Back to the very newest crop of actual factuals (dated August 17th) -- new information has come out about personal data is still being collected and sent to MS ongoing AFTER the user has completely opted out of all personal data collection and turned off all features that asked for it.

Read it, boys and girls,  it can be read to imply MS simply can't stop itself from checking you out intimately ---- and the EULA apparently permits this, too, btw.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/76832/20150817/windows-10-user-data-sent-to...

"Windows 10 is sending private user data to Microsoft — even when all applicable privacy settings are de-activated by the user, according to a new report.

While some users are experiencing problems with various aspects of the upgrade, including Wi-Fi connectivity, Chrome browser, audio issues and automatic updates causing endless crash loops, most users and critics are generally pleased with the update.

That's more than can be said for the general response to Microsoft's new privacy settings, which were roundly criticized for allowing widespread collection of user data by the company.

While one solution appears to be opting out of the data collection by activating all available privacy settings, a new report indicates that even with those settings set to defeat all data collection, the company is still collecting some private user data."



==================================



We turn to CNN Money for our reality check on this new information:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/17/technology/windows-10-privacy/

Is Windows 10 really a privacy nightmare?

Just read it for what it says, it says the privacy breaches are real but the reasons are "OK" with the MS EULA you signed                        


"Here are the main privacy gripes about Win10:

1)  Shares your personal information with Microsoft by default

By default, Windows 10 shares a lot of information about you with Microsoft. According to the company's privacy policy, Windows sends Microsoft everything you say to Cortana, Windows 10's Siri-like virtual assistant. It also collects your name and nickname, your recent calendar events, the names of the people in your appointments, and information about your contacts -- including their names and nicknames.

The good news: If you don't want to share that information, you can disable it.

The bad news: Microsoft has an incredible 13 separate privacy screens that you'll have to navigate through to shut off all information sharing.

2)  Borrows bandwidth from your home Internet connection

Windows 10 will use your Internet connection to help other people download apps or update their PCs.

If someone (let's call her Rebecca) is having trouble connecting to Microsoft's servers, Rebecca might instead download that update or app from you, a complete stranger.

It all happens in the background, without either of you ever knowing it.

It's a feature called Windows Update Delivery Optimization, and it's actually a potentially brilliant way to help Windows 10 users update their PCs faster by connecting to millions of different people instead of just Microsoft.

But Microsoft isn't upfront with customers about it. To turn it off, you'll have to navigate to a submenu ("Choose how updates are delivered") of a submenu ("Advanced options") within the settings app.

Microsoft should be more forthright that it's using your PC as an update server, and it should make turning the feature off easier.

3)  Can share your wireless password with your friends' PCs

Windows 10 includes a new feature called Wi-Fi Sense, which allows you to automatically log your friends onto your Wi-Fi network without ever giving them your password.

That freaked some people out, because Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) is storing and delivering your Wi-Fi password, which can be a key to all your private photos.

In truth, there's really not much to worry about. Though Microsoft enables Wi-Fi Sense by default on Windows 10, it doesn't share your networks by default -- you have to choose to do that. When your friends connect via Wi-Fi Sense, they won't then, in turn, be able to share your network with their friends. Wi-Fi Sense encrypts your password, and it won't work on corporate networks with special security protocols. And you can opt out.

Still, Microsoft's all-or-nothing policy is potentially troubling. Choosing to share access to your Wi-Fi network with all your Facebook (FB, Tech30), Skype and Outlook.com contacts means your best friend will get access, but your stalker will too.

4)  Will continue to send information to Microsoft after you disable data-sharing settings

If you went to all 13 privacy pages and shut off all data sharing, you'll still share information with Microsoft.

As Ars Technica first reported, even if you disable Cortana and Bing queries in the search box, opening the Start Menu and typing -- anything -- will still send some data to Microsoft.

Microsoft said there's nothing nefarious going on there. It's not reading your search queries, just learning some basic habits about how you (and many others) are using search. It's not clear exactly what Microsoft means by that, but the company hinted that it's looking at broad behaviors. For example, it may be recording the simple fact that you searched for an item on your PC and how you initiated the search (a click vs. a keystroke).

"As part of delivering Windows 10 as a service, updates may be delivered to provide ongoing new features to Bing search, such as new visual layouts, styles and search code," a Microsoft spokeswoman said in a statement. "No query or search usage data is sent to Microsoft, in accordance with the customer's chosen privacy settings."

