OT Windows 10

Now that you've stated all the facts, I'd just go ahead and use Win 10

Here is one anti-spy utility

Plenty more out there.

I have Win10 on one machine just for testing purposes, which isn't really used , so I am not concerned with spying

Intellectuals can't deal with the obvious...

• 100000000000

I have no problem with Win10. I can't imagine the so-called "spying" affecting me. You can easily make it "look like" Win7. So you don't see any effect of it "spying." I see zero ads. That's zip, zilch, nada ads. Win10 is more robust than Win7 in my experience. Fewer hangs and hard resets. It also installs faster and has a smaller footprint.

You can often *find* homes for them -- friends, extended family, other charitable programs, etc. But, in most cases, they will leave school before graduation. Then you end up with a "less than productive" member of society.

Last time I checked, "homes" were pretty expensive. For the monies spent keeping ~800 kids in school "for another year", you might be able to build 20 homes (assuming you got the land and labor for free). If you're just interested in *renting* space for them, maybe put 200 of them into "low rent" units?

Then, who's going to heat/cool/electrify/maintain those homes? And, feed them?

And, does having a home keep the kid in school? Or, force him into the workforce so he can pay his utilities, upkeep, etc.?

Of course, if you're willing to donate ~$4M/year, then those 800 kids could stay in school AND have a place to call their own.

That's the problem when you look at a problem superficially; you convince yourself that you've got a solution when, in fact, you've just changed the problem (now you have post-teens wondering how they will be able to afford to live without an education! Simple: just keep the $4M donations coming indefinitely -- for each group of 800 "young people" :> )

What happens if you're "offline"? What happens if you STAY offline? (i.e., is there a point where it simply refuses to operate? Or, is there likely to *be* a point where it refuses to operate unless it can "get a cookie" from it's masters??)

I tend to avoid ads (in my browser as well as what I consciously set my eyes on). I don't buy the whole "we're trying to improve YOUR user experience argument: if you'd wanted to do that, you'd make the product more secure, less buggy, more responsive, etc. -- not push advertising at me (for things you THINK that I might be interested in).

So, I'm suspicious of folks using that sort of logic to market a

OTOH, this may just be "the way its going to be", going forward.

Sad that the FOSS community wastes so much time adding features and tweeking performance instead of concentrating on offering a reliable, stable product that could compete. But, so long as you've got folks fixated on stroking their own sense of

I'm sure MS is watching the numbers and won't get Draconian until they know their users have no choice. The fact that they track how long you are

Maybe *that* will be what's needed to kill the kitty videos? :>

| I see zero ads. That's zip, zilch, nada ads.

You've said that before. Be patient. :)

Do they guarantee you won't see them in the future? Or, that they won't gleefully share they collect (odd that they are so unwilling to share the details of that, eh?) with the spooks, other marketeers?

I found XP to be more robust than 7even or Vista (never played with the 8's). E.g., *this* machine is "up" for months at a time, toggling between "user1" and "user2" without ever logging off either of them. I tried 7even on one of my workstations and found that it was noticeably more "sluggish" (not in terms of getting work *done* but, rather, getting work *started*).

I have a desktop publishing program installed on a 7even laptop and it regularly "hangs" (shows a "busy" cursor and becomes unresponsive). Hard to imagine what would be "confusing" it in a program that just processes text and illustrations! Esp when that program NEVER hangs in years of use under XP/W2KS!

I don't really care about how long it takes to install -- as that's a one-time task (and, hopefully, I can clone the disk like I've been able to do previously for additional machines of the same make/model). Smaller footprint would be nice as it would lessen the demands on the donated hardware (I've got a dozen full-size towers that will be scrapped because they don't meet 7even's minimum requirements; pull disks and RAM and scrap the rest! Unfortunate but they'd be bad candidates for the students simply because of their size)

I don't see that I have much choice in the matter. If 7even was at EOL, then I'd repeat my XP approach: install ALL the updates and then disable the update mechanism. I.e., "this is as good as it's going to get".

But, as MS doesn't truly BUILD on past products (i.e., so each has NONE of the flaws of its predecessors) but, rather, likes to keep reinventing the (buggy) wheel, I imagine 10 will be years getting to "stable" -- esp when effort is diverted from providing stability and robustness in favor of "spying" and countering anti-spying techniques!

If all they are doing is tweeking registry settings, then a good article is just as effective for me. And, one less piece of software that I'd have to install and maintain.

Put a cheap router between you and your network connection. Mine will log all incoming/outgoing accepted/rejected connections, SYN flood attempts, PoD attempts, etc.

Attempts are logged in the form: . -> . on and tagged "Connection accepted" or "Connection refused"

For outbound connections, is one of the IP's served by the router while is something foreign. The roles reverse for incoming connections.

