Reader strikes back: Reaction to “10 reasons you shouldn’t upgrade to Windows 10”

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Y’all know that I invite – encourage! – contrary opinions. This is a good one, about my InfoWorld article 10 reasons you shouldn’t upgrade to Windows
[See the full post at: Reader strikes back: Reaction to “10 reasons you shouldn’t upgrade to Windows 10”]

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It’s water under the bridge now but AS’ comment about “the number of dolts I had come across attempting to run Vista on completely inadequate machines.” sent me looking from my Microsoft briefing notes.

I was in a Microsoft briefing in Redmond on November 3, 2005 when Alex Rublowsky of Microsoft told us (a Fortune 100 company) “When Vista ships, 3 year old systems will run it.”

Perhaps that’s why those “dolts” had that expectation.

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@AS,

So, if my PC runs W7 adequately, and I do not use Google, then is there another reason to upgrade?

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@AS
You are probably correct in most of what you say, but on two specific things, I disagree with you. Firstly, Microsoft changed the deal on operating systems and was less than transparent in announcing that change before the user had (been) upgraded. Offering the upgrade at no overt cost, while concealing the hidden costs wasn’t very smart. Had they told everyone, “Hey, here’s a new operating system model. You use W10, we harvest your data and put ads on your OS” that might have been ok with many people. But they didn’t. The communication was terrible, which of course allowed the conspiracy theories to grow and spread. Self-inflicted by MS, at least in part.
Secondly, not everybody uses Google products, or any other free-in-return-for-data products. Some users are sufficiently concerned about the use/misuse of their personal data, identity, activities etc. that they forgo free products, block or disable tracking and do whatever they can to preserve their security, privacy and identity.

Win10 may well be the greatest OS the world has ever seen, but it isn’t suitable for everyone and people should have been given better information to make the choice.

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If nothing else he’s a good name-caller

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Lemme raise my hand here… 🙂

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AS wrote “[XP was] a great (argued by some to be the greatest) Windows operating system”

Yeah, I really miss the frequent BSOD.

AS wrote “it bread an Anti-upgrade movement”

But was it really kneaded?

AS is wrong regarding Ts and Cs. Microsoft never asked me if I wanted W-10 and could not be bothered to verify that my hardware would even run it. It was world-class incompetence and annoyed people for valid reasons. Unlike AS, I have actually read the EULA for W-7 (http://download.microsoft.com/Documents/UseTerms/Windows%207_Professional_English_7bb89e9f-20ea-4555-892f-394539ec1090.pdf), and there is nothing about my accepting a new OS. The EULA does include a reference to damage limitations — “You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to the amount you paid for the software. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.” That California woman who sued Microsoft for $10,000 must have been able to do so because California falls into the part about, “Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you.”

Woody wrote “I use [Google and Microsoft], but I don’t like it”

Duckduckgo and Ixquick do not use you as a cash cow, so why do you continue to use Google? I completely disagree with people who say that Google returns the best search results, as I am able to do serious research using Duckduckgo. As for Microsoft, Fedora, Ubuntu, Antergos, and other Linux distributions do the same things, but they are free and devoid of telemetry (as long as you select the proper checkboxes).

As for me, I’ll use W-7 for a very long time especially since my hardware will never have device drivers from Intel, though admittedly that stems from Intel’s decisions. I do as much as I can on Linux. And I never use Google.

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Do M$ present users with a new agreement relating to upgrades, before an upgrade is installed on a machine, thereby allowing a user the choice of whether to agree to or deny changes made, since the agreement they entered into when they originally bought the OS they are currently using?
Those that signed up for W7 didn’t agree to the level of snooping currently being forced on those that couldn’t stop the WX auto-installations. Surely, on a legal perspective, M$ can’t have a leg to stand on?

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@AS

It’s one thing to mine one’s data from a browser that one or may not use, it’s entirely another thing to mine all data from one’s operating system.

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“Long story short… there are still VERY valid reasons why people want to stick with Win7…”

It appears that 47.17% of desktop OS users agree…

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

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“Long story short, Woody….there are -very- few valid reasons to not upgrade. And for the overwhelmingly vast majority of users….none of those valid reasons apply to them.”

The trouble is that for the overwhelmingly vast majority of users there simply aren’t many valid reasons TO upgrade!

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The whole Google argument that AS puts forward is a non sequitur at best.

For example, Google have a record that an IP number belonging to my VPN supplier searched against “the feeding habits of the Himalayan ant” at 12:07 GMT today.

I’m sure that tells them an awful lot about me and as I don’t even have a Google account not much to tie it back to me as a person.

In any case there are other search engines that do have higher standards of privacy if anyone is that concerned

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How dare you NOT think the way I do – you moron, you idiot, you ingrate!!!

I know what is right. I know what is best for you. Google is evil – they are all evil – get over it.

I accept tracking, it is progress. The EULA is fair and you should not take umbrage with it – you are the problem. You groan, you moan, you kick and you throw screaming tantrums because you want stability – how clueless can you get?

You suffered Vista and you still don’t get it – stop whining !!!

@AS. You sure is angry.

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This is the kind of drivel that is used to justify a situation after there has been a long race to the bottom. It’s just another version of “everybody is doing it”, ergo all is good. I would suggest there was nothing in Woody’s article that even remotely justified the tone of this response. Perhaps a more fruitful and interesting thread would deal with when and why advertising supported business models are desirable and when they are not attractive.

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No reason to upgrade and it is OK.
The original post is addressed to those complaining about something that they do not understand, do not wish to use, but still considering a private company releasing a new product as being their own. Like with the mass protests against Apple replacing the analog headphone plug in iPhone 7.

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Equating Google with Windows is specious nonsense.
Users can use any number of alternative search engines and e-mail with ease to avoid Google’s snooping.
They can’t just change operating systems with ease though.

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Strange. AS can’t see that i like changes and i don’t like big bugs. AS talks about something else that has nothing with w10 problems. Strange.

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🙂

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Whether Microsoft’s additional telemetry/snooping with Win7 updates is legal… I expect that’s a question which will play out in the EU.

But whether MS’s snooping in Win10 is legal… I think that’s likely. And, yes, people who installed Win10 accepted a EULA that includes the ability to scrape all of the data that Microsoft deems necessary.

That’s why I frequently say that Win7 customers didn’t sign up for the snooping. Win10 customers, on the other hand, probably did.

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We must have distinct notions of well reasoned and thought out.

AS seems blind to the diff between previous win updates which were a matter of choice and were devoid of imposing useless features on users, spying,a large degree of sheer incompetence, and motivated by cutting costs for Ms at expense of users.

Having gone to all this well reasoned trouble, may I suggest he asks me for a fee, of course? Reasonable as they both agree that its users fault for not wanting the latest and greatest from Nadella, the marketeer.

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@AS
I have always been one to move forward with technology.

I first connected with M$ in DOS days. I have always upgraded. But I never remember being FORCED or TRICKED into the upgrade as was done with Win10 and GWX. M$’s minimal standards for upgrade have ALWAYS been FAR below reality – with them the OS barely runs, but does little else. That has been part of M$’s misleading marketing since the day one.

I do not use G-mail, Google Drive, Google Docs, etc. I DO use Google Search b/c it gives the best results. Yes, Google knows what size shoe I wear, and that I search for Malware Removers, and I work crossword puzzles. But:

Google does NOT prevent me from using any other search engine. MS ties any search on the computer to CortanaBingEdge.
Google does NOT have access to the personal files on my computer.
Google does NOT store my computer password (or other biometric data) on its servers.
Google does NOT install programs on my computer that I do not want/need.
Google may put ads in my browser, but it does NOT violate my PC with ads.
Google does NOT monitor/restrict the programs I choose to install or uninstall the ones I choose to use.
Google does NOT reset my personal settings with each update/upgrade.
Google does NOT break my computer with forced updates/upgrades.
Google does NOT force me to be their unpaid Beta tester.

M$ does all these thing with Win10. It’s not just about privacy. It’s also about INTEGRITY and TRUST. M$ no longer has INTEGRITY or my TRUST. Win10 is NOT a great OS until it respects it’s Users. And that is good enough reason NOT to move forward at this point.

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There is always Linux…

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This is an interesting point. Both politicians and legislators are quite slow in realising what is happening around them.

However once the EU wakes up to the fact that the user in effect has no choice with the snooping in Win10 they may well take action under GDPR.

In a nutshell once Win7 is deprecated, MS are in effect saying you cannot use your pc without MS harvesting all the information on it and using it to whatever end they deem. No doubt quite acceptable in the US and UK, but I have doubts whether it will wash with the rest of Europe.

Yes you can use Linux, but for non tech people it’s probably a bit too scary an option, so effectively they have no choice but to submit to MS.

Interesting times ahead

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Sorry, Reader, but we’ve heard it all before.

Here I sit, career software engineer, having adopted every version of Windows ever released up to now with open arms. Hell, I’m typing this on a big workstation with Windows 8.1 Pro/MCE.

Yes, you heard it right, I really like Windows 8.1 – suitably tweaked and augmented. It’s the best system Microsoft ever released after being worked over to turn it into a serious computing platform.

I have Win 10 on a separate system and I’ve done the tweaks and added software to it too. I’ve worked around many of Woody’s concerns.

Yet for pretty much the first time it’s not better than its predecessor. Not even as good.

And even if it were just about as good, Microsoft’s not leaving it alone long enough for it to mature. No, they’ve decided to put an in-place upgrade over it a couple of times a year.

THAT is the best reason for leaving it the hell alone that I can think of.

An operating system needs to be stable, so that an development culture can grow around it. Not get turned on its ear every 6 months and require the people reconfiguring it and augmenting it to start over. It literally took me 4 months with the Anniversary Update (1607) to get it settled down.

And so on my main development workstation Windows 8.1 remains.

-Noel

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>Secondly, not everybody uses Google products, or
>any other free-in-return-for-data products.

Amen to that.

I want to pay for good software that’s not going to try to turn predator on me. Let the transaction be overt – I pay money, I get software – not covert!

Calling it “Windows as a Service” doesn’t make turning it into adware/malware right.

Can we please have “Windows as an Operating System” again?

Whether we’ll EVER be able to trust Microsoft again… Magic 8 Ball says “the future is fuzzy”.

-Noel

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I think reader AS is Nadella’s “I’ve had too many eggnog & rums” username.

