Has Windows 10 redeemed Microsoft?

[Yogurth]

 

Feedback and user experience has always been what has shaped future versions of Windows, it isn't like your keystrokes are being recorded and sent to Redmond for analysis.

You should check that photo once more, it is exactly what is being sent to Microsoft...think of Windows now as one big Keylogger.

[PGHammer]

Yet, you do? I'm pretty sure since they didn't record voice searches (not available in Win7), or tied an email account to my login (might be possible but was never ask for in Win 7), or tie my email to my software purchases (store not available in Win7), so how could they have even collected the same amount of data?

People should be getting tired of having to opt-out of data collection, but they only want the shiny, they learned nothing from Assange or Snowden. Masas y OS shouldn't be sending ANYTHING to ANYONE unless I allow it, not by some buried switch set to broadcast unless I dig to find it, and then it should be ON or OFF. There should be no ambiguity, no "basic"! If Microsoft wasn't smart enough to listen to the people who screamed at them for Win 8, why would they listen to the quietly transmitted data from my computer about how WIN 10 is not what I want?

Opt-out has been the default requirement whenever data has been collected; if anything, accepting the End-User License Agreement (every OS period - including Linux distributions, any flavor of UNIX, etc.) is opt-in to what is covered by it by default (this DOES include MIcrosoft's CEIP - which is included in any version of Windows since XP Service Pack 2, any version of Office since 2000, and any version of either IntelliType (keyboards) or IntelliPoint (pointing-device drivers) since 8 (which dates back to XP)).  Windows 8 ITSELF got castigated for not including a Start menu - 10 fixes that.  (Never mind that adding it (and making it the default) stomped all over the tablet experience; that IS what all too many desktop-formfactor users wanted - don't tell ME that Microsoft didn't listen to the gripage concerning the lack of Start menu!)  Android is still opt-out (and it's even HARDER to do in Android than it is with Windows), and in Apple's case, you can't even opt out without a complete uninstall.  You pay a price for opting out (with any company); here is the question - are you, in fact, willing to pay it?  (To me, it sounds like the answer is, in fact "no".)

[adrynalyne]

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but hasn't CEIP been an optional program to opt-in since Vista in 2006?  You choose whether or not to participate and it is an option that you can later disable if you don't want to participate.

Feedback and user experience has always been what has shaped future versions of Windows, it isn't like your keystrokes are being recorded and sent to Redmond for analysis.

No, its opt-out, which makes his stance funnier.

[adrynalyne]

 

You should check that photo once more, it is exactly what is being sent to Microsoft...think of Windows now as one big Keylogger.

 

Riiiight

 

Edited August 15, 2015 by adrynalyne

[jaffar]

No, its opt-out, which makes his stance funnier.

Maybe because he didn't install Windows 7 himself

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/turn-off-settings-that-were-recommended-during-windows-7-setup

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Why gripe? Because this info is not given to the user up front that they will be doing it is my gripe.

In what other versions of windows are you talking about for the telemetry they are doing in 10?

My gripe is with the whole notion that if I give you access to my network you can just click and its shared with everyone you know.  There is one thing if you have to purposing give it to say billy or susan, but click and its shared with everyone you know - F! that.. WTF was MS thinking?

What I find funny is when it comes to a griping thread is peoples concerns our the icons are not pretty   Who gives a ###### what MS is tracking - they are giving us the OS for free. I just don't get this mentality to be honest.. Then on the other hand they bitch and complain about cookies tracking that they went to site X and now site Y can see it, etc.

Although I didn't mention those issues, it doesn't mean I don't have any concerns. I've already disabled most of that crap and my issue is with the fact that it's all enabled by default and the vast majority of users aren't going to turn it off. With that said, I think you mistook my gripe as a serious concern. The word "gripe" means "express a complaint or grumble about something, especially something trivial." Icons, to me, are trivial and the issues you mentioned aren't. That's why I said it was my only gripe.

[PGHammer]

Nope, this doesn't follow. If most users wanted tiles and metro apps then Windows 8 and Windows Phone would be roaring successes.

