And here is some food for thought.

People so often think just because they have turned off some privacy options, they would be safe. What they do not realise is that software settings - thats what options are - and physical switches (physical interrurption of cables and the like), are not the same.

I just have checked my system a bit, as I use to do three or four times or so per year. In my windows update history, there should be no entry at all, since windows update service is switched off from all beginning on, since I installed this system two years ago. I had SP1 and patches done via DVD archive, not onöline updating, and the latter is what that history file is recording. Since no onöline upodatign ever took place, there should be no entry. And until spring, it was like this: no entry indeed.

Now there is one single entry, from May, several days after my last checkup. KB4012212, 15.05.2017.

It shouldn't be there. You hardly can seal off a system any more than I have done with mine. The update is related to the wannacry mess earlier this year, which was reported about. Somebody obviously decided it was so important that my isolated, sealed off, shut, closed and blocked system gets this update, that he nevertheless and without my knowledge squeezed it through the wire and onto my HD.

The thing is not whether or not wannacry justifies this or not, whether it saved me from worse evil or not. The point is - it was possible to do so. When they can do it with this one, they can do it with just any piece of code they want to enforce on people. And the history of the GWX campaign shows that they bypassed explicit defences against getting an enforced W10 update several tens if not hundreds of thousands of times. Not by misleading people (that too, but that counts separately), or mislabeled clicking pois, but simply against the techncial settings of users who said No.

This KB401221 update seems to be a defence against wannacry. Maybe it works for my best interest indeed, I don't know. But fact is I never gave consent to get it, I never was asked, I was not even aware of getting forced to get it, and I have deliberatly knocked down options of my system to get any updates by Microsoft at all. And I went far beyond the usual switches and option settings, but hacked some bit deeper into the registry to isolate my system from Microsoft's access.

KB4012212 should not be there, but now it is there. THAT, and only that is the point.

This weekend I will kill my W7 gaming system and reinstall all from new. And maybe I will leave out any game needing to be always online, and keep the internet wire unplugged after having registered W7. Surfing and emailing I already do via another (Linux) platform anyway.

They may not even be software settings, just fake switches. It's been proven that with all Microsoft Windows telemetry switches off, Windows still sends lots of telemetry back to its telemetry servers daily.

It's worse than that. Those of us with experience know how to use the Hosts file to short-circuit Dynamic Name Server calls for addresses and keep websites from being accessible from the machine. Windows 10 ignores Hosts file user settings and communicates directly with the IP numbers of its telemetry hosts, against the wishes of the machine owner.

I don't know how they get out of their present position. They can talk nice all they want, but since they are not trusted, they can't ever get any traction. How do you unbreak a glass? Trust is like that.

They're a business. I only trust any business to look after it's own interests. Windows is only a tool I use.

If only someone could come up with a windows program/application launcher without actually having windows.:yep:

I installed on my laptop dual boot Windows 10 or Ubuntu Linux, I should have purchased a copy of Windows XP 64bit and Linux, most of my programs are XP based and will not run in Win 10 or Linux without a lot of messing around and sometimes just not possible.
Since I am stuck with the current setup I might turn off online access to Win 10 and import anything via Linux, Linux can atleast access Win 10 drives, still left with the problems of running Win XP programs.

Has anyone toyed with Win 10 virtual desktops? I tried XP here but have a lot of problems with drivers.:hmmm:

I use VMware to run Xp on my Windows 10 system. It works great but you still have to own and install Xp. VMware is is an interface that will set aside 40G of HDD space for each virtual machine you want to create and upgrading it doesn't change the virtual machine content, just the interface. It also lets you use all the peripherals attached to your PC, DVD drive, printer, etc.

Downside is you still have to install the virtual machine operating system just like a normal install, and it doesn't run games very well. I use it to run older graphics software and CAD style programs that are broken in a 64 bit environment.

I gave up on VMs under Linux , once I got myself to finally check it out closer. For those gamne/sim titles that I need Windows for, for example Assetto Corsa and Raceroom, or FSX, or SBP, I would not just need the sim running, but also additional controller hardware: Fanatec stuff, CH gear. The games ran like #### and drivers for the hardware messed things up even more. Linux drivers for these things: non-existent. So what use would it make for me to have any racing game running under Linux if I cannot use the - sophisticated - Fanatec hardware for game input? None, obviously.

Some of the games I use, are also available for Steam OS/Linux. That is nice, but still leaves out many other games, and simulations are an even worse aspect of it all.

