I never make mindless rants. I make my case, if you can read. And your news is old news to me. What you speculate as non existent is what -imho- you 've been "fed" day and night to believe and as it seems, partially distribute. Can you talk facts for a sec and not urban myths and digital fairytales? Fact is: If a person or organization invades your privacy without your approval, you have the right to sue them, just like you would do with any burglar sneaking in your house to steal your valuables - period. Not convinced? Here you are:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/...it-against-microsoft-over-windows-10-upgrades
Be well.

 

I like how you went for the "urban myths" line... nice!

I'm not disagreeing with you that privacy is important, because its is. But I think you proved my point with the link you shared. If you're using a computer, regardless of the operating system and you have any access to the internet, you are putting yourself in a situation where you are relinquishing some form of privacy. In fact, you posting on this forum have done so already... your ip address could be easily verified, even the type of system you're using... and you probably wouldn't know it. How much or how little "privacy" you relinquish online in this day and age is based solely on how you decide to manage your privacy settings. Had that lady been a bit more proactive about her privacy, she could have easily avoided that situation. And by the way, just because a company is obligated to respect your privacy, doesn't guarantee they will.

Also, keep in mind that your offline activity is also equally monitored. That casual drive you took to the grocery store? Recorded. That credit card you used today? Recorded. Checked your bank balance on your phone? Recorded. Used Google Maps to meet your friend for lunch? You get the picture.

If you are a well informed computer user, you can avoid 99% percent of privacy pitfalls by taking appropriate actions... but your privacy will never be 100% safe in this day and age... online or not. If you use a computer, a phone, or any online social network, your privacy is always at risk. Like @Pinkman stated earlier, telemetry cant be avoided regardless of what system or os you're using. Its just the reality we live in.

 

I do not disagree with you necessarily either. It is kind of funny though how you bring up cliches that even my dad is aware and he is an 90 yo man who has no clue of the digital world. I would expect a more sophisticated argument. Np though.
The whole point's bottom line is, it is 2 different things what is possible and what is applied tactics. Bringing up Snowden to the case is quite irrelevant btw. It's two different things being spied upon without you being aware of it and persons consciously giving up their privacy so they can run Win10 like the happy irresponsible punters they may be. I think when you say i proved your point it is really the other way around. You see, i may leave my door open, this doesn't mean you are welcome to steal from me, nor you have the right to do so. And this is exactly what the link of that woman's lawsuit proved. Living under a socio-political system that guides you to believe you are being watched every moment, is only a means for power-mongers to pass a similar law in the near future if we indulge.
Thinking everything is forfeit because it is possible, is quite dangerous to democracy (and hazardous to your health lol). What you practically say is, do not cross the road because a car will hit you. And if you have to cross the road wear some body armor+helmet. Possibility though is not reality and does not hand anybody any right to break the law. Surely the online domain is a dangerous world. Arguably with more equivalent dangers than the real world. But saying fuck it i don't care because either way everyone is spying on me, is diminishing the whatever last forts of human rights are left standing. Your rights. And willingly too. It is similar with the election right. Sayin' i don't care who's president because everyone's the same, brings "Trumps" on the political "throne" and whatever consequences this may have, we ' ll just have to wait and see.
Thank you for your time

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

M$ done it clever - there is a striking reason to install Win10 for at least one group of people - gamers.
As of today, there are at least 10 titles released exclusively for Win10 that run solely on DX12. I have been asked to assist with getting Win10 on a new machine by numerous gamers, one of them somewhat highly ranked Linux architect. All of them were aware of the telemetry, yet chose not to care. IT Admins also opt for Win10, though that's for more arbitrary reason - subjective "sense of security". That kind of thinking I never understood.

While people are speculating which OS is better and whether to upgrade or not, I'd say the best option is to have the right OS for the job, and then dual/triple the machine. Personally I wouldn't back off Win7 for majority of tasks, but Win10 may appear on my desktop one time, in very VERY customized/lite form as a 3rd boot solely for DX12. It won't go to any of my next 12 PCs, where it'd be just wasting resources.

The point is - make use of everything.

Have the advantage of DX12, while keeping Win7 for the rest of the tasks. BTW, my Internet lappy runs on 7 with no extra updates past SP1 and never had any intrusion.

