Windows 10 "phones home" thousands of times each day

[IdeasVacuum]

.....even with the most restrictive privacy settings
https://www.infopackets.com/news/9781/w ... -addresses

[Lunasole]

There were many talks of this just right after it released.
One of reasons why I'm still on Windows 7 and will keep it until it completely die.

I'd prefer XP at all as it is close to Linux by performance and clarity, but MS did so many things to break compatibility with it (deliberately abandoned DirectX support, lot of useless new APIs added in newer windows, preventing new programs to be working on XP, etc) so it became too painful to use XP.

[heartbone]

Here's what Windows 10 won't change: Windows 8's plans to tie you to Microsoft services
...while getting you to swallow "an over-the-top, “my dog just barfed up a bag of Skittles” aesthetic "


9 realistic reasons not to upgrade to Windows 10

Windows 7 holdouts: Why diehard users refuse to move to Windows 10

http://puu.sh/mVCD7/fe062da8fa.png

Windows XP holdouts: Meet the diehard faithful who refuse to move on

Lots of interesting reading there.

[TI-994A]

Resistance is futile... it's inevitable!

[IdeasVacuum]

The testing carried out was not very scientific, and the results "analysis" not thorough:
amateur analyst

[tj1010]

Like malware researchers who use behavioral analysis in VMs and sandboxes to completely document a malware..

I can't tell you how many forced-install and force-software articles I've seen. I'm on 7 every day with no problems..

[Danilo]

I'm on 7 every day with no problems..

I'm using Windows XP/7/8.1/10 in Parallels Desktop for Mac /Pro Edition without internet access on a Mac Pro. No problem so far.
Installed, updated, activated, stopped all NET access. Done!

[heartbone]

I'm on 7 every day with no problems..

I'm using Windows XP/7/8.1/10 in Parallels Desktop for Mac /Pro Edition without internet access on a Mac Pro. No problem so far.
Installed, updated, activated, stopped all NET access. Done!

But then what is the point in running WinX after you've disabled everything that sets it apart from the previous Win8 and 8.1 iterations of the OS?

Oh yeah, I forgot about the latest fabulous high end browser, the better tie in to XBOX stuff, and the high end Direct X graphics.
Excuse my impertinent question.

[tj1010]

Let's speak realistically: Anyone who uses Windows uses it for gaming or because it's market-dominating OEMs. If it wasn't for games OEMs and software vendors would gradually drop it.

It actually makes sense to use Windows 10 on a air-gapped gaming rig and run Mint, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Fedora, or Debian on other boxes and other volumes. Why W10 and not 7 or 8.1? Native library optimizations, DirectX 12, probably better thread optimizations, and better memory corruption protections.

If you need online gaming just NAT firewall some domains and ports. I'm on 7 because moving to 10 is a couple days wasted while I'm in the middle of some projects. Also laptop touch-pad drivers for 10 are buggy in some cases and updates aren't even hinted at..

[Danilo]

I'm using Windows XP/7/8.1/10 in Parallels Desktop for Mac /Pro Edition without internet access on a Mac Pro. No problem so far.
Installed, updated, activated, stopped all NET access. Done!

But then what is the point in running WinX after you've disabled everything that sets it apart from the previous Win8 and 8.1 iterations of the OS?

Oh yeah, I forgot about the latest fabulous high end browser, the better tie in to XBOX stuff, and the high end Direct X graphics.
Excuse my impertinent question.

I installed Windows in Parallels only for testing and developing cross-platform libs/apps.
Can test my stuff with XP to 10 - that's all I need.

[heartbone]

I installed Windows in Parallels only for testing and developing cross-platform libs/apps.
Can test my stuff with XP to 10 - that's all I need.

Must be nice Danilo, it must be nice.

Anyhow, I just figured out why Microsoft named the previous version Windows® 8.1 instead of 9.
They didn't want us to be able to point the following out, but I'm going to anyway..

Windows® 95 X
Windows® 95 OSR2 ☑
Windows® 98 X
Windows® 98 SE ☑
Windows® ME X
Windows® XP ☑
Windows® Vista™ X
Windows® 7 ☑
Windows® 8 X
Windows® 8.1 ☑
Windows® 10 X

[Danilo]

Must be nice Danilo, it must be nice.

IIRC you like Linux, so why not do the same? Windows only in emulator.

And if you happen to have the 8.1/10 Enterprise versions you can put a Windows-to-go
on an external Windows-to-go-certified USB drive. I did that, just in case - but actually never used it since then.

[DontTalkToMe]

IIRC you like Linux, so why not do the same? Windows only in emulator.

Virtual machines are great and they can replace the real OS on real hardware for normal apps as long as you don't do graphical apps in DirectX or OpenGL.
In that case your mileage may vary from good enough to useless depending on the VM (VirtualBox, VMWare, Parallels), the guest/host OS combination, the GPU driver of the host and the kind of DirectX/OpenGL calls you are doing.
Just five years ago they were almost all useless in this regard (especially for OpenGL) so things are improving but we are not really there yet.
If you are really lucky or you do really simple things, what you have to do may work.
AFAIK there are not emulators supporting DirectX or OpenGL (Bochs ? Qemu ?)

[Danilo]

I'm fine with Parallels on a Mac Pro (OS X 10.11.3 'El Capitan', 64GB 1866MHz DDR3 ECC-Memory, 3,5GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5,
2 x AMD FirePro D500 3072 MB, 3 x 27" displays Samsung WQHD Business Monitor S27A850D).

Additional 2TB Western Digital 'My Passport' USB drive for running real Windows, if real testing is required.

[heartbone]

Must be nice Danilo, it must be nice.

IIRC you like Linux, so why not do the same? Windows only in emulator.

While I could do it on my laptop, my desktop computer is hardware challenged when it comes to virtual machine support.

I'll probably have to replace my desktop before it breaks, not because of the inability to run a virtual machine, but because it may be impossible to obtain a virgin Win7 machine at retail before very long.

Only then perhaps I'll do as you suggest, for Win 8.1, if there's a free developer's version of the OS available.