Thats why I so desperately depend on Windows 7. If it would be all well with simulations and gaming in Linux land, i would have fired Windows 7 off my HD completely by now.

While there are exceptions to the rule, it still is a valid rule: Linux and the vast majority of games do not fit well together. Linux is for surfing and work - not for gaming in general. There are exceptions, but again: exceptions do not define the rule.

Driver support for all that hardware out there is one of the weak things of Linux.

My advise thus remains the same: two systems. One Windows gaming system, one Linux everything-else system. For hardcore gamers and simmers, Linux simply is not alternative.

Check steam, you will see that amny games are avialbole for Linux/SteamOS by now. But then, check out also how many games are not.

Windows 10 snooping? Most users want us to record what they do on their PC says Microsoft

Microsoft proudly states that over 70% of users leave all data mining totally intact. They just don't care about their privacy or rights to use their computer as they wish. They probably love junk solicitation calls on their cell phones too.

RockinRobbins management mantra #1: If you treat people badly enough long enough they will demand it.

Corollary #1: Don't take people's acquiescence to an oppressive policy as evidence of how they would wish to be treated.
Corollary #2:People will readily act against their own self-interest with the right "encouragement."

Unfortunately people are willing to be bought and sold, personal information is the world's currency now. MS have jumped on the band wagon and it will just get worst. Hate to think what the world will be like in 10 years time.

Don’t use Windows 10 to move data on your Android phone

What do your expect when you use Windows Explorer/File Explorer to move, copy, paste, drag and drop files on your Android phone while connected with a USB cable? Well if you have Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 you expect it to just work normally. After all, your Android phone is just another disk drive, right?

But in Windows 10, you should know better by now. According to Jörg Wirtgen of German-language site heise.de:
So don't move files. Moving is just copying and then deleting the source file anyway and apparently doing it that way works. The situation is sketchy and new info is developing. Be very careful and don't be surprised if that isn't enough to prevent losing files. I would be tempted to make a copy of files you want to operate on and only cut/copy/move the copy. If you lose it you still have the original.

Most scary is the line that the deleted data couldn't be recovered with any of the usual recovery tools. There was no recourse.

Just another cheery bit of news about the operating system that works "just fine!"

That is a new dimension of planned obsolescence. :D

It's also how you "delete" the competition...

https://images.idgesg.net/images/art...4777-large.jpg

The photo is a link. Here, according to Greg Keizer of Computerworld magazine, is the scoop. At 28 months before Windows 7 death, the majority of Windows computer users still use Windows 7. In fact, over the past 16 months, Windows 7 has actually GAINED .6%. With 28 months to go, XP was at 3 points lower percentage use than Windows 7 is now.

The reason is commercial use. Since Windows 10 is not secure and cannot be made secure, with its telemetry collecting your proprietary data and sending it who knows where twice a day, businesses cannot accept Windows 10 as an operating system. It just isn't going to happen.

Microsoft's refusal to bow down to customer needs will bear the same result as Walmart's closing of checkout lanes and insertion of self-checkout trying to force shoppers to cooperate with their plan of firing cashiers, and monopoly cable companies now looking to rip $200 a month from you for their "economical" bundle. There is a breaking point and suddenly, before they even have time to react, those companies will find themselves bankrupt.

I'm getting ready to fire Spektrum right now after they raised their most economical bundle over $160 per month. I'll buy internet only until competition comes along. Then they can whistle Dixie.

We are Customer. We are King. Serve us or die.

They are not dying, they are doing too strong in server and cloud business. Their stocks are soaring. Also, their loobbyists are strongly connected in our corrupted politics and public administrations. Finally, I take it for granted that they have strong support by the US foreign and trade ministries. For these, MS spreading its OS is a weapon of economic warfare and espionage.

When reading Skybird's comment I remembered a question

Some of you don't like Microsoft and other things related to this company. Some of you have on several occasion posted stories about Microsoft near death

Is this, due to your anti-Microsoft standpoint, a wishful thinking or do you have knowledge that tell us Microsofts will soon be history ?

We all have things we don't like and hope it will disappear or die fast(not human or animal) but sometimes its nothing more than wishful thinking.

Markus

Mapuc,

just follow this thread and the links to various entries from tech blogs/sites in the past two years, and then draw your own conclusion.

Same about the market analysis linked here or in those blogs and essays.

Also in some other threads in this forum.

There are no new wrongs in Microsoft's policies and Windows recently. Only those old ones that people always want to forget.