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

Hello again.
Evolution is... necessary (this axiom still has to be proved, because...). Anyway, after Win XP, the greatest leap in technology and efficiency in Win OS's, the newer versions seem more and more amateur oriented. Vista bombed. Win7 removed a lot of xp's features, added a lot of inconvenients. It was supposed to be faster, it just ate more resources and needed newer programs, incompatible at times with xp, and not necessarily better. The all-around win8 and 10, no comment. The microsoft guys make newer stuff, not necessarily better. And software developers get into the frenzy and put out newer drivers and software, in microsoft-set pace, that leads to fast-food application performances.
An example: I use a Delta 1010LT, a good soundcard. The drivers for XP are great, it all gives a superb reference sound. The Win7 drivers are horrible, the sound is hissy and grainy. On all daw's and dae's. I had to make a dual boot system XP/Win7, to use 64bit daw's on win7, and master all the stuff on XP, where it sounds as it should. I "blessed" Microsoft every day for all their idio(t)sincracies. When will they understand that they will have to make an OS for the public, with all the hype themes, etc., and an OS for strictly professional use. Something like XP, but with Win10 technology under the hood. Wouldn't we love it? Rhetorical question, of course.

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

Lol... nothing like an indirect insult to drive your argument home!

I think you are so fixated on having the last say on this discussion that you're missing the point. No one here is disagreeing with you that privacy is important and that it should be cared for. Just like no one here is saying "fuck it i don't care because either way everyone is spying on me". What most of us here are saying is "You have control of how you choose to manage your privacy". @Pinkman summed it up best: "You're right because freedom of choice is a right we should all have but objectively, your view seems slightly skewed because Microsoft isn't the only one to do this."

Whatever operating system you use, you're always playing by the developers rules. If you don't like it, don't use it. And if you do use it, make sure you understand how it works and learn what you can do in order to safeguard your data.

 

Actually many laws forbid M$ to do what they do with their data collections. They are having troubles in many European countries regarding that, and it won't get any better, and it's not up to the consumers to know god knows what hidden little secrets from M$ and become a power user to avoid being spied it's up to M$ to respect the basic right (and laws) to privacy to anyone even though it keeps them from making a profit.
They work with many public offices in France, many companies and bureaucracy who will have to stop working with them in the future. There are many datas that no governement (fiscal datas for example) wants to be shared with the US governement (specially the one actually in charge), and today that's what you do when you use windows 10.
More importantly it's not a good OS, unless you spend several days removing stuffs from it, so there, not much to add.
Spyware + bloatware = no thank you. Just common sense, no fixation or hate toward M$. I actually use M$ products when they are good and don't spy on me.
Consumers need to be smarter and stop giving away rights and buying crap products !
Which they do, because man a new Windows never, ever, ever , ever had such depressing sales firgures (I think not even Win 8 !)

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

But guys, besides all that arguments, no one is bringing up the question, what an OS is or should be !

- It should be a "thing" that alouds Your programs to run, a "thing" that makes Your hardware ready to be used by Your programs. Nothing more and nothing less.

You need a software to write something ? - Install it and use it
You need a software to browse the net ? - Install it and use it
You need a software to record some audio ? - Install it and use it
You need a software to guard Your privacy ? - Insatall it and use it

There is a load of developers that are able to write such softwares, and it would be safe to assume that You should find the appropriate for Your needs.
But what we have today ?
Windows with all that sh*t "implemented"...
wtf is that notepad doing in my freshly installed OS ? ...why is that mspaint there ? ...what is that defender doing there ? ...what are all that processes in the task manager, and I didn`t started no software jet ...not to mention telemetry and similar bull.
Why is my OS eating 300+ mb of my ram ? how much memory needs that OS GUI and drivers to be loaded ?!?
How many gigabytes of HD space needs an OS ? 20 ? 30 ? 40 ? ...come on!!! we should talk kilobytes here!!!!!!!

- Why should I send any telemetry data, or anything, over to MS ??? do I work for MS so that I should participate helping solving their problems ??? do I get paid for that ???
They have hacked my PC and are using my Bandwidth without my consent ...it is my money we are talking here about!!!!

They put me in a position where, if I want to make music (or anything else) on my PC, I have to give them my life on a silver plate and even give them my money doing that (bandwidth).

- What is that story of constant updates ? why should an OS need any updates ?
It is eventually software that needs updates, or drivers for new hardware ... it should be all up to software and hardware developers to see that their products work if they want to sell it.

It seems to me that Microsoft actions could be interpreted without any problems as a terrorist organization.
(imagine what would happen if I would start collecting data about people all over the world the way that MS does ... I`d probably land in jail for life very soon)
Does the post office open or copy and archive all Your business mail, just because You use their services ?
Even the Police is not aloud to do that!!!!

So, to put things into perspective; where is MS now?
I`d say that it is above any government at this point ...or not ?!?

(sorry for my bad english)

 

You could have a look at Linux then. No, not one of the many distributions. Linux raw, so to speak. The distributions do everything that Microsoft also does, putting things on top of the raw system.

