With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy
eff.org
eff.org
Microsoft installed an app in users’ system trays advertising
the free upgrade to Windows 10.
Not satisfied, the company eventually made Windows 10 a
recommended update so users receiving critical security updates
were now also downloading an entirely new operating system onto
their machines without their knowledge.
Specifically, when prompted with a Windows 10 update, if the
user chose to decline it by hitting the ‘X’ in the upper right
hand corner, Microsoft interpreted that as consent to download
Windows 10.
By default, Windows 10 sends an unprecedented amount of usage
data back to Microsoft, and the company claims most of it is to
“personalize” the software by feeding it to the OS assistant
called Cortana.
And while users can opt-out of some of these settings, it is
not a guarantee that your computer will stop talking to
Microsoft’s servers.
--
Microsoft appears to have learnt a lot from LinkedIn [0].
I was more or less resigned to do so anyways, so he didn't do anything I wasn't going to do eventually, he just hastened it.
I wonder if EULA's accepted by a cat have any validity though :)
PD: I googled that and Slashdot has a story on a hardware to have cats accept EULAs :)
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/02/18/1817221/dont-li...
But no, it's not a good anti-lawyer method, a comment says, regarding children and cats "The child is an instrument of your will. Note - they are not acting as your agent, as a child cannot be an agent. Instead, they are your instrument, much like a pen signing your name or a cat clicking a button for you is an instrument. "
But if Microsoft automatically downloaded BankHacker 3.11 to your machine and set it to pop up a dialogue box so that hacking into a bank was so simple your cat could do it — and if then your cat "used your laptop to hack into a bank", then common sense says that Microsoft would be responsible.
It's time to move to Linux on laptop/desktop/tablet I think. While I love my surface pro 3 and the Windows 10 experience is overall a good one, I don't like them changing undisclosed stuff on me.
Getting an MCE remote (arguably the most common PC remote type) working with Kodi (formerly xbmc and very popular full screen media player) took some cumbersome steps.
On average one app breaks every 6 months or so after updating.
By comparison, omitting the privacy issues, MS has a much better track record with updates.
Should we trust your anecdote, because it has more words, or mine, because it mentions more than one computer?
It's not that I don't believe Linux is that reliable. I use it daily.
I don't believe any software is that reliable.
Maybe you're not using it?
To answer your questions- Linux is my primary OS, at work and at home. I don't recall every single issue, especially way-back, but traditionally, I create problems by doing something stupid.
Maybe I'm just lucky with updates, but I stick to popular distros, and I specifically seek out Linux-friendly hardware. Others surely have a different experience. It just felt like OP was painting with too broad a stroke; their statement was valid in 2003, but not so much these days.
I've been stuck in an update hell with windows where security updates simply would not install the only solution I could find was a full re-install. I've been in a similar situation with Ubuntu and was able to fix it - but only because I understood it - otherwise I would have had to do a re-install.
The key with Ubuntu updates is to stick to LTS versions and to do a clean re-install (keeping /home as a separate partition makes this painless).
Both have rubbish audio systems. Windows breaks on my laptop every few suspend resumes (fixed by restart). Ubuntu every few months (fixed by restart).
At this point I'm disappointed by every system I use.
USB used to just work. Now it stops working after you connect ten or so devices - which is not a common thing, but not unusual in music studios. And external USB hubs only work if they have a specific generic name in the firmware ID.
Apparently if you hack your own kexts you can get it working again, kind of.
>At this point I'm disappointed by every system I use.
This. The Win 10 situation is beyond horrific. I would never have imagined that MS would set itself up for a class action suit like this. I know people who have had their PCs trashed by this forced upgrade, and they're really not happy about it.
But the alternatives are not great. Linux and OS X are both in similar "kind of works, mostly, except when not" states.
Consumer OS reliability and design has become an embarrassment for the entire industry.
Where do you start though when W10 changes the entire damned UI, replaces a bunch of apps, moves stuff around, creates two versions of some control panels, etc.? That is just a special level of “don’t give a crap” that is embarrassing for any company making billions of dollars.
I agree there are aspects of every OS that I don't like... I just wouldn't single out Windows (again other than privacy) as particularly bad on updates... updating my mbp to el capitan took a wipe as the upgrade broke half way through.
TIP: Never update when you're tethered to your phone on vacation, always update a week before leaving for vacation by the way. lol
Drivers still breaking in S3 is often a result of lack of Windows driver workarounds for this case. And Ubuntu using slightly outdated kernel versions.
[0] Or 'OS X', which, technically, is just the tenth version of Mac OS rather than an OS name in its own right (despite what I think is the fact that most people think of it as the latter).
I'm much more scared of Ubuntu aptitude updates than I am of Microsoft updates.
Most updates in Ubuntu can be recovered from. That doesn't make it better/easier than recovery in Windows... as it depends on what got updated, how it got updated, and what all came with it.
Despite this, it's not too hard to fix, and I'm much more scared of forced Microsoft OS updates though.
Win7 will be my last Microsoft OS. The way they've been trying to trick people into updating is disgusting.
Plus for some reason every time I update I have to manually edit the grub file to boot the correct kernel and run the nvidia installer. I think it's because I'm still on an older version of grub or something.
I'm still much happier running ubuntu on my server/htpc than Windows. I'd be ecstatic to use ubuntu exclusively if I didn't need to run Ableton Live on Windows, which I can't run in a Windows VM.
For the past few months, my laptop pointer controls -- this is PS/2 mouse emulation, folks, what, 20+ years old? -- has broken thanks apparently to libinput.
