Microsoft planning to be a bit more aggressive about the Windows 10 free upgrade next year (for Win7/8 users)

[ChineseChef]

They should really go from "aggressive" to flatout violent and just release a completely free version of it altogether. Which is what I suspect might end up happening if they don't meet their upgrade quotas by the end of the free year anyway.

 

A completely free version would be interesting and scary.  On the one hand, Linux is free (for the most part).  So a completely free Windows would likely get a lot of people on it.  But free Linux and free Windows would have very different meanings.  There is no corporate monster behind Linux, demanding profits.  If Windows went completely free, they would have to get money out of it somehow.  Plus, with it being a free product, that takes away a lot of the consumer power.  If terms of service or use change, you have no recourse other than to discontinue usage.  If you don't pay, you can't demand a refund, or demand that "contracts" be upheld. 

 

A completely free windows would turn users into the product.  And so many people are stuck on windows that most of them would stay and simply deal with it the best they can, assuming they even knew about any security or privacy or EULA issues that arise.

 

I personally would resist a free Windows to the bitter end, as I don't want to become the product.  I would likely switch to Linux, and just run Windows for whatever specific games wouldn't run on Linux.

[Imakuni]

If windows costed 120 R$ (how much I paid for the Pro -student- version), I'd migrate my other PCs from pirate to genuine no problem. But 800 R$? Fuc you microsoft. No sir, I'm going back to my Win7Ult pendrive.....

[GoodBytes]

If windows costed 120 R$ (how much I paid for the Pro -student- version), I'd migrate my other PCs from pirate to genuine no problem. But 800 R$? Fuc you microsoft. No sir, I'm going back to my Win7Ult pendrive.....

In Brazil, you guys are super taxed, which increase the price of your products imported considerably. The issue is not Microsoft, the issue is your government. Every country that ever tried to control the market, blocking it's door to the outside, which is what Brazil is doing, result in the country having a very poor economy.

 

The best solution, is to have doors full open, with little taxes (as the government must do some money). This will boost sales of good and services which will bring further revenue to the government, and the government can encourage its population to buy local. For example, the state of Vermont in the U.S does that a lot. It gives the state a strong economy without any downside to its population.

 

Now, I am not an economist, but it is for a reason why countries are very open to free trade. It is just not a barrier that you can open at 100%, because the impact at the short term to the economy will hurt. So the deals are very complex, time consuming to do, to get some agreement on picking each country areas that will be affected. But on the long term is always benefits everyones, government and population.

 

So contact your government, and complain how your goods and services are too high.

[LAwLz]

But tell me one reason why MS would want to know what a certain person who goes by lawlz does on his PC? all they care is big data averages and big spikes. they dont have an army of perv joes going through every single users telemetry stream, and id wager they destroy the actual date asap to save space, leaving only statistics and your "user profile" which is just a set of coordinates in an n dimensional "personality space"

You know what, you're totally right. Microsoft doesn't want to know anything about me. Neither does Google, Facebook or any company. They totally don't collect my data and it's all in my head. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear am I right?

I don't know why Microsoft want to know so much about me, but it is an indisputable fact that they are collecting a ton of information so clearly they want it for something.

 

This is not some tinfoil hat "they might be spying on us". This is "we have seen a ton of traffic which can be traced back to you get collected by Microsoft". Don't ask me why they do it, ask Microsoft. Sadly they refuse to give us details on what they are collecting and why.

 

Answer me this, if Microsoft don't care about me, why won't they let me opt-out from all the data collection?

 

 

But but NSA.It was clearly impossible for the NSA to spy on people without Windows 10, now that Windows 10 is released well after they were found spying on people, now they can spy on.. oh wait...

Well, Microsoft have worked with the NSA A LOT in the past so I wouldn't put it above them. I really dislike this "they can already spy on you so just embrace it" mentality you are trying to push. If I have a break-in I don't just go "oh well, I guess I shouldn't lock my door from now on and I shouldn't be mad if someone breaks in again. Clearly people can do it if they want.".

