Windows 10 offer?

[Regulus (Trevor)]

That was a bit interesting Ben

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

I have reverted back to Win7 Ultimate 64Bit.

I switched off all ' sus ' info' sending parameters during a custom install of Win10... even going into the Registry and ' disabling ' or ' stop running ' Microsoft ' telemetry ' processes.

Why ... some odd things were happening... network was acting strange...going slow/ speeding up... network loss of my WD Personal Cloud at my Router...and some other annoying tit bits.

Now back running Win7 Ultimate ..... all issues are gone ... Network 100% working... and no ' unexplained ' happenings.

... took around 15mins to do a restore back to Win7.

Col.....

[Spookyer (Brett)]

I tried the creation tool to download windows 10 but it doesn't run on my laptop. Just gives some sort of meaningless error message and that's it.

How long have people waited for the download after registering?

[Octane (Humayun)]

I'm still waiting, and, I registered as soon as the little Windows icon popped up.

I don't mind, to be honest. The whole snooping aspect of Windows 10 really turns me off. I know they need the data to personalise the experience, but, yeah...

H

[Garbz (Chris)]

The wait may be a while for some people. Apparently Microsoft has blacklisted hardware which doesn't have WHQL certified drivers available for Windows 10 on release, and the update program detects those and doesn't even download the update until given the green light.

[John K]

Hi guys,

I am also thinking about Windows 10. Does PHD, Backyard EOS or Firecapture have any issues with Windows 10? Has anyone used it with these programs?

I am also using Adobe CS3 as well.

Thanks in advance.

John.

p.s. did across through the threads but could not find mention of these software.

[frolinmod]

Just remember that it is free to you, therefore you are not their intended customer...

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Originally Posted by frolinmod

Just remember that it is free to you, therefore you are not their intended customer...

But they are charging for 'extras' so you'll be paying regardless.
eg Media Player is gone, rent their replacement etc etc. They are shifting to the monthly pay for the license model. I'm already having problems at work with O365 and maintaining viable licensing even over a huge corporate network.

I've updated my Media PC that runs the AV system. Non critical, no email or personal stuff on it so it can't really bug me. I'll take a serious look at it over the next week or two and see if it annoys me too much or affects anything important. Be a slight delay till I report back on it as we're away this weekend chasing Rally cars with the cameras again.

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by frolinmod

Just remember that it is free to you, therefore you are not their intended customer...

That's not really the case.

Firstly, direct retail sales of Windows (either as a purchase for a new install, or as an upgrade to an older licence) was always a tiny percentage of sales volume - the real cash cow is for OEM licences for new machines, and you will STILL pay for a Windows 10 licence when you buy a new PC / laptop. (And you'll pay for the Windows 10 upgrade if you don't take the free upgrade within the first year.) I think the reason for the free upgrade is basically an acknowledgement that Microsoft got it totally wrong with Windows 8 / 8.1, which people stayed away from in droves; this is their best bet at getting a large part of the Windows user-base back onto the current iteration of the OS.

Secondly, the OS is just the "host" for sales of other software and services. (Google seems to do OK by giving away the Android OS, but selling other services, and taking a cut of every purchase on the Play Store; Windows 10 doesn't ship with a native DVD player - but Microsoft will sell you one for $15.) THAT'S where Microsoft will be making their real money from Windows.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by Octane

I don't mind, to be honest. The whole snooping aspect of Windows 10 really turns me off. I know they need the data to personalise the experience, but, yeah...

H

Same. I don’t think that there’s anything malicious in it at this stage, but the issue is where they go in the future. There was a time when google were far less ‘stalky’ than they are now too...
You would be effectively handing over everything you type to someone you have no control over. This includes every password you use. The potential for a security breach here is enormous.

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by AussieTrooper

You would be effectively handing over everything you type to someone you have no control over.

If you're using Google Now or Siri on your smartphone, you're already doing that.

I for one welcome our new personal digital assistant overlords.

[Garbz (Chris)]

I for one welcome our new personal digital assistant overlords.