Middle mouse button is only partially functional. Not that I use that ever....
Making increasingly complex things, and failing to keep an eye on the ball, ends up bolluxing stuff.
Happens on Microsoft (a lot), OS X (see Walt Mossberg's rant). Android, all the fucking time. And Debian.
I'm going back to a fucking sliderule....
I can't remember anything else breaking on stable. It's been a much experience than updating Windows.
NetworkMangler joins a long list of other FooMangler tools which are best destroyed with extreme prejudice. I manage WiFi with an /etc/network/interfaces stanza, and it mostly works. Static wired interfaces are, of course, vastly simpler.
I agree that the Linux experience is hugely better than Windows, and the Debian experience hugely better than RPM-based distros. This is why having the mouse, THE FUCKING MOUSE!!!!!! fail is .... I'm beyond words.
That it's been months is the other problem.
I swear to fucking god Linux has lost the beat.
Microsoft actually offers this. Enterprise customers requires it.
Disclaimer: Linux user. Can't check which settings are exactly where.
And this is why all manner of devices go unpatched, and another reason why IoT will be a nightmare.
I'd like to sympathise, but I'm afraid this is looking like a general trend for modern Microsoft, and if your group isn't doing similar shady things then it's the exception.
Some other examples:
I was going to try a bit of C++ programming on Windows for the first time on a new PC a little while back, so I looked into what is now called Visual Studio Community. Whereas Microsoft used to make the basic Express tools to develop on its platform free and readily available, I now have to sign in with a Microsoft account to use Community. I don't know exactly what that does, but after probably half an hour of reading on Microsoft's site, I do know that it seems to involve uploading data to Microsoft, multiple very long privacy policies, and no guarantee that I could find that potentially sensitive things like the actual code I'm working on wouldn't be included.
We were looking at getting some office software for that PC as well. I thought MS Office still came as a standalone desktop application as well as the online service-y thing, but I couldn't find anything in more than 20 minutes of looking around Microsoft's site that even mentioned the former any more. Again, it's all online-this and subscription-service-that now, and I have no interest in renting important software or sharing whatever I do with it with Microsoft.
Obviously the new PC itself, which we specifically ordered with Windows 7 because we didn't want any of the more recent versions, also needed lots of updates immediately uninstalling just to clean out all the spyware, adware, and so on.
There have been related concerns with other MS products, such as the gaming and console line, in the more recent generations as well.
For many years, I have generally been positive about Microsoft, and considered Windows, Office and Visual Studio the gold standards for useful software. I'm sorry to say that none of that is true any more, and I'm now actively hostile toward and distrustful of anything associated with Microsoft. It's a great pity.
Disclosure: I was one of the people that signed the petition to ask the EFF to get involved. The stories from people whose computers were taken out by upgrades that they were tricked into just got too much. If you think that this kind of thing is totally surprising, though, I'll refer you to the disaster that was the Windows 8 UI changes, and the swamp that has been the Windows Update experience lo these many years.
http://www.bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts/
For all Satya's promises, nothing _really_ changed.
IT professionals wanted control over this upgrade.
Microsoft responds by providing registry settings to block the upgrade process, which Microsoft later chose to ignore.
As I observed on my system, Microsoft had also pushed out some preparation updates that reset some telemetry settings I had opted out of at one time, like the customer improvement program.
Microsoft obviously has their head in the clouds now.
Are there any killer apps other than games to have Windows around @home?
I guess that doesn't count as home use. Personally, I've been on Linux for over a decade. I don't feel like I'm missing out on any "killer apps", but there's always some odd bit of software that only works on Windows - like the freeware RC helicopter simulator I use. Wine's great.
It's just the path of least resistance for most people.
Plus I really don't use Word/Outlook for home stuff, though sometimes LibreOffice doesn't cut it for spreadsheet stuff.
It's a program that's a combination of a universal file sharer, screenshotter, image editor, screen recorder (which can output gif) and a seriously unbelievable suite of tools like OCR, image combiners, a QR generator, etc.
When I say universal file sharer, I mean everything. It uploads to different sites based on the filetype, be it drive for files, gifycat for .mp4's, pastebin for text, whatever. And there isn't a linux equivalent. Which sucks.
Also Photoshop is pretty much the gold standard for image editing, but I could be happy running that in a VM.
Should you want a sandboxed VM, Windows in KVM/Qemu with USB passthrough, and GPU passthrough might solve all your audio/photoshop needs.
Worth keeping an eye on if you want to get off Windows though.
By what means are you measuring these considerations? Do you have some sort of citation?
As a developer, the biggest reasons for me to stay on Windows are Office, IIS, SQL Server and Visual Studio. Nothing on any other platform comes close the the usability of these.
Furthermore, knowing these products really well gets you a lot of easy work...because almost every business on the planet runs Windows.
Anyway there's no reason to single out Microsoft here since both Apple and Google are some mixture of anti-choice, anti-freedom and anti-privacy. And the EFF wants you to quit all of them too. They recommend moving to the equivalent of a hippie commune where you'll enjoy spending time milking your own cows instead of feeding other companies' cash cows.
If Microsoft forces a new version on your computer, and you refuse the EULA, what happens?
Second thought - if you can't undo the install upon refusing the EULA, has Microsoft committed a crime of computer vandalism by (in effect) bricking your computer?
Something tells me that some smart lawyers are going to blast some holes in this. Especially from a trade secret perspective where some smart hacker gets his computer bricked (just go with me for a second :) ) and then has to reverse engineer something to access his data, but because he didn't accept the EULA, and MSFT took over his computer without explicit permission, he can't be sued for violating the EULA.