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I have used high-end systems forever (I have always needed workstations for my engineering work), and when I upgraded from XP to Vista my Dell Precision 470 was unstable to say the least, not to mention sluggish as hell. But all I had to do was buy a video card then it ran OK.

2005 / 2006 was the time of leaps and bounds in advancements in GPU tech, and a 3 year old $1000+ workstation nVidia Quadro FX video card just couldn’t cut it for multi-monitor use on Vista. The replacement “gamer” ATI card was some 5x faster and supported multiple monitors just fine.

-Noel

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?

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Exactly. Precisely. Correct.

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Woody,
You say that you’ve been using Windows10 since it was released.
Is that mainly because of your job at InfoWorld – with the Windows OS being your “beat”?
If you were filthy rich and did not need/want to report on MS Windows news, would you have stayed with Win7 as your personal preference (knowing what you know today)?

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Hey AS, Ford said on TV it’s time for a new car.
Have you bought it yet? Come on, it’s safer,better more efficient. What are you waiting for? What, you say you don’t like Fords? Well it time to get with the program, it doesn’t matter what you like, ford says its time.
If you want w10, fine get w10. 7 works just fine for me. I see no need. I have a ’09 Subaru, it also works just fine for me. Going to tell me I’m stupid for not bying a new one? Too bad Woody asked us to not go to the political insults, or I’d tell you who you sound like.

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AS sounds like he/she works for MS.

People bought and paid for Win 7 and Win 8 with promises by MS for certain kinds of support (security patches without “feature” changes or telemetry and that don’t break your system that get delivered quickly and efficiently using Win Update).

MS has effectively reneged on those promises – perhaps through bait and switch legalisms – so that Win 7 and Win 8 buyers have gotten shortchanged.

Fine if you want to upgrade to Win 10, though for most users there are no important improvements. But MS is effectively forcing users, especially consumers, to move to Win 10 because of how badly it has broken the support process for Win 7 and 8

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Whom. The word you want is “whom.” 🙂

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I’ve been using Win10 since the first beta was released – about two years ago.

I needed to learn Win10 to write my Win10 book, and I’ve kept up with it ever since. I do that with every version of Windows. My first book was about Windows 3.1…

If I were filthy, filthy rich, I probably wouldn’t bother with a computer. But if I were merely a “single digit millionaire” rich (hey, I can aspire!), yeah, I’d use Win10.

I’ve reconciled myself with the fact that MS snoops. I’ve learned how to keep the forced updates at bay. Haven’t hit any blue screen-level bugs. I miss many things about Win7, but Win10 has lots of interesting new and worthwhile stuff, too.

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oy.

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Nah that’s not the main reason. They want to move everybody to win10 to sell user data dump ads and collect rent for providing nothing. And fast before they start losing entirely their monopoly.

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Neither interesting nor worthwhile. But u earned a lving from ur tolerance and effort
most people dont.

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At zillions a year he does not mix w the plebos

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Noel, after discovering the joys of Window Blinds and Start 8, I came to like WIN 8, too. In fact, I think it was one of the best MS ever developed — XP and WIN 7 being the others.

But, my being one who has always loved having the latest and greatest, dating way back to WIN 3.1, I got suckered into this WaaS and WIN 10 cra … er … program. However, I thought 1511 was a pretty good piece of work.

But, after 1607 was forced upon me (before I discovered Woody’s system of postponing/hiding the forced updates/upgrades) and broke all three of my computers, two of which required clean re-installs, and literally meant spending days, nights, and weeks getting all three back into reasonably good working order again, I’m not at all anxious to jump onto the “Creators Update” bandwagon. First, because it adds absolutely no features or improvements (that I know of) that I even slightly need nor want; second, I don’t want to spend days, nights and weeks fixing what the Upgrade will inevitably hose/brick/break.

Therefore, I’m hoping to be able to stick with what works until I’m once again forced to upgrade because MS will just stop sending me the needed security updates.

But if I’m understanding this new WaaS shi … er … program properly, I’ll actually HAVE to upgrade only about every three years or so??? I could probably live with that, but if I’m wrong, please correct me.

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And foydamoar.

I was about to weigh in with all of the above but I’m too late. Har.

I use Duckduck for all but images and even then I allow the google script only for the instant search and disallow it when done.

Just when I start to set up my Dell refurb, I see this Win10 wackiness. I’m uninstalling Win10 and putting Win7 on it tomorrow. But one day soon, I’m gonna take the plunge and go Ubuntu Sassafras Sashimi or whatever it is up to now.

I got an old IBM Thinkpad with WinXP on it. I should fire it up just for the S&Gs.

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If as AS said, “Windows 10 is no worse than any other Operating system out there”, why the need for M$ to trick tech-savvy Win 7/8.1 users into being auto-upgraded to Win 10 n degrade Windows Update for Win 7/8.1 beginning in April 2016, n make Win 7/8.1 obsolete prematurely(eg not supported by the latest Intel Kabylake chip).?

Likely, the reason is that M$ wanna move Win 10 into the subscription model, like for Office 2013 n Office 365 about 2 years ago. That’s why Win 10 has mandatory auto-update n the Windows Upgrade Subscription Tool.
……. Unfortunately, subscription-based Office 365 did not gain much traction with users, hence M$ resorted to trickery n dirty tactics with Win 10, in order to gain some traction. If successful(eg Win 10 on 1 billion devices by 2018), M$ would hv been able to spring their subscription “trap” on Win 10 users. It’s what they call, “by hook or by crook”.

Being the very last version of Windows, it is inevitable that M$ will wanna eventually make Win 10 fully subscription-based, unless Win 10 turns out to be as flop’py as Office 365.

Office 365 subscribers get free upgrades “forever” or as long as they hv paid their subscriptions. The free upgrades happen about once every 3 years.
……. Win 10 Home & Pro buyers/users also get free upgrades, about twice every year, supposedly until EOL in 2025. Then what.? The Win 10 licenses cost about US$30 for OEM VL, $119 for Home(Retail) n $199 for Pro(Retail). It is not moneywise for M$ to let them get so many free upgrades till 2025, if M$ could charge them subscriptions. But when.?

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Telemetry has always been a part of Windows 7…

If you look at the licensing agreement for Win 7 Pro, there is a section called “Consent for Internet-Based Services”, which lists all of the services that send telemtry.

Additionally, under “Use of Information” it states…

“Microsoft may use the computer information, accelerator information,
search suggestions information, error reports, and Malware reports to improve our software and
services. We may also share it with others, such as hardware and software vendors. They may
use the information to improve how their products run with Microsoft software.”

Sound familiar?

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There are some scare tactics thrown in there too…

We are all conditioned to think that doom will befall us if we don’t update our systems, because OMG, someone will take over our systems if Microsoft doesn’t fix the bugs they coded in to start with.

Want updates? You have to agree to updated services agreements.

-Noel

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Hear hear.

-Noel

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“things actually do have to evolve”
Classic response for every Windows release.
Change for the sake of Change.
Changes…upgrades, in this case…only make sense if there’s an improvement.
I’m a server admin. I know how dangerous is really is out there. I don’t want live tiles and ‘always on’ two-way datastreams. But this guy says it’s an Evolution, therefore it is Good.
Your improvement isn’t Everyone’s improvement, princess.

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“…But was it really kneaded?” – only if you had the dough! 😀

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A brief rebuttal. “AS” might have gotten paid for this, I did not.

Saying “you use privacy-obliterating Google already, go with whatever Microsoft puts out” is like saying “well, since you already got HIV, having a little Hepatitis C on top will surely not bother you in the long run”. Maybe that is true for 90% of users out there. The remaining 10% do care. My only reason to read this blog is because I care. And I do mind. Alot.

Comparing Windows 10 to Windows XP might not be entirely accurate. Back in the day, people didn’t like the new looks, better enforced security (no more hardware access from userland), or the different way of doing things. But with Windows 10 these days, at the end of 2016, the major issue is not features or so much looks, it is trust. I simply do not trust Microsoft anymore with updates and products, the way I did back in 2014. Back then, things worked before and after an update and there were no nasty surprises. If Nadella was hired to achieve just that, then congratulations, he succeeded.

From my point of view it wasn’t very nice of Microsoft to shove the Windows 10 nagware “GWX” down Windows Update the way they did for Windows 7/8/8.1, forcing paid users like me to invent or find funny tools and obscure registry settings to remove it and turn it off for good; it wasn’t very nice to put out spyware such as the phone home “diagnostic tracking service” as a recommended update; or how about Microsoft totally wrecking a couple million PCs running Vista through botched updates? Yeah almost no one runs that anymore, so who cares. How about buggy updates that fix 3 things out of 5 and always break another feature that worked before?

More recently, I found it not very nice for Microsoft to “unlink” GPO functionality in later releases of Windows 10, such as disabling the lock screen; failing to provide a simple way to turn off Cortana, even in the supposedly “Pro” edition; can’t turn off Windows Update, turning my PC into a member of one giant Borg bot net where suddenly Microsoft decides how and what should run; and if you do manage to turn it off, I hear your license will be questioned by your PC after a couple of months of not contacting Microsoft over the internet? Isn’t that lovely. Oh yeah, if I uninstall stuff from the app store, I actually ment to do that and I do mind Microsoft putting it all back there with every anniversary update.

All this incapacitation of the user for what new features exactly? Support of Kaby Lake’s latest fast CPU clock switching? Cute. If those chips should refuse to run Windows 7 properly, good luck Intel because some will not be buying that then.

So yeah, but no thanks. I’m a professional Windows 7 Professional user today, but mentally I have already moved on to something else, something that *I* am in control of. Sure I’ll keep a Windows with Office in a VM around. But as a daily driver, Microsoft lost me two years ago.

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Yep, and the Customer Experience Improvement Program gave Win7 all sorts of interesting capabilities.

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+1

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No sense making this a personal attack. It isn’t warranted, and doesn’t advance the conversation. I’m cutting it off here.

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Woody, none of these MS touts seem to get it.

People who also use their computers to make a living are necessarily risk averse.

Although I never expected a new OS like Win 10 to be perfect at issue, I never imagined it would still be a minefield after a year.

Win 8 had lots of problems initially, but after a few months and an upgrade to 8.1 my three systems have been running 8.1 and 8.1 Pro with virtually no problems for almost 3 years. Other than with the new Windows Updates.

Windows 10 on the other hand is still causing problems. Maybe it would have been a different story if MS had done a proper job.

