JorgeA

Thanks for the progress report, that's encouraging. The measures you took -- are they instead of, or in addition to, the use of any of the privacy tools that have been popping up around the Web? Or to put the question maybe more simply: if one uses the methods you describe, is there a need to use those tools? --JorgeA

The message is righteous. If you change it, make it one of the other representations of "golden poo". The steam is a good touch. -Noel I'll leave it in place only if it's OK with the mods. Don't want to do anything that would jeopardize my standing here! Oddly, the one that you see there is the only one that I could get to display on my screen. I don't have that emoji font installed on my Win7 system, and trying the other choices off the site you posted yielded error messages. This is the only one that I was able to do a screenshot from. --JorgeA

LOL, that would be a great touch!! --JorgeA

JorgeA, most regrettably I must inform you that your new avatar is of extremely bad taste and unbearable to watch. For it is too skeuomorphic and démodé, and totally lacks in modernness and sophisticated design. Please allow me to suggest a more fashionable alternative: [/sARCASM OFF] I'm sorry that my conduct has disappointed. --JorgeA

Samsung smart fridge might leak your Gmail credentials The best reading on that page is in the comments: and --JorgeA

... <--- You mean like this? --JorgeA P.S. Will edit the avatar within 24 hours...

So, how do I turn that emoji into my avatar so that I can label it "Windows 10"? Microsoft explains the poop in Windows --JorgeA

Thanks a million for the info, TELVM. Some time after the post you linked to, several more Windows 7 updates to avoid have been added: KB3075249, KB3080149, KB3044374, and KB3050267. On my Win7 system, I don't seem to have the last two either installed or waiting to get downloaded. EDIT: never mind, these two are for Windows 8.1, as is KB3058168 (which also applies to Windows 8). About KB3075249: About KB3080149: The article seems to imply that this concerns only "Windows systems that participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program," but I wouldn't trust the person who wrote that as far as I could throw him. --JorgeA

... but undoubtedly some interesting food for thought. jaclaz Ahh, the wonders of subscription software... --JorgeA

Good work! But as @NoelC points out, all this effort can apparently be wiped out by a Windows Update or new build. Maybe this is a market opportunity for an enterprising tweaker to devise a tool to automatically restore the fixes that the user had previously made, while keeping the substance of the new update that had undone those fixes as a by-product. --JorgeA

Microsoft has no plans to tell us what’s in Windows patches More details on the story rn10950 linked to upthread. Microsoft is getting singed in the comments section. Here's one that I could have written, word for word: --JorgeA

That's an interesting graph. If we follow the fluctuations, we see that Windows 7 dips and then mostly recovers at around the same time as Windows 10 spikes up and then drops back down. This suggests a significant number of people reverting to Win7 after either trying Win10 or having it show up unexpectedly (and possibly unwanted) on their PCs. Curiously, Windows 8.1 is also moving up and down concurrently with Windows 10. Note that XP usage also goes up and down on the same days, but in the same directions as Windows 7. Maybe that's people purchasing new PCs with Windows 8.1 to replace their old XP machines. But then XP also largely recovers after the temporary dip. After getting a Win8.1 machine and maybe the automatic upgrade to Win10, are most of these purchasers then reinstalling XP on their new machines? Note that the up-down cycles appear to take place on weekend dates -- August 1-3, 8-10, 15-17. This gives me another idea, which is that maybe people are using XP and Win7 computers at the office, then using Windows 8.1 and 10 machines at home on Saturday and Sunday. This theory sounds more likely to me. Any other hypotheses to explain the synchronicity between the XP, 7, 8.1, and 10 fluctuations? --JorgeA

Yep, that's where we seem to be heading. BTW, at the end of the video when new suggested choices come up, one of them is the "vision video" that some Win10 supporters promote as showing where Microsoft would like to go with this IoT idea. No interface at all, computing embedded in the thing itself. Maybe that's why they're making the Windows UI so drab and boring: eventually (in their plans) it will disappear altogether. --JorgeA

Microsoft Store has military discounts on Windows 10 PCs and more Bet there's more than one foreign operative inside Microsoft that's eagerly hoping every soldier from Western armies will be carrying a Windows 10 device with them everywhere... --JorgeA