Now obviously IANAL, but you can see where this could go.
It reverts as if noting happened.
Ah, that brings back memories. Back in the DOS days, when you ran "format", it replied something like "Ready to format disk X. Press any key to continue:" (with X being the drive letter). And it really meant press any key to continue. Escape would continue. Control-C would continue. Even control-alt-delete would continue. The only way to not continue was to turn power off.
Windows used to be the product, now Windows users are. This is similar to Google and Facebook's offerings. Very few companies still strictly sell software anymore.
The open sourcing of tools is marketing and a consequence of prioritizing adoption over exclusivity. Like Android, Windows isn't going to be the bare foundation you build on, but the cushy, fully furnished condominium... complete with cameras and microphones.
Of course, if you have any factual evidence that Windows users are a product, then I'd be interested to hear it.
He sure is going a strange way about it
http://www.catb.org/esr/halloween/
Leopards don't (generally) change their spots.
1. Open sourcing crud.
2. Taking away your rights and violating your privacy.
We need to communicate clearly to Microsoft what types of new behavior are good, and what types of new behavior are bad. It's just like raising a child. :)
Basically, Mission Accomplished for Microsoft.
Windows, and a lot of other bits are more consumer space, and moving closer to Google/Facebook model of customers being the product. I don't necessarily think it's entirely a bad proposition. From a web application developer standpoint, old windows versions, tied to old IE versions have held things back over and over again. Even given some of the privacy concerns, I'd rather most people were on a frequently updated operating system with a frequently updated browser.
That's not to say I think it needs to be windows. Also, if privacy is a concern, one can upgrade to the pro version, or use enterprise skus in offices to disable those bits.
All of that said, I upgraded pretty early (tech preview) and use Pro, so didn't see a lot of the restrictions, or very sleazy upgrade push. My parents/grandparents are mostly on Chromebook devices, and one Grandmother has an Ubuntu desktop. My sister and her family have all bought into the Apple ecosystem... so I'm the most heavy windows user in the bunch and I spend more time on my macbook, ubuntu htpc or in a Linux ssh shell from windows than using windows exclusive software.
Privacy without security is like a hut in the wilderness. Security without privacy is like prison. Where would you rather live?
So what? I clicked that X multiple times and it didn't _install_. It may have _downloaded_, I'm not sure, but did not install.
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/27/12046738/microsoft-pays-10...
Rather the Washington Times article states that: "The company denies wrongdoing, and a spokeswoman said Microsoft halted its appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation."
And: "Microsoft says it offers users a choice to update, not a requirement. People have to acknowledge a dialogue box before the installation, and agree to a license agreement afterward, to receive Windows 10, the company says."
I've experienced the process on multiple PCs starting from day 1 when Microsoft started the campaign at it never _forced_ me to install. Specifically, the Close button never started the installation. There _always_ was a specific button to accept the start of the installation.
I've generally assumed that people either don't actually read what's in front of their faces (probably pretty common among the non-computerate), or don't understand what they read (ditto), or they panic and do something stupid. Of course, I have no evidence for any of these assumptions in Windows 10's case, but I've seen them in other situations.
I know people who apparently can't tell the difference between an operating system, a web browser and an email service -- or else they just don't have the vocabulary to express such distinctions. It takes some time to find out what they've actually done, and why. The idea that they know which party is at fault is generally not one that fits reality.
Note: this is not a defense of "dark patterns" or whatever. I'd assume Microsoft has a good idea of the technical level of much of its audience, and that it should therefore have been extra extra careful to communicate the Windows 10 upgrade in a far clearer manner than it did.
I entirely believe there's a lot of people that just click on everything that comes up.
Was it bright enough to reliably detect metered connections (did it even try at all?). If not then just this could have cost people money.
And consuming a couple of Gb of space could be a noticeable inconvenience on a small system (say one of the many tables and laptops with nothing more than a 64 or 32gb solid state drive).
I don't recall windows 7 having any way to explicitly mark your connection as metered.
As for Windows 8 (I believe it's the same as Windows 10), you can't mark a wired connection (ethernet) as metered if I recall correctly, even though you might be on a satellite internet connection for instance which most definitely is heavily metered.
Edit: I take it back, I was wrong. No ethernet metering. You can do it via regedit, but no way to do it from the UI.
My 4Gb per month download limit doesn't like secret 10Gb downloads, that's what
- If you turn off Windows Defender Real Time Protection it explicitly tells you "You can turn this off, but if it's off for a while we'll turn it back on". It turns itself on upon next reboot, it seems.
- You can't turn off Windows Update. It will always end up downloading new updates.
- Once an update is scheduled for a restart you can only delay a few times and it will then force the restart.
- You can't remove worthless apps like Microsoft Groove and OneDrive integration.
- They are continuing to try to weasel the Windows Store into my life by buying up or forcing exclusives (games), with all the drawbacks of UWP.
Microsoft, I promise I know what I'm doing and the risks and benefits of each action I want to perform. I own my hardware, I'd like to control the software I licensed. I am well aware of other OS options and I use Linux & OS X often, but neither can compare to the gaming library available on Windows which is my primary use case for my desktop.
But here's where it got nasty: the user data was kept, but all of the privacy settings and default apps were reset. Actually not reset, it made you go through the OS configuration screens where it always suggests the default (share all user and browsing information with MS). The configuration was so full of dark patterns: the default is a single button on the screen, but the non default settings are accessed through an underlined link that is not very descriptive. Or turning off tracking is labeled advanced and opens another window.