 

 

 

Be careful LukaP and GoodBytes, if you circlejerk about how amazing Microsoft is any more than you're already doing you risk of hurting yourselves.

 

 

 

Isn't one of those IDs used in the revised activation scheme that allow you to clean reinstall Windows and then reactivate without needing to type in a product key? Doesn't really seem malicious if it's just used to reactivate Windows should you clean reinstall it.

If that's what one of them are used for, what are the rest of them used for? Why is that ID sent every time I for example do a search in my start menu?

It seems pretty excessive to check my product key hundreds of times every single day, don't you think?

 

 

 

AND windows 7 and 8 bot do it btw.

[Citation Needed]

And before you link me to articles about how Microsoft has tried to sneak in data harvesting in those OSes through patches, most people who are saying on Windows 7 for privacy reasons knows about that and have not installed those updates.

 

 

 

In Brazil, you guys are super taxed, which increase the price of your products outside considerably. The issue is not Microsoft, the issue is your government.

800 Real is about 200 USD. That's not too far off what it costs in the US.

 

 

 

 

And before someone calls me a Windows 10 hater or whatever, I use Windows 10 and I really like it. The thing I dislike is people like GoodBytes who are flat out lying or are defending things which are bad for consumers. That does not just apply to Microsoft, but all companies. I see the last thing mentioned happening a lot with Apple (such as the people defending the MacBook only having 1 port).

Just stop. Companies do NOT deserve any defending or cheering for doing things which only benefits themselves. If they do things that benefits the consumers or other companies then go nuts. But defending them for doing something that pisses a lot of their customers off which simultaneously not benefiting anyone other than the company itself? You'd have to be a massive fanboy to defend such a thing.

 

If you don't care about Microsoft harvesting your data then good for you, but don't try and tell other people that they should not care about something which they think is an important issue. Here is how Microsoft could fix the entire situation: MAKE AN OFF BUTTON FOR THE DATA HARVESTING. They are planning on giving that to enterprise customers (at least some of it) so it's not like they would have to do any extra work, but for some reason they won't do it.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Keep in mind, everything you do on ios runs through apple.

 

and GOOGLE OWNS you.

 

and the NSA, has all your data

and your isp sells you out.

Windows 10 is still the least of your worries.

 

Its the age of the internet

 

So you just roll over and play dead?

 

Google only owns you if you let it.  Google has nothing on me but the bit of misinformation I supply. 

Don't use gmail, don't use Maps, don't use Translate and most importantly don't use their search engine.  And block their cookies. 

When researching something and Vimeo is not an option, I'll use Youtube ... on a throwaway VM (disk image replaced on a daily basis) using VPN and a spoofed MAC address.

 

The NSA is a tougher nut to crack, but I'd love to see how they'd go up against a laptop that has no papertrail (bought cash), also relies on disposable VMs and uses an unregistered internet connection (4G using a prepaid card) in combination with a spoofed MAC address and dual VPN setup (a tunnel within a tunnel really).

 

Stopping an ISP from getting your data only requires a VPN.  Once you get that tunnel going from inside your PC to outside of your ISP's network, they can't access it anymore and without the right decryption key they can't decypher it either. 

 

Yes, it's the age of the internet.  And the vast majority of people are woefully unprepared for it. 

[Nowak]

If that's what one of them are used for, what are the rest of them used for? Why is that ID sent every time I for example do a search in my start menu?

It seems pretty excessive to check my product key hundreds of times every single day, don't you think?

Yeah, it does, but afaik one of the IDs (device ID I think) is used in the activation process.

[GoodBytes]

Anatever, I usd before someone calls me a Windows 10 hater or whe Windows 10 and I really like it. The thing I dislike is people like GoodBytes who are flat out lying or are defending things which are bad for consumers.