You could also have a look at ReactOS, which is a windows compatible system, but lightweight (96 MB RAM, 500 MB HDD)

But why? Yes, there are apps on your drive you probably never use, there are threads in RAM that will tell you 0% processor usage even after weeks, so why are they loaded anyway, and Win 10 is so bloated that it is difficult to find the preferences settings you need. But 10 also sets the standards (because of their quasi monopoly), so as long as I can get back control over the system (for example by controlling information flow) I' m not scared of Win 10. I'm running it on a Notebook with a less capable cpu than on my desktop pc, yet I can run more plugins than on the desktop pc with XP. That opened my eyes.

 

@tulamide

I quoted a few posts back, Windows 10 sucks no less than Linux sucks, it just sucks differently

...jokes aside, I don`t know of any OS at the moment that is clean, on which I can make music with tools that are considered "standard" nowadays.

I do not understand why there is no company that makes a clean OS ... are they afraid no one would buy it ???

If I would be able to do it, I`d invest in such an OS everything I have, without thinking for a second that I could go Bankrupt.
I am absolutely sure that there is a huge portion of the market that would buy it... especially now, with all the spying sh*t around.

I too use Windows, but not because I like it, I use it `cause I have no other choice.

 

Sorry for being too enthusiastic on the subject. I 've np to have the last word or not honestly and i have the best intention to commence on creative discussion. I really thought you didn't give a dime about the whole privacy thing, at least that's what i was led to believe. Ms isn't the only one doing this of course we all know this, ie Google was mining data systematically many years before the jackals in Ms alright. But Ms is 92%+ of the desktop world. I do not use a smart phone although i own a couple, i do not have a cc (my wife does), i don't e-check my bank account ever, i use encrypted VPN connection to Usenet, need i say more? You get the idea alright. Computing though, one way or another takes a good 12hrs of my day everyday, and i refuse to pass up the whole data sum of my "digital life" to MS. Especially when a good chunk of it, is related to my real life as well. Simple as that. And so should you, at least that was the initial suggestion. Windows was tweakable to preference more or less until Win7. The combination of tweakable hardware and software was the main reason that led me to use Windows instead of MacOs in the first place many years ago. Now its bloatware land and a messy one too. Sigh...Thanks for staying on topic with me and for yours and everyone's else insight be it to my liking or not, is all i can say. I am open and all ears to all you guys have to say.

Strongly agree hehehe. They should and probably will be prosecuted. At least in Europe. If everybody or the vast majority said no to Win10 policies, MS would be forced to change their way of acting with their OS. Just as they were forced by public demand recently to extend their Win7 support to 2020 and in some cases (read enterprise customers) even further. Has everybody forgot so soon that when Win10 came out and for a good 3-4 months if i recall, HP and Dell were advising their customers NOT to upgrade? For me all this is evidence that the public gets what the public wants in the end, at least when its united towards the same goal. Cheers
PS: I was a huge fan of BeOS but they killed it in a jiffy lol

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

As i said, in my years of windows usage, windows 10 is by far the most stable OS. Never had BSOD, random freezes and cpu spikes while using it. I've disabled random apps that i don't need and only install what I need. I don't care if bill gates is secretly monitoring my system or not. I have nothing to hide or to show.

All i care about is making music and having my system run to its 100% capabilities. Something that didn't happen before because old OS would have compatibility issues with newer drives.

Windows 10 is the best system you can use on your PC assuming you don't still use Pentium duo from 1997.

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

because of Library Dependency, both windows and the unix world are totally interlinked by dependencies and very little is purely static and standalone.
removing by hand a ton of files in your OS will easily fuck it up and besides this you won't save much space anyway, the issue with modern architectures is they're way too complex and the user has little choice about this because he will need the latest drivers to run the OS on a modern machine, at the very least audio and video but this is not the case, even minimal distributions of linux dont support many new drivers as they will need the latest kernel, on top of this unix is not designed to be mono-user and neither to be run offline in some cases as even the GUI is run as a terminal over network (X-Windows etc) so while it's possible to cut things here and there you can't really make a barebone machine, ironically it's easier to do it on windows than on unix : remove the whole network stack on windows and you will save up to 30-40% in terms of memory and drivers and services, but the difference in performance is minimal on Win10 as Win10 is already optimized very well compared to XP or Win7.

a real clean OS ? there are many but they're embedded OS, not suitable for multimedia or DAWs.
there's plenty of hardware running embedded linux for nistance, and you can do the same with Raspberry, but you wont go too far, they're good for small single tasks, like a router or a firewall or a FX rack.

things like ReactOS are very promising but they're so slow in the development, they've been in alpha stage for what ? 10 years ?
they will never reach maturity and stability, what they're trying to achieve is too ambitious and complex for such a small team of devs.

 

For everyone that is concerned about bloat, like I stated earlier, slim down versions of nearly every os have existed in some form or another. Win10 LTSB comes with LITERALLY nothing installed other than just the bare OS. It doesn’t come with the Windows Store, Cortana, or Microsoft Edge browser. It also omits other Microsoft apps like Calendar, Camera, Clock, Mail, Money, Music, News, OneNote, Sports, and Weather. In fact, the default Start menu on Windows 10 LTSB doesn’t even include a single tile. You won’t find any of those new Windows 10 apps installed, aside from the Settings app. I even had to download Windows Media Player and Windows Photo Viewer after installation because literally everything is stripped out of it.

