NoelC

(Using Big Muscle's Aero Glass Configuration GUI tool, of course). -Noel

As jaclaz points out, we have been operating under a false sense of security for some time, though the problem has gotten 10x worse (if not more) with Win 10. I have recently adopted a "deny by default" firewall stance with Win 8.1 as well, and while it's nowhere near as chatty online, I blocked it from trying to "phone home" not only to Microsoft but also to Google last night. I have also a Win 7 system that I believe I'll be moving to the more restrictive settings as well, and will see what happens. But never forget, Sinofsky was quite proud of the "telemetry" they would be basing much of the design of Windows 8 and later on - so clearly Windows 7 is also doing it. Lastly - and this is a bit scary - we've already seen Microsoft trying to push out updates to Win 7 that increase its online promiscuity as well (KB3021917, KB3068708 anyone?). Expect that to continue. -Noel

And here I was thinking that was the Notification Center. Sorry. -Noel

Are you using Big Muscle's Aero Glass configuration GUI tool? I should think you could use no theme atlas at all, but set the Caption glow effect. I haven't tried that combo, though. -Noel

I did some curve fitting and resized the graph (linearly) to show that Windows 7 use actually appears to be on a slight rebound, even excluding weekend fluctuations. It warms my heart to think that people are not all so stupid as to accept less functionality than what they had, even if it's free. -Noel

Exactly my situation as well, except that I don't detest Win 8.1. It's fine, with Classic Shell, Aero Glass, a theme replacement, and no Modern Apps (i.e., no semblance of what Microsoft delivered). -Noel

It's possible a Windows Backup System Image could do the job. They've even resurrected the UI - "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)". I'm not completely sure about your needs for backing up from one type of partitioning and restoring to another, though. -Noel

Welcome to the new philosophy of Windows 10. You're not supposed to try to decide what's best for you. You're not supposed to want to control what your computer does. You're supposed to trust Mother Microsoft to do what's best for you. You're supposed to let Mother Microsoft control your computer. That being said, with a Win 10 Pro setup I have been at least partially successful in stopping Windows Updates from being automatically delivered. As netbookdelgob has said, see: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/174149-we-can-hide-updates/#entry1103742 I say "partially" because I have caught Win 10 still making many server connections with my firewall setup. The logic inside this OS is ANYTHING but simple regarding making online connections and furthering Microsoft's motives. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend anyone upgrade to it until it's better known. -Noel

By the way, you should all know that none of these tools actually shuts Windows 10 up. With all the registry tweaks in place and a hosts file that redirects over 100 addresses said to be Microsoft data collection servers (AND another 17,000 entries from MVPS) to 0.0.0.0, according to my firewall logs I've STILL seen on my otherwise quiet Win 10 System, svchost, rundll, and others such as "SIH (Silent Install Helper) Client" and "Microsoft Feedback SIUF Deployment Manager Client" try to contact a number of servers online just today in the past 4 hours (listed below). I've yet to research them, but to say that Win 10 is chatty online would be an understatement. Possible Windows Update attempts? Possible telemetry? Upload of personal data? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 104.73.38.54:443 157.55.240.220:443 157.56.96.58:443 172.224.177.145:443 172.224.178.197:443 172.224.180.140:443 178.255.83.1:80 178.255.83.2:80 192.116.242.20:80 23.15.5.197:80 23.15.5.213:80 23.4.37.163:80 23.4.43.27:80 23.74.2.58:80 23.74.2.88:80 64.4.54.116:443 65.55.44.108:443 66.119.114.157:443 Who knows? More research is needed, and it's simply time consuming. But it's paddling upstream, really. Microsoft has decided the OS, being "cloud" integrated, is simply going to make all kinds of connections online all the time no matter what settings you've chosen. Trying to second guess a team of thousands of engineers is not practical. And there's no guarantee it will work right if they're blocked. Each address amongst the above and the traffic to/from it needs to be researched. Then a decision has to be made about whether to block activity, and testing needs to be done to confirm the system continues to function correctly. That last part is the trick - how can we know whether blocking one of those addresses will not lead to the system being deactivated one day down the line? In short: From what I can see, there is no "easy fix" to this, no magic "app" that instructs Windows not to make online connections. -Noel

Hey BigMuscle, I found what I think is a small glitch in the files you're delivering in the package: I don't know if it's intentional, but there are entries in your win8rp.png.layout file that are duplicated. Some are in there as many as 4 times. Compare a sorted version with a sorted version that's had duplicates removed (e.g., sort vs. sort -u) to see them: -Noel

The reason is: The more recent Aero Glass for Win 8+ software (since WAY back when the Win 8 version was under development) is simply designed to be loaded by the AeroHost executable. The author says it should no longer be loaded via AppInit_DLLs. Note the bold wording on this page: http://www.glass8.eu/win_future.html Just for reference, Zacharee, you can have multiple DLLs listed in the AppInit_DLLs entry - just separate them with spaces. -Noel