How am I lying? I follow facts. The privacy policy of Microsoft is there, you can read it. I never said that Microsoft doesn't collect heavy telemetry data.

All I am saying is that there is no value to the data collected

[Technous285]

Well, Microsoft have worked with the NSA A LOT in the past so I wouldn't put it above them. I really dislike this "they can already spy on you so just embrace it" mentality you are trying to push. If I have a break-in I don't just go "oh well, I guess I shouldn't lock my door from now on and I shouldn't be mad if someone breaks in again. Clearly people can do it if they want.".

Don't forget about Billy's whole idea of Palladium (or Next-Generation Secure Computing Base/NGSCB), which has been around since 1997, and current known spawns of which are/were: WPA & WGA/WAT, the Trusted Platform Module, BitLocker, MeasuredBoot (W8.1), Device Guard (W10)...

[Dabombinable]

The faster people switch to W10, the better. I'm rather sick of seeing PCs at work that hasn't been updated in years. What happens when the customer accidentally runs an update and downloads 186 updates? 

"OMG internet is so slow wtf"

"wtf is this updating shit I just want you to shut down ffs"

 

You have no idea how much better forced updates will make things. Over 70% of issues related to booting is due to customers being impatient and force a shutdown mid-update. JUST LEAVE IT BE FOR ONCE, HOLY SHIT JESUS MANG MY HEART CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH

Well Australian governmental departments still use Windows 95 and 98 because it does what they want reliably, it would cost too much to get new software written, bug test it, and then ensure that the OS would run reliably (which is why its kind of sad that OS/2 flopped, that OS would run for years non stop without any issues it was that well made. And the ATM's using it are a good example of stability-or that used it anyway).

[dukethedj]

Just upgrade people goddammit 

Some people want to use Media Center.

[GoodBytes]

Well Australian governmental departments still use Windows 95 and 98 because it does what they want reliably, it would cost too much to get new software written, bug test it, and then ensure that the OS would run reliably (which is why its kind of sad that OS/2 flopped, that OS would run for years non stop without any issues it was that well made. And the ATM's using it are a good example of stability-or that used it anyway).

Outdated OS in ATMs are the reason why they are super easy to hack and compromise remotely.

[Dabombinable]

Want to point out that it's not the work computers that are out of date, it's the customers'. I work in electronics retail and do loads of support and service on PCs. 

Still though, if a computer does what they want it to do, why bother upgrading anything?

[Dabombinable]

Outdated OS in ATMs are the reason why they are super easy to hack and compromise remotely.

OS/2 was a bit different from the ATM that use OS based on Windows. Remember that outside of ATM, it really wasn't used that much (mainly due to marketing).

[Dabombinable]

Both for security reasons and for features. Encrypted networks, for example. This is especially a problem with earlier Vista versions not supporting newer wireless encryption standards.

A PC used only for word processing does indeed not require Windows 10, but that's a machine with a specific purpose. Regular consumer PCs are used for a wide variety of activities, and to keep up with the ever evolving technology, hardware and software must be upgraded to follow suit at one point. 

Look at it this way, if my Mum hadn't wanted to get rid of her old Compaq CQ60 (which I ended up fully upgrading), my Grandmother would still be using Windows XP on her 2006 Asus A3H. Despite its abysmal specs it did what she wanted it to do reliably (though installing a Pentium M that is only 100MHz faster than the original Celeron actually made a massive difference to the speed of everything).

[LAwLz]

How am I lying? I follow facts. The privacy policy of Microsoft is there, you can read it. I never said that Microsoft doesn't collect heavy telemetry data.

All I am saying is that there is no value to the data collected

You said that the telemetry data does not contain anything which can be used to identify you, which it does. It does not explicitly send my name with it, but it does use a variety of unique IDs and other meta data to keep track of whom the data is coming from. What purpose would you say those unique IDs were for if not for identification?

In before you say it is used to identify my computer and not me... As if there is any practical difference.

