Off Topic Windows 10

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Dr.Stanley O'Google said:
This could affect users' decisions...

Windows 10 is under attack over default settings which users say compromise their privacy, just days after the operating system’s successful launch saw more than 14 million installs in the first 24 hours.

Hundreds of commenters on sites such as Hacker News and Reddit have criticised default settings that send personal information to Microsoft, use bandwidth to upload data to other computers running the operating system, share Wi-Fi passwords with online friends and remove the ability to opt out of security updates.

Many of the complaints relate to the new personalised adverts embedded inWindows 10. When the OS is installed, Microsoft assigns the user a unique advertising ID, which it ties to the email address registered with the company. That email address is also associated with a raft of other services, such as the company’s productivity and communication programs, as well as app downloads and cloud-storage uploads.

Using that information, Microsoft is able to personalise ads to the user, during both web surfing and, for newer apps downloaded from the Windows Store, app usage. Microsoft itself is leading the way on that front, even turning the in-built version of Solitaire (the card game that has been a staple of Windows installations since 1990’s Windows 3.0) into a freemium game, complete with unskippable video adverts.

Elsewhere, Windows 10 also harvests user information in order to teach the built-in personal digital assistant Cortana, Microsoft’s answer to Siri. To enable Cortana, the company says, it “collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device”.

Users are given the option to opt out of most of the data collection, but critics say that that isn’t enough. Alec Meer, of gaming website Rock Paper Shotgun, says: “Microsoft simply aren’t making it clear enough that they’re doing this, how it might affect you and how to opt out – despite chest-thumping, we’re-all-chums-here talk about how ‘real transparency starts with straightforward terms and policies that people can clearly understand’.

“There is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different Settings screens and an external website constitutes ‘real transparency’.”

Others have criticised the company for a seeming get-out clause in its terms of service, which allow it to share user data based on nothing more than a “good faith” belief that doing so is required to comply with law enforcement, “protect our customers”, secure the company’s services, or “protect the rights or property of Microsoft”.

The terms are reminiscent of those applied by the company in March 2014, when it read the hotmail account of a blogger suspected of being involved in leaking an early version of Windows 10. After facing criticism for doing so,Microsoft tightened its privacy policy, and promised a full internal legal review before it would do so again in the future.

The European digital rights organisation (EDRi) sums up the company’s 45 pages of terms and conditions by saying: “Microsoft basically grants itself very broad rights to collect everything you do, say and write with and on your devices in order to sell more targeted advertising or to sell your data to third parties.”

In many ways, however, Windows 10 is merely moving closer towards what has become the new normal thanks to mobile operating systems. Both Siri and Google Now require access to the user’s personal information to personalise responses, while both Apple and Google offer developers the ability to deliver personalised ads to users based on information such as app installs.

And some of the criticised settings may turn out to be a net positive for all concerned. Users have attacked Windows 10 for only offering two settings when it comes to Windows Update: either install and restart immediately, or install and ask permission to restart. The option to not install updates does not appear to be present on the base version of the OS. But that decision chimes with the advice of security experts, who say that the number one thing for staying safe online is to install every security update immediately.

http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-privacy-default-settings?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
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Sorry but it's not an issue really

People love to jump on privacy issues but.....if you want to use Cortana as it is designed you have to let it access your location & contacts, otherwise how do you tell it to remind you to "phone John when I get to the pub" or "remind me to buy flowers for the wife when I'm near a florist"

It is no more a privacy threat than Android or iOS

As for charging for "freemium games" again you are getting a free OS, they will make money like Apple or Google through advertising or selling apps

I hated Windows 8, so far I like Windows 10 but nobody is forcing people to upgrade & you can turn off most of the "privacy issues" in your settings if that worries you
 
NorthFerribyTiger said:
Sorry but it's not an issue really

People love to jump on privacy issues but.....if you want to use Cortana as it is designed you have to let it access your location & contacts, otherwise how do you tell it to remind you to "phone John when I get to the pub" or "remind me to buy flowers for the wife when I'm near a florist"

It is no more a privacy threat than Android or iOS

As for charging for "freemium games" again you are getting a free OS, they will make money like Apple or Google through advertising or selling apps

I hated Windows 8, so far I like Windows 10 but nobody is forcing people to upgrade & you can turn off most of the "privacy issues" in your settings if that worries you
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Thanks for that info, NFT. I've not upgraded yet, nor had the prompt. I'm using 8 with an "XP-like" front end at the mo, as I can't stand the Tiles.

Guess I'll wait a bit, until other issues (which could well appear) are dealt with.
 
I've had the notification saying I can upgrade but seeing as my accounting software won't be windows 10 compliant until it's upgrade released in september/october I wont be upgrading until then.
 
NorthFerribyTiger said:
Do people actually sit playing Solitaire on their PC these days ?