Unless you are good at remembering the common ports/protocols, you'll tend to need a log interpreter to explain what each attempt is likely trying to do.

E.g., my ISP runs some network discovery tools that periodically (i.e., once a minute) probe specific ports on my connection (these are blocked by my router so the PC never sees them).

Makes me wonder how long Microsoft WinSpy10 experiment will last. How long will corporate America tolerate Windows 10 spying on them? And is Windows 10 HIPAA compliant?

At least there are Linux distros out there that are HIPAA compliant.

| I found XP to be more robust than 7even or Vista

I've found that, too. Vista/7 is a brittle system, and with so many restrictions it's not easy to fix things that go wrong. I was trying to install IE11 recently on Win7-64 or on a Win7-32 laptop. I couldn't get it to work on either one! Microsoft's own browser, which hardly runs anywhere to begin with. Only Win7/8/10 are supported. Yet it wouldn't install.

Win7-32 needed SP1, but that wouldn't install because, it said, there were problematic customizations. ??? It's an extra laptop that's hardly ever used.

On Win7-64 IE11 kept saying it needed to download patches first. It was ridiculous that it should *require* post SP1 patches that are not in the installer. As it turned out, those patches either weren't relevant or were already installed. That didn't satisfy IE11. By the time I was through, Win7 was unstable and a warning on the Desktop was telling me that it was not "genuine". (It's a Dell. Windows should have been able to see that.) I finally ended up reinstalling from a disk image. The sheer incompetence displayed with that IE11 fiasco is jaw-dropping. IE10 was similar. I've never managed to update beyond IE9 on that computer. Not that I care a great deal. I only want it for testing webpages. But it's inexcusable that they can't even make their own browser software install on their own product without problems.

I've heard *that* before. No guarantee, but why would they commit suicide? If I'm on-line, I assume the spooks and marketeers have plenty of methods of "collecting" my habits without the aid of MS. So what? I suppose I could distrust Comcast too.

Probably an issue with how the OS handles memory in relation to the app. I've run into that before. I'm also resistant to change when the ROI is wrong. But I've had no issues with Win10. It so happened that I put together a new box when Win10 came out.

Footprint is somewhat important to me because I image quite often (cold image) and it's less time consuming. Of course I'm only dealing with home machines. I can restore this machine in under 5 minutes.

Hardy anywhere? It has 25% of the browser market. I use it.

On 02/21/2016 08:54 AM, Don Y wrote: resources making a BETTER PRODUCT"?]

I thought it said it was portable, so you don't have to install it, but it can tweak the settings a bit faster than if you did so manually.

Anyway there are tons of Google hits with all the info you need

How is it suicide? If MS decides to charge you by the hour to run your PC, what options do you have? Try to fish your old PC out of the trash? Live with unmaintained OS? Learn a FOSS OS?? Even if they aren't the 800 pound gorilla they used to be, they still are, pretty much, the only game in town! Even if you found a manufacturer willing to build a machine that used *old*, existing drivers, you wouldn't legally be able to acquire new (older OS) licenses to run on that machine!

And, MS wouldn't be doing anything illegal *or* immoral (you pay for minutes on your phone; aren't you paying or a service? isn't your OS providing a service to you??)

I've a friend who claims he has nothing to hide. I mentioned to him that his bank statements come in envelopes, instead of on the back of postcards. And, I notice that he picks them up off the table and "hides them away" before we sit down. Hmmm... I wonder what he's HIDING??

I am overly sensitive to privacy issues as I see how easy it is to play the big data game and generalize observed behaviors ("Hey, the 9/11 perps were *all* arabs so we should be suspicious of arabs!")

In automating the house, I had to think hard about what data I wanted to risk "leaking" to the outside world. Surely, no one would care about BATHROOM HABITS! Or, how often the refrigerator is opened. Or, how much laundry we do.

Or, would they?

Wanna bet that if it was easy for to collect this data, they'd *find* a use for it? Just by running the "big numbers" and seeing what unexpected patterns emerge! Wanna bet there's a buttload of information to be had in telephone "metadata"? No doubt more bang for buck (byte) than in actually listening to all those calls!

"Gee, this phone only gets used twice a month and always on these days for about 3 minutes. Isn't that unusual when compared to the 'norm' defined by these hundreds of millions of OTHER phones users??"

More physical memory in the laptop than in the machine on which I normally use the tool. Laptop hangs indefinitely. In my book, that's called a bug. A bug that wasn't present in XP or W2KS. A bug that directly interferes with my productivity (I have to restart the app -- after killing it via task manager -- then recreate everything that *it* lost since my last "backup")

And, I want this behavior because it is offset by WHAT feature, specifically? :>

I built an HTPC last month. Installed XP on it. Boots in 30 seconds and has video available within 10 seconds after that. Would it be any better with 7even? Or W10? Doubtful.

