OS WARS MEGA THREAD (Now debating proprietary vs. open-source!)

[jedidia]

First "I can't believe they did that, what the hell were they thinking?" expierience with windows 8.1:

I was shutting down, and the computer seemed to hang. I had the slight suspicion that it might be installing updates, but windows wasn't telling me. It was just showing the usual "shutting down" and taking its sweet while. But I happened to be short on time and really had to leave, so I had to take the gamble. I closed the lid, packed in the computer and went on my way.

Next startup, I get a nice friendly message: "Updates could not be completed, undoing changes". No progress report. It stood there for 20 minutes, presumably doing nothing. Restart.

To its credit, it managed to get its stuff together on the next go and actually finished what it was doing, with proper progress reports and all, and started up.

But shutting down and installing updates without any kind of notification whatsoever? WHat has gotten into these people? It's not like a system hanging on shutdown and needing a hard shutdown is completely unheard of. How am I supposed to know the difference if there's no notification and no progress report on the updates whatsoever?

I switched windows update to force it to let me prompt updates now, I hope at least that works...

 

[RisingFury]

First "I can't believe they did that, what the hell were they thinking?" expierience with windows 8.1:

I was shutting down, and the computer seemed to hang. I had the slight suspicion that it might be installing updates, but windows wasn't telling me. It was just showing the usual "shutting down" and taking its sweet while. But I happened to be short on time and really had to leave, so I had to take the gamble. I closed the lid, packed in the computer and went on my way.

Next startup, I get a nice friendly message: "Updates could not be completed, undoing changes". No progress report. It stood there for 20 minutes, presumably doing nothing. Restart.

To its credit, it managed to get its stuff together on the next go and actually finished what it was doing, with proper progress reports and all, and started up.

But shutting down and installing updates without any kind of notification whatsoever? WHat has gotten into these people? It's not like a system hanging on shutdown and needing a hard shutdown is completely unheard of. How am I supposed to know the difference if there's no notification and no progress report on the updates whatsoever?

I switched windows update to force it to let me prompt updates now, I hope at least that works...

The first thing I always do when installing Windows is shut down the automatic updates completely. I rely on 3rd party software to keep my computer clean.

The way I figured, the probability of attacks due to not updated Windows is lower than the probability of me losing everything because a Windows update screws something up. And if I'm wrong, I won't blame Microsoft for my troubles.

 

[Hielor]

The first thing I always do when installing Windows is shut down the automatic updates completely. I rely on 3rd party software to keep my computer clean.

The way I figured, the probability of attacks due to not updated Windows is lower than the probability of me losing everything because a Windows update screws something up. And if I'm wrong, I won't blame Microsoft for my troubles.

I'd be willing to wager that the set of people who have "lost everything" due to a windows update is significantly smaller than the set of people who have had their computers pwned due to unpatched vulnerabilities.

 

[jedidia]

I'd be willing to wager that the set of people who have "lost everything" due to a windows update is significantly smaller than the set of people who have had their computers pwned due to unpatched vulnerabilities.

To be fair, if I take the expierience with my and my wife's computers, I've had three fatal updates on Win7. That is a rather worrying ammount.

 

[Hielor]

And I've never had any updates from which I couldn't recover :shrug:

 

[jedidia]

Well, ok, there's a detail I forgott. For the longest time, I was required by my employer to have an encrypted HD, and if the system won't boot at all, there is no way to recover an old state without decrypting the HD... which could literally take days. So yes, I might have been able to recover those if not for this little tidbit.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Well, ok, there's a detail I forgott. For the longest time, I was required by my employer to have an encrypted HD, and if the system won't boot at all, there is no way to recover an old state without decrypting the HD... which could literally take days. So yes, I might have been able to recover those if not for this little tidbit.

Why exactly would that take days? I had to recover data from an encrypted linux partition once, but all I had to do was type the root password with ecryptfs, and it was mounted automatically.

 

[jedidia]

Why exactly would that take days? I had to recover data from an encrypted linux partition once, but all I had to do was type the root password with ecryptfs, and it was mounted automatically.

