Windows 10: What You Need to Know

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

My two penneth of advice is....if you don't want to be spied on or have information about yourself gathered....don't use the internet..

Not good enough, get off the grid and live in a cave....Oh hang on there are satellites that can gather info on you like what day you hunt for food and what veg you are growing!

Seems to me there is only one answer, you never come into being.

[Skybird]

You are right, Robbins, MS is waging a war of attrition against resistance by "customers". They do not adapt to people'S wishes - they train them to have other wishes, wishes that are in congruence with what MS wants them to wish. Serve the crap often enough, and every connoisseur will turn into a pig sooner or later. And he will even claim to like it. Its just that people like you and me, being critical of this, are getting pulled over sooner or later, too. The others I have no real compassion for, they only get what they deserve and not one bit more, but us few - we will need to pay the price for their indifference sooner or later, too. And that is what is unfair. The large majority just gets what it deserves. The few get plowed under. To hell with it.

[Rockin Robbins]

For Windows 7 users, here's the skinny on the November batch of updates. To make our screening job harder Microsoft has changed their documentation procedures for updates. Where documentation for updates was very comprehensive and complete, documentation is now.....well, basically nothing at all! All those arguing that Microsoft is operating in good faith for the benefit of its users, I'd love to hear a plausible theory about how nixing documentation of updates constitutes "good faith."

In spite of that, Woody has backed off to MS_DEFCON 4. but first:

Windows Update patches KB 3112336 and KB 3112343 are all about Windows 10

MS-DEFCON 4: Patch, but watch out for KB 3101488, and clean up afterwards

Read carefully. What he says is

After installing the patches, Windows 7 and 8.1 users should immediately run GWX Control Panel. (The latest version has a feature called Monitor Mode that’ll run the program automatically after your update.) If privacy is important to you – and it should be – Win 7 and 8.1 users should then follow the advice at the end of Susan Bradley’s article last month in Windows Secrets Newsletter, and turn off the Diagnostic Tracking Service.

If you want to keep up on what each patch does, your one-stop shopping is Susan Bradley's Patch Release Grid. Oops, that's for Windows 10 only--still useful.

I hid the updates above, KB3112336 and KB3112343 because they are only about "easy" updating to Windows 10.

[HW3]

For those who have questions. Those who have already made up their minds, don't bother wasting your time.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/dont-le...ff-windows-10/

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by HW3

http://www.zdnet.com/article/dont-le...ff-windows-10/

That piece is wantonly negligent. Claims not founded but just claimed, and reported negative facts as witnessed by many, many users, completely ignored. Lousy.

[Rockin Robbins]

Yes, as with Windows 8 and 8.1 the majority of the computer press is acting as Microsoft cheerleaders. You must analyze their writing critically to expose their bias and it's fun to speculate on their motives. I think lots of US Government portraits of dead presidents on special cotton-based paper are involved.

Anyway, just spend a little time with . He LIKES Microsoft--used to work for them. He's not angry, he's heartbroken that a company which served mankind for so long has changed gears to preying on mankind. He lays out the case very clearly, without rancor and tells you what you can do about it. I'd only add one thing to his technique. I'd use my router's blacklist to shut off those Microsoft servers from your network. No Windows hack (and that's what updates have become) can defeat that.

Anyway, the purpose of this post: I installed all the updates from last month's Black Tuesday updates, except for KB3112343, which joins the dirty 11 to make the dirty dozen, because it is only about updating to Windows 10 and I'm not doing that.

So what's the score? Remember, this is the before snapshot by GWX Control Panel:


At that point I had defanged all Windows 10 upgrades and the GWX Control panel found that Windows had already polluted 5.4 GB of my hard drive with a complete installation copy of Windows 10, at my expense, without my knowledge or consent. Imagine if I was a Comcast customer with a 1 GB quota and they caused me to exceed my quota by over 5 TIMES! Well that happened to many thousands, who had to pay dearly for Microsoft's invasion of personal property and theft of personal freedom to decide. Of course that is all reasonable and above board. Atta boy Microsoft!

