Windows 10: What You Need to Know

[STEED]

Is anyone getting Microsoft pop up windows banging on about Win10 saying I should upgrade? I'm getting fed up seeing these pop ups badgering me to get Win10.

I will make my own mind up thank you, I don't need MS trying it on.

[wessex]

ahoy shipmates,this old sea dog is having problems installing SH4 wolves of the pacific on to my hard drive..after I put the disc into the machine and follow installation instructions,it seems to go through the complete installation phase,and at the end,nothing game not installed,is this a windows 10 issue?I never had this problem with XP..any help or advise will be much appreciated..capt.wessex.
sorry if im in the wrong place for posting problems ;-)

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by wessex

ahoy shipmates,this old sea dog is having problems installing SH4 wolves of the pacific on to my hard drive..after I put the disc into the machine and follow installation instructions,it seems to go through the complete installation phase,and at the end,nothing game not installed,is this a windows 10 issue?I never had this problem with XP..any help or advise will be much appreciated..capt.wessex.
sorry if im in the wrong place for posting problems ;-)

The main Silent Hunter 4 forum has a dedicated thread about installation into Windows 10. In addition to the advice applying tto Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 that you need to not install to the system protected directories, program files or program files x86, there is another adjustment you need to make to get SH4 to run. I don't know what the adjustment is because I will never run Windows 10. It's entirely possible that after Windows 7, the last true operating system ever produced by Microsoft, I will never use Windows again as my primary operating system.

As more and more games are made for Linux, Windows will become less and less necessary.

Already it is as easy, perhaps easier, to install SH4 in Linux as it is in Windows 10.

[Buddahaid]

Sorry, I thought your answer was your win10 modified. Still, I don't see fighting win10 as being sustainable and only a delaying tactic at best. Linux may well be the best alternative but I find myself less interested in games now so that's not my concern. Learning Autodesk Fusion 360 is and that's just a hobby.

[Skybird]

I beleive to just have learned that the activation concern regarding W7 and Microsoft maybe blocking it one near day, might be pointless, since activation codes can be worked around or the need to activate can be deactivated - I hope rleiably!? - or that existing activations and their certificates can be extracted and the codes noted on paper for later repeated use (it is not the code on the labels you find on boxes or DVDs by Microsoft, but a generated code stored in the deep dungeons of the system).

I do not want to translate and explain it all in English, since I just red it in German, but it should be no problem to find the info via google, it seems to be no big secret.

The HD-stored activation code I would red out, if I were you, right after having red this post. Just in case.

Buddhahaid,
as has been indicated many times now in this thread, as long as you do not desperately rely on gaming (you said you don't) and do not depend on software you need for professional purposes and that is available for Windows only, there is no pressing argument to jump to W10 now. You can stay with W7 for years to come, in this scenario.

If I ever need, for any purpose, to switch to W10, I will maintain two system then: one with W10 and an uncompüromised limitation of focus to the reason why I need to have it (and not one inch more), and a second one for anything else that will have nothing to do with Microsoft. Most likely one tower, and one laptop.

But i currently do not see the need to accept W10 for the forseeable number of coming years. If there come games depending on W10, I will pass on these.

And even if you do not have objections against W10, see it like this: W10 got released in a lousy state, way too early, and even their patches time and again cause hundreds of thousands of user, if not millions, problems and many hours of wasted time, time and again. Every year you delay switching to W10 is one year you safe time for something ore pleasant, save time that you do not get abused as a beta tester against your will and without your intention, and getting abused without Microsoft paying you for your involuntary participation in this experiment.

I also remind of the fact that already at the time of of the release of W8 it was said that the next OS by MS, back then still referred to as W9, would be the last OS MS is developing as an individual built, and that with W9 (aka W10) they would switch to a new policy to constantly upgrade and change that one OS then, not developing a new one. I predict that the problems there are now, will not significantly fade out over the years, since every time they implement something new that in the old times would have justified the development of a new OS version, they will instead release it to the existing W10 userbase. And with that you will get, time and again, to where you are with the existing problems today. You will get blotched upgrades. You will curse and and try to work around. You will waste hours and hours of your life working for MS - for free.

