so who has down loaded Windows 10 ?

[Skytrooper]

I have had it on my laptop for a couple of weeks. I just installed it on my desktop. I think it works well.

[red-beard]

I have it on one Laptop and will run it this way for about a month. Then I will deploy it around the company.

[biosurfer1]

I just updated my laptop....I spent some time setting up 8.1 with classic shell, etc so really I don't notice much difference so far, but seems to work fine.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

More "upgrades" for upgrades sake. I don't see the need of what it will do for me that the last four or five versions will do equally well or better.

This "upgrade treadmill" just to keep IT people and software developers relevant is getting really tiresome. 99% of the world needs a decent web browser, e-mail program, maybe a spreadsheet and word processor and that's it. Apple seems to understand this which is why they've driven the hardware and OSes from a more minimalist, "less is more" approach generally speaking. Microsoft by contrast seems to always be the ones adding more bloat, more fluff, Clip Art, dancing clowns, animations and more needless BS. Apple has been falling into this trap more recently too (sadly) but seriously - what's the last piece of software anyone developed that really did anything new or innovative that really impacted my life in a positive way (NOT just something being foisted onto me to keep a bunch of programmers employed?) I think it probably was the last version of iPhoto which has inexplicably been replaced by the Photos app (not a step forward at all). They're "upgrading" stuff to death. It killed Tapatalk too (don't even use it anymore - used to be great before they screwed with it).

Sorry to sound like a Luddite but it's getting pretty obnoxious. Rule #1 If it works, DONT EFF WITH IT!

[red-beard]

Jeff - What about iOS?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I think it applies to that also... I think the last version that I really felt was appreciably better was iOS 6. 7 just changed the look really and 8 did... What? Added support for $2,000 iWatches that nobody needs? I don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems mosh pointless.

[island911]

Originally Posted by J P Stein

I've finally semi-figured out Win8. ........enough to know I don"t like the POS. I'll hold off on my "free" download of 10. I don't like much that I'm reading about it....particularly the Big Brother aspect

Win 10 is what Win8 should have been all along. (it's more like Win7)

the Big Brother aspect. That's if you have a Microsoft accnt. (x-box /live /outlook.com)

The biggest 'ugly' that I see is the new perpetual billing model they have waiting. Like a drug dealer, it's free (to start).

But to be fair, they should get paid for the perpetual system baby-sitting. (hacker counter-measures on-going)

[legion]

Even when told not to, Windows 10 just can

Windows 10 uses the Internet a lot to support many of its features. The operating system also sports numerous knobs to twiddle that are supposed to disable most of these features and the potentially privacy-compromising connections that go with them.

Unfortunately for privacy advocates, these controls don't appear to be sufficient to completely prevent the operating system from going online and communicating with Microsoft's servers.

For example, even with Cortana and searching the Web from the Start menu disabled, opening Start and typing will send a request to Bing to request a file called threshold.appcache which appears to contain some Cortana information, even though Cortana is disabled. The request for this file appears to contain a random machine ID that persists across reboots.

Some of the traffic is obviously harmless. On connecting to a new network, Windows machines try to request two URLs (www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt and ipv6.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt, the former over IPv4, the latter over IPv6) to ascertain whether a given network is routed to the Internet and if there is a captive portal in the way (NCSI stands for "Network Connection Status Indicator"). These requests are very bare, with no machine IDs or other data sent. If you want to turn even these off there is a way to do so, but the privacy impact is minimal.

Some of the traffic looks harmless but feels like it shouldn't be happening. For example, even with no Live tiles pinned to Start (and hence no obvious need to poll for new tile data), Windows 10 seems to download new tile info from MSN's network from time to time, using unencrypted HTTP to do so. While again the requests contain no identifying information, it's not clear why they're occurring at all, given that they have no corresponding tile.

Other traffic looks a little more troublesome. Windows 10 will periodically send data to a Microsoft server named ssw.live.com. This server seems to be used for OneDrive and some other Microsoft services. Windows 10 seems to transmit information to the server even when OneDrive is disabled and logins are using a local account that isn't connected to a Microsoft Account. The exact nature of the information being sent isn't clear—it appears to be referencing telemetry settings—and again, it's not clear why any data is being sent at all. We disabled telemetry on our test machine using group policies.

And finally, some traffic seems quite impenetrable. We configured our test virtual machine to use an HTTP and HTTPS proxy (both as a user-level proxy and a system-wide proxy) so that we could more easily monitor its traffic, but Windows 10 seems to make requests to a content delivery network that bypass the proxy.

We've asked Microsoft if there is any way to disable this additional communication or information about what its purpose is. We were told "As part of delivering Windows 10 as a service, updates may be delivered to provide ongoing new features to Bing search, such as new visual layouts, styles and search code. No query or search usage data is sent to Microsoft, in accordance with the customer's chosen privacy settings. This also applies to searching offline for items such as apps, files and settings on the device." This is consistent with what we saw (there is no query or search data transmitted), but also likely to run counter to most people's expectations; if Web searching and Cortana are disabled, we suspect that the inference that most people would make is that searching the Start menu wouldn't hit the Internet at all. But it does. The traffic could be innocuous, but the inclusion of a machine ID gives it a suspicious appearance.