I deleted the 5.4 GB payload. Then yesterday I installed all of the November updates except the one mentioned above. And just now I ran GWX Control Panel. Let's see what changed without notice, against my will and without my consent.


Look! After I turned Windows operating system upgrades off, Microsoft turned them BACK ON! After I eliminated GWX and removed its (hidden--doesn't that show how honorable Microsoft is?) directory, it's been reinstalled. It's a terrorist sleeper cell on my computer! Not for long.

So Microsoft disregards the choices of its customers and installs hidden sleeper programs to take part in the planned (and announced--see my post above) re-download and automatic at least partial installation of Windows 10 some time in the first quarter of 2015.

Folks, when you know your product is not in the best interest of your customers, when you know that very few will willingly use your product, when you know that no knowing, thinking person with self-respect, who believes in the innate right of privacy would purchase or even take your product for free, the only option left is to force its use. That is Microsoft's course, to steamroller the wishes, preferences, rights and privileges of its victims and force them to do something which will hurt them. Anybody have any plausible explanation that paints Microsoft as the great white horsed knight full of virtue and honor? Please be careful, because there is a fine line between apologetics and comedy.

So: go ahead and install all the updates except for KB3112336 and KB3112343. One of them appears for Win 7 and the other for 8 and 8.1. After the updates, run GWX control panel to turn off Windows operating system updates (again). Then you can look in your Windows directory, possibly Windows\system 32 for the hidden GWX directory. Delete it and all contents.

Finally, if you believe, as I do, that Microsoft is actively probing your machine to see if you have made changes to retain ownership and to block Microsoft (that's why they change 'em back), then you'll like that Spybot Anti-Beacon has been updated to provide similar protection that it already provided to Windows 10, to immunize Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 also against data snooping added by "updates" which violate Microsoft's past definition of what an update is. I just did that. Anti-Beacon lets you choose exactly what to block: it isn't just an on-off button for everything. It is the nuanced customer approval tool that Microsoft should have included in Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 after its snooping policy began. At all times the customer should be in charge of data mining of his life.

Question for Microsoft apologists: Did Spybot change their program because Microsoft has nothing to block and is acting to protect its customers from harm? Or did Spybot update Anti-Beacon because Microsoft introduced unacceptable changes through the back door into Windows 7, 8 and 8.1?

Remember the days when after a system crash, Windows XP (and 7) used to say "Do you want to send data to Microsoft that will be analyzed to help prevent similar crashes in the future? No personally identifiable information will be sent." And do you remember the button on such quaint dialog boxes that said "Show me what information will be sent to Microsoft?" Well, those days of respect for customers is gone. Its a party now and you are the cake and ice cream. Enjoy!

I consider my desktop computer a fundamentally different environment from my cell phone. I operate it from a different set of tolerances, a different set of rules. But with Google on the cell phone I can shut off the data mining with clearly provided controls. There is no subterfuge or obfuscation as there is with Microsoft. But I have no expectation of privacy on my cell phone while I demand it on my desktop. I will have it too, with or without Microsoft's help.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

So your argument is that consensual data gathering by Progressive equals nonconsentual gathering if info through subterfuge. Pretty weak. Consensual sex does not equal to and does not justify rape. There I go again illustrating the unknown with the universally agreed upon equivalent.

Progressive?
Subterfuge? (there is a disclaimer for all to read and accept/reject after W10 is installed. Where is the subterfuge? Read the fine print as always stated when fine print is presented to one.)


I have no argument. What I take issue with is the "sky is falling" approach to Windows 10 as if there is something new going on here. Google, FB and a plethora of other OS/apps/programs collect data and have done so for quite sometime.