This was the real scary part to me: if you are not a savvy user and know to turn off these things, Win 10 defaults will track everything you do, including your browsing activity ("to provide suggestions"). These basic privacy settings should not be hiding behind dark patterns.
A neat trick is if you download something from the Windows App store and sign in for the first time without using an MSN account to log into your PC, it will ask you something like "Do you want to use this login with all Microsoft services?" And if you say yes then your login is converted to the MSN account, which you won't realize until you next need to log in.
"Oh, cool, I was wondering where I put Edge... now I'm so happy it's back!" Wait, that's not what I said at all.
I assume all the privacy settings I tried to change to be in my favor were reset as well, and there's about 8 GB of random "Windows.old" crap cluttering my my SSD.
The update took 30 minutes on a modern computer and no less than 3 restarts to get up onto "Anniversary Edition" -- mind you there was very little to no warning it was coming, just "You have an update."
I've stood up for Microsoft numerous times with friends, but man... I don't trust them, they don't respect my settings, or my intelligence, and they are treating my hardware like they own it. I'm done with their crap... Made the decision to just deal with Apple's crap now and Ubuntu's crap now.
Couldn't tell anyone what the benefits of Windows 10 Anniversary Edition are; so the ROI just isn't there for me in putting up with Microsoft any more.
Next step: In the OEM license, include a provision that the ownership of the hardware is transferred to Microsoft and you're granted a license to plug a screen and use devices.
1) Linux on windows runtime beta (commonly called bash shell, but it's much more)
2) dark theme
3) extensions in the Edge browser
4) Vastly improved stylus support
5) Slightly changed start menu
6) Improved action center, if you use UWP apps
2 is inconsequential. I can use a "dark theme" in Win7; all I did was disable Aero and set up my desktop the same way I had since Win95.
3 Firefox
4 Okay, good reason.
5 The Win10 (actually, WinVista+) start menu is pointless.
6 In the word of the Spartans: "If".
I don't actually _trust_ either one, but I would certainly rank Windows below Linux.
Also note that the linux runtime in Win10 is not installed or activated by default; you need to put the OS in developer mode and install it yourself. If an attacker can do that externally, he already owns your system.
[0] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2867542/microsoft-touts...
I want no updates or changes of any kind without my knowledge. Indeed, before any change, I want to backup the relevant boot partition so that I can restore it if any changes are harmful or doubtful.
For Cortana, when I looked at it, everything it has I have a lot better with just my favorite programmable text editor and a few simple macros.
Uh, to reply, I have to edit my post! So, here is my reply!
My now very old and crude understanding is that Active Directory is a standard part of Windows Server and plays the role of essentially the old MIT system Kerberos for authentication.
My concern is that ASAP I need to take my Web site software currently in alpha test and have it go live. For that, for maybe just a few, first users, I could use just my development computer running Windows 7 Professional. But, also on that computer I intend to have at least one bootable partition with Windows Server.
So, with Windows Server, I could be running Microsoft's Active Directory. Fine with me.
Then that means that somehow all my bootable partitions with Windows 7 or Windows Server will not get updates or changes without my explicit permission? Hope so.
Or maybe your point is just that the automatic updates don't apply to Windows Server? I would believe so.
Also AMD seemly releases some "Pro" features for workstation on Linux first.
The problem of Linux gaming is not the graphics drivers, in fact this part has been working "ok" for a while now.
The problem with Linux gaming is:
1. Audio is still a mess, the fastest audio library still is OSS4 (not 3), that won't ever get in the mainstream distributions (sometimes it is even explicitly banned and will get you banned from forums and irc servers if you ask about it), JACK still is finnicky to work with, PA is still buggy and slow, and ALSA although much better now, is also too slow and has terrible API (while coding for OSS, any version, is very easy).
2. Desktop is still a pain to setup, even the most "GUI-happy" distros still have problems here and there, when I asked some random people about it, I got outright hostile replies, people telling me they deliberately don't want to make Linux easier, because they don't want "dumb people using something they are not worth using", mind you, this wasn't once, or in one community, more than one person shared this view with me.
3. Some people in the community are outright hostile to games, and even sabotage efforts to make games work better, I saw a flamewar where one guy was claiming games were purely dumb entertainment, and that people that played games weren't not only inferior humans, but people that deserved Windows, as punishment. This guy was of the opinion that no GUI server should ever support exclusive fullscreen properly, that instead they should have all features focused on "Work" features always.
4. Lots of other random hardware is a pain to setup on Linux, even things that usually don't cross people minds, for example I couldn't figure how to make Linux properly support my motherboard Super I/O chip, that is even a common one, I even convinced the manufacturer to give me the chip datasheet, but I couldn't even figure to what project I would need to contribute code. (as for what the Super I/O chip does: control the motherboard sensors, fans and power distribution, including voltage values and regulation commands on my motherboard)
Background: highly experience Linux user. On a budget, and move, needed something for basic connectivity. Wanted a larger tablet.
9-10" Nexus devices nowhere to be found in brick-and-mortar stores (and hard to come by online as well). Almost always crippled by pathetically small storage.
My Samsung Tab A isn't rootable, flashable, had an absolutely useless userland installed (Termux has helped some with that), and now insists that the tools I've used to try enforcing my will are malware, and won't stop nagging me over this.
The default featureset is so pathetically poor that I could neither figure out where disk space was being used, or address moving things elsewhere, necessary for an OS upgrade. Which now fails on account of rooting attempts.
I'm pretty fucking pissed at Google, Android, and Samsung at this point.