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“Windows 10 is no worse than any other Operating system out there”
This is very I have to disagree. The only thing better is their kernel. Nothing else when compared to previous Windows version or other Linux distributions. Win 10 has terrible UI, worse EULA, unreliable updates/patches, undocumented behaviours, legendary Microsoft quality support… You really need to go out and try something else before you make this claim.

“Stop being a massive hypocrites people! – Ya’ll use Google products hourly, daily, weekly…or you just all the time!”
Actually no. The only Google product I use, is their Captcha.

“for the vast majority of users, none of those valid reasons apply to them.”
My whole family and neighborhood have only mentioned one reason to not upgrade to Win 10, Win 8 and the new Office products: it is the unusable flat UI. Ugly and hard to use is a really valid reason I think.

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My prediction:
By 2020 (Win7 EOL) your Win10 PC will be like a Chromebook (dumb terminal) running Win10 as a service from a VM on M$ servers. You will rent the OS by the month/year, and any “Apps” you want (beside the Universal CrApps) will be an extra charge. Your data will be stored, not on the PC, but on M$ servers – another rental charge. And if you need legacy, you will pay through the nose for a VM within a VM. And M$ will serve you ads and collect your data for their profit as well.

Trust M$!!!

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I have a hard time focusing that far into the future, but my guess is that by then Win10 will still be free, but there will be many reasons given to upgrade to a pay-by-the-month version.

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+1

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Sorta like the difference between Win7 Basic and Win7 Ultimate, if the latter were paid-for-by-the-month?

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I won’t even bother reading the other comments, all bringing knowledgeable and to the point responses to the above rant, I’m sure (no offence meant). All arguments of fact have been rehashed a million times.

I just want to say the following : who does this gentleman think he is, to hector people over their not liking Windows 10 very much ? This is trolling pure and simple. Such an attitude is insufferably arrogant — and boneheaded to boot, with all that progressist claptrap (you’ve got to agree to it, because it’s all modern and shiny).

You like Windows 10 ? Fine with you ! Gorge yourself over it, buy thousands of licences if you like ! And let people who don’t like Windows 10… not upgrade to Windows 10. What’s wrong with freedom ? When did we slide into a totalitarian universe where Microsoft, and improvised Microserfs, get to tell us how to lead our lives ?

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Flat, unusable, ugly UI sums it up well.

I can tolerate the snooping; I may take the risk that a MS-scheduled update breaks into my work pattern (remember the weather forecaster, everyone?); but even when it’s working, Win10’s “flat unusable” UI is mostly unusable by me. Example: among several overlapped windows, which is the window with focus? — easy to see in Win3.1, possible in Win7, near-impossible (to my eyes) in Win10. Win10 is designed for a phone, and for only one primary app running at a time — it is not designed for a desktop.

Forgive the diatribe 🙂

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Ah, but he wasn’t trolling. This arrived as an email to me, which I republished anonymously. Perhaps he was trolling me, but that’s OK – I get many trolls, every day. 🙂

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HA!

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Hey look, another desktop user who has no idea what Active Directory is but acts like they know what’s best for Enterprise!

“My message to those people is simple: If you can’t deal with the fact technology -changes-. Do yourself and the rest of us a favor, stop using it. You’ve missed the point(s)!”

Why should I, or anyone else, when the technology works fine with the OS that’s fully matured for over 10 years now? Oh, to be a unpaid beta tester “bleeding edger” like you!

“Don’t have hardware that supports or can run Windows 10 – Well! We covered that above, things evolve and you can’t use the same hardware forever…or in the tech world for very long at all. Keep up, or at least TRY!”

Since my hardware isn’t “bleeding edge” enough, and you seem to have indisposable income – mind passing along at least 1 high limit credit card along with the expiration date and CVV so I can purchase a couple dozen servers just to be on the “bleeding edge” with you?

““Yeah but I know what Google is doing with my data” – Do you? Do you really? Do you have any proof, other than what they “claim” in writing. I have/found/have seen no tangible, real world, example or proof that Google is any more trustworthy. None. So, please do, TRY and explain what makes you trust Google any more than Microsoft?”

Ah, so we’ve went from “bleeding edge” to “straw man” have we?
So, Google does it, why not let Microsoft?
You see, there’s your issue. Google can be opted out of, fully. I can choose not to use a Google account. Heck, I can use an Android phone powered by Google without a Google account, and without a data plan, if I wanted to.

Can I use a Windows 10 system without a Microsoft account? Absolutely. Can I limit the amount of telemetry that is sent to Microsoft? Absolutely. Can I completely shut off any and all telemetry sent to Microsoft without resorting to unplugging the ethernet cord on the system? Absolutely NOT. If I have to resort to unplugging ethernet cords, what is the point of using Windows 10 when Windows XP is also a feasible alternative especially when “unplugged”? Oh, but there’s 15 years of maturation there, and no worries about a sneaky update doing something that I don’t want it to.

Let me put it this way – Mr. “bleeding edger”.
Can you control, outright ‘control’ updates – in Windows 10, similar to how you can control them in any flavor of Windows prior to 10? Be honest. I’m not talking about “unplugging” here either, so please, don’t bring up that straw man.

I have a machine, any machine, any 1 machine, plugged in to a network that is connected in some capacity to the internet.

Can I control updates in Windows 10 like I can in Windows XP? Vista? 7? 8? 8.1? Heck, let’s even go back to 2000? Can I pick and choose what updates I accept and install?

Here…rather than you squirming like I’m betting that you are right now, let me go ahead and put you out of your misery and answer for you. The answer is “No.” But hey – “bleeding edge” is the place to be!

I don’t really care much about the telemetry. You (and most other Win 10 kool aid drinkers) seem to only bring that up as an argument one way or another as to upgrading. But since you have no idea what Enterprise is, or how Enterprise functions, let me help you out here…telemetry is not the only stumbling block here. Updates and a lack of control over updates is a BIG stumbling block. And please, don’t do a web search (Bing, I assume, since you’re clearly “bleeding edge” and using the only accepted built-in search in Win 10) for Enterprise and come up with some grand idea that “well, if you’re Enterprise, you should run WSUS!” We don’t need to run WSUS. WSUS is not required on the Enterprise model. Never has been, never will be. It’s a GOOD IDEA, but it’s not a REQUIREMENT. Just because we have the means does not make it a REQUIREMENT.

Just like having a Win10 upgrade available does not make it a requirement. Let me also remind you that every Intel and AMD chipset and CPU architecture of the last 10+ years (including THIS YEAR) runs on everything up to and including Win10…so this wild notion that “if you can’t run Win10, your stuff is too old” is ridiculous).

Just because your computing world exists of a WORKGROUP doesn’t mean you know anything and have the capacity or experience necessary to try to tell everyone to “upgrade” or “buy new hardware so they can upgrade”.

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+1 Your comments are perfectly on point and summarize all of my concerns about W10.

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The problem underlying all this is that there are literally hundreds of millions of people who invested a huge sum of money in a system that ran an OPERATING SYSTEM called Windows 7. Their investment was accepted by the sellers as revenue and huge profits. The buyers have a reasonable right to expect their investment to perform as they saw it perform at the beginning.

M$ has the right and should improve the product in ways that those OWNERS of Windows 7 expect and accept. Those OWNERS have a right to reject or accept those changes. Therein lies the issue. M$ wants to (and will) change Windows 7 in ways that the OWNERS do not want and will offer no opportunity to reject the change.

Essentially, we end up with a product that we would not have invested in to begin with.

Add to this clearly reprehensible, unethical and immoral corporate behavior. The company we gave money to, now wants free reign to maximize our investment to their advantage regardless of OWNERs interests or expectations.

Google is really not that comparable. Google is not part of our investment. We can decide to use Google or not. We cannot decide now not to use Windows in any practical sense.

M$ will pay the price for their foolish behavior. PC sales will drop and panels and smart phones will take over even more. M$ has no product that is communication-based.

I think I have said this elsewhere but at this point after decades of championing M$ and its products and investing huge amounts of time to become expert in the use of their products, I have come to the point that I can no longer recommend any M$ product or service and am unlikely to ever invest in one in the future.

I know that technically, I do not own Windows 7. But I do own the computer that it is designed to run it. When I bought this computer with Windows 7, I brought a functioning product.

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I will speak from personal experience, but my experience might be very different than the one from normal users.

When 95 appeared, I was disappointed because I found it took longer to do things I used to do with the command line and I kept a command line around for a long time. But I knew it was necessary for many people and that I would also benefit from some of it. I wasn’t resisting the change, but adapting at my pace.

98 felt better than 95 in terms of easier hardware integration, but slower with the IE integration. Still, I liked the OS. It was quite stable for me, even if not even stable like successors.

Me was a real awful cash cow attempt that made no sense. It was buggy and irrelevant. I tried it and uninstalled it very quickly never looking back.

I won’t talk about 2000, but XP felt right. It was toy like a bit when you looked at it, but it was a good OS, unless you didn’t have enough RAM. I loved it from the start. I always have been someone who think you shouldn’t hold to long for outdated technologies when they are really outdated and bad, so old software support wasn’t much of an issue for me.

Vista arrived and I took 3 days to find out my way around it, how the settings now worked and figure out the changes that were scattered everywhere. Why did they invent this weird Network Center and hid the network card? First shock is the big step back in usability, then the good ideas under the hood that were thrown out a bit too fast, but after tuning Vista (disabling a lot of services, dumb startups and changed some settings that MS eventually did configure mostly that way by default for 7), I liked the OS. Quickly. Like a week or two after installing it. I always thought Vista was a good OS improvement even if more abstract (so more secure, less direct access), but a confusing UI for settings, a mess of too much thrown together too fast, with weird things to please friends like the one checking if you tried to copy copyrighted content and lowering quality that could potentially create issues. Of course, I never thought it was a smart idea to run Vista on an old computer. It was a bloated, heavy system, but with better security and good ideas inside like superfetch when you had a good machine with enough RAM. There were some misses like the feature to add fake RAM through a USB drive, but that’s part of trying, I am fine with that.

7 arrived and people were relieved to see the system they all waited for. Well, to me, 7 was not much different from my tuned Vista. In fact, programs started up faster on Vista because of the aggressive superfetch (PCWorld tested that) and that was reflected in my experience. 7 was cleaned up in services startups, which was good because it was unreasonable to ask the user to do that in the first place. MS should really have given 7 for free to Vista users that were basically beta testers for them. So much for rewarding your early adopters: eventually, there were so few on Vista that Adobe dropped support for Reader on Vista before XP while Microsoft still supported Vista. Bad.