Someone spends too much time on Slashdot

[acropolite (Phil)]

Just did my Lenovo laptop, all looks OK although I haven't tried anything astro related yet. I note that, at least with my install, I could select and turn off Microsoft's reporting in the setup. Whether that's turned off all the "phone home" stuff I'm not sure.

I also changed the Cortana search on the taskbar to an icon and replaced the ridiculous excuse for a start menu with classic shell.

[g__day (Matthew)]

I decided to dual boot Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 10 Pro on separate hard drives to form a view on how reasonable W10 is. Not easy to do - but given you have multiple HDDs or SSDs quite achievable.

I re-installed Win 7 on a new, large SSD - so this gave me a dual boot into C: Win 7 or I: Win 7. So I configured I: to pretty much match my C: Win 7 normal set up.

Then I downloaded 10 Pro 64 bit from MS rather than wait for it to be available and stored it on to a USB3 drive. Then I booted into I: Win 7 and ran the USB3 drives installer and it all worked to plan.

I made sure I turned off all the obivious spyware / snooping software MS has foisted on us - but was surprised when firefox installed and was very quickly able to disable browser protection in avast and get itself infected by an add server - since removed. Also some videos stalled a bit under Win 10 (AMD HD 6690 with latest Win 10 drivers) but flash videos did play okay in Media player once you downloaded the right Codecs.

[Garbz (Chris)]

Originally Posted by g__day

I decided to dual boot Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 10 Pro on separate hard drives to form a view on how reasonable W10 is. Not easy to do - but given you have multiple HDDs or SSDs quite achievable..

Did you have any problems with accessing a common drive from both installations and then having either version of windows complain that partition needs to be rechecked every time you boot?

My dad's run into this issue right now, and he's also found some corruption.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by julianh72

If you're using Google Now or Siri on your smartphone, you're already doing that.

I for one welcome our new personal digital assistant overlords.

Yep. I don't use either of those. No Facebook either.
The transition to privacy ceasing to exist has been steady, and almost unquestioned.
Remember the fuss that was made over the Australia Card years ago? It would have paled in comparison to what goes on now.

[gregbradley]

Yes Ben I have noticed that. And its surpisingly coming from large corporations Google earth and near maps using helicopters and cars to photograph our properties without our permission yet if someone snapped a photo of you on the street and you objected the police would stop you.

Greg.

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

...yet if someone snapped a photo of you on the street and you objected the police would stop you.

I've always thought it was legal to photograph or record video (without sound and for non commercial use) from a public place without anyone's permission. From what I understand you do need permission to record someone speaking though.
Similarly you can take aerial photographs of someones backyard with an RPA as long as you're over public property (and following CASR101 of course).

I'm no expert though and I'm happy to be corrected. I'm also not saying I agree with these laws, especially regarding privacy issues related to low altitude aerial photography where I don't think the privacy laws have kept pace with technology.

I'm not sure about the higher altitude photography as used by Google et al. as one's ownership of the space above their property doesn't extend indefinitely, though I'm unsure of the boundaries.

[Garbz (Chris)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

yet if someone snapped a photo of you on the street and you objected the police would stop you.

And if I were the one doing that I would tell the police where they can stick it. There is zero legal basis for someone to expect privacy in public. The front of your house or any activity you conduct in public is completely open to any member of the public to freely record.


Anyway back on the Windows 10 vs Windows 7 issue for all those people going to Windows 7 because of privacy issues you may want to Google the latest news. Apparently Windows 7 has all the same privacy infringements as Windows 10. They were apparently snuck in under the umbrella of "Critical updates" For those of you concerned I would strongly look into and potentially uninstall the following Windows updates: 3035583, 2952664, 2976978, 3021917, 3044374, 2990214, 3022345, 3068708.

Windows 10 has brought the privacy issue to light and there's a lot of researchers looking into several of Microsoft's operating systems at the moment. Also in the news is that disabling some features doesn't actually disable them and only makes them look like they are disabled, i.e. if you disable Cortana and all related search functions, your search query is STILL sent to Microsoft, the results simply won't be displayed.

Things are getting scary. Check out one of the KnowledgeBase entries for one of the above Windows updates: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3068708