Thats why MS probably will get their will, and will get away with it - you guys, all of you, allow that.

But your anglican patience is nothing I admire, in this case. I have far more drastic and unpleasant adjectives on mind to describe it.A huge part of Windows updates and Microsoft product updates, are not security-relevant, but repair what is broken and unfinished or misdesigned. Plus many of these updates are broken in themselves. SINCE YEARS. Making lives of many users complicated over and over again. This should tell everybody what to think of the quality standard Microsoft software gets released in. Its garbange. Junk.

And you guys defend it. Draw your conclusions.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Sorry, I thought your answer was your win10 modified. Still, I don't see fighting win10 as being sustainable and only a delaying tactic at best. Linux may well be the best alternative but I find myself less interested in games now so that's not my concern. Learning Autodesk Fusion 360 is and that's just a hobby.

No problem Buddahaid. I see sending Microsoft a message about what we will and what we will not tolerate is very important.

It is also important to highlight that Silent Hunter 4 runs just as well in Linux as it does in Windows. It even installs as easily and that is the Windows version (there is no other) running in WINE. It just installs and works flawlessly. Also Steam is migrating top games with native Linux adaptations that work identically with their Windows counterparts. Borderlands 2 and Kerbal Space Program, from my personal experience, are just as fast, just as reliable, just as good as their Windows counterparts.

Putting pressure on Microsoft by resisting Windows 10 (there are still at least five years of Windows 7 support remaining) and helping build Linux to a viable alternative will bring competitive pressures to Microsoft which either will goad them to realizing that their customers are the source of their income, not victims to be plundered, or Microsoft will have to die.

Competition is vital to making all participants more excellent. Rolling over to a monopoly is the way to mediocrity at best and at worst a total collapse of much-loved and needed products. Pressure applied to Microsoft is the only way to punch through the corporate bean-counter, ivory tower think and making them consider the source of their prosperity. That would be us. We get what we ask for.

[STEED]

Just spent 2 odd hours going though a total of 41 updates the most I have seen so far.

19 OK
08 Not needed on my PC
14 Win10 plumbing

Since October I now keep a log book of each months updates keeping eye on what to allow what is alright but I don't need it and those ones I do not want at all.

I bet MS will release a bucket full from next month on.

[Skybird]

Very recommendable read.

LINK - Microsoft walks a thin line

The author does not hide his highly sceptical attitude, but nevertheless does a very good in trying to stay objective and fair.

And as he said: at the core of the issue, it is about trust, and whether you think Microsoft has deserved to be trusted any longer, or has nullified any reason for being trusted. My answer was, and still is, and will remain to be: No, it does not deserve to be trusted.

I tend to agree with what a reader named Frank posted in the comments on this blog entry: LINK

Originally Posted by reader named Frank

Excellent and fair article Woody regarding Win 10 data collection. I guess one takeaway would be “when the product is free, you are the product”. I do not want to get into all the back and forth details about what MS is doing or not doing; however, I personally do not view it as being benign as the very design construct of Win 10 is intrusive. I find comparisons to Google snooping of online searches not very compelling as it is more naturally “bounded” by the manner in which I employ their search engine. In the case of Win 10 it is the entire OS and hence covers the user’s entire computing environment. Although I generally approve of regulatory action as an absolute last resort, I do see early parallels to the way we got the Federal Communications and Federal Wire Fraud Acts. In the early days of telephone, eavesdropping on party and private lines was quite common, This occurred for a variety of reasons ranging from personal nosiness to commercial espionage. Once it became apparent that virtually everyone needed a telephone to conduct the requirements of daily living, a new regulatory doctrine was set forth, namely, the telephone company owned the phone and the communication line but they had no legal interest in the communications transmitted. Hence, communications could no longer be eavesdropped without someone obtaining a court order from a judge having jurisdiction. The Federal Wire Fraud Act worked in tandem to prohibit any “artifice or device to deprive a party to the honest use of communication services”. Now we are in the relatively brave new world of the internet where it is increasingly difficult to conduct one’s affairs without a computer with an OS and an ISP. This is rapidly becoming the new telephone and increasingly we are seeing the types of unregulated behaviors by commercial parties that led to a recognized need to legally circumscribe what is kosher and what is not. I fear we are drifting toward some type of regulatory umbrella if this crap continues because after all the internet is at its core just another venue for two way communication and providing an OS should not confer on the provider an unlimited privilege to intercept and store such communication.