And again, most people don't use the Windows mobile platform - as witnessed by its single digit market share - so they won't be using gimped apps and hideous metro UI "to work across platforms".

Windows Phone isn't a roaring success because all too many Windows users in particular don't want Windows on anything other than PCs.  They see Windows as specifically a PC-based operating system; they have largely despised any and all attempts to put Windows on anything else (back to, and including, Windows CE).  In the case of CE users, how many users did CE have at its peak (outside of IoT - which is what CE was used for at the tailchase of its existence)?  RT was whacked - including right here on Neowin - due to lack of Win32 compatibility - not the UI.  (Note that RT and 8 had a common UI and UX; why was the UI NOT a problem on RT, but was on 8, despite neither having a Start menu?)  And what about the portable-computing experience?  (Notice I did NOT say tablets, as portable doesn't just apply to tablets - it applies to phablets, tablets, slates, notebooks, and even laptops.  Except for some notebooks and laptops, you are not going to have 1920x1080 in those screen sizes - instead, it will be, for the most part, 1680x1050 at most, if not even lower resolution.  Unless you move application settings from the defaults, a LOT of Win32 applications are going to have issues at resolutions such as 1440x900.  However, until 8, ModernUI, and Modern Design Language, Win32 was the ONLY option for portables (and I'm talking only notebooks and laptops here - even though the first Ultrabooks and their tablet and slate offspring, had started to show up).  Not many Windows users think "notebooks and laptops" when it comes to portable computing - why is that? Is it, in fact, because, until 8, there was no difference in terms of UI or UX between desktop-formfactor PCs and notebooks and laptops?  If that is, in fact, your reasoning, then why complain because Microsoft is actually trying to SOLVE the gol-darn problem of one UI size not fitting all?

On the one hand, you complained that ModernUI doesn't fit your use case, yet on the other, you refuse to take advantage of the tweaking capabilities built into the UI itself to fine-tune it to suit you - instead, you want to backstep to the even more constrained UI as it was in Windows 7.  I liked Windows 8 BECAUSE the UI was tweakable - to suit the hardware, to suit the workflow, and - most importantly, to suit me.  Desktop-formfactor PCs are not portable - for that reason alone, some things that fit one don't fit the other.  So why would - or should - their UIs be exactly identical?

Windows 10, on the other hand, is not as tweakable, as the critics want more dependence on hardware-detection, as opposed to user-driven tweakage.  Some features that I used to be able to add on my notebooks I no longer have (because they rely on hardware detection).  Sounds to me that the issue is one of comfort and complacency - you want to ignore the problem of an unsuitable UI to your hardware by creating a constrained-but-consistent UI - in other words, the Apple Approach.  Consistency is ALL the good that can be said about the Apple UI - if anything , the default OS X UI is worse - not better - than even the Windows 7 UI, and especially in terms of edge cases (the smallest MacBooks, and the largest-screen iMacs - and don't even get me STARTED on a Mac Pro with the largest-screen Apple Cinema Display).  Reliance on hardware-detection doesn't even always make sense because hardware-detection has been known to fail (or get faulty data); case in point - I have a battery in one of my notebooks that never goes above ten percent charge; in fact, it stops charging at eight percent.  It's a brand-new (though third-party) battery - however, the reason I went third-party is due to a more dangerous flaw with FIRST-party replacement batteries for this notebook in particular.  Basically, reliance on hardware-detection doesn't get it done, and never has - why are we relying on it?

[DavidM]

Opt-out has been the default requirement whenever data has been collected; if anything, accepting the End-User License Agreement (every OS period - including Linux distributions, any flavor of UNIX, etc.) is opt-in to what is covered by it by default (this DOES include MIcrosoft's CEIP - which is included in any version of Windows since XP Service Pack 2, any version of Office since 2000, and any version of either IntelliType (keyboards) or IntelliPoint (pointing-device drivers) since 8 (which dates back to XP)).  Windows 8 ITSELF got castigated for not including a Start menu - 10 fixes that.  (Never mind that adding it (and making it the default) stomped all over the tablet experience; that IS what all too many desktop-formfactor users wanted - don't tell ME that Microsoft didn't listen to the gripage concerning the lack of Start menu!)  Android is still opt-out (and it's even HARDER to do in Android than it is with Windows), and in Apple's case, you can't even opt out without a complete uninstall.  You pay a price for opting out (with any company); here is the question - are you, in fact, willing to pay it?  (To me, it sounds like the answer is, in fact "no".)