And that's before getting to hardware issues.
Offering computers to the public at large is apparently an intractable problem.
(There's another set of gripes I could write about OS X. And I just commented on Debian's fucking up 20 year old mouse drivers.)
Unfortunately there's no better option out there. If you had an iphone you'd have even less control over your phone.
I'm in the same boat, I have a Samsung at the moment because the hardware is nice, but I'm pretty dissatisfied with the bloatware and IMO Android in general is getting further and further away from satisfying the power users.
The default Gallery app is a UI abomination, and you can't completely replace it with something better (the Camera app will always use the Samsung Gallery App to review photos, there's no way to change it).
I'm absolutely irate at Samsung and Google/Android. Once again, the latter company is absolutely burning up goodwill it's engendered among technical users.
I'm keeping my eye on alternatives. There's a Spanish-made Ubuntu phone which might be suitable.
Otherwise, a small ultralight notebook could be useful, but from whom? I've run Thinkpads for nearly 20 years, but find current offerings abominable. I don't care for Apple hardware precisely because of keyboards and mouse/trackpad options.
Samsung's iron fist over apps is similarly pathological.
You can, it's just not super-easy. I've done both. Groove was pretty easy but OneDrive took a few steps.
I almost have file explorer configured in a good way for me -- it actually seems much more flexible than previous versions even if half that flexibility is only available in regedit.
I am sure and probably stating the obvious here. Developers are a group Microsoft does care about - devs eventually drives some of the cogs in their grand scheme. Making noise here will get their attention, more than making noise on some consumer forum.
I remember the day when people used to be enthusiastic about their computer and saw updates not just as things getting in the way. For example, the recent win10 update for anniversary update. Are people really bitching their finally getting a native browser with extensions that is fast and has gesture/touch capability second to none on the tablet form facter? are people really pissed they're getting linux subsystem with Ubuntu 14.04 built in? are people really pissed that the store experience has improved drastically that the apps you buy work on xbox, pc, phone, tablet and hololens?
I don't get it. Groove is awesome. Its updated biweekly now and the developers are on twitter accepting feedback. OneDrive works well.. the nagging of onedrive can be uninstalled by not using the desktop app..
i won't go into every detail, but the experience of windows 10 is only as good as you make it out to be. I think most people are just largely misguided at what MS is trying to achieve and if they honestly don't like it, they don't have to buy it.
BTW, the upgrade stuff was pretty hoaky too but again, i for the life of me can't find a reason not to upgrade if the upgrade was offered. It's like having an ios device and swearing to stay on iOS 8 just because or having a linux PC and sticking to debian 6 just because.
I think it will bite them in the ass eventually. Non-techie people will follow the recommendations of power users, and they are really doing a good job of pissing off all the power users.
I completely sympathize with Microsoft's plight here, and while you might not be among those who are constantly infected, the number of people who do end up having problems is so high that they're willing to lose you as a cost of keeping the other folks safe.
We're all safer for this, too, because fewer infected computers on the Internet means fewer proxies for spam and other malignant behavior.
Do you think they rewrote the whole kernel in 10, or even a big chunk of it?
Just an idea, I don't know if it would work: there's a setting where you can tell Windows that you are on a "metered connection", which supposedly makes Windows postpone various background tasks until you tell it that you are ready for bandwidth abuse (which never happens). I doubt that this would influence any connections by third party applications, so it should do little or no harm. The question is, would Windows let itself get fooled so easily?
Instead, configure a group policy as documented below.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/328010
Note that Windows respects the "download only" policy but does NOT respect the "no reboot after updates" policy. To stop Windows from rebooting after installing updates, follow steps labeled #2 at the link below.
https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wak...
There is probably a registry value you can change to do so though.
Only with Pro or Enterprise though and only by performing a series of registry/policy edits, third party tool use and blocking of IP ranges.
You should never have to jump through these kind of hoops just to get your own system under control.
[1]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get-started/wha...
[2]: http://www.pcgamer.com/epic-ceo-tim-sweeney-pummels-microsof...
I don't really see this as a negative but to each his own. You're probably better off just using Windows Defender than some third-party A/V solution anyway since they're all pretty useless.
> You can't turn off Windows Update. It will always end up downloading new updates.
While this is true prior to the AU where you could at least change it to not automatically check for updates. You would then have to explicitly check for updates but yes it would then automatically download and install them when you did.
I believe since the group policy no longer works in RS1 it will wind up always checking for updates now. You can thankfully still disable getting driver updates through Windows Update using registry tweaks.
> You can't remove worthless apps like Microsoft Groove and OneDrive integration.
No but you can disable/not use them. You can disable OneDrive in the Startup tab of the task manager.
> They are continuing to try to weasel the Windows Store into my life by buying up or forcing exclusives (games), with all the drawbacks of UWP.
I think they pushed games on UWP too early. After the AU (RS1) I'm not sure if there are any game breaking issues for UWP games anymore other than the fact that they're on the Windows Store if you consider that to be a negative.
But there's an obvious solution to this and it's simply to vote with your wallet. Don't like games using the Windows Store? Don't buy them. It's that simple.
Windows 10, in home edition, only lets you delay a limited time. There is a finite amount of possible total time before windows will no longer operate without applying the update. It will apply the updates on restart, or forcibly restart your computer to apply them. This is not the case on any other OS that I am aware of.
You are correct that Chrome applies updates when it is restarted, which is similar, but subtly different behavior. Chrome does not destroy my running context to forcibly restart. I've had the "red" about tag indicating critically out of date for a few weeks on a laptop, with no issues.
http://www.howtogeek.com/219166/you-won%E2%80%99t-be-able-to...
