly learn to not open 50 tabs (it's not like you're actually browsing in all of them). Had to work on such a PC out of necessity, and :5 tabs should be enough for everyone" ;)

But seriously: 2 GB on Windows (7) is still usable, even though not entirely comfortable. (Of course, on LXLE, 2 GB is a lot, but that's an entirely different can of worms)

Requirements don't enter into it - and even the requirements from Win7 to Win10 didn't rise that much. I could live with slightly hungrier but better OS. Emphasis on "better".

If China did this what would you think the reasons would be? Of course it would be to spy on their citizens, to exert social control.

What makes us think the US is so different after the stuff that's gone down in recent years?

I genuinely consider it a possibility that this is linked to the panic over terrorism and that governments now have access to the data being hoovered up on practically everyone by Microsoft.

Of course I have no evidence. So the best that can be said objectively is that we cannot know either way, but still my gut is sending me warning messages.

> "Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary"

(also read https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/ )

Everyone does this. Try sending an image of child sexual abuse through your gmail account and see what happens. Google even tells you they do it for rights enforcement:

https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

> For legal reasons

> We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

> * meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.

> * enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.

> * detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.

> * protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.

"If you want privacy, you must be a child molester or a terrist." Obvious troll is obvious.

On a more serious note, "everyone does that" makes it okay? Really?

Obvious reading comprehention failure is obvious.

DanBC didn't write anything which could imply he believes that "If you want privacy, you must be a child molester or a terrist".

"Try sending an image of child sexual abuse through your gmail account and see what happens." - the implication is clear: "why else would you fear the Big Brother?"

I think you need to reread DanBCs comment.

His comment is stating what google does and gives a pretty strong example, not justifying what they do.

No, the implication is - do that for a practical demonstration that Google does the same thing 'kuschku pointed out Microsoft does.

I presume the purpose of that sentence is to back up the previous one ("Everybody does this").

That's not what I meant. How could I make my comment more clear?

What I meant is that almost all companies will invade privacy to prevent and detect certain crimes. MS does it, but so do Google, Apple, etc etc.

Okay, I apologize for having misread you. Thanks for a level-headed clarification to my angry comment.

How is that even in the same league? Google can disclose, what you send to their servers. Microsoft can disclose, what you keep on your own machine.

>Microsoft can disclose, what you keep on your own machine.

Want to expand on that a little? Presumably the above quote is regarding skydrive etc.

After some light googling, it appears, that it was a part of original privacy statement, when Windows 10 was released.

For example: https://edri.org/microsofts-new-small-print-how-your-persona...

(when googling the phrase cited by kuschku, the first link is to reddit and there it links to edri).

> We will share personal information with __companies__, organizations or __individuals__ outside of Google if we have __a good-faith belief__ that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to: […] __protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google__

That alone can be turned into "we can share whatever we want with anyone whenever we feel like it" very easily, you realize that?

The proper solution would be

> We will share personal information with governments if we are required by law to do so.

Nothing more, nothing less.

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