Microsoft Retrofitting Windows 7, 8.1 With Windows 10's Privacy-Invading ...

[White Stripes]

Microsoft Retrofitting Windows 7, 8.1 With Windows 10's Privacy-Invading 'Features'

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150901/08243832131/microsoft-retrofitting-windows-7-81-with-windows-10s-privacy-invading-features.shtml

Last week we noted that while Windows 10 has generally seen good reviews in terms of spit and polish, there's growing concern that the OS is too nosy for its own good, and that the opt-out functionality in the OS doesn't really work. Even when you've disabled a number of the nosier features (like Windows 10's new digital assistant, Cortana), the OS ceaselessly and annoyingly opens an array of encrypted channels back to the Redmond mother ship that aren't entirely under the user's control

.....

Making matters worse, Microsoft now seems intent on retro-fitting its older operating systems (specifically Windows 7 and Windows 8.1) with many of the annoying, chatty aspects of Windows 10. GHacks has noticed that four updates to the older operating systems, described as an "update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry," connect to vortex-win.data.microsoft.com and settings-win.data.microsoft.com. These addresses are hard-coded to bypass the hosts file, and ferry all manner of personal information back to Microsoft.

enjoy your windows experience?

[GhostShip]

Such Functionality is likely to be illegal in the Euro region, data protection laws ensure such back doors will see MS receiving a major sized fine, covertly stealing data is just wrong.

[White Stripes]

i hope they get a fine but in the US this stuff is legal once one clicked 'i agree' when windoze was installed... only things that should ever be sent to microsoft should be a check for updates and OS crash reports... and 'ask first' should be an option on both...

[MinersLantern]

Oh lovely.

Now they want to trojanize win7.

I guess I will cease to update this thing anymore then. Except for what I read about in advance, each and every patch before letting it install.

WTF Microsoft?

[Trestor]

Microsoft appear to have beating themselves with the stupid stick again. Like so many corporations and governments, they should stop buying into the idea that people only exist to be milked for information and wealth; that our purpose is to benefit them.

[White Stripes]

https://github.com/WindowsLies/BlockWindows something useful? says it runs on 7 through 10...

[GhostShip]

I think the best advice is really to dump windows post 7. Theres plenty of decent linux builds now that offer free and open src functionality and a large community of support for privacy and security, contrast that to any of the big O/S vendors, MS are just playing catch up to Apple in all of this, between them and Google its a safe bet to assume they are all looking to leverage a diminishing market share as folks get wise to their loss of privacy and the folly in trusting any of the big companies with their data.

[Trestor]

I've often thought about linux but have been daunted at the technical understanding needed for it, being so different from windows and me no good at knowing what code lines to write.

Can you suggest any version of linux that is easy to become familiar with, to configure it easily to make the transition to linux less difficult? And how to get windows compatible progs to run on linux? Thanks.

[GhostShip]

I have personally used Linux Mint and found it pretty easy to navigate and set up for my wireless network, adding programs like Open Office mean that the basics of Desktop PC usage are covered. The real issue can sometimes be that theres so much choice using linux that your not sure what program to use for a specific application

Theres plenty of LInux users on this forum who use it day to day and will likely have more information on MS program compatibility and I think their input should be heard before selecting a specific linux version as such experience can prove invaluable.


http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Mint

[silicon_toad2000]

depending what you do and how you use your computer it can be a seamless switch or it could be a steep learning curve.

not long ago ubunutu was the go to

[White Stripes]

mint is the way to go now.... ubuntu got... weird...

[MinersLantern]

Weird... As in very slow and bloated form of Linux.

I will stay with windoze cause it works so very well now. But updating it?

Not so much.

Linux still has a long way to go to look as nice and work as well as windoze.

[MinersLantern]

Well, I did some searching on this spyware update thing.

It turns out that these updates are only on the optional update area. None of this comes from the security updates.

There are only a few of them. All involve some wording like 'telemetry' or 'customer experience'.

Simple enough to look and see first, install maybe someday.

Even M$ itself suggests that you only update from the optional updates as required by exactly how you use your system.

There are things in there for odd devices and other things which you dont even own or use. So why update that?

Any update brings the risk of breaking something else.

So, read what it is that you are updating and dont simply let updates run wild automatically.

It would be different if they hid this spyware portion in the security updates, but they dont.

Optional, means optional. Look first before you install, and dont get all lazy and let M$ handle everything for you as they see fit.

Many do that. Just turn on every single possible update, then set that to automatic.