I like 7, but I find it bad compared to Vista in some annoying ways. First, I don’t run the stupid launcher. I hate it. It is not easy to see how many Windows you have open and which one is where. I tried, but I never get used to this and I find it slows me down. This is not evolution, it is let’s-copy-Macs-to-be-cool. So I use the quicklaunch bar. But then, there is a difference in Win 7 that makes it so that it is very hard to find which Window is active on the bar (the button for the active Window is not pressed like in Vista, it is only a slightly different color, which is very confusing). Also, there was a bug in Office (I use 2010) that if you minimize some Excel Window, the active Window is not the one you would think in the bar but another Excel sheet so if you click on it you get the wrong Excel Window back. Terrible, really, for someone like me who oftens use 3 Excel sheets at a time. So, I ended up running Windows 7 with the uglier-than-95-and-I-don’t-know-why classic look and feel, that I still use today on my work computer. I wouldn’t say I am very picky but if many times during the day I end up clicking the wrong Window after months trying to do otherwise, I have a problem.

So, in terms of improvements, 7 got better a bit under the hood. I think it also brought ASLR, but it was disabled by default to not break previous programs, so thank you for telling me it is more secure, but with the feature disabled by default, a bit like DEP before. Good marketing: brag the OS is more secure, but disable everything so you don’t get support calls, or even better, make it only available in the Enterprise version or when you use their browser, but pretend it is more secure overall nonetheless.

8 was the second OS I found terrible, even if I liked some of the things under the hood. Really, 8 was just not usable. And this was only because of the UI. There was some very obvious mistakes in the UI that made some functions very difficult to access. 8.1 fixed that and was a quite good OS if you tolerate the full screen start menu that is psychologically distracting from what you are currently doing. Or you install classic shell. In 8.1, you have a solid leaner OS, REFS support (which a lot of people don’t care for, but that is to me what OS improvements should be), better SSDs support and management… Great.

10 arrives with a completely different philosophy started in 8 but backed off a bit in 8.1. It is this “we won’t respect your preference, we will make it as hard and confusing as we can for you to diverge from our default settings by resetting them without telling you, hiding them in group policies, changing their names, removing some group policies settings from the Pro version”, etc. Regardless of the qualities of the underlying OS, there is a big problem here. The era of computers-are-so-cool-I-am-happy-just-staring-at-what-they-can-do-and-how-my-desktop-looks is over. People don’t spend time in their OS, they spend time browsing and in Apps, and just a few of them. The OS should just be there to support hardware innovations, be secure, offer easy and replicable customization, carefully control communications between apps, protects your privacy by allowing you to decide how much you are willing to trade off. If you make it hard and costly for people to maintain the computer, they will eventually move away to a different product.

According to the latest issue of Macworld, IBM offered their employees to have a Mac instead of a PC. I think 33 000 of them chose Mac and IBM later found out that it costed between 273$ to more than 500$ less to maintain the Mac over 3 years I think despite the initial cost being higher. That is pretty telling.

The thing is, Adobe might be successful with their rental service because professionals don’t have an alternative. I use Gimp and will never fork a dollar to Adobe because I don’t think it is fair for a casual user to pay 10$ a month for a software they might not even use every month and I wouldn’t encourage a company that disregards the consumer to focus only on profesionnals.

Microsoft doesn’t have anything that mandatory anymore for home users and with the “onlinification” of products, it will become less and less mandatory for small and medium businesses too. As MS focus more on their store to extract money from games producers, there will be an incentive to move to a more open platform. MS built their success on the openness of the PC platform and now they seem to think playing Apple copy-cats is the way to go.

The only way Microsoft will learn is to not buy into any of their crap. Don’t buy Office 365 or any online service from them, don’t use their Bing search engine, Cortana, Edge… If they can’t see this model working, then maybe, they will stop thinking it is just a matter of time before people will hop on it, but they will think, maybe we misread the market.

I don’t like at all the idea of a constantly evolving OS as a service. I think it is a dumb idea and that as soon as there is a bit of complexity, it is not going to work well. Apple does it on IOS, once a year, not 2 or 3 times a year. And IOS is very simple in a way. The desktop is not a phone. And Windows is not that kind of OS. And people are not that excited about OS upgrades, especially people who don’t care that much about their computers.

Really, when you think about it, I am not sure more people prefer to always have new features introduced to them at a time they don’t control than being able to buy an OS, spend a few years with it, then decide one day it is time for a new computer with a new OS and a careful migration, when it is convenient for them.

Plus, I think most people don’t care about a lot of stuff Microsoft introduces. From Vista to 8.1, I don’t know that people loved that many “innovations” like the charms bar, the librairies, the Win 7 gadgets, the Aero appearance than disappearance, the new UIs, the Windows Store and its new Apps like the awful not color managed Photos apps and the slow to start Calculator.

I have nothing against things like Cortana in theory for people who enjoy it and I think for some it might be a productive tool, but I think they should not force it or the collection of data that comes with it. I need a good search tool that indexes the content of the files for easy retrieval and that can quickly find Windows settings that are more hidden than ever. From a UI perspective, I like to have the great Win-X key over Win 7, but besides that and the normal under the hood OS improvements I mentioned above, there is nothing of interest to me in any version above XP (that was much easier to get around and set the way you liked). I would love that Microsoft uses the settings migration to the new UI to create a one stop shop for settings, with the ability to save and copy your settings to any computer.

Plus, the toy driven direction Microsoft seems to pursue with Creators Update is scary about what they consider priorities. I don’t care for Paint 3D (seriously, you read the articles that try to convince you there is some productivity substance to that and it looks so obviously ridiculous), I don’t want LinkedIn integration in Word, nor a bunch of contacts that takes space in my taskbar or anything they talked about. I don’t want you to sell me augmented reality for next year when we all know it is not going to happen. Remember a few years ago, that table you touched to move around pictures? Wow, everybody should get that, right?

Just make two OSes. One cheap to maintain for you that is LTS version, stable, minimal changes. And one to try to sell your gimmicks. Let’s see which one wins.

End of rant.

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@Woody I don’t pretend to know as much as many of the others who have already posted on this thread, but I did spend my working life in ‘the appliance of science’, using everything from mainframe punch cards right through to internationally networked laptops, developing and maintaining systems and supporting an even less knowledgeable user base. Even now I support family and friends for W7, W8.1 and Android devices.

I have heard everything from ‘IBM knows best’ to ‘that will never work in this company’. What I have learnt is that technology evolves, change must happen and users must adapt. That doesn’t mean that we must follow the first wave of lemmings over the cliff. It does mean that it’s sometimes wise to wait until either the cliff gets lower or the tide comes in to meet it, or even move to another cliff.

Thank you for saving me from Win10’s clutches. I didn’t like the W10 force feeding, I don’t like being told to leave everything behind before jumping into a leaky lifeboat and I sure as hell don’t want to be told that I have to both pay for and help build the lifeboat before the motor will run.

Excuse the mixed metaphors but, in short, I am hunkering in my W7 bunker and keeping all my options open until I (underlined) decide what is best for me (underlined).

Win10 22H2 Pro, MBAM Premium, Firefox, OpenOffice, Sumatra PDF.

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+1

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Hey, run for President and I’ll vote for ya!

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I don’t hear people complaining about needing to pay for new operating software every few years. Windows 95, 98, XP, Vista, 7, 8, and now 10. This is how companies make billions. Look how Apple’s customers are willing to pay for new upgraded hardware every year, or even within a given year. What I hear is people being peeved off when Microsoft screws up their computers with updates that cause all kinds of problems. Snooping, they all do it (Apple, Google, Microsoft, the Government) It’s just that it is not right. The problem for us consumers is how do we minimize it, or if possible put a halt to it?

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And phones is where Ms utterly failed. This says everything.

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“Unfortunately, subscription-based Office 365 did not gain much traction with users,”

You regard 60 million users as a flop?

http://windowsitpro.com/blog/office-365-numbers-ever-increasing-trajectory

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All in the name of windows uber alles which failed spectacularly.

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Yup. Make the base product free and useless and charge for every useful feature and agree to spying to boot

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Wow,this person really knows his operating systems. I didn’t know there were so many problems with Windows down the years. I guess I made the right decision when I recently purchased a new Apple I-Pad Pro.

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Unfortunately, MS as a company, suffers from schizophrenia. When they are on their meds, they seem to function quite well. When not, their activities have proven fragmented, incomprehensible and at times destructive. There is no cure for this disorder.

When Windows 10 was built as their new flagship, the Insiders Program was brilliant, but it was flawed and that lead to animosity between the company and the volunteers. MS was oblivious to it and the dominant voice was now WaaS.

Offering the W10 upgrade to Pro and Home Users for free was a marketing coo, but the coercion that followed caused nothing but chaos. MS fell into a delusional state and to this day have not grasped the reality of its impact.

Users, be they consumers, business or Enterprise/Ed need stability. Microsoft is totally aware of this, however WaaS has been envisioned differently. The voices are incoherent.

Upgrading from W7/8.1 to W10 was like running with the lemmings. If MS had have had a lucid moment after initiating the stampede to GWX, they should have steered it toward a soft landing, but they didn’t. Now they have lost all momentum.

The voices are telling them to focus on the Enterprise/Ed and that is going to be more like herding cats.

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>By 2020 (Win7 EOL) your Win10 PC will be like a Chromebook (dumb terminal)
>running Win10 as a service from a VM on M$ servers.

Sure seems like that, doesn’t it. “Windows as a Service”.

But it doesn’t make any sense. Computer hardware is FAR more powerful today than ever before, and can store many lifetimes worth of data on a tiny chip.

If the big companies decide that they’ll only offer “as a service” type products, someone will fill the gap with a true “run it at home” OS. Maybe Linux will grow up, or maybe another derivative of Dave Cutler’s system will surface, or maybe something entirely new will be developed. Not everyone wants someone else managing their data. In fact, I’d say a very large number of not everyone elses.

-Noel

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LOL, well said!