Yes, but it should be opt-in, it will always be opt-out because nobody reads what they agree to, my self included. I have tried to do my best to adjust Win 7 to send as little as possible, but I feel it's becoming more of a chore with each release and not worth the effort to continue to keep Microsoft and their trusted partners at bay. I don't find NOT using Win 10 to big of a price to pay...

They didn't listen, they were FORCED into reversing their Metro/Modern/TabletUI stance, that's why Win 10 is free. I don't use Android or Apple, and while I'm sure my Arch install sends data to someone somewhere, it is not tied to a store, email, phone number or credit card like Microsoft wants. 

No, its opt-out, which makes his stance funnier.

Glad to amuse you, just so you know I find your love for Windows quite strange...

[adrynalyne]

 

Glad to amuse you, just so you know I find your love for Windows quite strange...

I find your assumptions strange, as I type this on a Mac.

 

[+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹]

I find your assumptions strange, as I type this on a Mac.

 

running windows??      am i right?   

[jaffar]

running windows??      am i right?   

Apple itself is promoting installing Windows 10 on Mac

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204990

[Ian W]

You should check that photo once more, it is exactly what is being sent to Microsoft...think of Windows now as one big Keylogger.

At least read the privacy statement. Emphasis mine.

Microsoft collects and uses data about your speech, inking (handwriting), and typing on Windows devices to help improve and personalize our ability to correctly recognize your input.

For example, to provide personalized speech recognition, we collect your voice input, as well your name and nickname, your recent calendar events and the names of the people in your appointments, and information about your contacts including names and nicknames. This additional data enables us to better recognize people and events when you dictate messages or documents.

Additionally, your typed and handwritten words are collected to provide you a personalized user dictionary, help you type and write on your device with better character recognition, and provide you with text suggestions as you type or write. Typing data includes a sample of characters and words you type, which we scrub to remove IDs, IP addresses, and other potential identifiers.  It also includes associated performance data, such as changes you manually make to text as well as words you've added to the dictionary.

You can turn off Input Personalization at any time. This will stop the data collection for this feature and will delete associated data stored on your device, such as your local user dictionary and your input history. As Cortana uses this data to help understand your input, turning off Input Personalization will also disable Cortana on your device. At https://www.bing.com/account/personalization, you can also clear data sent to Microsoft, such as your contacts and calendar data, user dictionary, as well as search and browsing history if your device also had Cortana enabled.

[adrynalyne]

running windows??      am i right?   

Yeah, sure.

 

[Orange Battery]

I think Windows 10 is the right direction but then so was Windows 7.  MS seem to throw everything up in the air so easily and go in new directions for no good reason.  I think this id the best MS we have seen in a long time but I believe that circumstances had lead them to this new way of doing things. 

[Ian W]

Still don't see exactly what is being collected, or who exactly the "trusted partners" are.

You previously stated that the express settings "do NOT state what you will be sending to Microsoft," when most, if not all of the features are listed during installation. That was why I posted the screenshot.

You know, previous versions of Windows were not very explicit about the collected information either. In fact, it appears that Windows 7 turns on CEIP by default with its recommended settings: "Help Microsoft improve Windows."

Is my picture being taken and sent?

How could this be advantageous to Microsoft or its partners? Note that one can turn off application access to the camera, and if you are that concerned, there are other options, such as disabling (and / or disconnecting) your camera, or placing tape over it.

Is my personal information being stripped out?

Please read the Microsoft privacy statement.

They are not disclosing enough about what is being collected, but then that's the point right? If they told us exactly what was being collected they would have to stick to it and collect only that right? Oh, no wait, they can change the terms any time they want, but they will still have all that information.