Works fine here on a fully updated x64 install of Win 10 build 10240. I know it's big, but Big Muscle will be more likely to see your questions in the Windows 10 DEVELOPMENT thread. -Noel

Does the theme atlas Big Muscle provides with Aero Glass for Win 8+ suit you except for the borders? If so, edit the win8rp.png.layout file and try changing these entries in the file to have a 0 for the first value: 47;0;3602=0,0,0,0 45;0;3602=0,0,0,0 Note that 47;0;3602 is in there twice. Change both of them. -Noel

Well, some Americans, anyway. But an adoption rate of tens of installs per second it's testament to how little people either know (or care?) whether their personal data is being sent elsewhere. And to be fair, it's difficult to see that Win 10 is FAR more chatty online than any system that has come before. Some would even say this is the wave of the future, and who knows, maybe with hundreds of millions of people having their entire personal lives potentially visible electronically there's safety in numbers. After all, your being targeted would be less likely than being struck by lightning, right? Or would it? Mother nature doesn't have a computer to do her lightning stroke targeting. But to further the "safety in numbers" concept a bit, imagine that if a few hundred million Americans just use Win 10 out of the box, while YOU have a firewall and a number of other informed measures to keep private, maybe you're better protected than ever before. Reminds me of the old joke where two people are hiking and encounter a bear. In the first second one says "Glad I've got my running shoes on." The other gasps, "But you can't outrun a bear!" The first retorts, "Don't have to - I just have to outrun you." -Noel

I have a better idea: Show me something that's worth praise. -Noel

Are you asking if it's available specifically in the Action Center? I don't even see an "Action Center" in Win 10. The only listing of installed updates I've seen is through the Settings App, Update & Security panel, Windows Update category, Advanced options link, View your update history link. It IS possible to get to something that looks a little like the old Windows Update display, specifically if you click the Uninstall updates link. That panel appears to be running as part of Explorer, and I have no idea whether a command link could be used to open it directly. Maybe from a "GodMode" shortcut it might be directly accessible? I need to set one of those up and see what's still available from there. All the control / status stuff just seems so disjointed in Win 10... At first I thought it was because I was unwilling to embrace some new, not-seen-by-me-but-good-for-others metaphor, but I think now that it's actually just disjointed. -Noel

What, that geeks can get away with changing software without doing any documentation? I'm sure that management not requiring any made it possible for the geeks to be paid less. -Noel

Who here knows more about the Teredo tunneling (IPv6 embedded within IPv4) that the svchost process Windows is doing with servers in Redmond and London (and possibly others)? It's done via UDP, connecting to win8.ipv6.microsoft.com port 3544 (which can be several addresses, including 157.56.106.184, 157.56.144.215, 94.245.121.251, 94.245.121.253) From what I read this effectively punches through whatever security you may THINK you have by using a router between your computer and the wild Internet. Using more aggressive outgoing connection firewall settings is an eye-opening experience for sure. FYI, with Teredo (UDP to remote port 3544) blocked Windows 8.1 still seems to work just fine. So what's leaking out through that tunnel on virtually every Windows 8 system? -Noel Edit 2015 08 21 13:15: Some pertinent links I've turned up: https://lonesysadmin.net/2011/04/25/how-to-disable-teredo-ipv6-tunneling-in-microsoft-windows/ http://etherealmind.com/microsoft-teredo-ipv6-tunneling-no-go-crap/ Plus there is some indication that there are (at least?) two other means by which IPv6 is being encapsulated in IPv4, which leads to additional security worries. More research is needed...

Does searchui.exe still appear in your list of running processes? -Noel

Deleting things, saying nothing, then returning a small semblance of what was deleted is supposed to be "WOW!" What's wrong with you sheeple? Can't you get with the program? -Noel

What's "Spotify"? What do they offer that you can't get by going and sitting quietly in the woods and listening to the wind blow through the leaves? -Noel

There are too many difficulties with language translation to try to read ANYTHING between the lines and extract some kind of subtle message there. Just read it just as it was written: If you have a show-stopping problem, please say it so that it can be fixed before release. It's entirely possible Big Muscle is working on an update to fix MrGrim's problem at this point. Let the man work! -Noel

That Windows Updates are intrusively overriding user choices is REALLY disappointing - but as we know it's really happening. It's something that's not getting enough press. -Noel

I'm off the insider track at this point. While I don't claim to have run all the new "tools" out there, I have researched and disabled a LOT of privacy settings, and outfitted my system with a hosts file that contains a list of Microsoft addresses redirected to 0.0.0.0, and yet I still saw quite a few attempts to communicate online run up against the firewall. I'm in the process of trying a new firewall management tool right now (Sphinx Firewall Control per xpclient's recommendation) and it has better reporting. When I get that all configured I'll see what it shows is still trying to get through. The real trick is to distill out the essential network communications - e.g., to support Windows Update - while blocking the telemetry and other data hemorrhaging. -Noel

It's not at all hard to imagine over 100 icons in an application. Or it could have just been statically linked. -Noel