(I know, ChromeOS. That's not what I meant!)
Maybe I would accept forced security updates if they allowed live updates. Having to restart your computer is awful.
But that's not even the worse problem. It reset settings, install things you removed, services you don't want, remove features you had before for no reason. Not to mention drivers and all the update problems people are reporting. If there's a chance to break, I must be able to choose when I want to upgrade.
I'm willing to pay more for not having to worry about telemetry, MS account and all that bs.
Microsoft, with it's endless supply of money, is somehow completely incapable of live OS updates?
Hell, Linux has live updates; I don't even have to restart to update my kernel! I would expect Microsoft to somehow take this existing technology, cater it to their system and call it a brand new feature like they did with the resizable command prompt. "Look at this revolutionary thing we're doing in Windows 10!"
Obviously I'm generalizing or assuming that they would be able to do it; I know nothing of how Windows works. It could be impossible without completely rewriting the entire thing. It's just my ultimate pet peeve about Windows.
If they did, I'd stop using that product.
>Class action lawsuits, class-wide arbitrations, private attorney-general actions, and any other proceeding where someone acts in a representative capacity aren’t allowed. Nor is combining individual proceedings without the consent of all parties.
I believe that's why companies are taking MS to small claims for $10,000 despite losing way more than that in downtime.
I agreed to nothing.
Seems particularly risky now that MS is pushing out regular "major updates" like the anniversary update, which get handled like a system reinstall.
I had some issues with UEFI during install as well, but it worked out somehow.
Also, it seems that you can still feed the Windows 10 installer a Windows 7 key. I wanted Windows 7 initially, but the computer wouldn't have it.
That would make Mint think that that mount is part of the system, and since the system isn't entirely available, the boot cannot proceed.
I suggest you add `nofail` to the mount options, and `nobootwait` on older that Ubuntu-16.04-derived Mint (doesn't run systemd) and `x-systemd.device-timeout=1` on Ubuntu-16.04+-derived Mint (should run systemd)
Reboot to your known good session, always.
I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft put in code in Win10 that silently waits for an external condition (say, an HTTP response) such that the system seems "good" until then, and upon the condition renders your system unusable (at least in the way you want it).
When I installed Windows10, I did the hour long dance of trying to find all the places where I could turn off tracking, even temporarily. Then I ran this[0] which does a pretty good job in a magic black box kind of way. It's a patch job, I don't recommend using Windows10 as a daily driver or putting too much faith into any gui setting or external patch.
Also updates are important. Software developers know maintaining multiple old versions and backporting fixes is more art than science and even with the best intentions is prone to incompleteness. Update your software. If you find you can't because upstream is consistently invasive/lacking/gross, chose a different project or you know... fork.
In an honest moment, I suspect that many Microsoft executives would acknowledge that the behavior described here is morally dubious. Yet they've allowed it to happen.
This reminds me that it's a daily challenge to avoid temptation and do the right thing. I hope that at least a few people in Redmond are thinking the same thing.
I totally sympathize with Microsoft for wanting everyone to be on Windows 10, with continuous updates (security and otherwise). Better for them and long term probably better for users.
I don't use OS X anymore but when I did, I liked always being at the latest update.
Except for my iPad, I use Ubuntu Linux laptops and like keeping every device up to date.
Pardon a tangent, but: society as a whole really needs a "going to the moon" level global project to harden computing devices. As an end user of technology I am willing to keep my devices up to date and I try to be understanding of Apple, Microsft, and Ubuntu (and other Linud distros).
Since I'm stuck with this crap forever (Adobe, Office, games, etc) at least let me pay you not spy on me and install your crapware. And let ME control MY PC.
No protests, no rotten tomatoes into MS manager faces, no uproars or boycotts, not even pathetic stuff like lawsuits.
At best a few educated people complain on the internet or brag about moving to Linux.
All this does is the evaporative cooling that hardens the cold death grip of a blind company whose moral compass doesn't even point north around the necks of the common folk that notice nothing and wonder why it's getting harder to breath every other year.
And no, i'm not smart enough to come up with a solution either...
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.theverge.com/2016/6/27/12046738/microsoft-pays-10...
Developers are a case apart.
Basically, he advocated for having at least two computers (which could be virtual machines) labeled “red” and “green”. The red machine is promiscuous, and accepts inputs from anything; whereas the green machine only accepts inputs from “accountable” sources (n.b. this means it wouldn’t accept input from the red machine).
Crucially, he says that the green machine, which might have access to sensitive information such as your financial records, would ”require professional management”. The user might be able to make course grain adjustments to qualify what it means to be an accountable source, but in this scheme, the system’s integrity is only assured by allowing the professional administrator to preempt the user.
I don’t like it (Win 8 will probably be the last version I use), but since it’s Butler, I have to at least consider that he might be right.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJw2SZPjAfA&feature=youtu.be...
- KB2976978
- KB3035583
- KB3058168
- KB3068708
- KB3080149
- KB3123862
- KB3173040I assume that like Win10, there will be ways to hack around and disable the telemetry there. But you can't avoid installing it in the first place for long.
But seeing people still bitching about how they can't go over Windows "because I have to play games" well ... it hurts. It really hurts.
We should know better.
And this is freaking unfortunate for everybody involved, except the big companies like Microsoft, Google, FB, Apple, etc.
Option 2 is for hiding specific updates, like broken drivers. Doesn't really apply.