I've got a LOT invested in software -- both in terms of license costs and "experience". So, an OS *really* needs to show me that it can do something THAT I WANT in a better/faster/more accurate/robust/reliable manner than what I have already.

E.g., it takes me several days to reinstall (from scratch) everything on *one* of my workstations. Then, a few more days to install the tools for the *other* (different tools)

I have a shoebox of 80G drives in this desk -- one for each of my machines. On it are images of the "system" for a particular machine at different points in the installation process:

- after windows

- after drivers

- after updates

- after basic utilities (WinZIP, PowerToys, UltraISO, EMACS, etc.)

- after basic tools (Acrobat, Tbird, Ffox, etc.)

- after custom tools (whatever the workstation is intended to do)

Each image is compressed so takes very little space, compared to the original; and, "empty space" doesn't need to be stored in the image at all!

The real pigs are some of the tools that have huge "libraries". E.g., my multimedia authoring station has ~250GB of "stuff" that is useful in creating a MM presentation but takes a really long time to reinstall.

On the student machines, I create a bogus partition to hold the image and a special boot script that lets them invoke that process automatically. That way, they don't have to keep track of "restore disks" (nor expect *me* to do so!)

But, those images are tiny: the OS, Tbird, FFox, a few utilities and MSOffice. So, there's little reason NOT to "restore" if something seems to be wonky.

In my case, I have tens of $K invested in software. I don't want to "have to update" JUST BECAUSE THE OS DOESN'T WANT TO "play nice" -- with a program that has been working JUST FINE on an earlier OS.

That's a waste of money (buying a new license), time (installing the new version), experience (RE-learning a product that has been working fine) AND potential risk (how many new bugs will I have to discover??).

"What is this going to *buy* me? Why do I want to take on those COSTS if there isn't something to offset it??"

Granted, some apps work better in a 64b playing field. So, I'll install them -- and JUST THEM -- on a 64b machine! No need to bear the costs for moving all of these other apps that are perfectly happy (and already configured!) where they are!

Does having multiple cores help me write prose faster? Will it help me come up with an engineering solution faster ("meatware accelerator")? Does moving the start menu to a different place make me more productive (esp if you reflect the cost of adjusting to that change)? Or, supporting transparency in the window manager??

Or, is all of this just "change for the sake of change"?

I like to KNOW what a tool is doing. And, once I "make the adjustment" the first time, the changes (along with the rest of the installed software) will just be cloned onto new machines. So, you only "save" once.

I build a log file that documents all of the steps that I take when creating a machine. "Install this", "configure that", etc. Any registry settings are included in the log file in a way that I can just copy them into a FOO.REG file and install them from there. Then, delete FOO.REG. Omits typing and reduces chance of typographical errors.

Also lets you (me) see what is being done -- instead of HOPING everything has been done.

|> I was trying to install IE11 recently | >on Win7-64 or on a Win7-32 laptop. I couldn't get it | >to work on either one! Microsoft's own browser, which | >hardly runs anywhere to begin with. | | Hardy anywhere? It has 25% of the browser market. | I use it. |

You have my sympathy. :)

IE has anywhere from 10% to 50% share, depending on who you ask.

But that's IE, not IE11. IE11 can only run on Win7/8/10. It won't install on XP. (Win10 only recently passed XP in usage. XP is still popular. So not being able to run IE11 on XP is a rather pitiful statement about Microsoft.) And it won't install on any other operating system. Given that Microsoft can only manage to get it to run on 7/8/10, I don't think it's too much to ask that the install should be smooth.

The reason I wanted to test with IE11 was because MS broke compatibility in a big way with IE11 and Edge. They've broken most of the technologies that worked in IE4-10. I wanted to see how my own website pages would work. It turned out they don't work at all and would require a total, complex rewrite if I want to support IE11/Edge. Not only would they need to be rewritten, but IE11/Edge no longer support "quirks mode", which allowed one to write webpages that would look the same in IE5 to IE10. Without quirks mode each version of IE is incompatible with the rest and each needs its own special code exceptions in order to display properly.

Given the scale of such a task, I decided, instead, to just show an apology/error page for IE11/Edge. That page suggests that the visitor use another browser or, if that's not possible and they're desperate, that they disable style and reload the page. I get an average of about 400 unique visitors on a weekday. Of those, I estimate 250-300 may be real people. Altogether I'm seeing about 3-10 visitors per day using IE11 or Edge. Nearly all of those are using IE11 on Win7. (Probably a third of those reload the page in another browser within seconds, indicating that they don't depend on IE.) My site is mainly geared toward Windows "power users", scripters, programmers and IT people. Given all that, I'd say that IE11 is not a big factor online. Non-techie people don't generally update things. Techie people know better than to use IE online. So the people actually using IE11 are mostly Microsoft fans who are somewhat handy.