One thing I don't understand about this drive to monitor everything we do in the name of "improving" our experience and "personalizing" the service. Maybe someone can explain it to me. What I don't understand is why all our information needs to leave our computer and go to somebody's outside server. Yes, I know that what they really want is to pepper us with "relevant" ads and make our personal information available to hackers and three-letter agencies. But in terms of the ostensible, official reason for sending our data to their servers -- how many of the services they offer could really not be provided without doing that? Why couldn't the data and the processing they do with it, reside on our device instead of their server? Or why couldn't it be sent anonymized to their server for processing and then deleted? Consider a Web search with Cortana. "Hey Cortana, where's the nearest Starbucks?" At which moment the phone would take your current coordinates and match them with a map of Starbucks shops and display for you the ones that are located within, say, a 10-mile radius. The information thus generated (your interest in Starbucks, your location) would stay on your phone and anything that went to Microsoft's server would be erased immediately after use. That way, you would get the benefit of the service without surrendering your privacy. A music service could keep track of what you like to listen to on your computer; this information would be sent anonymized to their server for the purpose of creating your playlist, then deleted and re-created the next time you launch the music service. What's so hard about this that requires you to surrender your privacy? Is there a technical reason why this type of model could not work? --JorgeA

^ This reminds me of the film . Whenever the guinea pigs people inside the maze thought that they had it figured out, whoever was in control rearranged the labyrinth at will. And at the end the only person that was OK was a retard. Whoa! I'd never heard of this movie and watched the clip, thinking I might watch it with my better half. Looked promising until the last few seconds of the clip: that's the kind of scene where she would jump up and run out of the room screaming to turn the TV off. --JorgeA

Man, Win10 must be really bad: even Paul Thurrott is underwhelmed by the new ability to color the title bar introduced in build 10525: A Quick Look at Windows 10’s New Shell Color Capabilities --JorgeA

Here's a somewhat middle-of-the-road viewpoint: Screw cloud-connected operating systems — I want final say over who my PC talks to The best solution, of course, would be for enough users out there to deprive Microsoft of its anticipated billions in revenue, by refusing to install Windows 10 or to buy computers that come with it, to convince them that it was a bad idea. --JorgeA

"Windows Insider Program manages this option". So one could think you need to have opted into insider builds for to this to have any effect and if you've obliterated the telemetry and data collection operations like most of have you're not eligible for the insider program so you don't need to worry about it. Although considering the path Microsoft is on with W10 I wouldn't past them to just force it on everyone. Anybody reading this who is using the version of Windows 10 that was released to the general public starting July 29: please check to see if you can turn off the telemetry. --JorgeA

The evil just gets more and more profound: Windows 10 build 10525 has Telemetry forced to Full setting Winaero.com had previously issued a post informing readers how to disable telemetry in build 10240. Now they're reporting that not only is it turned back on in the newest build, you can't turn it off: This shows complete and utter contempt for the user's preferences. Henceforth, all 'Softie talk about being able to "personalize" Windows is plain bu!!$h/t. All right, the time may be drawing close to get rid of this POS. I'm seeking expert advice on how to repair my laptop's bootloader after I wipe Windows 10 from it and obliterate the partition it's on. --JorgeA

All of these efforts to disable data collection may be for naught. --JorgeA

Thus far, on a scale of 1 (best) to 10 (worst) where Windows 10 is a 10 -- where would you put Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 in terms of "online promiscuity"? --JorgeA

Beware! That Windows 10 update message could be ransomware in disguise Some of the victims are m0r0ns who deserve to have this happen to them thanks to their unfettered lust for tech novelty ("Windows 10 -- it's new! It's modern!"). Others are the undeserving victims of the Win10 buzz created by the tech-lust m0r0ns. --JorgeA

Wow, if it actually works as advertised, that would be a fantastic tool. --JorgeA

Those would be interesting experiments for someone skilled at analyzing network traffic! In one such experiment, I'd be curious to know if the Win10 computer actually stores up the logs, etc., to have them ready to send in a big batch the next time (if ever) it does get connected to the Internet. Or does it "give up" afer a certain amount of time. --JorgeA