But, come on, Microsoft. Shouldn't there be a way to just opt out of all data being sent to you?

5)  Can scan for counterfeit games

Tech blog Alpha noted late last week that the Windows 10 license agreement everyone agrees to (without reading) includes language that seems to allow the company to scan your computer for pirated games and disable them at will.

"We may automatically check your version of the software and download software updates or configuration changes, including those that prevent you from accessing the Services, playing counterfeit games, or using unauthorized hardware peripheral devices."

This applies to Windows 10 services, such as Xbox Live, not Windows 10 itself. So Microsoft isn't scanning your PC for illegal copies of Halo. But it's written like it could -- and Microsoft should make that clearer in its privacy statement."

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/212724-microsoft-kills-patch-notes-will-...

Microsoft kills patch notes, will no longer explain most Windows 10 updates



"Over the past few weeks, Microsoft has drawn increasing fire for its update policies. To date, Microsoft has released three KB Cumulative Updates (CUs) — KB 3081424 (August 5), KB 3081436 (August 12) and KB 3081438 (August 14). All are described in precisely the same way: “This update includes improvements to enhance the functionality of Windows 10.” All three cumulative updates contain an unexplained bug that traps some PCs in an endless reboot cycle, according to InfoWorld. Some users, who successfully installed the patch, have begun having trouble accessing the Windows Store and downloading updates from it. Others, who had problems with the store after the first CU, have reported that the second or third fixed their problem.

These cumulative updates are different from previous Windows Update releases in Windows 7 / 8.1. In the past, each KB was downloaded and applied individually, if Microsoft detected that the update should be offered to your system. Now, each cumulative update contains all previous updates. In theory, this allows for a streamlined download and installation process. In practice, it’s causing major problems. Microsoft no longer distinguishes between most security updates, feature updates, and bug fixes. It also gives no information about what bug fixes or feature updates do, which makes it nearly impossible to troubleshoot any given problem.

A troubleshooting nightmare

Going forward, there’s no way for users to tell which Windows patch caused a problem, if any. Microsoft may offer the ability to uninstall patches, but without some coherent method of determining which patches need to be uninstalled, there’s no way of telling what’s causing a problem. Short of using software products that monitor the registry and file system for every single change, it may not be possible to determine what changed or why it changed in every instance. Furthermore, what happens when a business or individual needs a security patch, but the feature update bundled along with it causes problems or breaks another aspect of the system? I’ll be the first to acknowledge that such issues are rare, but rare and “doesn’t happen” are not the same thing.

Microsoft’s stripped down communication model is essentially, “Trust us.” The company has yet to demonstrate that it deserves that kind of trust, and its decision to roll all updates together and say nothing about their contents could catastrophically backfire."

Microsoft has a trust issue -- they no longer trust you to know what they are doing to your machine because it is TOO EMBARRASSING to them.  

So, now they string together chains of fixes willy-nilly then  push them into your machine and then use your machine to fire the sets of fixes off to a dozen other people.    Bad part is the chain of updates may include some BAD FOR YOUR PARTICULAR MACHINE code inside them so MS has stripped off any "included in the KB" information that would possibly let folks figure out which one of the repeated and re-repeated chain of upgrade/updates did the dirty deed this time so it could be backed out of the machine.

And tomorrow you will get a new update chain pushed into your machine that includes most of what choked you down yesterday and the day before.   And once again, you will pay bandwidth to send it on to a dozen other people, gratis.

Reboot your Win 10 and write down how many seconds it takes to ID the updates for your machine.   Keep a log for a few weeks and watch the number of seconds grow and grow and grow.   Watch your hard drive light flash ongoing and your router line light flash and flash and flash and flash.    

See MS suck your high speed connection dry .....  then spend your $$$ exceeding your data cap ....... then by golly they will go do it again tomorrow.


     Honey, reboot the router please, Roku just stopped streaming again ......
       

PC World is also covering the Win 10 issues about router crowding and high bandwidth usage for those having those issues.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2955491/windows/how-to-stop-windows-10-from-us...

How to disable P2P updates in Windows 10
First, open the Start Menu and select Settings, then click Updates & Security.



Make sure Windows Update is selected in the left-hand navigation pane (it’s the default when you open Updates & Security) and then click Advanced Options in the main pane.



You’ll see a lot of options and checkboxes. Peruse them if you’d like, but for today’s task, you’ll want to click on Choose how updates are delivered.



