I used to look forward to a new version of Windows...
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No one said that Microsoft was "gathering all this information". There seem to be a lot of people that are paranoid lately. Cortana on the local machine looks at my local email and offers to help. Cortana is configurable. If you don't want it to help you out, you can turn that feature off in Cortana's settings. (I don't remember, but off may have been the default). But even if they did gather the information, it doesn't bother me. You say "They certainly aren't talking". There is quite a bit of information about how things work regarding privacy here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/Default.aspx[^]
Check out the following two articles concerning the way Microsoft is gathering informaton.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2489212,00.asp
http://lifehacker.com/what-windows-10s-privacy-nightmare-settings-actually-1722267229
from other discussions, it is clear that you can protect yourself from most of the data collection, that not all data collection is controlled from the privacy settings and no one is sure what data is being collected or for what reason. Thus my paranoia
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XP was a great improvement over 3.1. I skipped the stuff inbetween then and was happy to upgrade to W7. But I definitely loathed the new Metro look of W8, and I'm really reluctant to install W10. And since I have updates disabled, I haven't been bothered with pesky notices, downloads, and all that crap. In fact, I bought a nice new laptop a couple weeks ago and opted for W7. It did come with a thumb drive to upgrade to W10, it's sitting somewhere on my desk getting dusty. So I wonder, what has happened that I'm just not looking forward to upgrading? How did Microsoft kill my enthusiasm? (Well, Metro is one answer.) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
A lot of people pan Windows 8 because of Metro/Modern, but Metro does work great for pure tablets, just not for our old desktops and laptops that don’t have touchscreens. However, for a person who has been using a Microsoft account, Windows Phone, and Sky/OneDrive for years, the integration of the Microsoft Account in Windows 8 was a truly killer feature that allowed me to overlook the inconvenience of Metro on the desktop. In fact, I find it one of the best things Microsoft has done for Windows. And yes, Windows 8.1 helped too. Now with Windows 10, they've got the desktop feel right with the combination start button/screen and a desktop that feels like a desktop and not just another store app, but it's awful on a tablet. I really miss the store version of IE on the tablet. It was much more suited to the tablet with controls that are less likely to be fat fingered and features like swiping back and forward and charms. Yes, charms were great on the tablet. I've updated my tablet to Win10 and it's barely useable. Many controls are too small. I can’t imagine how anyone could use it on a 7" tablet. What really makes me sad about Windows 10 is the Mail/Calendar/People app. It is just one of the worst things I've seen in recent years (except maybe for Android in general). They’ve dropped sweep functions. I can't set up rules. Using folders is awkward. It doesn't sync quickly with my Outlook account. And most of all, many great features of the people app aren't there. I can't pin a contact to the start screen. I can't link Skype contacts. The People app doesn't even acknowledge Skype contacts! (How much did Microsoft pay for Skype?). The People app will tell you to go to the store to get ‘Social Apps’ and then the store gives you a blank list, (psych!) If you try to add a photo to a contact, it brings up this strange, quasi-dialog version of OneDrive that's not quite desktop and not quite Metro and you can't browse to a folder where you know the file that you want is. It just lists every photo it can find on OneDrive and lists them by date. And they dropped the Skype store app and while Skype for desktop is well, okay, it's awful to use with fat fingers on the desktop. Many people are in love w/ their iPhones and Android phones. But I know few who know how to sync contacts and mail, or share OneNote folders and pages, or share folders in OneDrive. In other words, they don't think Windows Phone is good because it doesn't have their bank's app, and all of the other amazing things that Windows Phone does so easily (
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XP was a great improvement over 3.1. I skipped the stuff inbetween then and was happy to upgrade to W7. But I definitely loathed the new Metro look of W8, and I'm really reluctant to install W10. And since I have updates disabled, I haven't been bothered with pesky notices, downloads, and all that crap. In fact, I bought a nice new laptop a couple weeks ago and opted for W7. It did come with a thumb drive to upgrade to W10, it's sitting somewhere on my desk getting dusty. So I wonder, what has happened that I'm just not looking forward to upgrading? How did Microsoft kill my enthusiasm? (Well, Metro is one answer.) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
It has a lot of bugs, and the recent upgrades broke things that were working. The start menu is nice, but it often freezes; the notification center is cool, but it regularly stops working (sometimes killing explorer.exe does the trick, sometimes it doesn't). I don't have Cortana because it's not available in my country, even though I installed the OS in English, so I really can't tell how good it is. The touch screen sometimes it won't show up when a textbox gets the focus, in tablet mode (which has rendered my Surface 3 Pro useless without the keyboard, since it won't let me enter my password). The apps are buggy too, especially the mail and calendar app. It's better than Weight, however, and has many improvements. Metro apps now are Windowed (in desktop mode) so I can have my Netflix app running alongside Visual Studio, without flickering. Continuum feature is great in my Surface. Snap views work cool with any app regardless of their origin (Win32, WPF, Metro). So I think it's a better OS than Weight, and slightly better than Weven. When the OS becomes stable (because IMHO this is still a beta product) it will become the best Windows OS so far. Until then...
