Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday April 08 2017, @03:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the thanks-Microsoft dept.

Next week Microsoft will begin the slowish rollout of its big update to Windows 10, the Creators Update.

Right now, it's doing a little damage control, and preempting complaints about privacy, by listing the types of information its operating system will automatically and silently leak from PCs, slabs, and laptops back to Redmond.

When Windows 10 came out, Reg readers were alarmed by the volume of information the software was collecting and sending back to base. Ever since then, Microsoft has been fighting a PR battle to reassure people that such data slurping isn't all bad – it's "just" telemetry and diagnostics and potentially your files.

Now Redmond's had a little rethink for the Creators Update, and decided to come clean on exactly what the software will phone home – even insisting the closed-source operating system will scoop up less surveillance this time.

What makes you think it's your data?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by ShadowSystems on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:10AM (14 children)

    by ShadowSystems (6185) <ShadowSystemsNO@SPAMGmail.com> on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:10AM (#490717)

    I haven't installed Win10 on my machine, nor do I plan on ever buying a machine with Win10 on it.
    I too saw the writing on the wall, the red flags, & thought "Oh HELL NO!"
    I've had enough of a constant headache in trying to stop the incessent demands to upgrade, batting aside the attempts to sneak the upgrade on me anyway, installing software such as the GWX Control Panel to block it from getting here, and generally being run ragged trying to keep my computer my own.
    I long ago decided that my next machine will have some form of Linux on it, thus I'll definitely be upgrading - right the hell off the MS treadmill.

    Unfortunately I am the go to computer guy for my friends & family.
    Some of them have gone ahead & either purchased a Win10 machine or allowed their copy of Win7/8/8.1 to be "upgraded" to Win10.
    Thus I'm stuck trying to support an OS I can't stomach, can't trust, & can't keep all the bazillions of foibles straight so that I can counter them when said folks have troubles.
    I end up spending hours each time scraping the various forums, help channels, MS FAQ's & KBA's trying to find out how they've broken $Thing this time, how to fix it, or at least how to try & restore enough functionality so they can go back to getting shit done.
    They don't care that MS is giving them the shaft as long as *I* keep trying to help them.
    I'm about this >|| close to throwing up my hands & saying "Enough! Fix it your damned self! You didn't take my advice when I told you not to use it, so why should I keep supporting your refusal to let sanity reign? Take it to BestBuy for all I care, I'm done."
    *Cough*
    *Sigh*
    *FrustratedHeadDesk*

    I sit here on my Win7 machine & keep working, while they sit at their Win10 machines & have nothing but issues.
    Somehow *I'M* the one that's supposed to fix issues for an OS I don't have, can't see, & can only relay a web scrape result to them so they can supposedly follow directions to recover.
    We all know they don't follow directions worth a damn else they wouldn't be running Win10 in the first place.

    *Gnaws on my navigation cane to keep from screaming*
    The last call I got was an Aunt wanting to know why she couldn't do $x anymore in $y.
    I didn't know, had to look it up, & the only fix was to uninstall the last Win10 update.
    That fixed it for as long as it took for MS to push out another update, at which point it reapplied the previous one & borked $y again.
    Cue another call from Aunt wanting to know why...

    *Runs screaming from the planet*

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:26AM (6 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:26AM (#490775) Journal

    Being I am an old retired engineer, several of my neighbors have had me over from time to time to go over their machines and clean 'em out. Generally, I have gone through with a few cleaner programs and deleted the stuff they no longer want from their hard drive, then once clean, I run CloneZilla on their machine so next time won't take so long, and keep the file on one of those 1TB portable USB drives. One drive holds all of our backups. And I back up those files as well on yet another terabyte drive. Most of them are grannies and grandpas who are using their machine to communicate with friends and family, so their machine doesn't have a heckuva lotta stuff on it.

    Increasingly, I have had to tell these people that once they go to WIN10, I can no longer help them.

    I begrudgingly have to let them take it to the Geek Squad. But, they have money. And the latest new, shiny.

    I simply don't think its worth it to me to have the latest new, shiny anymore.

    It's not like I am trying to impress a MBA boss anymore about my mastery of the latest technology.

    If he wants to risk telemetering his stuff all over the net to any interested party, that's no longer my business. He's got money. He can pay whatever it takes. That's the thing about money. If you have plenty of it, you do not have to take the same concerns a lot of us have to.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:50AM (5 children)

      by zeigerpuppy (1298) on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:50AM (#490780)

      i stopped providing windows support to friends/family in 2000. Since that time, my standard response is, "I'm afraid I cannot do windows support as the system is broken and will be back in an unusable state soon after I fix it. I can, however, upgrade you to linux and will happily provide you with help in getting to use it." There are mkre people that happily took the plunge than I expected!

      • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:06PM (2 children)

        by Pino P (4721) on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:06PM (#490899) Journal

        "I use iTunes Store and Fitbit Connect. Can you upgrade my laptop's Windows operating system to GNU/Linux and keep those working?"