Now you're on the page with the options that legislate how Windows 10 handles P2P updates. By default, Windows 10 will both send and receive updates from devices on your network and the Internet at large.



It’s the latter option that’s the potential data cap destroyer. Using the options on this page, you can opt to only allow P2P updates among machines on your local network, or disable them completely and rely on Microsoft’s servers alone—just like the good ol’ days.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/07/10/free-windows-10-charges/

'Free' Windows 10 Now Looks A Terrible Deal

Is This A Two Year Con?

"So what does “two to four years” mean? Is it two or is it four?

In light of no official clarification from Microsoft the slides can help – if not result in formal conclusions. In a change of language Microsoft states device lifetime will be determined by “customer type” whereas it had previously stated it would be determined by “form factor”.

This may prove crucial. For example ‘Form factor’ should mean a phone where two years of support isn’t great, but survivable and similarly four years support for a tablet or PC which isn’t great but it is survivable. But defining by ‘customer type’ invokes Microsoft’s two main customer licence types: Home (average consumer) and Professional (prosumer/business).

By this new definition “two to four years” would mean two years free support for Windows 10 Home users regardless of their device type and up to four years free support for Windows 10 Pro users regardless of their device type.

Two years free support on a PC is garbage. It would see Windows 10 free support expire in 2017 while Windows 7 and Windows 8 free support doesn’t expire until January 2020 and 2023 respectively. Could this really happen? Again without Microsoft spelling it out we can’t say.

What’s more it also opens up an even bigger question: what follows the expiry of free support?"

Microsoft leaked some more of their secret black cat out of the bag at a Financial presentation and is getting hit hard by Forbes and ComputingWorld on exactly what the leakage means.

So, to put in short form -- Win 10 lasts 2-4 years (consumer vs business vs mobile) and after that slides into a pay me subscription model.

In two years MS hopes that people will be used to MS owning their computing experience completely and the user base will quit all that squealing and thrashing about that is occurring lately as the big antennas are being painfully inserted into unsuspecting user orifices.

https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-trackers-ban-windows-10-over-privacy-concerns-1
50822/



Software sharing over torrents has a long history in Open Source software, especially in Europe.  And remember, countries like France and many others hold that software cannot be patented, and once dispersed it can be re-dispersed freely.   Thus, in these countries and in European Open Source in general, the new Windows 10 is beginning to smell very strongly like fresh raw sewage.

Having been watched very carefully, evidence may now be available that Microsoft has now been caught sending lists of the contents of your hard drive off to various anti-piracy organizations.

"Since the release of Windows 10 last month many media reports have focused on various privacy intrusions.

The WiFi password sharing feature, for example, or the extensive sharing of personal data and information back to Microsoft’s servers. The list goes on and on.

This week things took a turn for the worse. Slowly but steadily reports started pouring in that Windows 10 has a built-in piracy kill switch. If we were to believe some of the reports, Microsoft would like to nuke all torrents downloaded from The Pirate Bay.

Still, the recent privacy concerns have some torrent tracker staffers worried. During the week TF received reports informing us that several private trackers have banned Windows 10, or are considering doing so.

The staffers at iTS explain that Windows 10 is off-limits now because of the extensive amount of data it shares. This includes connections to MarkMonitor, the brand protection company which is also involved in the U.S. Copyright Alert System.

“We have also found [Windows 10] will be gathering information on users’ P2P use to be shared with anti piracy group,” BB staff writes to its users.

“What’s particularly nasty is that apparently it sends the results of local(!!) searches to a well known anti piracy company directly so as soon as you have one known p2p or scene release on your local disk … BAM!”



Sending the contents of your hard drive, sending your searches, reporting on what you download and sending your peer to peer communications off automatically to other anti-piracy groups violates several personal rights in lots of countries and here in the USA may be illegal unless backed up with an active search warrant.

Microsoft will get taken to court in the EU over such things, they can count on it.    Saying they are "cooperating with various US authorities" cuts no ice over in the EU when Microsoft is violating (for example) French law when they go do it.


=========================================


We got a confirmation on the Torrent guys banning Windows 10 permanently.    The given reason is because MS sending listings of your hard drive contents and montoring of your P2P communications to various litigation groups inside the USA.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/24/torrent-trackers-ban-windows-10/





This is neatly ironic since MS itself is the largest P2P / torrent user in the world right now and they didn't even tell their users they were hijacking their internet bandwidth to push the massive traffic in Win 10 upgrades and updates along .....