Option 3 again will stop updates from installing in the first place, but will not stop reboots once they're installed. Windows 10 completely ignores the "No auto-restart with logged on users" policy from that same group.
The only way I have found to stop my computer from rebooting after installing an update is #2 in the link below. This works, 100%.
https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wak...
is to ditch Windows. You can't seriously expect MS to respect user choice and privacy.
I'm trapped
Damned if they do. Damned if they don't.
But now at least, they'll have a much smaller install base for ancient versions of Windows, so my guess is that even with all this bad PR, it's going to pay off.
It shut down twice on me while I was working (to install a mandatory security patch). This OS treats its users like kids who wouldn't know better.
Microsoft seriously sucks. Yes I know, the options to turn these things off are there, but the fact that 90% of the people who use ms windows are not even aware of these options is insane.
And couple that with the soul sucking updates,Jesus Christ windows 10 is just a big no no.
As for the updates, you should seriously consider disabling the windows update service using the admin privileges. Especially if you are using a rate limited internet connection or hate having to wait 10-15 mins for your computer to shutdown or startup.
Do not assume that the "Free" expiration stops them from loading 10 in all but name & fugly menu on your back-end through 40+ supposed updates & patches. The telemetry is what they are after, the telemetry is what they will go to almost any length to collect and telemetry is all you are good for... at the moment.
We replace computers two to three times per year; I get to pick from generally four-year old computers. I assume that a second computer is not an option for most at work.
What really grinds my gears though is the lack of interest people have in maintaining their tools. If your computer is central to running your business you should be informed about upcoming updates as computer downtime is a threat to your business.
I'm not saying I approve of what Microsoft did with the W10 upgrade but if you were technically competent to change a few registry/group policy options it was never a problem for you.
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2015/09/28/priva...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/newly-published-n...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...
By default, Windows 10 sends an unprecedented amount of
usage data back to Microsoft... location data, text
input, voice input, touch input, webpages you visit, and
telemetry data regarding your general usage of your
computer, including which programs you run and for how long.
...the fact remains that many users would much prefer to
opt out of these features in exchange for maintaining
their privacy.
A significant issue is the telemetry data the company
receives. While Microsoft insists that it aggregates and
anonymizes this data, it hasn’t explained just how it
does so. Microsoft also won’t say how long this data is
retained, instead providing only general timeframes.
Microsoft has tried to explain this lack of choice by
saying that Windows Update won’t function properly on
copies of the operating system with telemetry reporting
turned to its lowest level.
But this is a false choice that is entirely of
Microsoft’s own creation. There’s no good reason why the
types of data Microsoft collects at each telemetry level
couldn’t be adjusted so that even at the lowest level of
telemetry collection, users could still benefit from
Windows Update and secure their machines from
vulnerabilities, without having to send back things like
app usage data or unique IDs like an IMEI number.
And if this wasn’t bad enough, Microsoft’s questionable
upgrade tactics of bundling Windows 10 into various
levels of security updates have also managed to lower
users’ trust in the necessity of security updates. Sadly,
this has led some people to forego security updates
entirely, meaning that there are users whose machines are
at risk of being attacked.
Unix systems download a list of all available upgrades and then calculate on the client which upgrades to apply. This is compatible with performing automatic and unattended upgrades. (It's probably also useful as part of current and future software transparency efforts to make sure that different users aren't deliberately given different updates, some of which contain malware.)
It's a shit sandwich.
So in your world 2 wrongs make a right... because "everyone else" is doing it is a justification for you?
See I was taught from a young age that just because my friends did something incredibly stupid, illegal, or immoral that dis not give me license to commit the offense.
You can run Android and not send Google a single byte of information. You can't run google's _apps_ and do that-- gmail, google calendar, the google play store, and so on. But it isn't mandatory. Telemetry is in the apps, not the OS.
Even if I set telemetry to "basic" (the lowest it will go), turn off Cortana, and don't use IE or Edge (or any other MS app), Windows 10 sends telemetry to Microsoft. That's not OK.
It doesn't on my setup. I have neutered that shit completely.
Where have you been?
Edit: <snip>
This is a logical fallacy and excuses nothing.
> Which they can do at any time, the initial setup permits opting out of almost all of this.
Nope. They can only disable some. Even on Enterprise some collection still occurs.
> Microsoft has been doing this since Windows XP as do Apple, Google, and Amazon for their respective OSes.
The quantity and scope of the data collected has increased massively.
> Right or wrong, this is what Apple, Google, and Amazon currently.
Again, I'm not sure why you think pointing this out somehow makes Microsoft any less in the wrong.
I have telemetry completely disabled and Win10 updates work fine. This is completely false. It is not required for normal operation.
If you understand the true nature of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, this should never come as a surprise. It's going to take several generations for the culture to change, that is, if ever...
Great article, but this part is simply wrong. Microsoft chose to remove both. You now have an operating system without security that is known to steal data and install things on its own (malware). How can EFF say this OS is more secure when Microsoft can and does access any data on the system at any time without asking for permissions? When even the permissions dialogs are fake? To classify this as anything but malware would be willful stupidity at this point.
It's not that the OS has less security, now it has none. In fact, users running Windows 10 might want to question whether they even own their machines anymore. Physical possession aside, when one no longer controls the software or data on a machine can one be said to own said machine? Can one be held responsible for what it does? What if Microsoft decides to download child porn on everyone's machine? Considering what they've done in the last year, I wouldn't put it past them.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-tip-turn-off-cortana...
=====================
In update:
PLEASE stop down voting me for my simple, nice, courteous reminder to the person who wrote the post I replied to.