If someone would like 100% privacy then live on an island. Other than that, all are subject to some form of privacy intrusion.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The good thing about Microsoft is that knowing that people no longer believe privacy is one of their inalienable rights and so don't care if they are data-mined any more,

RR,

MS specifically written a disclaimer that is either accepted or rejected by the user. The OS was created by MS and if you would like to use the product this is what will happen....collecting data to make the experience better for the user. If you have an issue with that USE ANOTHER OS. You have the right not to use the OS. No one is forcing any user to run the OS. No one needs the OS to function in life.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Yes, as with Windows 8 and 8.1 the majority of the computer press is acting as Microsoft cheerleaders. You must analyze their writing critically to expose their bias and it's fun to speculate on their motives. I think lots of US Government portraits of dead presidents on special cotton-based paper are involved.

Anyway, just spend a little time with . He LIKES Microsoft--used to work for them. He's not angry, he's heartbroken that a company which served mankind for so long has changed gears to preying on mankind. He lays out the case very clearly, without rancor and tells you what you can do about it.

How can one "Exposing their bias" when you having fun speculating? Either you have information on the media bias(not sure what the media will gain to be a cheerleader to MS) or it is nothing but speculation.

I'm sure Barnacles absolutely loves MS after he was sent packing. He is only heartbroken over the missing auto-deposit into his checking account that MS completed weekly for Mr. Barnacles. But I'm only speculating on his bias. However, I can assure you that the two companies that downsized me out the front door are anything but on my likable list.

As far as this,

that a company which served mankind for so long has changed gears to preying on mankind.

, I think this is a bit melodramatic. And definitely Twilight Zone as you(or someone) mentioned in a earlier post. If one does not want to be the raptors claws use another OS.

[Rockin Robbins]

Progressive? WTF!!! It's Swiftkey Neural Keyboard gone stark raving mad, and as a result, the only reliable letter is the first one. And my demented mind can't recall what the word was. Swiftkey Neural Keyboard is a marvelous cell phone app that I would not permit on my PC for privacy reasons. After providing the first word it sometimes completes whole sentences by just selecting the words.

Watch . Decide for yourself if subterfuge is a proper word when:

• Your privacy selections are routinely changed from "protect me" to "rape me" on "updates."
• Update 1511, without notice or consent removes Speccy, Spybot Search and Destroy, Windows 7 Games for Windows 10, Printer drivers, Acer Desktop, Ccleaner, sets your default PDF viewer to Edge, Edge default home page is reset to Bing
• Whole services are deleted. "Yay! Diagnostics Tracking Systems service is gone!"....."O Crap! It's just been renamed 'Connected User Experiences and Telemetry.' If you disabled tracking Microsoft just turned it back on and reinstalled under a new name. <sarcasm>Sure, THAT's honorable and "not subterfuge." </sarcasm> This is the equivalent of the renaming of "torture" to "enhanced interrogation techniques."

And note that while I provide links so that my word doesn't have to be depended on with specific examples of subterfuge, the only reply to the contrary is a bland and unsupported general statements of acceptance of our Brave New World. This is 1984 on steroids.


Again, I have no expectation of privacy on my cell phone. On my PC I demand and enforce it. My PC is not and never will be a cell phone. Shields up!

And yes, AVG, the reference to the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" was mine. What an amazingly appropriate episode to illustrate Microsoft's new business plan. Like all good science fiction, it was an analogy of our willingness to adopt free benefits that are accompanied with horrible penalties. Of course, why those aliens would make their cookbook available on Earth so it could be translated was never really explained.....

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Again, I have no expectation of privacy on my cell phone. On my PC I demand and enforce it. My PC is not and never will be a cell phone. Shields up!

Then one can create their own OS as any and all current OS/browsers/programs/apps, in one form or the another, collect data from said user.

I use Bing exclusively on my computer at home. I tire of Google, Firefox, etc. Needing to know all gets tiresome.

I'm sorry, I do not see a crisis at hand here. The reason being we are not forced to use MS.

But again, I see your upset and understand completely.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Then one can create their own OS as any and all current OS/browsers/programs/apps, in one form or the another, collect data from said user.