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Check out the following two articles concerning the way Microsoft is gathering informaton.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2489212,00.asp
http://lifehacker.com/what-windows-10s-privacy-nightmare-settings-actually-1722267229
from other discussions, it is clear that you can protect yourself from most of the data collection, that not all data collection is controlled from the privacy settings and no one is sure what data is being collected or for what reason. Thus my paranoia
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Yep, both articles basically say it is no big deal and if you are paranoid, turn off what you can. I feel sorry for paranoid people. Really.
I guess I have been toying with the move to linux for several years and this maybe the straw that breaks the camel's back so to speak. I will most likely stick with Win7 for awhile and see what happens, and maybe load a second laptop with a linux distro and see how that goes.
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I guess I have been toying with the move to linux for several years and this maybe the straw that breaks the camel's back so to speak. I will most likely stick with Win7 for awhile and see what happens, and maybe load a second laptop with a linux distro and see how that goes.
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XP was a great improvement over 3.1. I skipped the stuff inbetween then and was happy to upgrade to W7. But I definitely loathed the new Metro look of W8, and I'm really reluctant to install W10. And since I have updates disabled, I haven't been bothered with pesky notices, downloads, and all that crap. In fact, I bought a nice new laptop a couple weeks ago and opted for W7. It did come with a thumb drive to upgrade to W10, it's sitting somewhere on my desk getting dusty. So I wonder, what has happened that I'm just not looking forward to upgrading? How did Microsoft kill my enthusiasm? (Well, Metro is one answer.) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
Sounds to me like you're just getting old and crotchety. Maybe you just need to get some.
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Yep, both articles basically say it is no big deal and if you are paranoid, turn off what you can. I feel sorry for paranoid people. Really.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you or aren't spying on you...:~
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Sounds to me like you're just getting old and crotchety. Maybe you just need to get some.
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote:
Maybe you just need to get some.
Some what, Wen? They clearly skipped Wine! ;) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
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TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote:
Maybe you just need to get some.
Some what, Wen? They clearly skipped Wine! ;) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
;)
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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True, it's been so long, I forgot about Win95 and Win2000. I had those installed as well. Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
I still have my installation disks for Win95, Win97, Win98, Win2K, WinXP, Win8.1. If I have to rebuild this machine, I'm stuck -- no Win10 installation disk.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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XP was a great improvement over 3.1. I skipped the stuff inbetween then and was happy to upgrade to W7. But I definitely loathed the new Metro look of W8, and I'm really reluctant to install W10. And since I have updates disabled, I haven't been bothered with pesky notices, downloads, and all that crap. In fact, I bought a nice new laptop a couple weeks ago and opted for W7. It did come with a thumb drive to upgrade to W10, it's sitting somewhere on my desk getting dusty. So I wonder, what has happened that I'm just not looking forward to upgrading? How did Microsoft kill my enthusiasm? (Well, Metro is one answer.) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
I finally managed to get a stable looking Win 10 installation after 4 failed attempts. The trick is, if dual booting, to turn off Smart Start. Now I can boot into Win7 or Win10 and it seems to be happy. Before that I was tearing my hair (only one) out. Not sure if I like Win10 yet. Cortana seems to work about as well as any other speech recognition application. I.e. Doesn't understand my West Country accent. I have no use whatsoever for a 3D modelling application. Hate the tiles. Dumped them straight away. And so on. Whinge whinge whinge...
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.