Is there a way to sign OUT of the Microsoft Account?

[NoelC]

Follow-up:  I've been running with a local account since posting above, and more recently I've clipped Win 10's online wings short via privacy settings, an aggressive hosts file, and a "deny by default" firewall config, and so far it's been hanging together. 

Cortana is cut off at the midsection (searchui.exe still runs, but is prohibited from contacting anyone).  System and svchost processes are blocked from doing most things online.

 

I can't say I've stopped it's online promiscuity completely...  It still tries to contact various Microsoft sites from time to time.  It's difficult to separate what's still needed for Windows Update to function and what needs to be blocked to prevent privacy invasion, but I think I'm pretty close.

 

• Attempts by System, svchost, taskhostw, Silent Install Helper Client, and others to contact various sites (including Microsoft, Google, and others) are seen blocked all the time.
• Other data mining operations, such as those by Adobe, are also blocked.
   
• I can still check for updates (though there apparently haven't been any new ones for a few days now).
• I can browse the net via several different browsers.
• I can make Skype calls and chat.
• My applications that work online and check for updates online work.

 

This is about as close to workable as I can make Windows 10, and the maintenance of such a configuration requires a fair bit of ongoing networking awareness and effort to keep the configuration up to date.  All in all I judge it not worth upgrading my main workstation - yet.

 

And of course now we see the "TH2" update just around the corner.

 

-Noel

[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

[NoelC]

Seems to me the more measures the better.  I would definitely suggest selecting all the overt, provided settings to maximize privacy.

 

Beyond that I'm not sure about some of the "published" measures.  Some seem extreme, and none of us can possibly know what taking some of these measures will mean in the long term.  For example, in a few months, after not having been able to contact 157.56.106.189 will the system just deactivate?  How can we know?  And we may never get out of the time of discovery!  This is clearly Microsoft's plan, and the crux of the problem.

 

Armed with as much information as I've been able to gather, all that simply makes Windows 10 a non-starter for me.  Will there ever be a version that'll be acceptable?  Perhaps not, given this "continuous change" model.  I have to judge whether Microsoft's bandwagon is going in the direction I want to go, but so far it's going exactly 180 degrees from there.

 

P.S., Imagine looking through a listing like this every day and trying to decide whether the blocking of network contact attempts is properly tuned, in order to maintain your privacy:

 

 

-Noel

[JorgeA]

P.S., Imagine looking through a listing like this every day and trying to decide whether the blocking of network contact attempts is properly tuned, in order to maintain your privacy:

 

 

   

 

...and yet, that's the quandary that Microsoft has put us all in.

 

Using Windows (10) is getting to be like living in a neighborhood infested by burglars and Peeping Toms: you need to be constantly checking your locks and (ahem) windows in order to stay safe.

 

--JorgeA