What to say. Never no more Microsoft garbage for me again, never. Not Windows >7, not anything else.

I rather start playing teletubbies on my Android smartphone than to buy W10.

Of course, Xbox also would be off the table.

Recently Microsoft hit its customers with another wave of account and online "service" outages. But go ahead, go cloud - if you are a hopeless case. And just today I read that they have released another coupole of urgent emergency "fixes" today. These emergency fixes have become anything but rare in past 12 months or so.

In reply to my own earlier question:

LINK - Search begins for workarounds to Microsoft's Win7/8.1 on Kaby Lake/Ryzen patch ban

In reply to my own earlier question:

LINK - Search begins for workarounds to Microsoft's Win7/8.1 on Kaby Lake/Ryzen patch ban

The amazing thing is that the Windows cheerleaders, although they have to reach deeper and deeper into lala-land to defend Microsoft's thuggery, are as cheerful and unfazed as ever about how "great" Windows 10 is.

That raises the question "Is there ANYTHING Microsloth could do to lose the support of their kool aid drinkers?" They have tricked people into a "free" upgrade. They have reset user preferences for all Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 customers to force their computers to do things against the wishes of their owners. They have welched on their promises of support for Windows 7 until 2020, chopping many off at the knees two days ago. They have sold Windows 10 at the highest prices for any Windows operating system so far, while they persist in shoving advertisements down our throat, even in Windows Explorer!

"Windows is the property of Microsoft and we only license the use of their software. It has the perfect right to treat us like serfs, stomp all over us and our preferences, trick us, bully us, serve us advertisements.....it's all part of a good and rightful company we love." they say. I say Microsloth is telling us they don't want our business.

Beware April 10th.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/318...-in-april.html

It looks as if customer who bought new Skylake -CPU-based system and operate W7 or W8, from next patchageddon day on will be banned from getting further Windows updates. Which maybe is not really a problem for you if you, like me, consider a switched-off Windows-Updater not a problem, but a welcomed feature. If you however still believe in the old gods and beleiuve that keepign youzr windows always updated and trust Microsfot that they do not abuse the situation, you might find out that the old gods let you down from April 10th on.

I recommend to find an old (!!) CD or DVD with an archive of SP2 on it, if you ever plan to reinstall your W7. Use this old SP2 (not a newly downloaded from the Microsoft website) and patch your newly installed W7 with it, up to that standard, SP2 from back in the days. And then forget about updating Windows, switch it off. But use such a machine not for surfing and other working routines, only for the one single purpose why you still depend on Windows, which probaly is either gaming or some specialised workplace software - for everything else, have a second system with a different OS, preferrably Linux.

I play on a W7 system. But all popsts you read from me were done form a seocnd system with Linux. All emaisl go there, too, and all surfing and shoppiung is done from that second system, too. I even charge my steam wallet and buy Windows games on Steam via the Linux system, then activate the wanted software on the Windows machine. Since my Windows is now vulnerable afte rnot havign been updated for over 1 1/2 years, I expose it to the internet as little as possible for my gaming intentions. And that means often to play in steam offline mode whenever possible and then with a plug to the router pulled out.

Nothing beats the innocence of the facts of physics. Pull the plugs, cut the wires - do not trust software control and software switches, it makes no sense to trust these - they are just code. Anjd you never know for sure what the code is doing. Especially when it comes from Microsoft.

More cheer leading then. You can turn off much of what is being complained about regarding privacy. Note the built in key logger can be set to off.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/102...922/KTIylg.png

It says it is off. How sure are you that Microsoft doesn't reset your settings as it pleases without notice to you? How sure are you that Microsoft doesn't continue to collect information even when the settings they choose to make available to you are turned off? How sure are you that malware, no longer having to write a keylogging routine, hasn't hooked Microsoft's keylogger and are using it. If they are, no malware scanner on Earth will flag the Microsoft keylogger.

When the OS hawker builds malware into its operating system you can be 100% sure bad guys will hook it and use it against you.

By the way it's 100% sure that Microsoft on dozens of occasions (at one point it was resetting user preferences every couple of hours!) has reset user preferences and permissions without notice or permission. It's 100% sure that Microsoft continues data collection with all your precious settings in the off position and continues gathering what it pleases without notice, without review, encrypted and compressed, sent to Microsoft servers twice a day, at your expense if you're on a metered connection.

As the Sony rootkit debacle shows, if you have malware installed on people's computers, whether you use it or not, bad guys will hook the routines for a free ride to anything they want, beyond any detection method because they become Microsoft.

Microsoft no longer has a clue what an operating system is. They don't care about your preferences or needs. There is no difference between Windows and Conduit. Windows is simply a data collection and advertising system that does some useful things for some users. Others, Microsoft tosses casually in the trash. "No soup for you!"

You can never be certain of anything. Your new car data logs your driving habits. Your cell phone logs your whereabouts.

It's not that I don't see your point, I just think it's a bit overkill and paranoid. Pandora's box has been opened already.

Surrender Dorothy

Resistance Is Futile

Be the Bridge
That way we can walk all over you on the way to better places.

Ruthlessness
It pays a lot better than integrity


Sorry, I choose not to participate and will continue to resist assimilation. With Ubuntu Linux I don't have to worry about my computer doing anything I don't want.

Both Microsoft and Google (Chrome) have repeatedly, even often, demonstrated that some, in Chromes's early days even most of their switches and documented tweaks for privacy were dummy switches, or did not offer the completeness in pirvacy proptection that their labels suggested. Snoopware on the other hand gets sold under unsuspicious labels and names and gets hidden in services where you would not search them and would not expect them to be located. Both companies have reapetedly demonstrated that they mislead people.

That is no paranoia at all - but hard, historic, empiric fact.

You have to remember just one thing to see what is more likely here, paranoia or fact: and that is that user's privacy protection is against the very business interest and profit interest of these companies, and it would ruin their business model if they would allow customers' will to rule Microsoft's and Google's ways.

You do not run a product that you bought when using Wiondows 10 or Chrome or anything of the Google Kraken Empire. YOU ARE THE PRODUCT that gets sold.

Interesting article on some of the problems ahead now that Windows 10 is moving away from a 'product' model to a 'service' model; there is some info that may be of interest to Win 7 & 8 users, also:

'Windows as a service' means big, painful changes for IT pros --

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows...4ec?yptr=yahoo




<O>

Good information Vienna. Thanks for posting.

My eyes just randomly strolled over this headline:

"Even on the “Basic” setting, Win10 Creators Update still sends 1,966 individual pieces of data to the Microsoft mother ship."

:gulp:

Here's what you need to know about reinstalling Windows 7!

Four steps to reduce the pain of Windows 7 installations using cumulative updates

The problem is that there are hundreds of updates to get Windows 7 up to snuff and that can take three days (don't ask me how I know). Using this procedure you download the updates you want, then install them manually offline for a much quicker experience. I haven't gone through the list to see which ones are Windows 10 crap but Skybird's thread on updates you can remove will help with that.

Microsoft seems to be responding a little to the pressure from crazies like me (don't let your guard down however--wait for independent corroboration) and has released an article:

Windows 10, version 1703 Diagnostic Data

Just one short section
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/1T...Q=w706-h648-no

Isn't it interesting that it says "not intended to capture user viewing, listening or reading habits" and then they demonstrate that is exactly what they are collecting. For instance if I've loaded up a DVD encoded for European use and watching it with VLC media player, which respects no region code and have made my DVD player region code agnostic, they know it..... And they say I'm crazy!

Ubuntu for the win!
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...pskhwngc56.jpg