The same can be said about previous versions of Windows.
 

[Ian W]

Correct me if I am wrong, but hasn't CEIP been an optional program to opt-in since Vista in 2006?  You choose whether or not to participate and it is an option that you can later disable if you don't want to participate

Correct. CEIP for Windows was introduced with Windows Vista and is voluntary; it is not even listed during installation among the recommended (or express) settings.


CEIP is voluntary in Windows 7 as well. However, unlike Windows Vista, the option to enable CEIP is among the recommended settings during installation: "Help Microsoft improve Windows."

[jaffar]

You previously stated that the express settings "do NOT state what you will be sending to Microsoft," when most, if not all of the features are listed during installation. That was why I posted the screenshot.
You know, previous versions of Windows were not very explicit about the collected information either. In fact, it appears that Windows 7 turns on CEIP by default with its recommended settings: "Help Microsoft improve Windows."

How could this be advantageous to Microsoft or its partners? Note that one can turn off application access to the camera, and if you are that concerned, there are other options, such as disabling (and / or disconnecting) your camera, or placing tape over it.

Please read the Microsoft privacy statement.

The same can be said about previous versions of Windows. 

In Windows 10 setup they gave us more details about what they are collecting

But what is about Windows 7 setup?

They only said this about turning on Customer Experience Improvement Program by default:

This program helps Microsoft improve Windows. Without interrupting you, it collects information about your computer hardware and how you use Windows.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/turn-off-settings-that-were-recommended-during-windows-7-setup

Collecting what? not a single hint about what they are collecting

[Yogurth]

There will always be people who will never admit to themselves that stealing or "sharing" our data will not be misused by large corporations, governments...etc. Those folks have succumbed to "Willful Blindness" and there is very little that anyone can do for them apart from themselves. For those that cherish their privacy here is a small and very good utility that will block or erase Microsofts data collection techniques until these have been made Opt-in.

Destroy Windows 10 Spying

https://twitter.com/nummerok

[Ian W]

Those folks have succumbed to "Willful Blindness" and there is very little that anyone can do for them apart from themselves.

Oh the irony.

[adrynalyne]

There will always be people who will never admit to themselves that stealing or "sharing" our data will not be misused by large corporations, governments...etc. Those folks have succumbed to "Willful Blindness" and there is very little that anyone can do for them apart from themselves. For those that cherish their privacy here is a small and very good utility that will block or erase Microsofts data collection techniques until these have been made Opt-in.

Destroy Windows 10 Spying

https://twitter.com/nummerok

I've always felt this attitude was ironic when someone goes onto the Internet to post.

[Ian W]

I've always felt this attitude was ironic when someone goes onto the Internet to post.

The user didn't even address the privacy statement or arguments. That is being willfully blind and also demonstrates a lack of objectivity.

[Ian W]

Google it, it is there ripe for the picking.

Wait don't, because that will collect information on you.  Here is a small taste, but there are many articles out there:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2521809/government-it/nsa-helped-with-windows-7-development.html

It pulls telemetry data just like 10, including voice recordings if you use voice with it, just like 10. Its already been shown to you.

However if you don't use those features, it doesn't. I get the distinct feeling you think MS is turning on the mic and camera automatically to collect your data.

The description of the telemetry for WSR in Windows 7 and later is included in the image posted below. It appears to collect more than I had previously thought, and the text suggests that data collected as part of the document crawl process will be sent to Microsoft.

[Son_Of_Dad]

Apple itself is promoting installing Windows 10 on Mac

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204990

Does demonstrating how desperate Apple are to move hardware in a vain attempt to hold low market share really showcase Windows 10 as a success

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Apple itself is promoting installing Windows 10 on Mac

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204990

I wouldn't call that promoting as so much as providing instruction and a listing of supported devices.  Heck...Boot Camp has been around for 8-9 years now?

[Dot Matrix]

I can't wait for the Win32 x86 FitBit, Flipbook, and Facebook apps. Oh, wait.