[Beskamir]

I use windows 7 and windows 10 on a regular basis and well... I'll be trying to install Fedora on my laptop so that I no longer have to use W10.

 

W10 has several features which kind of annoy me. To name a few: Instead of calling stuff "programs" everything is called an "app"! This isn't a phone and even on mobile I hate the term 'app' just as much as 'cloud'. Control panel is annoying to get to and I don't like the "app" version at all. When I move a window to the edge of a screen I usually don't want to place another window on the side in a 50%:50% split. Usually it's about a 30%:70% split. Word has stupid animations that look kind of annoying as you type. Why does windows explorer have to look so cluttered? All I want to see when I open windows explorer is to see all my drive letters... and ONLY my drives. Nothing else.

 

I presume most of these can be easily fixed/solved but I don't want to spend my limited amount of time trying to fix W10 when I know for sure that Linux will look and run the way I want it to.

[Nowak]

Why does windows explorer have to look so cluttered? All I want to see when I open windows explorer is to see all my drive letters... and ONLY my drives. Nothing else.

 

There's the solution to your problem.

[BuckGup]

Good thing I don't have a password. Windows 10 is garbage. Windows 7 and Vulkan is the future

[Beskamir]

 

There's the solution to your problem.

To one of them... sure. But it doesn't fix all of them and my point of not having time to deal with Microsoft's bs still stands.

 

Edit: Actually this didn't fix it. Since that wasn't my complaint. I'm annoyed by the folders tab in "this pc"

 

Also I don't like the data gathering part of W10 but other people have covered that very well

[TetraSky]

Why are people unwilling to update?
I haven't had a single issue with Windows 10 so far. You also get used to the new start menu, you can even somewhat customize it to give it the look that you want to, which is a lot more than we can say about Windows 7 without third party tools. Here's mine.
 
If it's about the telemetry stuff, those are all in Windows 7 and 8/8.1 too.
Not to mention, most, if not all, can be blocked easily just by running something like Spybot Anti-Beacon (Which is an actual tool, from a reputable source, unlike many other such tools from unknown/untrusted sources)

[spwath]

every windows 10 thread people are complaining about it. i love windows 10.

[Nowak]

To one of them... sure. But it doesn't fix all of them and my point of not having time to deal with Microsoft's bs still stands.

• Having trouble getting to the Control Panel? Search for it, then pin it to the Start menu.
• Want to disable the new Snap features? Go to Settings > System > Multitasking.
• Word? Can't do much there, those animations are also in Windows 7. Not a Windows 10 issue.
• Apps... well, we gotta connect to the kids. (saying this as a millenial myself, lol)

[Beskamir]

 

• Having trouble getting to the Control Panel? Search for it, then pin it to the Start menu.
• Want to disable the new Snap features? Go to Settings > System > Multitasking.
• Word? Can't do much there, those animations are also in Windows 7. Not a Windows 10 issue.
• Apps... well, we gotta connect to the kids. (saying this as a millenial myself, lol)

 

I edited my post. The fix only slightly helped. I still have folders showing along with devices and drives, and network locations in "this pc". The network locations also sort of break the "this pc" definition, at least my interpretation of "this" and "pc".

[Nowak]

I edited my post. The fix only slightly helped. I still have folders showing along with devices and drives, and network locations in "this pc". The network locations also sort of break the "this pc" definition, at least my interpretation of "this" and "pc".

It's basically like "Computer" but renamed? And you can re-rename it.

 

Doesn't really look that different from "Computer" in Windows 7 to me.

[Beskamir]

It's basically like "Computer" but renamed? And you can re-rename it.

 

Doesn't really look that different from "Computer" in Windows 7 to me.

I don't like spaces in my names so Computer was better for me but at the same time I don't fully like it's name either. But naming doesn't usually annoy me that much unless its a term I hate like "cloud" or "app". I'm much more annoyed by folders showing up in a place that should be reserved only for drives.