This is the point I'm trying to make. Most people here don't even know that this version of Win10 exists simply because they dont take the time to learn more about what options are available to them. Add to the fact that you can decide what information is sent to Microsoft in the settings panel, and you have yourself a pretty awesome bare bones os. If you're still paranoid, you can supplement that by using an app like Wireshark to monitor your network or on the MS side something like Process Monitor.

I've been a developer for almost 20 years and my days are spent coding, editing video, audio, graphics... and Win10 LTSB is a pretty awesome bare bones system for music making, development, gaming or just about anything else. Ive used both Mac, PC, and even Linux when I worked for Sun Microsystems. I was even a network design engineer for Quest Communications for several years. In all that time, I can personally say that Win10 LTSB version is by far the best os Ive ever used and the best version of Windows Ive ever used in terms of stability and performance. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. If you want to learn more about it, click the link below:

https://www.howtogeek.com/273824/windows-10-without-the-cruft-windows-10-ltsb-explained/

 

We usually do not talk about it since it gives us an edge we would like to keep, but you can only get that true vintage analogue sound with windows 7

There is really no alternative to it

 

@aymat LTSB does indeed look very interesting, but how would anyone get it working for longer than 90 days? You have to be subscribed to Technet if I'm not mistaken and that comes for a price.

To quote the article:

 

"Unofficially, any Windows user can get Windows 10 LTSB if they want. Microsoft offers ISO images with Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB as part of its 90-day Enterprise evaluation program. You can download the ISO file–be sure to select “Windows 10 LTSB” instead of “Windows 10” when downloading–and install it on your own PC. It’ll function normally for 90 days, after which it’ll begin nagging you to activate Windows. But Windows 10 is perfectly functional even without activation, so you should be able to use it as long as you like without entering a product key. You’ll just have to put up with nag screens."

You can also edit your registry to disable nag screens

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

So, an official "lite" Win10 with nag-screens and black desktop with no way around it.
I can't see how's this better than Win7

 

If you have to use Win10, LTSB is the best version alright.

Me paranoid alright The safest thing would be to additionally block all known MS ips' outgoing traffic manually in your router's menu. Like blocking all this lol:
134.170.30.202
137.116.81.24
204.79.197.200
23.218.212.69
65.39.117.230
65.55.108.23
a-0001.a-msedge.net
choice.microsoft.com
choice.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
compatexchange.cloudapp.net
corp.sts.microsoft.com
corpext.msitadfs.glbdns2.microsoft.com
cs1.wpc.v0cdn.net
df.telemetry.microsoft.com
diagnostics.support.microsoft.com
fe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
feedback.microsoft-hohm.com
feedback.search.microsoft.com
feedback.windows.com
i1.services.social.microsoft.com
i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
oca.telemetry.microsoft.com
oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
pre.footprintpredict.com
redir.metaservices.microsoft.com
reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
sls.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com
sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
statsfe1.ws.microsoft.com
statsfe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
statsfe2.ws.microsoft.com
survey.watson.microsoft.com
telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com
telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
telemetry.appex.bing.net
telemetry.appex.bing.net:443
telemetry.microsoft.com
telemetry.urs.microsoft.com
vortex.data.microsoft.com
vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
watson.live.com
watson.microsoft.com
watson.ppe.telemetry.microsoft.com
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com

 

In terms of performance, there's a significant improvement on load times not just with the os but with applications as well. Additionally, if you're looking to use applications that can take advantage of the performance boost, it makes sense to upgrade. However, if you're happy with Win7 then my suggestion would be to stick with it.

The main difference between LTSB and non-LTSB versions of windows is that it doesn't come bundled with the default apps and you have additional control over how your system is updated. LTSB is tailored for organizations with systems that need to be kept as stable and secure as possible, rather than be updated constantly. So if youre looking to upgrade from a previous version of Windows, but dont have a need for all the bloat, this is by far the best option. Alternatively, you can take a fresh install of Win10, take the time to uninstall the applications you don't need, disable the auto-update options, and it would essentially be an LTSB version. I own a license for Win10 Pro but prefer to use LTSB out of convenience when formatting my system. As far as the nag screen goes, its a simple registry tweek to remove it and doesn't affect the os in any way. Or you can simply sign up for the subscription service.

By the way, there's a great review about Win10 here which gives you a better overview of privacy issues and how to manage them on Win10. If privacy is one of your concerns with using Win10, its definitely worth the read: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/review/o...ersary-update-creators-microsoft-3574736/?p=4

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017