I hate regulation, and since I am also hostile to the idea and concept of modern states, it gives me even more troubles. But the need to install limits on what companies like MS can do without being called to order, should be obvious by now. Since states themselves are heavily engaged in and interested in constant surveillance of all and everybody, I doubt they are the instance that can be trusted to set up such regulation without violating it heavily themselves. No matter what, I think the most realistic scenario thus will be that we will sink deeper and deeper into the surveillance state, and that our young ones will be educated and trained to find nothing suspicious about it. And people arguing against it one day will be seen as suspicious and as a danger to the public like having no debts and no credit cards already today raises your suspectability of being a terrorist and can automatically put you on a terror suspect list (we learned about that mechanism that after 9/11).

Advise? Say No. Do not use all the latest tech stuff. Use alternatives, and if no alternatives are available, say No to using it at all.

Life without all this was possible until just a few years ago. Its no essential stuff. Not at all. All it takes is determination to not accept tempting "compromises" that get YOU sold, and the readiness of confronting offices and services that will be irritated if you do not play by the common rules of embracing all surveillance technology whole-heartly and "voluntarily". You will run into conflicts if you do not play by these rules in full. Have the nobleness and grandeur to fight them.

Else you may one day wake up in a state where resisting them will bring you into prison. Or will cost you your life. States are the coldest of all monsters - all states, without a single exception.

[Von Schenk]

I have to say that I prefer Win 10 over 8, and not just because of the start screen fiasco. I think Microsoft realized they had made a mistake by trying to compete with Android as touch screen tablets looked like they were going to take over the laptop market. I think that cooler heads prevailed and they negative comments and feedback must have been way greater than they thought it would be. If you look back at Microsoft's history they have got it wrong bigtime on a number of things, did anyone read Bill Gates book 'The Road Ahead'?. In it he says that he doesn't think that the internet is going to be very big or important in the future!!!!.

[Rockin Robbins]

The important quote in the article Skybird references above:

Back in September, Windows honcho Terry Myerson posted a blog that says:

From the very beginning, we designed Windows 10 with two straightforward privacy principles in mind:

• Windows 10 collects information so the product will work better for you.
• You are in control with the ability to determine what information is collected.

Experiments conducted immediately after that post showed that Windows 10 was collecting data even with the myriad privacy settings turned off, and sending it to bing.com. What data? We don't know. Microsoft encrypts everything prior to sending it to its servers, and it has yet to give a full accounting.

Note how Woody doesn't ask you to believe him. Woody always supports every position with a link and gives you the means to check it out yourself. The Windows apologists never support their statements with evidence. They demand that you believe them on their own authority, whatever they say about how responsible, truthful and straightforward Microsoft is. The truth can withstand scrutiny, because scrutiny reinforces truth. Falsehood avoids the light because the light would reveal the bankruptcy of their position.

But I am curious about one thing, Skybird. You said

Else you may one day wake up in a state where resisting them will bring you into prison. Or will cost you your life. States are the coldest of all monsters - all states, without a single exception.

That sounds very American. At least it sounds like America used to be before the ascendancy of the left. Folks, Skybird lives in a country with the highest cultural, social, artistic, accomplishments. German culture is the pinacle of Western Civilization. But people in Germany DID wake up in a state (their own!) where resisting "reasonable requirements" of the state brought many to prison and death.