        • (Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:37PM

          by tftp (806) on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:37PM (#490942) Homepage

          I have a Garmin Vívosmart HR+ with GPS. It is accurate, as opposed to Fitbit. Same story: the browser plugin works on Windows, but not on Linux. I looked around, some people attempted various projects, but all in all it requires support of the manufacturer to do a good job.

          But why to look at fitness bands or other odd hardware - I cannot even connect to my company's VPN from Linux Mint 17.3. It connects briefly, works, but in about 1 minute the connection is dropped. It is a known issue with many possible causes. The only thing I do not know is the solution :-( Naturally, the same VPN (L2TP/IPSec with PSK) works fine with any Windows client and is used by many people daily. Do I have to debug OpenVPN now? Why does the same work on Windows?

        • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday April 09 2017, @06:07AM

          by butthurt (6141) on Sunday April 09 2017, @06:07AM (#491094) Journal

          > iTunes Store

          A quick Web search reveals there's a HOWTO for that:

          https://andrewhickey.info/2014/12/03/howto-access-the-itunes-store-in-gnulinux/ [andrewhickey.info]

          Another option, of course, is to get a Macintosh computer.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:34PM (#490981)

        i did the same thing. all family members that i used to help with windows now use various distributions. grandma included. there's no excuse to deal with windows.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @10:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @10:33PM (#491363)

        This is the path I have taken. My tech support time has dropped to zero. Ubuntu 16 LTS is Good Enough for desktop users. It has Firefox and Palemoon installs easily. Upgrades may take getting used to. Most things work. Just like win98. Some things don't. Just like win98.

        It is the year of the Linux desktop for me.

  • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:01PM (5 children)

    by Pino P (4721) on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:01PM (#490895) Journal

    I haven't installed Win10 on my machine, nor do I plan on ever buying a machine with Win10 on it.

    As far as I can tell, a laptop without Windows 10 is either a MacBook, an oversized smartphone running Android or iOS, a Chromebook that threatens to wipe itself if you install anything other than a web browser, or a System76 or Dell purchased sight unseen. Which of these would you recommend for developers who currently use Windows and for non-developers who currently use Windows?

    • (Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:09PM (3 children)

      by ShadowSystems (6185) <ShadowSystemsNO@SPAMGmail.com> on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:09PM (#490966)

      System76 is your best bet, they make laptops to your specifications (the configuration pages are neat!) & you can get one built as you want.
      They offer lots of different hardware, you can get your favorite distro installed (they use Ubuntu as default but are willing to install something else if you ask), & they'll even set up any RAID, VPN, or special bits you need running out of the box.
      If you call them up & ask nicely, they'll bend over backwards to give you the system you want/need.
      I had to decide between one of their laptops & their desktops, I need the power more than the portability, but even their *laptops* can be given a super fast 7th gen Intel with 64GiB of smokin fast ram & an NVMe SSD of capricious capacity.
      *Tries to stop my geeky drooling*

      Even if you don't go with System76 there are others like Emporer, Think Penguin, & more.
      You can get a modern (laptop/desktop) system with great specs at an awesome price, your choice of distro, & support that comes from real people with actual knowledge of the stuff they're supporting.
      So give one of them a try, you'll be pleasantly surprised at the levels of professionalism you get out of a vendor that can't fall back on it's giant piles of money & treat you like crap.
      *Cough*Microsoft*Cough*
      =-)p

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday April 09 2017, @01:17AM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Sunday April 09 2017, @01:17AM (#491029) Journal

        I've used EmperorLinux for about a decade now. They're excellent.

        Haven't tried System76 yet, but all of us linux users should support them wherever possible.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday April 09 2017, @05:13PM (1 child)

        by Pino P (4721) on Sunday April 09 2017, @05:13PM (#491196) Journal

        a laptop without Windows 10 is either a MacBook, [iPad + keyboard, Android tablet + keyboard, Chromebook], or a System76 or Dell purchased sight unseen.

        System76 is your best bet, they make laptops to your specifications (the configuration pages are neat!) & you can get one built as you want.

        By "sight unseen" I meant that I don't think a customer gets to try the screen or keyboard before committing to buying. And unless I'm seriously misreading the starting page [system76.com], a customer still has to start from a limited set of sizes, with none smaller than 14 inches available as of today.

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:24AM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:24AM (#493325) Journal

          And unless I'm seriously misreading the starting page, a customer still has to start from a limited set of sizes, with none smaller than 14 inches available as of today.

          FYI, they just introduced a 13" model yesterday:
          https://system76.com/laptops/galago [system76.com]

    • (Score: 1) by DeVilla on Friday April 14 2017, @05:07AM

      by DeVilla (5354) on Friday April 14 2017, @05:07AM (#493827)

      I'm way too late, but I've had good luck with ZaReason.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:01PM (#490896)

    what I did was tell my family that I didn't upgrade to windows 10 because I didnt agree to the eula... sorry can't help you I haven't even seen it up close.