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If you have been refusing Microsoft's offer to upgrade your Windows 7 or 8* operating system to Windows 10 due to the oft-reported data and telemetry slurping it seems inclined to do, then it is time to be on your toes as to which updates you allow to be installed on your earlier version of the operating system.
El Reg reports that Microsoft are busy pushing similar functionality to those older operating systems by way of Windows Update. The updates in question can apparently be rolled back if required.
They are however very determined in their function if allowed to be installed, going so far as to ignore such venerable solutions as additions to the HOSTS file, which has historically been a way to knobble phone-home behaviour:
Now Microsoft is revamping the user-tracking tools in Windows 7 and 8 to harvest more data, via some new patches.
All the updates can be removed post-installation – but all ensure the OS reports data to Microsoft even when asked not to, bypassing the hosts file and (hence) third-party privacy tools. This data can include how long you use apps, and which features you use the most, snapshots of memory to investigate crashes, and so on.
The updates are KB3068708 ("Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry" and mandatory) KB3075249 ("Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7") and KB3080149 (also an "Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry", both optional).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2015, @12:54AM
9x hasn't been supported since 2003.
(The level of "support" 9x got after the release of W2k was quite sad anyway;
M$ moved up the EoL date from July 11 to June 30 after a vulnerability was revealed that they didn't want to fix.)
Most importantly, many of the "Windoze" apps written in the last 15 years use NT-only APIs that are not present in 9x.
(A 3rd-party extension called KernelEx tried to overcome that--with limited success.)
they took down the patches from windows update
The phrase that paid (after 9x had been obsolete for years) was Windows 9x Power Pack. [majorgeeks.com]
(MICROS~1 itself trickled out their 9x updates and never actually released them as a service pack.)
If you have a 9x-compatible app that you just can't live without, WINE running under Linux is the way to get that going.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday September 03 2015, @02:23AM
If you have a 9x-compatible app that you just can't live without, WINE running under Linux is the way to get that going.
Some of them still don't work all that well. I just keep an XP box not connected to the internet. When that goes, I'll attempt to find another. If I can't, I may attempt a new Windows PC and keep it offline, or bite the bullet and work harder to get everything working in WINE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2015, @07:29AM
Yeah. Some of us were kicking this one around the other day.
The sticking points seem to be VisualBasic and some versions of DirectX. [soylentnews.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @08:05PM
Won't putting XP in a VM do? Probably less hassle than finding another XP computer.