+1. 🙂

-Noel

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As another Win 8.1 user (who skipped 8.0)…

+2

-Noel

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Office subscriptions took a long time to get off the ground but with Office 365, Microsoft has a formidable combination of features and marketing technique. This from 2011, referencing BillG’s rollout of Office XP for rent at Fall Comdex, November 2000:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2623482/office-software/the-road-to-office-365–what-microsoft-learned-about-renting-office.html

In many ways, Office 365 is pointing the way toward subscription-based Windows.

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So, after SO many well-reasoned comments about why people are not at all happy with Microsoft’s direction, it’s clear the world isn’t stupid. Not at all! And I’m not surprised.

But, what we can expect to come out of this?

Nothing.

Microsoft apparently feels they’re too big to fail or even be persuaded to alter course even a little from this misguided, evil pursuit they have chosen to embark on.

So where is the US Department of Justice in all this (not to mention the EU)?

Microsoft is literally destroying general purpose computing as we know it, yet no one cares even as much as whether Microsoft built Internet Explorer into the OS in the year 2000?

Why?

-Noel

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When Windows 8.1 wouldn’t run Office 2003 properly, I begrudgingly bought into an Office 365 subscription.

I lived with it for a year and a half, just waiting for them to improve the awful UI and various usability problems (disappearing scroll controls – really?).

I finally gave up, canceled my subscription, and bought a new old stock Office 2010 license, which does just about everything better than the components of Office 365.

I guess I count as an “adopter of Office 365”, but I assure you I am not.

So yes, it’s a flop!

-Noel

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Alex, it’s like we’re brothers from different mothers.

You didn’t mention how the Alt-Tab changed from Z-order to something, I’m still not sure what, but it’s not Z-order.

As a user of a lean, augmented, tweaked Win 8.1 who has repeated the performance with a Win 10 test system but finds it eminently impractical to keep doing so every few months, I applaud your point of view. Well said!

I would pay a handsome premium to BUY a license every 3 years or so for a “To Work” operating system based on Dave Cutler’s design that advances the state of the art in actual operating system architecture, and shuns the toys entirely. After all, shunning the toys is what I do to every version anyway…

We rational thinkers should all build a business together.

-Noel

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Re: David F. “…once the EU wakes up to the fact that the user in effect has no choice with the snooping in Win10 they may well take action under GDPR.”

France’s privacy watchdog has declared that Windows 10 is gobbling up too much data and snooping on users’ browsing without their consent.

Excerpt from link below.

“The National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) has given Microsoft 3 months to get its act together and to get compliant with the French Data Protection Act.

That means that Microsoft has to stop collecting “excessive data” and tracking browsing by users without their consent. CNIL Director Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin is also demanding that Microsoft “take satisfactory measures to ensure the security and confidentiality of user data.”

The CNIL sent Microsoft a formal notice on 30 June.”

Microsoft given 3 months to fix Windows 10 security and privacy
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/07/21/microsoft-given-3-months-to-fix-windows-10-security-and-privacy/

Haven’t found any results reported yet.

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Yes, given the computing and storage capacity of modern systems, local computing and data storage is more cost-effective than it ever has been. There are valid applications for ‘cloud computing’ environments and many enterprise environments may use the cloud for compelling reasons. However, the large enterprises are setting up in private cloud environments with contractual protocols as to what can and cannot occur with their data. They may even specify what legal jurisdiction their data resides within. MS is definitely trying to construct a walled ecosystem where it has total control of consumer access. There is some antitrust jeopardy in what it is currently doing as the anticompetitive use of Windows is starting to look a lot worse than what sparked the original antitrust case against MS. MS may be counting at always having a favorable administration in DC. Time will tell.

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Every time I’ve seen someone argue for Windows 10 Pro, it seems to be an astroturfed response, with such things as:

“Get over it, it’s the future”
“Stop being such a Luddite”
“Yeah, you probably hated Windows 7 when it came out too”
“You’re probably still rockin’ Windows XP”
“You use Google every day and you don’t b***h about that”

And other ad-hominens.

None of them address the core concerns with Windows 10, which, in some ways, *is* a good operating system, or at least is the core of one, points that Woody underscores:

-Google is free. Windows 10 is free to some, but is in actuality, a paid-for operating system. When Google wants my privacy, they’re giving me something free for it. They are also clear with what they’re using my information for and how if I care to read. Microsoft isn’t always so up front, and if I’m paying, I want to pay for my data not to be gathered. Furthermore, if I’m paying for Windows 10, I shouldn’t be beta-tester. You should be giving the OS to me for free.

-Businesses want delay because their primary focus is *stability*, not new features. So everyone who calls people Luddites or back in the stone age probably isn’t using their computer to make money, as a business tool. They probably aren’t a systems administrator, or dealing with software applications whose developers might charge an arm and a leg for a program that’s compatible with Windows 10, when the business already has a Windows 7 version that works fine. And they don’t have to worry about 50-300 users or more constantly calling them over this issue or that. In short, they’ve probably never planned a project in their whole life, and don’t know how to assess risk.

-Microsoft is breaking as many things as they fix with patching these days, and Windows 10 isn’t letting me choose how to patch (or avoid/test patching). That gives any IT admin pause. It’d be one thing if Windows 10 was spotless and stable, and Microsoft was investing in QA, which it’s clear that they’re not if you work in the industry.

-Finally, some of them are just one-liner astroturfers and trolls. Coming from someone who uses Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 as part of my daily job, those people can take a long walk off a short pier. I have yet to see a good argument from them.

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Hey Alex – That ain’t no rant! That’s THE very best “editorial” I’ve ever read about Windows: Intelligent, informative, clear, precise yet concise and to the point — just to name a few great attributes. I was in newspaper production, IT, editorial, sales and publishing for over 40 years. I could only dream of finding good reporters and editorial writers — even among graduates with college degrees in journalism — like yourself during all those years. Kudos, kudos, and more kudos for a fantastic “op-ed”? 🙂

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Noel, at least half my clients use Office 2010. It is clearly the best Office ever sold and it cost us about $35 each. We bought 3 packs for around $100. It is good forever as long as our OS supports it.

When my clients receive new PCs I usually set them up for them. I routinely uninstall 365 as part of my set up. It must be huge because it takes a very long time to remove.

If I needed a new Word program, I would opt for one of the freebies in the market and there are some good ones.

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The original post which started this thread did not have much logic for me nor did it build a coherent argument. Tomorrow is great,,, yesterday sucks…. seemed to me to be his mantra. Hmmm – yes in general, of course, but perhaps not absolutely, always, in every way.

And with specific reference to Google I am absolutely no cheer leader – I distrust them greatly actually. But at least their business was always about data – not being the creator of the “world’s operating system” who are now acting as though such trivial things just don’t matter anymore. With some effort, you can switch things off in Google can’t you. And you can use search without using Now etc.

I think though that the sentiments expressed originally and then the responses do give an accurate snapshot of the final, screeching, agonising separation that has crystallised over the last couple of years. It has been true to some degree for a long time but there are now two very distinct, and irreconcilable, sets of “tech users” – those who just need/want a shiny box to entertain themselves and those poor, boring, benighted souls who actually need to do something productive with text docs/spreadsheets/planning/design/engineering programs to pay the bills.,,, Like me.
And not to have that activity sifted through by unknown parties for unknown purposes.

They used to be two ends of one thing but are now totally separate.
The first group absolutely don’t care how anything works as long as it does – they’ll throw it away/trade up next year if the marketing tells them to. Cheap devices/ expensive content. It’s totally about consuming content. Privacy concerns? – lots are posting their every thought, breakfast and sex lives all over the internet. Privacy – Smivacy!

In the other group, life has become a tad more complicated because of Microsoft’s “strategy” (it sometimes looks like plain blundering but surely they are following a very cold-eyed plan? I just don’t happen to agree with it). For the first time in almost a generation it feels like Windows (in any form below Enterprise at least) just is not going to be there for us anymore in a meaningful, useful way. I find that a bit scary. There is to me a void now between corporate IT structures and kids(of all ages) in their bedrooms. Where do we go – how do we compensate? That feels a very uncomfortable place to be when, as Canadian Tech and others, point out we invested in working, reliable operating systems for local computing – not media devices.

Something will fill the gap, almost because it just needs to, and because that market sector is much, much bigger than Microsoft indicate by their actions.

But hey and this matters -it shouldn’t, but it does… An advert with someone free doodling a love heart, watching a film and telling their friends what they had for lunch all whilst rollerblading along the boardwalk in the sunshine ….. or someone sat at a desk?

But we are there in our many, many millions. Linux and Chromebook are not it as they stand… but could well be with varying degrees of difficulty – and a big cultural shift in the Linux community.
So could a Windows OS (Windows Dull as ****/Windows for wage earners anyone?) that just worked securely and needed no marketing budget. But who in Microsoft could build a career in that division?

I agree with the original poster in only one aspect – moving forward is the only way and “tech” has given us wonderful opportunities but just at the moment it is making it harder to plan the future for one particular cornerstone of our businesses.

If what you are looking for is just to listen/watch/chat ……happy days.

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UKBrianC, you hit in on the head, so to speak. There are two worlds: Entertainment and doing (creating) things. Win10 is an entertainment machine. I can tolerate it if the entertainment part did not interferes with my work.

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“Y’all know that I invite – encourage! – contrary opinions. This is a good one, about my InfoWorld article 10 reasons you shouldn’t upgrade to Windows 10, well thought out and expressed, by reader AS:”

Hey Woody, thinking about changing your introduction to this post yet? From the comments it seems not many share your very generous descriptions of “good” and “well thought out” 😉

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Heh heh heh. Actually, as mainstream thinking goes, it IS well posited.

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I do not use any google services. I do not use social media. I run just about everything I can to block tracking, because I despise marketing people building a profile on me without my permission.

That said, I cannot “choose” not to be tracked in Windows 10. With a solid investment in software, all I can do is choose to remain with Windows 7 and not update it past SP1, since they started injecting spyware in Windows 7 updates. Sure there are tools to “tame” Windows 10… but none of them are full-proof, and frankly I don’t want to play the cat and mouse game with Microsoft’s updates undoing my settings or skirting my abilities to block their intrusion.

I’d fully switch to linux, but of course it can’t run all of my paid software, even with Wine and other tools.

An operating system has no business tracking you without permission, whatsoever. And no… the EULA is not me giving my permission. And before “dolts” start bring up my phone… I don’t run standard firmware and I run a firewall. It’s amazing the lengths one has to go through to not be tracked.

