Hacker News Reader

Comment by kl4m | Hacker News Reader

> should never be used to install telemetry or spyware or to re-enable it if it was previously switched off

I lost track of the number of times a friendly Windows 10 (and 7) update has re-enabled telemetry. Either that or there is yet another, completely different post-update Wizard for advertisement, telemetry, default applications, and other privacy stuff (There sure is a lot of effort put in moving settings around each update!)

As usual in Microsoft wizards, you have to check/uncheck the exact opposite of all the defaults for a good experience.

View on HN

>I lost track of the number of times a friendly Windows 10 (and 7) update has re-enabled telemetry. Either that or there is yet another, completely different post-update Wizard for advertisement, telemetry, default applications, and other privacy stuff (There sure is a lot of effort put in moving settings around each update!)

...and that's why I'm using LTSC, because it's limited to security updates and supported for 10 years, rather than regular windows which gets "feature" updates every 6 months. For office, the equivalent would be perpetual (2016 or 2019) instead of 365.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18156955

Works great and rock solid, even with new hardware released after LTSC. Missing the Windows Store but if you search the web there's a github repo which has an installable version.

I've read[1] that it's possible to legally obtain LTSC without volume licensing by purchasing a few other Microsoft thingies. Is such a method how you did this, or did you unfurl your sails?

Btw (rant incoming), this isn't a spiel against piracy. If Microsoft complains that people pirate LTSC without providing an easy legal way to obtain it, they can cry me a river. I just switched over to Linux from Win7 early this year; between spying on you, stability and data loss issues from firing their QA department, the auto-installation of Candy Crush, and the intentional difficulty in getting LTSC which doesn't have these problems, they lost me from ever switching to Windows 10. Which is an absolute shame, because if it weren't for those dealbreakers, it would actually be a good OS, and I would be using it on my desktop. Maybe someday I'll spin up a QEMU gaming VM, but if they ever make LTSC impossible to obtain, I'll just try to forget Windows 10 exists entirely.

[1]https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2167558-explicit-inst...

>Is such a method how you did this, or did you unfurl your sails?

Neither. Ended up using a msdn key.

If it's safe to say so - I don't wanna jeopardize your methods here - how did you obtain it? As far as I can tell, normal consumers can't buy them "legit", but they are "illegitimately" resold anyways, which makes rejection of their "validity" during activation a possibility (assuming Microsoft finds out, of course).

>which makes rejection of their "validity" during activation a possibility (assuming Microsoft finds out, of course).

AFAIK Microsoft doesn't revoke existing activations, so you should be fine unless you need to reinstall. If you dont want that risk, a locally hosted kms server (running in a VM for maximum security) achives the same thing.

Good to know. Also, I never knew about kms servers; TIL.

It's not illegal to resell software (at least in the EU).

Illegal != breach of contract. They control the activation servers, they can just refuse activation if they felt you've violated the contract.

"Europe's highest court ruled on Tuesday that the trading of 'used' software licenses is legal and that the author of such software cannot oppose any resale." [1]

[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2505356/eu-court-rules...

Tuesday, July 3, 2012. Did that ruling change anything in practice? I don't see ads for used Windows licenses anywhere.

For example: https://www.kinguin.net/category/19429/windows-10-profession...

I don't see anything about that being a used key. On the contrary, it warns you it can only be activated once for one hardware combination.

Edit: those are usually MSDN or volume license keys that shouldn't be resold but will activate nevertheless. Reselling those may be legal only in the EU, but still, they're not used.

But this is pertaining to msdn subscriptions, which provide keys for a variety of Microsoft products. According to the article, you can't break them up to sell individually

>In a small victory for Oracle, the ECJ ruling prevents resellers from breaking up a license and selling only part of it if they have purchased licenses for more users than they need.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com