Me for one doesnt like automatic anything. When im in the middle of something, I dont like some sudden update happening forcing a reboot. I have seen many people in the rooms who do that. Then they are enslaved and must reboot when M$ says so.

Once in awhile I will click the update button. If I have the time and am in the mood.

With that nothing happens automatically. You can select updates manually and then let that bunch get done. Recommended for this only security.

If you have some screaming need to do the optional stuff, you can go back later and update whichever and whenever on those individually after you read what it is that each one does. No rush on this.

[White Stripes]

you know whats funny.. you gripe about updates causing an unexpected reboot but not only are updates all optional in linux they do not require a reboot since they only shut down that part of the system to update it..... oh and linux works just fine if your hardware is supported so be careful of what you buy (hint: intel releases open source drivers... so guess whats in this laptop?) as for how it looks .. honestly? you can pretty much do what you want... there are even aeroglass themes since desktop compositing is an (optional) part of linux too...

...you were ranting so i did too

[WhiteLightningX]

Funny cause I had switched back to my XP machine a couple of weeks ago. You know, the one thing I love about XP is that when I check "Download updates automagically, but let me chose when to install them," at least it's -honest-. On 7 it offers that option, then installs them when you shutdown anyway. Can be quite an annoyance when your trying to leave a library that's closing with your laptop that has a bad battery. Probably a way to stop that, but I use 7 so little I could really care less. Heck, 7 doesn't even have native support for .gif's.... sucks when you have a bunch of funny ones and are needing a laugh. I did fix that however by copying over XP's "Windows Picture and Fax Viewer" onto 7, then setting it as the default for gif's. Very funny M$.

(sad part is that once you open a gif using XP's exe on 7, then click next or back buttons, it only will go to the next gif file, and skip all other images.  )

[Ace]

i found this to be handy for ppl that dont no how to unistall the ms kb n0s

https://www.hackread.com/microsoft-updates-spy-on-windows7-8-users/

and if you  Disable the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program

https://pubs.vmware.com/view-51/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.view.administration.doc%2FGUID-BE82165B-13BC-4FD9-A9CF-FBEF6343D98A.html

hope this helps :>:>

[White Stripes]

switched back to my XP machine

XP is extremely dangerous to use at this point due to the lack of security updates... unless you are using that XP 'POS' hack... and even then thats not a sure thing...

[WhiteLightningX]

Probably. Like I said I have other machines, a few with 7 and should anything go wrong my critical stuff isn't actually on any machine.. But I think it's all hype. Sure the risk goes up as M$ stops providing patches, but it also 'drops off' of the radar over time. Besides, I trust my fellow hackers that don't get paid and have no stake in this other than protecting what they love. I understand the issue of OS's getting too big to maintain/poorly designed vs. future hardware, (kind of) but come on. This upgrading, It's just stupid. How many people actually use a computer for it's multifunctional abilities and for what it is really capable of? <1%. Short of gamers, but that's not really what I'm talking about. More in the realm of like a super computer AI running a giant ship or something.. lol I know that's pushing it. Doubtful any OS of today could pull it off for 24/7-forever. But that leads into the realm of how well the program was written. And if it works why are we constantly changing it and forcing an upgrade every couple of years when nothing really new has showed up? Couldn't it just be slightly modified to work on newer hardware and be backwards compatible at the same time?

I really wonder sometimes if the software that seems faster on newer hardware is actually fast because of the newer hardware, or if it just appears faster because it is designed to run on that hardware and not the older stuff. Likewise, if the newer hardware really is faster, then it should run older software faster. But there is often this backwards compatibility thing that falls through the cracks and is lost over time. Therefore testing without emulation and other tricks which eat up cycles is impossible, ruining the test. Often if the program does run, it runs poorly or crashes, and then the blame is on the program "not being compatible" or poorly written. I think it's a conspiracy. Since clockspeeds have hit a wall, I'd say they are already and have been doing this back and forth "cpu trickery" for at least a decade.

And I think the idea of multicores was just an initial way to get around the clockspeed problem(which does speed up things as programs can be run separately) but I think the internal working of the cpu's have been changed back and forth over time since then to be used by software in only certain ways, thus leading to the false appearance of newer hardware appearing faster, and older programs being incompatible/slow/flaky, earning a few extra bucks for chip companies in the mean time. Short of clockspeed, if you have -perfect coding- all things should be equal in the end, unless the cpu does things different than other cpu's, which could lead to false beliefs of it being faster.

Done ranting I think. Might have repeated myself at some point lol.. But really, I want to see how far this will go. How long will XP continue to hold on? I'd say with the chinese still holding onto it, it may last waaay longer expected.