Here’s the messed up thing… someone takes a picture… I’m in it… they post it on facebook, with a caption of my name… now all the fri**** facial recognition apps know my face, and I’m not the one that allowed it. Talk about invasive! I never clicked on anything in that case, yet I’m still robbed of privacy.

… and the sad thing is that the dumb a*** millennials just don’t get it.

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Agreed. Unfortunately, not every country in the world has the same “data is free” approach as the US. Here in Australia, for example, we can’t have everything in the cloud. Home internet users are very heavily restricted by expensive data allowance limits (I’m talking DSL, not mobile networks), ancient infrastructure that runs on copper that is not even suitable for phone calls on some days. Oh, it rained? Oops, the phone cable pit in front of your house got flooded and all your copper (often held together by gaffer tape) is under water.
Microsoft may have a vision for a brave new cloudy universe, but it’s decades away from being a reality in suburbia in some countries.

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Believe me, it ain’t just the millenials. Facial recognition is a scary technology.

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They extended the time b/c M$ whined.

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+10

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Make Windows Usable Again!

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@ b ……. After about 2 years, 60 million users out of 1.2 billion is a big flop.

http://www.windowscentral.com/there-are-now-12-billion-office-users-60-million-office-365-commercial-customers

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Fully agreed with Alex, although my favourite OS of choice is 7, Vista just had too many stability and usability issues for me.

I think it’s very obvious that Microsoft is going the route of “we are having no end of trouble getting rid of pirate copies of the OS, so we’re going to make the OS itself pay us by forcing ads and constant monetization for us” which is something that drives business users up the tree when they try to stop an OS from phoning home all the time. How can we guarantee corporate data privacy when we have absolutely no control over what “apps” are installed on desktops, even when they are running “Professional” OS versions.

It’s all well and dandy for people being told “only do an OS upgrade when you do a hardware refresh”, but at that point, you’re paying the Microsoft once for the OS to be included with the hardware (usually Pro edition), but if that doesn’t stop all the crap and Candy Crush from appearing on your desktop, should we be forced to pay a second time for a version where we can actually lock down such features?

Not to mention that we have no guarantee that Cortana won’t listen to our confidential office conversations 24/7. Or that those recording devices could be hi-jacked by hackers because they are so tightly integrated into search services.

It comes down to usability. When you see people like Mark Zuckerberg himself putting gaffer tape over his webcam and microphone to stop the danger of snooping, what’s the point?

As an IT admin who has to manage a small local govt agency, I don’t want to have to spend half my time battling an OS that seems to think that having random new apps appearing on a PC for users is a neat thing.

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Office 2010 for $35 ? What is your secret ?

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On having no interest whatsoever in W10, in which MS has redefined ‘OS’ to mean “a service” – which means MS dictates to the user – which considering MS intent of making it cross-platform ubiquitous raises many concerns about what that ‘service’ may morph into in the future once all that power is consolidated…

Reader striking back wrote:

“clueless rabble-rousing users…[and]…it is based on, as stated above, ““petty tantrum” reasoning””

Yes yes RSB, that’s right… ahem…

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Beta releases are always minefields. Windows 10, as non-enterprise customers see it, is always in beta, and always will be.

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“AS” missed the point.

“Technology changes,” he (assuming) says, with an example of people complaining because of a change to NT core in the consumer Windows.

That would be an example of technology changing. Windows 10, though, is an example of technology being weaponized against its users.

Tell me, how has technology changed that requires Microsoft to demand such a high level of control over my PC that has done just fine being controlled by me up until July 29, 2015?

Is that the date “technology changed” and I had to accept not being in control of my own belongings anymore?

What technology changed to make it okay to give themselves rights to download my data in the EULA, or to remove things they deem “unauthorized,” along with the code to actually perform those tasks built right in?

AS seems to think that the spying is really okay because MS warned us in the EULA that they were doing it. Well, that’s part of what we’re complaining about! We don’t want to deed all of our data over to Microsoft for the “privilege” of using Windows 10 (in my book, hands down the worst Windows ever released).

There was no change in technology that required MS to start abusing its customers with adware through the formerly trusted Windows Update process. There was no change that required them to not have a cancel button on the dialog, instead giving people only a choice of whether to install now or to install later. There was no change in technology that made the “X” button (which was the hidden cancel button before) suddenly start meaning “go ahead, install whatever you want, MS!”

That was a change in Microsoft’s relationship with its non-enterprise customers. While it’s been a rocky relationship at times, for the most part, MS has tried to treat all of its users as valued customers. Now it’s treating us like enemies to be conquered, dominated, and controlled.

That, AS, is what has changed.

It doesn’t matter if Google spied on us first. I don’t have a Google operating system. I don’t use any Google product while tracking cookies exist on my machine, signed out, and my IP address changes once a day, so I am pretty hard to track. I have a few Google accounts that have nothing in them for commenting on various sites; all anonymous, and I clear all cookies after using them. Google ad servers, analytics servers, tag services servers, etc., are blocked at all times too, since so many sites that have nothing to do with Google have Google trackers and ad scripts in them.

The thing is, I know what I put on the web is not private. I take measures to make it more difficult to track me by ordinary means, but I know that ultimately, anything out there on someone else’s server (hey, that’s also true of “the cloud,” isn’t it?) is exactly that– “out there.” Don’t put it out there if you would really be unable to live with it getting out. You have to be selective what you share and with whom on the internet.

That doesn’t compare at all to how an operating system works. By its nature, it has contact with every file on that system, all the time, and whatever is in those files. Any level of spying within that context is simply unacceptable– whether it be for the purposes of targeting ads like Google, determining what “apps” the user uses, performance diagnostics, or otherwise. That is, unless the customer opted in– and no, installing Windows 10 with its “all your data are belong to us” EULA doesn’t cut it.

It’s been made clear that Windows 10 is our only choice if we wish to keep using the Windows platform. Windows is a monopoly; if we want to keep using our own PCs that we paid for (and which we’ve used to invest in the Windows franchise over the years by being users), we have little choice. That’s the point of a monopoly.

As such, permission granted in the EULA simply by virtue of using Windows doesn’t cut it for giving permission (note that this has never been tested in court; we just ASSUME it is legally valid). Terms agreed to under duress don’t mean anything, or at the very least, have less authority than those made freely.

What this means is that if there is not a clear, concise, obvious, easily-understood way of turning off ALL of the spying permanently (or better yet, it should be opt-in), that’s simply not tolerable. Not on an OS that touches every bit of data on that PC.

No technology is going to change to make the spying any less egregious. That was never a part of Windows, not for the last 25 years I’ve been using it and doing a small part to promote it by being one of the tally of sales (numerous times over the years). I bought into the Windows platform with the understanding that there was no spying. We all did. If we had not done that, MS would not be in a monopoly position now, and they would not have the leverage to force us to accept incredibly bad terms to be able to keep using the Windows we helped to be a success.

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MOFO to the Rescue(maybe)!

MOFO Linux To Escape Internet Censorship And Surveillance

https://itsfoss.com/mofo-linux-censorship/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linux_distributions_that_look_like_macos_and_other_stories&utm_term=2016-12-12

Anyone know about this MOFO?

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“Ford’s in his flivver…all’s well with the world.

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At that time, there were lots of retail sales of Office for Home & Student for Three computers. Those packages were selling for around $100.

At about the same time or a bit earlier, there were sales of Windows 7 for family for Three computers for around the same price.

I and many of my clients bought your Windows 7 and Office 2010 licences. I have copies of the receipts to prove it. Many were bought on Amazon.

These licences have the additional beauty of being transferrable to another machine without limit.

There are no such products or sales these days. In effect, prices have gone up dramatically.

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PKCano says:
December 12, 2016 at 7:27 pm
They extended the time b/c M$ whined.

Not surprised. If the German agency gets involved too we might see some heat.

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There sure are an awful lot of very angry people. People angry with Microsoft. There have always been people angry with Microsoft for a lot of reasons, but this has risen to pretty dramatic proportions.

Obviously, I have no numbers, but you can just feel it.

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Nice, Canadian Tech… By the way, do you have an opinion about the “best” edition of Office ? I’m still on 2003, and I’m cloud-adverse. I have read people claim that after Office 2003, it all went downhill (that was a while ago, admittedly).

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“Bill” was hated in his time, but his Microsoft looks positively benevolent compared to what we have now.

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Anyway, Woody trolled himself with a rant he got in the mail, and look at all the learned, thoughtful and witty commentary this has brought up. Smart guy, this Woody…

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I also used it as a reality check – to make sure my opinions aren’t devolving in a vacuum.

Remember, I’m the guy who makes no bones about the fact that he uses Win10. 🙂

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I agree with the rebuttals here and the posters said it well. 😀

I would like to point out one thing AS is correct. Technology changes and it is what enables the full time telemetry and spying to be practical for OS and product makers 🙁

Now with that said, it does not make it right. Few of posters are correct, the best way is just not to buy any of MS products and alert the business and companies to the perils of MS. Hopefully MS will get the message and change sits way.

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2003 was good – but not supported anymore.
@007 had a radical change in the UI – ribblo instead of context menus.
2010 ironed out 2007’s problems.
Both 2007 and 2010 added features you may or may not use/need.
After that, it’s all cloud stuff.

I like 2003 and 2010. I still use both.

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Second PKCano’s sentiments. I was not a fan of the ribbon initially. But once used to it, Office 2010 (for me) is the standard. 2013/2016 did nothing for me, except for what I feel is a terrible look.

Outlook 2010 is not great with IMAP, which forced me to switch to Thunderbird (new ISP is IMAP only). Don’t know if Outlook 2013/2016 offered improvement there; didn’t get that far before “uninstall”.

OT — Oh, good! Patch Tuesday’s batch just arrived: five security updates for Office 2010, and a security and quality rollup for .NET 3.5.1 and 4.x (among others which won’t be installed).

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I must respectfully disagree here. With the iPhone 7, no one is forcing you to upgrade to the iPhone 7. You could stay on the 5 or 6 if you want to.

With Windows 7, however, it is different. Microsoft’s actions (from pushing the upgrade to 10 onto people’s computers without their consent, to the new upgrade methods being employed by Microsoft) could be considered “forcing”.

A friend of mine, for example, was upgraded to W10 without his consent. I put some blocking software on his computer; in spite of that, Microsoft pushed the upgrade to his computer.

