I maintain one baremetal Windows install that gets fairly regular use. It’s on a major OEM business class workstation with a legit Windows 10 pro license.
Recently, I had to wipe and reset and goddamn do they try and trick you into choosing all the worst spyware settings AND even if you successfully duck and weave past them, they’ll just cheat and enable them, or reinstall shit like co-pilot during an update.
They just made me sign into that shitty M365 app to install a legit subscription of Office, and on the next reboot, it converted the local user account into an online user account.
Make no mistake, Recall is going to be enabled by hook, or by crook, for the vast majority of Windows 11 users in due time. No matter how many times they disable it, or opt out.
Yup. We’re back to the old days where Microsoft didn’t give a damn and enabled things by default.
It’ll take less than a decade before they get sued, yet again. By then, the penalty will be <5% of what they’ve made, but the merry go round will circle back and start all over.
security issues as in its very existence?
“we will change nothing but announce it like we did”
Windows 10 will be the last windows I will use. Already switching to Linux at least part time to wean myself off of Microsoft
Windows 10 will be the last I work on. I work in tech and won’t accept 11 as a work environment either.
Opt-in but you get an annoying full screen popup every boot, like for the windows11 upgrade. It’s only a matter of time, til they sell AI recall features as Win12 and then beg you to upgrade for free, pretty please!
Or “(totally unrelated feature) is not available unless you activate AI recall. Click here to activate.”
“Click cancel if you do not want to not activate it”
How do you “fix” the security issues of a program that is literally designed to spy on you?
I’ve just switched to Linux Mint and I’m not ever coming back. That’s how I “fixed it.”
So it will use AI to auto detect penises to prevent embarrassing video recordings.
Time to get a wiggly, wobbly dick cursors.
My 10 year prediction - Microsoft does a full transition to a services company:
- Basic Windows is free, even for OEMs
- Windows Professional becomes a subscription thing, maybe you get it as part of your Azure AD sub
- Things like Recall or not having ads are extra subscriptions
There were already rumors halfway between 10 and the release of 11 that they wanted to do it that way, making 10 the last “standalone” release version
Why the hell wasn’t it opt-in from the beginning?
It’ll be opt-in, till it isn’t.
For the same reason it used an unprotected DB. Because they don’t give a shit about your privacy or security.
We have seen this game 100 times. Opt in for now and then turned on for everyone 6-12 months later. It’s just a temporary move to handle the bad PR.
registry switch that’ll mysteriously reset itself. we’ve had this shit with countless windows configurations at work that our IT guy has to battle with on the regular.
I’ve had so many people jump down my throat for listing some of the many obviously fucked things Microsoft did on my PC just over the life of Windows 10. (And not that it should matter, but I even paid for Pro).
I turned all their various advertising and spying “features” off through legitimate settings, group policies, whatever, and the list of things that reverted themselves over time was insane.
User: Goes through 15 step process to turn off unwanted “feature”.
Windows: I turned this on, in case it got turned off accidentally. I’ll do this every reboot.
And not that it should matter, but I even paid for Pro
It should matter though. If MS wants to give away Windows for free, then users should expect compromised privacy. But it’s not. They charge hundreds for it.
If Windows made a paid version that was private and secure, and that the user was in control of, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
If they were giving away Windows for free, their behavior would still be unforgivable.
There is no scenario where any operating system including spyware or ads can ever theoretically be acceptable behavior. Any person who contributes in any way to that happening belongs in a prison cell.
Well that’s the only way a “free” product is sustainable.
Linux is free qnd plenty sustainable.
If you can’t support providing something for free via a mechanism that isn’t pure and unadulterated evil, then don’t do it for free. “We have to be monsters to make money” is not a valid position.
Linux is free qnd plenty sustainable.
It also has a vast array of enormous compromises, which is why no one uses it.
You forgot the best part
Silently turned on via “security” update
It’s a security update because it adds new security vulnerabilities.
Same as it ever was
Or the other trick of constantly prompting “Turn on / Maybe Later” until people either accidentally accept or just give up to make nagging stop.
That guy at the club who won’t fuck off
Can anyone give me examples of times Windows has done this in the past? I mean, I feel like this is true, but I legit can’t think of anything that matches this.
In the last 6 months:
- One Drive reinstalled and turned back on on my personal & work computer multiple times.
- AI Co-pilot added to my machine and enabled “so you can start using it now!” with an obtrusive pinned shortcut on my start bar, to both of the same machines but at different time intervals. Uninstalling is virtually impossible and requires registry mods to 'remove" it. Not even a powers he’ll command can remove it.
I don’t want, or need, this add-on garbage.
Perfect examples, thank you 👌
Yeah dude, there’s nothing they can do to fix this. They have eroded the trust of their users for decades. It will take them decades to get it back, if they actually tried.
Also it took hackers days to find vulnerabilities. Which is a massive security concern.
It will now require Windows Hello (via facial recognition and/or fingerprint)
So Microsoft also wants my fingerprints and a realtime capture of my face? Yeah that totally addresses my concerns. /S
Shame I stopped believing that BS from them circa winME…
They’ll always play right on or just over the line to see when/how people push back. They knew what they were doing, they started at a 9 intentionally so that people push back to and live with a 7
I mean… Yeah? That’s kind of the point isn’t it? Test the waters and figure out just how far they can push it? Find the limit of acceptance and ride that?
MS really has always done this, what’s the name for this kind of marketing maneuver? Manufactured consent? Manufactured begrudging tolerance?
Like politics, were adding 200% to this inconvenience!
Then rolling back to “only” 50% (the initial target).
Door in the face
& Microsoft is sooo soft-in-the-head as to believe that we ought trust them, after this,
& the previous fiasco,
& the one before that,
& https://search.theregister.com/?q=microsoft+security+privacy&site=
( you may need to go through a few hundred pages there, to see it all )
This is their DNA: it isn’t going to change, now.