If the OS is free....just like iOS & Android I think you will find the need to pay for a number of apps
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Give the Jigsaw Puzzle app a try out, quite interesting as I haven't done jigsaws for yonks, there is some free stuff and some you have to pay for and there are 3 levels of difficulty. As for the other comments, I have yet to come across anyone who is totally ok with a new Windows version, I remember the furore over Win ME, which is still going on today, yet I bought a copy, installed and found some of the new features quite good. Then I read what all the know it all's were saying and I just had to wonder what they were on about, Win Me, before that 95 and since Win 7 and 8.1 have all had their critics so I'm not surprised at this latest onslaught, even thought this current download is for free.
 
C'mon ref said:
Give the Jigsaw Puzzle app a try out, quite interesting as I haven't done jigsaws for yonks, there is some free stuff and some you have to pay for and there are 3 levels of difficulty. As for the other comments, I have yet to come across anyone who is totally ok with a new Windows version, I remember the furore over Win ME, which is still going on today, yet I bought a copy, installed and found some of the new features quite good. Then I read what all the know it all's were saying and I just had to wonder what they were on about, Win Me, before that 95 and since Win 7 and 8.1 have all had their critics so I'm not surprised at this latest onslaught, even thought this current download is for free.
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I had a tendency to get emotional mood swings with feelings of lethargy & tiredness along with bouts of short term memory loss & lower concentration levels after using Wind ME.
 
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Sir Cheshire Ben said:
I had a tendency to get emotional mood swings with feelings of lethargy & tiredness along with bouts of short term memory loss & lower concentration levels after using Wind ME.
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That was from the mercury when you were a hatter.
 
Anyone hit this yet?

"Some users of Windows 10 are reporting issues installing one of Microsoft’s first updates for the new operating system, which traps them in a reboot loop.

The KB3081424 update, released on Wednesday, collects a series of smaller updates into one bigger patch designed to make the updating process for new users simpler and easier.

But some users are reporting issues with the update, which reaches a certain percentage of installation before failing and rolling back."

Read on: http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...pdate-endless-reboot-loop?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
 
I installed Windows 10 and has no trouble, other than it wouldn't run my ancient version of Microsoft Money. I really like it, it's laid out for the benefits of users rather than In accordance with a style.
 
Dr.Stanley O'Google said:
Anyone hit this yet?

"Some users of Windows 10 are reporting issues installing one of Microsoft’s first updates for the new operating system, which traps them in a reboot loop.

The KB3081424 update, released on Wednesday, collects a series of smaller updates into one bigger patch designed to make the updating process for new users simpler and easier.

But some users are reporting issues with the update, which reaches a certain percentage of installation before failing and rolling back."

Read on: http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...pdate-endless-reboot-loop?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Click to expand...
Nope, the only issue for me is how laggy Edge is. I thought the updates might sort that, but no such luck
 
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AlRawdah said:
I installed Windows 10 and has no trouble, other than it wouldn't run my ancient version of Microsoft Money. I really like it, it's laid out for the benefits of users rather than In accordance with a style.
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With a third world internet speed where we are, it took over 10 hours to download and then failed on install. The same happened on a further 10 hour download and for good luck my wife tried again with the same result. We continue to use Windows 8.
 
BLUE_MOUNTAINS_BEAR said:
With a third world internet speed where we are, it took over 10 hours to download and then failed on install. The same happened on a further 10 hour download and for good luck my wife tried again with the same result. We continue to use Windows 8.
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Try downloading the .iso and burning to DVD using the Media Creation tool. That way if the install fails at least you won't have to download it again to retry.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install
 
NorthFerribyTiger said:
Sorry but it's not an issue really

People love to jump on privacy issues but.....if you want to use Cortana as it is designed you have to let it access your location & contacts, otherwise how do you tell it to remind you to "phone John when I get to the pub" or "remind me to buy flowers for the wife when I'm near a florist"

It is no more a privacy threat than Android or iOS

As for charging for "freemium games" again you are getting a free OS, they will make money like Apple or Google through advertising or selling apps

I hated Windows 8, so far I like Windows 10 but nobody is forcing people to upgrade & you can turn off most of the "privacy issues" in your settings if that worries you
Click to expand...

No. This operating system sends huge amounts of personal data back to microsoft. Why does microsoft need this data in order for Cortana to work as it is designed? Clearly it doesn't; those people concerned with privacy are right to be concerned. Another issue with this os is that it uses your bandwidth to distribute downloads similar to how bittorrent works. This has already been found to be extremely insecure because it is a simple matter to inject malicious code and distribute compromised updates. Deal with these issues and maybe it is great - dunno, whatever.
 
hudd25 said:
No. This operating system sends huge amounts of personal data back to microsoft. Why does microsoft need this data in order for Cortana to work as it is designed? Clearly it doesn't; those people concerned with privacy are right to be concerned. Another issue with this os is that it uses your bandwidth to distribute downloads similar to how bittorrent works. This has already been found to be extremely insecure because it is a simple matter to inject malicious code and distribute compromised updates. Deal with these issues and maybe it is great - dunno, whatever.
Click to expand...

In settings you can simply go in & chage any privacy P2P concerns you have to the off position....

Cortana clearly needs access to your contacts, calendar & location to work properly
 
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