I didn't have to mount it. For that I would have had to boot it, which wasn't possible, which was the whole problem. I had to decrypt it so the windows recovery disk could find the partition and fix the system. That means running the full encryption process in reverse. On a 300GB system drive. From a bootloader. Believe me, that takes its time. Especially if your CPU isn't exactly state of the art.

 

[Hielor]

What encryption were you using? We use bitlocker at work, and as long as you know the recovery key you can boot from it.

 

[jedidia]

What encryption were you using? We use bitlocker at work, and as long as you know the recovery key you can boot from it.

Truecrypt. The problem was not the encryption as such. The problem was windows 7 destroying itself on update, and the partition not being readable to the windows7 disk. Since, if you booted from dvd, you never got to the truecrypt bootloader. In other words, to repair the system, I'd had to decrypt the disk first. It would have been possible, but I knew it would have taken too long.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Today's probably the best day to re-activate this thread, given that I've jumped over the queue and directly installed Windows 10 from Microsoft's own site.

Bye quirky Windows 8.1:

Hello Windows 10!

From my experience so far, I may declare later on that dual-booting Windows 10 and a Linux distribution of your choice (Linux Mint for me) is the dream-couple of the OS world.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

From my experience so far, I may declare later on that dual-booting Windows 10 and a Linux distribution of your choice (Linux Mint for me) is the dream-couple of the OS world.

What in particular do you like about it when compared to Windows 7? (For those of us running 7 who could upgrade, but are not sure just yet)

 

[Unstung]

I've been running Windows 10 for a day so far. The only reason I'd recommend upgrading from 7 is if you want a boost in gaming performance, especially from DirectX 12. The same goes for upgrading from 8.1, plus 10's UI is slightly better. Fortunately the upgrade has been smooth for me, and I kept all my data.

Otherwise, 10's downsides vastly outweigh its benefits. The Start menu can be adjusted, but it's either too large (with tiles to make up for missing options from 7), or too limited (without tiles) for my tastes. However, the issue that really kills Windows 10 for me is how much Microsoft is pushing data collection and its Store apps on users.

When installing 10, make sure to allow as little data collection and sharing as possible. After the installation is complete, there are still several more settings to change. While some people like Cortana, it's useless to me and another privacy issue. All the Store apps that Microsoft installed are just bloat. They're basic things like a contact list, weather, news, email, etc. If I want to access those things, they're what I have an internet browser for. I don't need Microsoft to collect data on my preferences from their bloatware instead. This data collection and sharing may also have security vulnerabilities.

I tried uninstalling as many of these apps that I could, but Microsoft prevents some from being removed, notably Xbox and Store. So I found a risky command that I typed into PowerShell which nuked all of Microsoft's stock apps, including the Store itself. Unfortunately I lost a couple of useful apps, like Calculator. The only way to get any of these applications back is to reinstall the OS.

Basically, Windows 10 feels like Microsoft is shoving features and software I don't want down my throat.

P.S., Microsoft now forces Windows updates on its users in 10.

I wish Linux was a lot more popular.

 

[Lisias]

You know? I really would like to have Orbiter ported to OS/2 . Best operating system I ever used on an Intel machine.

(and yes, I'm a Mac OS X user).

---------- Post added at 03:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 PM ----------

Basically, Windows 10 feels like Microsoft is shoving features and software I don't want down my throat.

They always had did that. The novelty is that now they are doing this for free.

 

[Unstung]

What Windows 10 features I have ed with today:

• Installed the old Windows calculator.
• Reverted to the more useful, old volume control.
• Really disabled telemetry.

This is for me and anyone else who may want to do some tweaks.

Update:

• Reverted to the old, mouse-friendly clock and calendar.

 

[Hielor]

I think if you could see the sort of data that is actually getting collected, you wouldn't be nearly so concerned about turning it off. It's not "every keystroke you ever type," it's "ratio of right clicks to left clicks in a given timespan" and things like that.

It's also worth noting that the telemetry is how Microsoft knows what's working and what isn't. If you run into a bug but have turned off telemetry, Microsoft has no way of knowing about it--and it's a bit difficult to fix bugs you don't know about.

 

[Unstung]

I think if you could see the sort of data that is actually getting collected, you wouldn't be nearly so concerned about turning it off. It's not "every keystroke you ever type," it's "ratio of right clicks to left clicks in a given timespan" and things like that.