Another friend of mine recently upgraded from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 6. She did the research and then decided to do the upgrade. I guarantee you that the upgrade from 5 to 6 would not have happened had she not gotten in her car, driven to the iPhone store, and then asked for the upgrade.

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+1!

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This is an excellent forum for me too for the very same reason.

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Thanks for all the nice comments, guys. You are amazing, of course, because you agree with me, right? It feels good to have such feedback, because often I wonder if I am just a bit crazy, plus English is not my mother tongue, so I wonder how things come out and if I look dumber because of it. People here are great and smart and I learn by reading your comments. But maybe we are just all crazies, right?

The reason I post here apart from venting is that I have a slight hope that someone monitors it at MS and that there is a slight possibility it gets discussed at their strategy meetings.

Here’s a few more thoughts:

-Selling upgrades is over. Nobody buys an OS. You still buy the new phone because it is better in lots of ways, but already it is not that much better than before and people buy less of it, like the tablets. You don’t buy the OS, you buy the phone, even if the OS is still evolving maybe a bit more in terms of features than the desktop OS. Once good enough is there, purchases of hardware slows down, it’s normal. A long time ago, OSes were exciting, but now for most people they are not. They buy a new computer at some point, not an OS, except maybe big businesses because of some new features they actually care for and then it is on their own schedule. Make it more secure, great! My next computer will be bette, but that is not why most people will buy a new computer. Maybe it is useful that it is not so secure, so when I get too much viruses, I think the slow computer needs to be changed? Nah.

-If selling upgrades is over, then the need to hype useless stuff should be less important. You could sell a basic, best OS ever, long term support OS each time you sell the PC, with support until the EOL of the PC. Less money thrown away developing bloat. I wonder how much Microsoft puts on so many “innovations” that gets the boot one or two Windows iteration later? There is a market here : sell the OS with the computer and minimize costs of development and maintenance. Stop paying people to develop useless bloat that ultimately needs to be maintain and fixed and that can cause problems with other more important features. Get it?

-Renting is a bad idea. Why? Selling OSes is over (to consumer and SMBs). You rent to big businesses. You sell to the customer when you hide the cost in the price of the computer. Or else, they will be like, what, you think I will pay 10$ a month to use my computer???? I don’t need a computer that bad. I will use an Ipad, or a Mac, or maybe I will call that step-brother so I try this Linux thing. Anyway, I don’t really need any of Microsoft products. I only type a few letters here and there and do some budgeting in Excel, but apparently it is very easy on LibreOffice or even online. The world is about Apps, not OSes, and not that many Apps are can’t-live-without-apps.

-Why do people choose a Mac? It’s simpler and it has no virus is something you hear a lot, even if not that true. Still, the idea is there. For content consumption, why a Chromebook? Cheap, simple, secure. Why not? Privacy. Ipad? Similar reasons, give or take a few nuances about each. For productivity, PC should be king, Mac is better in some areas, not in a lot of others but that doesn’t concern most people. Linux? Why?

-There is a need for a computer that is private. Private, not as in secretive and evil, but private as in intimate. As someone brilliantly exaplained here, I don’t want the world to know the details of my intimate life. I don’t share private life with people in person too much, why should I have over the Internet. Some people are like that, some not. It’s fine. Respect that. I don’t want to see that ugly picture of me doing something funny with my relatives hacked on the cloud. The love email I type to my wife shouldn’t be keylogged and leaked by mistake to a third-party after the third party antivirus part got it.

-Remember the K cars? I wasn’t old enough, but from what I have heard, U.S. manufacturers thought it would be great that cars break after 3 years and gets changed because people liked to have new cars. Guess what happened? The once perceived as not good japanese cars started to sell much more. Did the carmakers forgot those cars changed after 3 years were usually sellable to others? There is a need for a reliable, stable OS and PC. It is not exciting anymore to change PC, it is a hassle for most people, making sure you don’t forget precious memories in an obscure folder in that downloaded software. Once I was excited about Aero a bit, then at some point the trouble of switching tone down a lot of the excitement of the novelties. Apart from the search engine introduced in Vista (when it doesn’t break), from a usability perspective, there is not much that we gained over the years after XP or the nice new things often got drowned in a sea of annoyances you now have to get rid of.

-MS needs to fix the SMB issue. Nadella even said he wanted to focus on SMBs, but he does everything to destroy them. He wanted them to have access to the tools of the big enterprise, via the cloud I guess, but he also chose get IT-says-no out of the picture by letting people install what they want in the store while IT can’t stop them or sending the users messages that their IT staff blocks the latest great features from Microsoft. Well, Satya, if you want to fix the SMBs, you need something. Right now, it makes no sense that you need IT consultants or staff to run your small business. It should be so simple that someone who is not that good with computers can easily set all the settings to his liking, save them and deploy them to 2-5 computers without having to tinker with them again for a very long time (no updates that resets settings in case you don’t want security or privacy anymore). This shouldn’t need a domain or tools that you can’t easily learn just by playing with the computer. This doesn’t make sense. SMBs should be self-autonomous. Security shouldn’t be something you have to tinker within your OS to get. Stop with the bad ideas, new services that are not required for many, new points of entry for malware, share everything switches on by default that you have to disable. Didn’t you learn anything from ActiveX? Oh maybe, with Edge, but it is not limited to the browser. It is a philosophy that should permeate the whole OS, it is called defensive computing (thanks Michael Horowitz). Provide a stable, as secure as possible core. I don’t tweak for the sake of it, I hate it. I have to or else my users can shoot themselves in the foot way too easily. And the worst is they all got virus at home on their non managed computer and they all think they didn’t because they “only browse safe sites” until they brought me their computers.

It makes absolutely no sense to raise the cost of using computers by shoveling upgrades after upgrades asking for users to just do nothing about it or have experts redo the settings they lost, figure out what settings changed by themselves and adjust accordingly, manually if you don’t have a domain. This is the most ridiculous part. You made computing a big hassle. Each update should list clearly what the changes are and limit as much as possible the need to fix stuff. If we loose so much time figuring out wtm you did again that we have to disable, we both loose our time because I am going to disable it anyway. Yes, lots of folks might not, but at some point, the experts will be gone and become the best evangelists for the alternative. Look at what happend with the guy running tweakguides.com. He is done with wirting for Windows since 10 after giving them a chance with 8 and 8.1 and he explains why. He just doesn’t want to promote this nonsense anymore and he doesn’t feel like it is a reasonable task anymore because there is no Windows anymore, it is a moving target, that river you never bathe twice in.

Beware, Linux folks, I might be in your camp sooner than you think and then you are going to have a taste of my venom! Such a wasted opportunity. If there is one software that should be the OS to end it all, it’s free open-source software. It needs leaderhsip there. Someone with a vision, not scattered and spending too much time polishing GUIs. Get the basics right, is it that hard? The Internet runs on Linux, there is no reason the desktop shouldn’t have its hour of glory.

Now, imagine for a second the real complete Excel 2010 with only the added ability of multi windows in Excel 2013 on an Ipad Pro OS , with the ability to have real Windows like the great Windows but keep the fullscreen for fullscreen apps, with mouse and keyboard, just like you are using right now on your PC, but without the crap under. Throw in a better file management and we won’t miss much for portable computing.

Grrr!!!

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I have about 70 or so clients who use 2003 and are happy with it. The rest are mostly 2010. The 2007 and 2010 versions use a different interface which takes some getting used to. However, given a choice, I’d take the 2010 version for sure.

The newer versions use a different default file format which has proven to be a problem with millions who are still using versions like 2000 or 2003. So, routinely, I change the default format to the 2003 version.

Other than that it is problem free.

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Very few of my clients use Outlook. The vast majority use Windows Live Mail 2011 version. I think it is the best mail client I have ever used. It is actually firmly rooted in Outlook Express, but far better.

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I don’t believe 2010 Word, Excel or PowerPoint use the cloud by default. I don’t know a single person who uses the cloud voluntarily.

I believe the vast majority of people who “use” the cloud don’t even know they are. They do not realize their data is not on their computers.

This is very similar to email. Most people who use webmail do not realize they don’t have their contact lists or email on their computers. They get a big shock when they change email providers and discover their mail is not moveable.

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Alex, I could not agree with you more on the topic of Linux. This should be a perfect time for the next Bill Gates to come through with an organized, supported version of Linux.

Done right, I would lead people to it enthusiastically.

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Thank you AlexEiffel. “There is a need for a computer that is private. Private, not as in secretive and evil, but private as in intimate.” I agree with the rest of what you said, but that is what strikes me as most important. There is a place for being able to communicate freely and openly, available to everyone. Public discourse is important. That should be in addition to, not instead of, having private communication. Give me a secure, private, usable by non-techy, operating system. Right now Windows 10 feels like they’ve put Uber into every car, making you pick up passengers anytime you want to go somewhere. Its better for the economy and environment, so force everyone to sign on… but I really don’t want to pick up, or be picked up by strangers.

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I still use 2010. 2010 is great. Faster than 2007 on big files, more polished.

I like one thing about 2013 and more: you can see more than one Excel window at one time. It is a big deal for me. I hate the uppercase menus. It is ugly and distracting.

I tweaked 2013 for my users so it doesn’t connect to the cloud by default and removed a bit of the nonsense. I was too busy to install it and try it myself.

I will try 2016 very soon. The new “feature” of 2013 represented by uppercase menus is gone.

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Several years ago when W8 was first released and it was obvious that the new OS hurt PC sales, Hewlett Packard considered building a new complete GUI for the Linux kernel. They intended to offer the OS as an alternative to Windows and I took this as an indicator that relations were a bit frayed between Hewlett and MS. W8 was a “dogs meal” on the desktop at that time and new PCs were downgrading to W7. As I recall, the reason that Hewlett Packard abandoned the Linux plan was that they believed a copyright would not be obtainable for their GUI because the code would also be considered “open source” software. Under that circumstance they decided not to proceed. I do think that there is a market for a secure and stable PC OS that does not snoop like W10 and that folks would be willing to pay a license fee and an annual support fee for security updates and bug fixes. MS has seemingly decided to saw off the branch of the tree that these folks are perched upon. So sad!

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Thanks to all. Quite illuminating. It feels good not to be the only dinosaur around. This encouraged me to do a quick search on the subject of the ribbon, and all those things come up : waste of vertical space – haphazard placement, can’t find things – can’t personalise menus and toolbars anymore – help is more difficult to come by, because you can’t name things easily when they have no names, just icons. But Office 2003 sure looks obsolete.