The very fact that it happened in Germany is absolute proof that none of us are free from that possibility. We may think we live in a moral and honest society, and we may even be there for the time being. But Germany proves that is not a permanent state of affairs.

Without warning, or with warning that we ignore, our governments, our corporations, our labor unions, or any combination of them can go to the dark side and we are only as safe as how strongly we protected our privacy during the "good times."

Skybird has a unique perspective because of where he lives. But we are all vulnerable to such a malfunction of human decency, no matter where we live or what kind of government we live under. Ignore him at your peril.

And remember, trust must be earned, not given out by default. Microsoft, by its nefarious actions of late, changing privacy settings, renaming surveillance "services," reissuing Get Windows 10 (GWX) nagware six separate times, collecting information after all settings they make available are turned off, a lack of transparency about exactly what information is collected and how it is used, has actually earned our MISTRUST. The articles already referenced, here, here and here support each and every contention I make here. It's time to be on your guard and protect your sovereignty over your private property.

[Rockin Robbins]

Deck the Halls with Poison Ivy

[Skybird]

Your view of Germany, the contemporary Germany, sounds quite idealised, Robbins. It isn'T that culturally enobled over here anymore. It all slides, and is in steep decline. One could even say: its a mess.

I remind of some of the mechanism to project power and influence that Philip K. Dick described in many of his novels. I do not mean the robots stuff and drugs and alien stuff, but the structures of the future state he described the US to have turned into. These mechanism work via media, brainwashing, psychologic control, and somethign that reminds a lot of collectivism and mind police as we have seen in Stalinist and socialist regimes in the past, as well as voluntary self-control of the masses today - that we call "political correctness" nowadays.

If anything, then I think Germany/Germans should see it in the way you said I would, because of German history and European history, yes. But it is very much unwelcomed to do so, and easily gets you turned into a social pariah, a witch that get chased through the media. Germany is only a shadow of what you described it to be. Maybe not easy to see from the outside.

Well, the political threads are in GT forum, aren't they.

Just saying.

One can allow a private company the immense potential power that private informaiton about yourself inevitably means, and hope and trust them to not abuse them. Yes, one can do that. The question is how reasonable that is to do, and what speaks for them not abusing their position - when it is truth in what they say: that "business is war".

I think it is clever not to depend on their good will and promises (which they already have broken so many times), but to prevent them in the first from gaining a position where they could plan such abuse. The idea behind it is the same why you lock the housedoor behind you when leaving. You could trust that nobody will get in and steal your things if you leave it wide open, yes you can, and call that your optimistic nature or friendly personality that sends smiles into the world to make it a better place.

But is that sensible...?

There is a German proverb: Vertrauen ist gut. Kontrolle ist besser. Translates into: Trust is kind. Control is better.

Don't trust Microsoft. The product they sell - is YOU. And who knows to what degree the US government is behind it. MS software running on systems in all world, last but not least means: MS has a foot in the door, they know their baby, they know their OS, believe it. And the NSA has a step in the door of MS. MS must obey American legislation.

Add one and one together.

My W7 installation still is tight and sealed and gets no updates and contacts to MS servers at all (as far as I could figure it out). And it will stay that way, without any plan or intention to change that. Trust in MS is as dead as "dead" can mean.

[Aktungbby]

Von Schenk! And what a debate brawl to 1st post-surface in..afer a three year silent run!!: 'twixt RockinRobbins AND Skybird!

[STEED]

All set for Malware Spyware Nagware Tuesday? NO

[c6owboy]

I will share my sad story. I attempted the upgrade a week ago. The games will start and run but sadly I learned that my video card manufacture did not write updated drivers for windows 10. The generic driver made the game run hideously slow. So I fell back to windows 7. Its an old machine and I only use it for gaming. So my advice if you also run into this problem is to wait till you get all the last updates to windows 7 . Burn an imagine disk for windows 7 and hang on till you get a new machine.

all the best C6owboy