We've argued recently that operating systems will continue to make privacy-functionality trade-offs. For many users, perhaps even the majority, these trade-offs will be worthwhile; services such as Cortana (Siri, Google Now), cloud syncing of files, passwords, and settings, and many other modern operating system features are all valuable, and many will feel that the loss of privacy is an acceptable price to pay. But the flip side of this is that disabling these services for those who don't want to use them should really disable them. And it's not at all clear that Windows 10 is doing that right now.

[jyl]

I've been using Windows 10 Technical Preview for months. Love it. Best Windows OS since XP. Now I'm upgrading to Windows 10 production release. Unfortunately I have to pay, my Tech Preview product key isn't being accepted.

Running it on a MacBook Pro via Parallels 10. I'm not as happy with Parallels.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by island911

man, so many freak-out stories.

Like my tax returns to my CFP.
Or that business draft letter to my lawyer regarding major plan changes to my multi-billion dollar company.
Or those communications to my doctor (federal HIPPA laws).
Or that heartfelt sexual communication to my SO revealing everything in my mind.
Electronic espionage.
The feds went after Aaron Schwartz with a passion, but at this level it doesn't take hiding in a broom closet.

Microsoft can now intercept and sell any of this.
Legally.

Microsoft used to be hated by all.
Then they were the good guys and the last holdouts.
And now?

Originally Posted by flipper35

Verizon is one of the worst with its unkillable cookie on their phones.

Adobe was there a few decades ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Shared_Object

[Heel n Toe]

Still hoping for some input on what happened to me... so who has down loaded Windows 10 ?

[LakeCleElum]

Originally Posted by Heel n Toe

Still hoping for some input on what happened to me... so who has down loaded Windows 10 ?

I have downloaded Win 10 on a laptop that did not have an invite. I had to research how to load w/o being invited.

I had put updates on other Win 7 machines and no attempt was made to load win 10 (one of those has a pending invite.).....

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by island911

man, so many freak-out stories.

Thing is, Microsoft is WAY behind the big brother tracking curve. Google/Android, Apple, Facebook... all killing it, and would rather that Microsoft not play in their sandbox of owning people's digital life.

That EULA stuff: As I read it, that only refers to use of MSFT cloud stuff; where they are responsible for holding and giving the user(s) access to cloud based info.

Anyway, I think it funny that Android and Apple fans are dumping on MSFT for doing some of what Android and Apple have been doing for years. ...at least MSFT let's the user select to turn the crap off.

Probably, the people complaining about W10 also do not have facebook or smart phones...

[john70t]

Win7 here.

Every 1-4 hours I have to suppress GWX (plus the 'access-denied' Adobe Flash process with it).
It's like I no longer own my own computer.

The computer memory freezes up and the computer becomes sludge otherwise.
(Like some 90's porn website with 50 popups.)

I recently had a windows update which just bounced screens suddenly, then installed itself while bypassing its own timer.

Windows Update now gives a 4 hours max delay option.
Nothing more.
There is no option to ignore.
The last update caused a fatal BSOD error.

Sometimes I wish for a 1990's virus instead....

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by john70t

Win7 here.

Every 1-4 hours I have to suppress GWX (plus the 'access-denied' Adobe Flash process with it).
It's like I no longer own my own computer.

The computer memory freezes up and the computer becomes sludge otherwise.
(Like some 90's porn website with 50 popups.)

I recently had a windows update which just bounced screens suddenly, then installed itself while bypassing its own timer.

Windows Update now gives a 4 hours max delay option.
Nothing more.
There is no option to ignore.
The last update caused a fatal BSOD error.

Sometimes I wish for a 1990's virus instead....

Wow, really?

We run programs to crunch data that sometimes takes several days for just one step. A re-boot in the middle of that would just piss away hours of run time. I guess we can just kill the network connection during a long process time.

[Scott R]

Just change your Windows Update settings to:

"Download updates but let me choose whether to install them"

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Scott R

Just change your Windows Update settings to:

"Download updates but let me choose whether to install them"

All of our computers are set that way now.

[gacook]

How many of you that have downloaded WIN-10 have touchscreens? My wife's computer is a touch and I'd like to know how well 10 works in that environment.

I'll probably upgrade my kids' laptops to 10 because they all have 8 (and I hate it). I'm running 7 on my laptop, still and I like it, so that's where it's staying for now.

I've got a couple friends who've downloaded it and have had some weird problems (one has a flashing screen that won't go away; another have run into smaller problems, etc.).

[john70t]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

We run programs to crunch data that sometimes takes several days for just one step. A re-boot in the middle of that would just piss away hours of run time. I guess we can just kill the network connection during a long process time.

Today I selected "postpone 4 hours" and then it decided to reboot in 15 minutes anyways.
All options were grayed-out.
Forced update.

I was on a website which failed to print correctly and was scrambling to copy the info.

[MysticLlama]

Originally Posted by john70t

Today I selected "postpone 4 hours" and then it decided to reboot in 15 minutes anyways.
All options were grayed-out.
Forced update.

I was on a website which failed to print correctly and was scrambling to copy the info.

I get caught by this once in a while.

Start -> Run -> Services.msc
Or right click the start button, go to control panel, go to services

Stop the windows update service.

This usually buys about a day, it will continue to run the counter but won't reboot. Sometime in the middle of the night it'll reenable itself.

An odd thing is that sometimes it doesn't force a reboot until someone logs in. I see this on servers sometimes. Don't log into a server for a couple months, then log in in the middle of a workday and it says 15 minutes to reboot... that's just dumb.