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Actually, Apple has caught onto Microsoft. Recently they have pushed iOS updates to older model iPhones that start to slow them down so badly that it’s pushing obsolescence onto those devices. We have iPhone 5’s for our staff, and they really notice the slower response.

Apple also recently has started a really annoying tactic of pushing popup notifications to iPhone users about a new iOS update waiting to be installed, up to once an hour. That’s downright GWX-like behaviour. While there is a way to stop this for a short while, eventually the phone will check online and then start bugging you again every hour to install it.

So while Microsoft has gained a lot of hate and derision of this tactic, other companies are willing to accept it.

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Canadian Tech: “I don’t believe 2010 Word, Excel or PowerPoint use the cloud by default.”
Office 2010 applications store data files locally.

Below are the steps for using OneDrive for cloud storage of Office 2010 data files … for anyone who may want to do so; I don’t.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Save-a-document-to-your-OneDrive-from-Office-2010-b9e0c0a9-2bd7-42cf-9178-24d60c51ac75

“Most people who use webmail do not realize they don’t have their contact lists or email on their computers. They get a big shock when they change email providers and discover their mail is not moveable.”
Yep. Creating local folder archives can help remedy that, if you stay on top of it.

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Anonymous, FYI, from the time Win10 first came out, my clients bought at least 40 new computers. Every one of them had a W10 licence and had W7 pre-installed. It is highly doubtful W10 will ever be installed on those computers.

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Hear, hear!

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The cloud may not be obligatory, but it’s very difficult to resist. I do, but I deprive myself of much of innovation in the process. The cloud is where the action is.

The other lever the software industry is pressing to suck you into the cloud is the way everything is streamlined beetween local and remote. Increasingly, it’s not obvious whether something is happening on your PC, or on the other side of the world.

Foxit, publisher of the pdf software, tried a trick of this sort a while ago. They silently appended an experimental cloud “feature” to their product. The minute I realised a file I was working on had been sent into the cloud without me having asked for it was the time I abandoned Foxit for ever.

I’m in the market for some serious note-taking and research software. What are the non-cloud options ? I haven’t found any. Cloud-based Evernote is by subscription only, and has recently raised its prices. Besides, I never really understood their interface. One Note is free, and it’s supposed to be the best, or second-best. But you have to abandon all your life to Microsoft’s cloud, which does not have zero-knowledge, client-side end-to-end encryption. The only way to keep your notes local is One Note destkop, which is horribly expensive. No middle ground.

As a contributor has mentioned, local storage and computing power is so cheap nowadays, that you should not need to move your files in the cloud. Except for synchronising with portable devices, and for an extra backup layer. I don’t do portable, but of course I’m an oddity.

The other perverted thing about the cloud is it’s a one-way street : uploading from scratch is so slow, compared to downloading, that once you’ve done it you tend to stay there. Which aligns nicely with the industry’s interests. Not necessarily with your own.

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Satya… Is that you?

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An Opposing Opinion.

Firstly, the bugs in Windows 10 have been well documented and ongoing.

Secondly, Microsoft has shown it’s lack of integrity by trying to deceive and force Windows 10 on it’s customers despite customer wishes.

Thirdly, and granted this is an opinion but one shared by many. The GUI is flat, 2 dimensional and represents a substantial step back to the NT 4.0 days.

And Finally, Why would you assume everyone uses Google? I specifically don’t use Google because of their EULA regarding privacy and tracking. Try DuckDuckGo it works great. And while we have choices for search engines that don’t track you the same is not true of OS’s, sure there’s Linux, unfortunately most of the mainstream software is only compatible with MS products. I suspect you are like one of the three blind men describing an elephant as being like a snake because you happen to be holding the tale. Your views are very narrowly focused.

Respectfully…

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Heh! Heh!

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Regarding the Google argument, regardless of whether one uses Google or not, it’s logically and morally false. It’s whataboutism at its finest : Microsoft has the right to behave badly, because Google does it too, therefore by some bizarre twist of reason, bad becomes good because there are a lot of bad guys around.

The correct argument is the opposite : if one thinks it is wrong for Google to spy over its users, then it’s also wrong for Microsoft to do it.

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Exactly. It is a classical logical error of argumentation called the double fault. It is in the family of sophisms, apparent arguments that you use for rhetoric purposes but are logically invalid. Politicians in general are experts in rhetoric, nothing against them, but it is very effective so obviously they will use them a lot.

Double fault is like saying USA still has racism, so it’s ok to have racism in Canada. Or, it’s ok to beat your wife when she behaves badly, it’s much less bad than throwing rocks at her until she dies like they do in . When you show extreme examples, it is easy to see this logic don’t hold at all.

The other fallacy is the false analogy AS did. The false analogy here is that using Google as a search engine on the web browser is the same as using your computer. This simply isn’t a valid comparison. When you use Google, you choose what you write, you know what gets sent, you can even opt-out of some things, clear your record, change your IP, refuse or erase cookies, you can limit your searches to stuff you wouldn’t mind being public, you don’t accept that every file on your computer could be accessed if deemed necessary.

When you use your computer and you don’t really understand what gets snooped, it is a very different situation. Yes, MS has a technical article describing what they are supposed to do, but their EULA and privacy policy is much scarier than what this technical article says about telemetry. They reserve the right to analyze your computer and file content if they have a good reason to think it could go against their interests. Pretty vague and scary.

“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.”
You could always say they are just broad and sloppy so they don’t run into trouble later by forgetting something but they are not ill-intentioned. But why make it so hard for people to opt-out of all of this? And if they are sloppy, you think they should be trusted at protecting your private information? Did you know that Onedrive for personal purposes was at one point (I don’t know now) encrypted while your data was in transit, but actually stored non encrypted at Microsoft? I bet almost no one knew that because they wouldn’t expect to be so stupid. To get encryption at Microsoft, you needed Onedrive for businesses. That’s the company you should trust with protecting your most intimate details stored in your computer or the cloud.

What is necessary? Checking if you downloaded music or a movie that is owned by one of your friends in Hollywood? It is illegal. Pirating games by your teen? It is illegal. Spending lots of time on cryptography and security sites? Watching a streaming game of football not accessible in your area? Watching copyrighted content on youtube? A lot of people do these things. I don’t want to start a debate about what is right or not with this, but simply pointing out that if you had as much good faith as SCO when they sued Linux and companies that used it a few years ago over very far fetched claims and they had Microsoft money to back them up, it could get a bit ugly. A falling company that starts a new business model based on suing to reinvent itself, maybe that is a crazy thought.

So, you either accept our EULA and privacy policy, accept that we share your private data with third-party for purposes deemed necessary, accept we can do pretty much what we want with your private data but we promise to be nice and reasonable, accept that you will have arbitration and not sue us if we do wrong, all that or else you can’t use your computer. Plus, trust us, we haven’t been deceptive at all lately eh? We really thought clicking X meant don’t bother me anymore with your notifications that I responded no 10 times already, just install that dame Windows 10.

This in no way equals Google’s way of doing things. And I don’t use Google Chrome or Chromebook because I am not comfortable with this, even if I respect Google. I liked that MS respected my privacy more, so I always used Windows and Firefox because they value privacy the most.

In fact, I don’t agree at all with Woody on one thing. This article from AS was not at all well thought-out and expressed. It was symptomatic of the biases and flaws in logic of a lot of people. It has provided us an opportunity to maybe express why this thinking is inadequate so we can move on to more enlightening discussions. I don’t have anything personal against AS and I certainly voice a lot of opinions that are just that and not truth, I might bring facts that aren’t because it is just comments and I don’t double check the sources, but I think it is important that whenever we see obvious flaws of logic, those are called off. We will all discuss better in the long run.

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Windows 7 > Windows 10 (end of story). I’ll give up DirectX 10. Pick your battles.

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A little late to the party here because holiday prep has kept me from my usual daily reading, including Ask Woody, but I just can’t not respond.

Personally, I wouldn’t call AS’s comments well thought out or expressed. Leaving aside the unnecessarily inflammatory style, the post boils down to two basic points: 1) don’t hate Windows 10 just because it supports technology you don’t have and 2) it’s hypocritical to use Google products and services while taking Microsoft to task over privacy issues.

There are big problems with both of these points. For the first, yes technology moves on and yes there are people who are unreasonably resistant to change. But in general, over my 30 years in IT, I find those are the people least likely to upgrade, not people who upgrade and then complain. Unless of course they were unexpectedly upgraded overnight after they reasonably thought they had declined the upgrade, in which case they have every right to complain.

Curmudgeon luddites who are just looking for an excuse to complain aside, “technology advances, get over it” might be a reason not to complain, but it certainly isn’t an affirmative reason to upgrade. “Look at these cool new features you won’t be able to use because you don’t have the hardware to support them” is not a compelling reason to upgrade, and even AS admits in his own argument that having an older computer with inadequate power to run a new OS is a reason not to upgrade.

There’s also the issue that “technology advances, get over it” ignores the reasonable, principled objections to the manner or direction that technology is advancing in a particular product. Which brings us to the second part of the argument.

Taking Microsoft to task over privacy concerns while blindly using Google products and services is indeed hypocritical, and I have no general problem calling those people on it. But AS’s argument incorrectly assumes everyone complaining about data collection in Win 10 is a blindly-accepting Google user, which simply isn’t true. As Woody pointed out, there are many people who feel compelled to use Google but aren’t happy about their data collection. There are also people, believe it or not, who simply don’t use Google products or services because they aren’t willing to accept the loss of privacy.

Which points out another logical flaw in that argument. Microsoft and Google aren’t equivalent. Most people could avoid Google far more easily than they could avoid Microsoft. The shift to mobile devices for personal use may change that in time because Microsoft dropped the ball so badly in mobile, but for now and the foreseeable future, for most people, if they want to use a PC rather than a phone or tablet they’re going to have to use Windows. On the other hand, using a non-Google search engine or e-mail system, for example, is comparatively easy.

In short, AS’s argument both generalizes and trivializes the reasons not to upgrade to Windows 10, then simply dismisses them rather than actually addressing them. And it does that while simultaneously acknowledging there are cases (such as older hardware) in which not upgrading is the more reasonable choice. So color me unconvinced.

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+1

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Now, THAT is well thought-out and expressed.

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