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/77111/20150818/latest-windows-10-problems-a...

Latest Windows 10 Problems And Bugs: Screen Flickering And Flashing, Touchpad Issues, Lags And Page Freezes

"Many users are continuing to report issues with screen flickering. While some of these problems can be attributed to a previously reported issue with automatic updates that affected Nvidia drivers, the problem is still plaguing other users, some of whose task bars are also not functioning properly, for unknown reasons.



Some users are having trouble with their touchpads. According to one Tech Times commenter:

"...the touchpad will not respond to taps and will not scroll at all. Downloading windows update did not help, and downloading latest drivers for win 10 from Asus (brand of my PC) was no help. I have been able to go to task manager and quit some processes to get the pointer back, but any reboot results in the problem returning. All of this makes the PC virtually useless."

Another reader chimed in, saying, "I'm having the same problem with my touch pad, only my USB mouse is working (thank the gods)."

Other readers are experiencing lags: "Computer is lagging and freezing while typing" is a common complaint.

"Just finished installing Windows 10 and now it takes ages to type anything. This has taken me 5 mins already," one user shared, while another stated, "Windows 10 uploaded OK but now my pc is sooooooo slow it's painful."

Many users are so frustrated with the issues that they have aborted their Windows 10 upgrades and reverted back to the version they previously had installed. Others plan to do the same. One Tech Times reader summed up the feelings of many:

"I upgraded from Windows 7 as well and feel like nothing has improved. Even to open simple folders takes ages (even freezes sometimes) and NO COMMAND is working to close or reset my laptop. They said windows 10 will be faster and better. I find it twice as slow than before. I will definitely downgrade to my previous version."



Microsoft has now pushed the Win 10 down deeper into the pre-sorted machine/age/diver pool now, and they are now finding their partially written hardware drivers and such to be becoming much more of a show stopper for these earlier, less current entrants.

As Microsoft swings their limited manning over to try to get ready for the Win10 Mobile and Continuum unveiling, you can expect the rate of fix on the desktop side to go way way down as relatively fewer resources will be allocated to fixing the ever increasing daily flow of bugs and bad drivers.



...... and accordingly more and more users are hitting the "GO BACK TO WIN 7" button, realizing that waiting past 30 days means having to stay in bad driver land FOREVER, or until MS can get back around to working on it some.    

Go back to Win 7 and wait 1/2 or 3/4 of a year and try again, then go back to Win 7 again if you have to until such time your drivers get fixed or you see that they never will get fixed.

MS is also tending to take the classic cop out approach now more and more -- "This is your machine manufacturer's or your video card driver's problem to fix, not ours."

When you get this cop out response, immediately go back to Win 7 and stay there -- you have no Win 10 future to look forward to as none of these older vendors are in business any more to fix anything.

Any machine built by American machine makers using American vendor components falls into this class as they all went bust 5-7 years ago when all computer making went to the orient.    

HP and Dell are about it for domestic suppliers left any more, and all their components come from the orient for them now too.

No, they won't.   Plus they won't move for any revision that isn't going to last but another 2-4 years and then get replaced by yet another merry go round.    

They would be foolish to do so.

I'd be interested in the number of "Go Back to Win 7" button pushers compared to the total number of people upgraded.    

Fat chance of seeing that number, ever .....

Well, this week we have more bugs reported and more apologists explaining what Microsoft really meant by throwing this and that open to your contact list and for perhaps sharing the contents of your hard drive with USA anti-piracy watchdog groups.   Not that good old Microsoft would ever actually DO that, of course .....      

And all of the apologists also tell you in excruciating detail how to dig deep deep into the settings to turn off what you don't like.

In reading it, I was struck by how gawd awful COMPLICATED it was to do and how deeply involved in the programming some of these "features" actually are.

I was also struck by little things like this, where the apologist had to admit the flaw was unfortunately real and worse than he would prefer.  "Unfortunately, there's no granularity to the way you can share network access to your contacts -- in other words, you can only share with all your friends in, say, Facebook; you can't pick out individuals. It's essentially all or nothing."

Parallels are also being drawn by some pundits between Win 10 and Vista, in the sense that both were misunderstood technical marvels that actually far exceeded what the public really wanted out of an OS change.

So, they are also hopefully semi-wishing for the next OS wave that unscrews what Win 10 screwed up, as this one is hopefully going to be the Vista that leads to the next Win 7.