It's also worth noting that the telemetry is how Microsoft knows what's working and what isn't. If you run into a bug but have turned off telemetry, Microsoft has no way of knowing about it--and it's a bit difficult to fix bugs you don't know about.

I'm aware of what data Microsoft collects for diagnostics; Microsoft's diagnostic collection is described in the privacy settings, but Windows 10 has eroded my trust in the company for more reasons than that. For instance, it's_not_just_that, and all options are set to maximum data sharing by default.

Microsoft forces their untrustworthy modern apps on Windows 10 users by making many difficult to uninstall, and some impossible to uninstall. Some inessential apps are protected even from PowerShell. I have granted my account sufficient permissions to delete all visible traces of these apps in whatever folder they may hide, and although they cannot run, their icons are still present on the start menu, with no possible way of being removed. That's frustrating. Also, no matter how many dangerous things I do to my OS, I cannot delay Windows updates.

Having little control and customization over my operating system, at least without going into the registry editor, makes me resent Microsoft. I cannot make Windows 10 as productive for me as Windows 7 (at least without the aid of third-party software), yet Microsoft wants people to switch to their new product. I can probably use Vista more efficiently. Unfortunately I need to run Windows for software compatibility, and 10 in particular for DirectX 12. Otherwise I would now be running Ubuntu 24/7.

In my experience (which only goes back to Windows XP), Windows 10 is the worst contemporary Microsoft OS release. (I have actually used Windows since 95, but I was too young for that experience to be valid.) Windows 8 comes close to 10, but the former just needs a third-party start menu, then the experience is... sufficient. However, Windows 10 goes out of its way to make the user feel like they're just sharing the Windows experience.

While many people would disagree with me, I have really negative first impressions of Windows 10. Disabling all telemetry is my way of protesting the changes, regardless of how pointless that may be.

PS, Microsoft even ruined the browser version of Outlook for me. And I can't even opt out of the beta. I'm already in the process of switching to a different email service.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I think if you could see the sort of data that is actually getting collected, you wouldn't be nearly so concerned about turning it off. It's not "every keystroke you ever type," it's "ratio of right clicks to left clicks in a given timespan" and things like that.

Maybe, but this is exactly the problem. If we could see the sort of data that is actually getting collected...but we can't (at least to my level of knowledge). How in the world is a typical user to know for certain what is being communicated back to the mother ship? Hell, even if an average user set the switch to OFF, how can they *really* know if that is doing anything?

This isn't just a Windows issue, it's an issue with any OS. The bottom line is - how can an average user (someone without a computer science degree) actually verify that their information and activities aren't being recorded?

Short of being completely air-gapped, the only logical assumption is to assume that every keystroke on your machine is like shouting on a public street.

 

[Hielor]

... their untrustworthy modern apps ...

This right here is all I need to see your fundamental misunderstanding of how things work.

How exactly are modern apps "untrustworthy"? They explicitly have access only to a specific subset of the APIs available, and that set of APIs explicitly prevents them from doing the sort of "untrustworthy" things that "classic" desktop apps can do. Why do you suddenly feel the need to uninstall the calculator that comes with Windows? Have you uninstalled the included calculator in previous versions?

 

[Unstung]

This right here is all I need to see your fundamental misunderstanding of how things work.

How exactly are modern apps "untrustworthy"? They explicitly have access only to a specific subset of the APIs available, and that set of APIs explicitly prevents them from doing the sort of "untrustworthy" things that "classic" desktop apps can do.

As Thunder Chicken said, it's difficult for most users to know what is being transmitted. Because I don't have a good understanding of APIs, I don't know what Microsoft can allow them to do. I don't know how you're aware of what Microsoft's APIs can do unless you've used them yourself.

Microsoft asks users if the modern apps can access all sorts of features and collect data on my usage. I want to prevent that, so I've uninstalled them. That's the only way to be sure they're not collecting any data. I doubt the "classic" Paint can collect information on my preferences unlike Mail, Weather, News, Cortana, etc.

Also, I have ways to block JavaScript in my normal web browsing so I have a better idea of what data wants to be transmitted.