I was NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT ignorant of the meanings of Gb versus GB and was NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT asking for a tutorial on the difference. I am not an ignorant newby on HN knowing too little to be posting here. Just what I did wrong is beyond all obvious criteria.
These attacks are personal, based on my user name and some earlier posts of mine?
I did NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING wrong.
Instead, I was suggesting that maybe the post I responded to was not using Gb versus GB correctly -- MAYBE. I was trying to be subtle and suggesting that the person just review the meanings of Gb versus GB. I DO know very, very well the correct, accepted meanings the two abbreviations.
So, for trying to be nice, I get attacked? What kind of hostility is that?
MOD, please get involved and correct this.
Right, I'm a newby? I've published several peer-revewed papers of original research in computer science and artificial intelligence and taught computer science in graduate school at Ohio State University. I DO know quite a lot of computing. Early in my career I designed and wrote the software that scheduled the fleet at FedEx and literally saved the company -- pleased the BoD and enabled crucial financing. My Ph.D. dissertation in engineering was in software.
For one of my contributions in artificial intelligence at the IBM Watson lab, I received an award from IBM. For some other research I did at IBM, I reinvented k-D trees -- a few years earlier, and k-D trees would have been mine.
MOD: I've done NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING wrong, but I've been severely attacked. The attacks look personal, by paid propagandists attacking me for some old post on some topic the propagandists are paid to fight about.
MOD: Please straighten out these attacks.
Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Even if they are unmerited.
the small b stands for bit, which is an eighth of a byte. a big B stands for byte.
So a GB is exactly 1000 bytes, or 8000 bit
Actually that is the meaning of K, as in Kb or KB. Giga is not for "1000 units" but for 1 bilion "units" or, for the power of 2 approximation 2^30 = 1,073,741,824.
I was just trying to be nice to the person who wrote the post I responded to.
It seemed to me that their post needed to distinguish between Gb, gigabit, and GB, gigabyte. Not strictly, of course, because in principle the post could have been correct with either Gb or GB. But usually communications speeds are in terms of bits, and file sizes in terms of bytes. So, monthly download limits are commonly in terms of bits or bytes -- i can't say. But the file sizes downloaded for Windows 10 are likely usually in terms of bytes. So, if Windows 10 needs 10 billion bytes, then that is 10 GB. Then that would need communications of about 80 Gb (less in case of data compression; more for overhead for TCP/IP, etc.). Or 10 Gb would be only 1.25 GB which seems small for copy or full update of Windows 10.
So, net, I was guessing that the Windows 10 size would be about 10 GB, not 10 Gb. Then for the communications limit, that could be in Gb or GB.
That is, I was responding to
> My 4Gb per month download limit doesn't like secret 10Gb downloads, that's what.
So, for Windows 10, the 10Gb should likely be 10 GB? Right? For the 4Gb, that might be correct but then it is only about 0.5 GB.
Yes, currently and at least back to IBM System/360, on systems from IBM, DEC VAX, Prime, Data General, Intel, and AMD, nearly always a byte has been 8 bits.
Yes, the original ASCII character set needed only 7 bits; the DEC PDP 10 had 36 bit words, and DEC commonly stored 5 ASCII characters in each word.
Communications speeds are commonly in terms of bits per second, and maybe communications data limits are also in terms of bits. File sizes are commonly in terms of bytes. So, maybe for communications, say Gb, and for file sizes, say GB.
Giga abbreviates 1 billion or 2^30 = 1,073,741,824.
Apparently some reader got totally torqued at me for trying to be nice. I was not asking for a tutorial on Gb versus GB but was trying nicely to suggest to the writer of the post I responded to that maybe they were not fully careful in using Gb versus GB.
MOD: I'm being attacked for no good reason. Please intervene and clean up these attacks.
Unless it's 7 bits aka ASCII 0 - 127. Some systems even used 6 bits and where case insensitive.
It doesn't change the unit of measure byte and its value when converting to the bit unit of measure.
Extended ascii uses the full 8 bits (unsigned) to value of 255 and values 0 through 31 are reserved for control codes.
I disagree: the post makes perfect sense either way.
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/29/295931841857280419b1d9f99759e...
These discussions always avoid talking about the merits of data-driven design and always assume malicious intent.
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.
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.
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 you whenever he wants, then you brought this on yourself. Worse yet, if you willingly buy from a builder who is infamous for a decades-long history of horrible customer service and shoddy house designs and construction, I have zero sympathy for you.
Customers have a responsibility to research their purchases beforehand, and avoid patronizing vendors with poor reputations.
This type of action is what got MS is legal trouble in the EU and US in the 90's
Did we? There's a quite a bunch of lawsuits going on right now regarding that topic.
Everyone does NOT agree on the ethics of force-feeding this model on non-technical users without meaningful and informed consent. Toss in lack of transparent or comprehensive opt-out and misleading adoption strategy and you have a real problem.
Microsoft's market share in consumer computing is still massive and what they decide to do matters. It is worth talking about.
With LinkedIn in it's arsenal, Microsoft now wants to surpass Google in the amount of user information that can be collected.
No, I only expect Microsoft to support their software for exactly as long as they promised to when releasing said software.
They can't just cheat themselves out of support contracts like that.
Perhaps because most of the time the implementations do some harm, the doing of that harm is by design, there are ulterior motives, it is forced upon users, and the representations made to users are intentionally vague and misleading.
A simple litmus test: Is telemetry opt-in?
No, just until January 2020 ( Win 7 ) and 2023 ( Win 8 ) as per the published lifetime.