We need an operating system, paid for it, and we just can't use it without going through regular troubles to ensure some sort of sanity.
Any attempt to have it the normal, guaranteed by law, way, are countered from Microsoft with either no reasons why, or very shallow explanations.
Looking at the boarder picture, at other windows products, licensing is becoming more expensive. At the same time, attempts that look like MS is opening itself to the world, are just a curtain that ensures user entrenchment on windows platforms.
This, so far benign behavior, is just becoming outright hostile at the moment (auto updates going against what we changed, and having new code to hard reset user changes, etc etc).
I get that this will sound like a sad rant, but that's how I feel about this whole windows 10 thing: It's just a really sad sad state of affairs.
On the one hand, it would really help if we all switched to Linux and paid for it (but I wouldn't know which B2C-oriented companies provides a good Linux support, plus I'm afraid that the recent multiplication of Linux distributions will harm the image of the OS).
On the other hand, OEM versions of Windows have done lot worse. First of all, you are not supposed to alter the OS provided by your OEM if you want to keep the license. Second, there are all those drivers that are supposedly necessary and which installed the Ask toolbar, IE skins, and even a root CA certificates in the case of HP! They take away up to 40% of the power of your computer in average (yes, when it's the OEM's supposedly antivirus), they display advertising, they communicate your personal information and open breaches. Actually I kind of wish Microsoft provided OEMs with a set of APIs where they can do their harm, but forbade them from going further.
So your Windows PC has been full of malware way before Windows 10 added spy tools. I'm just happy it's official now - Hope it will help more people switch to other OSes.
>> On the one hand, it would really help if we all switched to Linux and paid for it.
It would also be nice if companies like Adobe ported their design apps to Linux. Currently this is one of a few reasons I continue to use MS. That and being able to test in IE helps some too.
Not sure what's keeping Adobe from doing this tbh. I would pay for a solid, secure Linux distro in a heartbeat as well as a port of Adobe creative suite.
1. Trying to make a universal OS. If you look at most of the "spying" bits, they're things that already exist and are taken for granted on Android/iOS phones all over the planet. Windows isn't doing anything new here. They're making an OS that is equally meant to run on desktops and phones. As a side effect people are suddenly seeing all the things that any other phone does direct and naked.
2. Recognizing the fact that the average user is a horrible idiot and giving up. Customer grade Windows is aimed at "users". And what average users have done in the past is never update their windows. Most not even because of any decision against it, but because they don't even understand what's going on and ignore it. The result being hordes upon hordes of machines are out in the wild, unpatched, with open security holes, for which MS gets the blame. So they made automatic updates the default and did not provide a way to disable it in the standard user interfaces.
Doesn't mean they force it though. If you truly wish to take control over it, they allow you to. All they require is that either you hire an administrator, or learn how to handle Group Policy Editing yourself.
For example, on Win10Pro, changing the setting of "Configure automatic updating" is sufficient to switch scheduling of updates off.
For example, on Win10Pro, changing the setting of "Configure automatic updating" is sufficient to switch scheduling of updates off.
How is this different from the way it works in older versions of Windows? My understanding is that it's much harder than this to defer forced reboots farther than 12 hours, and becoming (deliberately) more difficult update by update.
You can tell it to wait with downloading until you click go, or to auto-download and wait with installing until you click.
This worked on WinXP, Win7 and Win8. It does not work on Home editions, since the Group Policy Editor isn't available there, but enterprising individuals have worked around that as well.
I get that this is suggested in every similar thread and it may not be an option for you, but I really recommend giving something like Arch Linux* + GNOME Shell a shot. With Numix it looks amazing and the usability of Linux has came a long way in the past few years.
* I suggest Arch instead of Ubuntu, as I feel that a lot of users automatically go with Ubuntu and then blame the broken stuff, (i.e. Wifi in 16.04) on "Linux", whereas in reality Arch, Gentoo, Fedora users are having no problems.
Better yet just use Antergos. It defaults to Gnome, even, and has a live CD.
It still isn't a good situation to anyone put a power user. We would want an Arch derivative with better security (ie, MAC, package hold-back for stability, etc). And the AUR is in practice a security nightmare given anyone can upload anything as a PKGBUILD.
Debian is a good choice, but I've found the up-to-date packages and pacman to be better at showing how current Linux looks to new users.
Also, the maintenance burden is largely contained to [testing], with it disabled, I've run the same Arch install since '13 with no problem.
We need an operating system, paid for it, and we just can't use it without going through regular troubles to ensure some sort of sanity.
Any attempt to have it the normal, guaranteed by law, way, are countered from Microsoft with either no reasons why, or very shallow explanations.
Looking at the boarder picture, at other windows products, licensing is becoming more expensive. At the same time, attempts that look like MS is opening itself to the world, are just a curtain that ensures user entrenchment on windows platforms.
This, so far benign behavior, is just becoming outright hostile at the moment (auto updates going against what we changed, and having new code to hard reset user changes, etc etc).
I get that this will sound like a sad rant, but that's how I feel about this whole windows 10 thing: It's just a really sad sad state of affairs.
Decades of progress, is this supposed to be it?