I use Bing exclusively on my computer at home. I tire of Google, Firefox, etc. Needing to know all gets tiresome.

I'm sorry, I do not see a crisis at hand here. The reason being we are not forced to use MS.

But again, I see your upset and understand completely.

Yes, to some degree, Java, Flash, HTML itself, HTML-5, all browsers are included in a family of programs which essentially are operating systems running inside your operating system.

That's why even if you run Linux, some degree of shielding is necessary. Apple is now supporting ad blockers, Google lets you shut off telemetry entirely while allowing you to retain cloud-based backup of photos, system settings and the like. Firefox encrypts your backup and, as an open source provider has not exploitive commercial interest.

Basically we have a collision of two systems. They happen to be commercial and non-commercial but that is not what makes them different--the shoes could be on opposite feet and would still fit fine. One side says that your computer is their property to use as they see fit and your expenses to purchase and maintain your system, including Internet access fees are just admission charges to use their system. The other side says that your hardware is your property, that you enjoy sovereign rights to determine how it is used or not used.

I don't see the vast superiority to users that the Microsoft scheme brings. Other commercial operations: Apple, Google, don't need the subterfuge, give you full control over your system and are more profitable than Microsoft. Why? Profit follows service to customers.

A second group of commercial operators and government operators, like NASA, European governments, Steam are flagships, have adopted Linux as a system that works for the user, is fully customizable, has full open source, and which works for the sole benefit of the user. When top games are playable on Linux the switch will begin. I played Borderlands 2 on Ubuntu the other day and it was magnificent.

[AVGWarhawk]

Rockin Robin:

Apple, Google, don't need the subterfuge, give you full control over your system and are more profitable than Microsoft. Why? Profit follows service to customers.

Apple and Google are profitable companies that have a leg up on MS. MS has fallen behind in a couple regards. First being the mobile phone. Apple hands down has a good grip on this market segment. Android has a good grip on it as well. Windows Phone not so much. Although I use a Windows Phone and love it. Many do not give it a try. Personally I can't stand Android. To many fingers in the pot. Second, MS latest OS 8 and 8.1 that followed a bad Vista but successful 7 culminating in Windows 10...users get a bit tired of being the lab rat with new OS issued by MS. So what does MS do to win back some market share? Give out free goodies and let the users know that collected data is only to help "better" their experience. And most, as you pointed out, simply click accept to the terms and enjoy exploring the new OS. At best a poor marketing scheme not well thought out for launch. The alarms started fast and furious. Hopefully MS will not be a Trojan Horse in the future as a result.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

The alarms started fast and furious. Hopefully MS will not be a Trojan Horse in the future as a result.

If they practiced full disclosure, gave users control over the telemetry process and....heck that's about all they need to do to regain customer trust. But every time they get the chance to reform their ways they step in even deeper excrement.

It's like a horror movie where the monster is upstairs and the cute woman needs to go up there to get a nail file. She hears the scary noises, might even see a little blood, she can walk away with no problems but she blithely steps upstairs and into the jaws of the monster. Microsoft just keeps getting deeper into trust deficit and either doesn't realize it (impossible) or thinks that it can just impose its will without consequence.

The public is very fickle. Remember MySpace? Remember Oldsmobile or Plymouth or the USSR? Huge "irreplaceable" behemoths, gone in a second. Pretty much nobody misses them and Microsoft can go the same way very quickly. All they have to do is totally lose customer trust. It's happening.

[Fubar2Niner]

@RR & Skybird

New bunch of updates for Win 7, after clearing out the danger list and running GWXCP I am clean. First peek at Update I look at I found these:

"Security"

(KB2961072)
(KB3069114)
(KB3088195)

"Update Win 7"

(KB2882822)
(KB3014406)

All are labelled Important,also one Optional;

(KB3095649)

I have seen no mention of them on ghacks. I'm holding on them for a week. What you guys think?

Thanks for your continued heads up.

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner