I am saddened that as an IT person this is your attitude. You work for a company that rightly or wrongly is using Microsoft products. Data and evidence should be your guide to if Windows 10 is acceptable or not, have you personally setup a VM, installed Windows 10, mucked around with it and monitored its network traffic - or do you at least plan to?
I'm not saying this to be mean to you, if you are an IT proffessional you need to disconnect emotion and personal beliefs about Vendor X in order to be able to do your job well and progress.
If you believe that your employer should start a process to ditch Microsoft because of how they are treating clients that's great. Put your energy into creating a plan as to how your company can succesfully do this and persaude the leadership why. Creating this business case and leading your company to an alternative OS with support from a vendor who respects their clients (and brings reduced costs and greater flexibility) will be a really cool thing to have on your CV.
If you don't do this, believe me one way or the other you will end up supporting Windows 10; your company will only be able to hold out for so long. Of course if you don't move off Windows you'll be able to write about your project to mitigate against all the nasty stuff in Windows 10 and how you stoped your companies data being stolen ;-)
Maybe I didn't clarify but when I say IT for 10 or so computers, that means just making sure they work, I doubt I classify as an actual "IT Professional"
And although I build 90% of those and even the server, how/or what does my emotion have to do with realizing that Microsoft is becoming a crap company?
The fact that people are accepting this is what saddens me, people are entitled to their own opinion but if we let Microsoft collect a little bit (or a lot depending on how you look at it) of telemetry/information, this is equivalent of the saying "You give an inch and they take a mile" It's going to happen.
Just like Logan said in one of his videos, if you let them knock on your door, sooner or later they will be sleeping in your bed! (it was something along those lines)
And lets be honest guys, not a single one of you here hasn't searched something on the internet they probably aren't proud of, are you guys familiar with people posting things on Facebook that they have gotten in trouble by local law? This has happened hundreds of times. Mark my words, one day you are going to wake up search something questionable and the next day your getting a knock on your door or a letter is being sent to your wife about some porn you looked up. And when I say questionable it could be something as simple as "I think Obama is a horrible president"...
Alas....Now I am getting into the tinfoil hat area, and probably going to spark some flamers but I would not be surprised one iota if the American Govt. Paid Microsoft to add this shit in Windows10.
Funny seeing a headline "The Govt. says you are a terrorist if you don't use Windows 10"
Windows 10 I like and I try to keep a leash on it with programs. If you want to see what is going out on your network down load Glasswire it will show you what is on your network. Microsoft is a problem these days people that use it wish linux would listen and build a version that looks and acts like windows xp with no need for terminal commands. The fact is linux likes to be just the way it is and thats ok. We are stuck with OS X or Windows as an os. So if you are stuck with them and are wondering what they are saying about you then we have to find out what MS is really sending out. With Glasswire if I see a program sending info out and it is something I do not want to have access to the internet i firewall it and done. We can say windows is doing this or that but we need proof of what is being sent out. Using Glasswire i see alot of traffic from nvidia and that has to be blocked. And the interesting thing about Glasswire is that it reports itself when it goes onto the net. If you are going to use Windows then I think you have to know what your net traffic is. And if anyone knows of other programs that track net traffic hearing about them would be great. And if anyone knows of a good walk through on how to set up pfsense to white list that would be great. Have a day
people that use it wish linux would listen and build a version that looks and acts like windows xp with no need for terminal commands. The fact is linux likes to be just the way it is and thats ok.
I think you're misunderstanding the way Linux works. People do what they want with it. If you want something that "Just Works" tm and looks like Win XP, build it yourself. It's really not that hard. That said, I'm sure there's a winXP theme for cinnamon, which is probably the closest thing to windows xp as far as design goes.
If you don't want to use the terminal, Ubuntu and Mint do a good job not requiring you to use it and if you do, most of the commands are just copy+paste.
I picked up Linux when I was 12. Back then you needed to manually configure your display server configuration file. It's childs play today.
With Glasswire if I see a program sending info out and it is something I do not want to have access to the internet i firewall it and done. We can say windows is doing this or that but we need proof of what is being sent out.
I'm going to do a wireshark project this weekend. I'll spin up windows 10 on my 8320 box and physically connect that to my main development rig and have a look at what happens. I'd love to work on a project with other people here and try to hammer down exactly what's being sent away.
And if anyone knows of other programs that track net traffic hearing about them would be great.
Definitely have a look at wireshark. It's basically a packet capturing device which allows you to inspect packets.
I have mint on a small pc and when I have time i go and work on it. Mostly I us it to do things that require security like if I need to see banking info government sites. In Canada government forms are online and filing is online as well. For me I would be happy with linux if I could have 90% of the games on linux i would move. And they had easy installs. When zen is released I am going to build a new pc for gameing with windows and that pc will be just that. Then for web browsing I will be using linux just so I will have more time with it. If you just wanted office and web browing then linux is already there. There has been one thing I have been wondering about on steam store can i download my library that i purchased for windows and get the linux version Have a day
I can definitely empathize with you here. It frustrates me about this whole situation, but I think we're moving quickly towards more cross platform compatibility with Vulkan.
On Steam in Linux, you download it and the Linux version is available to download just as easy as it is in windows. The process is exactly the same and it's pretty much seamless. (some exceptions apply for non-debian-based distros)
Yeah, windows 10 was a deal breaker since it arrived, you don't own the OS (by not going full paranoid mode) they practically own it, they can do what ever they want with it too, like logan said, if it's free, your the product.
I cannot stress this enough, if you cannot realize that your privacy and security is being invaded and you willingly comply...what right do you have to keep them?
Sure, I do use windows (windows 8.1, although I still check every update and GPO's), but as a glorified steambox, I use linux for everything else. This is mostly directed to @BGL it's about principle, not everybody works for a company that will be willing to give up such rights, but hey, you work for them right? I wish you luck.
...yeah, not with a 100ft pole, I agree completely.
Does the company you work for understand these principles? I doubt it but feel lucky if they do. Just bear in mind most companies were not interested in 'free' software. Only when it was described as 'open source' and tangible business benefits laid out demonstrating clear financial and technical benefits did they start adopting.
If anyone who works in IT believes their employer should avoid Microsoft then that is what they need to do. If you go to your manager crying about a lack of respect for personal freedoms, good luck furthering an agenda to get rid of Windows. For all you know your boss might like the convenient features Cortana and similar tools provide. They might even be happy to let Microsoft have their personal data to make it run better.
Putting perceived threats to privacy aside what is it your work-place needs from an OS?
If I were an admin of a small company and wanted to start the process of replacing Microsoft I would be talking about;
1. We don't get value for money from the licences fees we pay to Microsoft. If we have a support call we can only speak to a low-level tech off-shore who knows less than we do. 2. Microsoft's recent change to Windows updates has cost the company $xx,000 in wasted man hours and lost productivity and business. Last week X people could not work whilst we rolled back the Windows 10 upgrade that broke their applications. 3. Microsoft licencing is complex, technically we are not licence compliant because we only own 2 MS Office Enterprise Edition licences, but half of marketing have that version installed and Gerry in finance seems to be using his personal Office 365 subscription - which is not for business use! 4. We are struggling to centrally manage our growing desktop and server estate, Microsoft have quoted us x thousand $ for system center to manage it - but offer no discount as we are too small to get an EA or SCE type agreement. 5. Nearly all Microsoft software is proprietary and we have no access to the source code - all updates and bug-fixes have to come from Microsoft, we are not free to hire someone else to tailor the software to our needs. 6. Microsoft's own quality control has dropped off a cliff recently - that outage we had earlier in the year was caused by Microsoft's lack of testing on the latest SQL Server 2014 Service Pack. Fixing our own test server tied up two engineers for 2 days and delayed projects X & Y. 7. The latest versions of Windows adds features which are supposed to make end-users lives easier. Data is collected and sent to MS owned servers for analysis. This is a potential risk as we have no control of how that data is stored or used in future. Despite investigation we are also unable to see precisely what Microsoft collecting due to proprietary formats and encryption but strongly suspect key-logging is used. We can mitigate against this but will need time to evaluate how to do this effectively and will need to re-check from time-to-time as new updates and services are released. - Why should we need to be doing this for a product we pay for? 8. I would like permission to evaluate mainstream Linux software; I believe these will support all the applications we need and that we can obtain an affordable support contract from a reputable local consultancy for less than we need to spend truing up on Microsoft licences. Linux is now used effectively on workstations and servers by many large companies and government agencies.
And yes, in answer to your question I do work for a company that doesn't care much about personal freedoms on work time. They do care greatly about the companies own data, who gets access to it, and what gets spent on licences/support contracts.
I am IT, and in the field since the early 90s. I, we, our organisation ,our customers......NO windows 10. It is not a plus, it is a big hassle each time someone starts.........as time passes, I understand less and less what they are trying to do. Control us , that I already know. But what, are they going to be in our soup???????
The user interface and the performance is nice. The multiple desktops, the window resize and moving stuff make life easier. Also love the win+x menu that brings up nearly all the stuff you need.
The spying stuff is not nice but if you ever used google services/products or a smartphone then all your info is collected anyway. Not to mention goverment records are unsafe for nearly all the countries in the world. It is pretty naive to think you can be safe from the Big Brother.
I agree with Barnacules, Once you get rid of all of the spyware, block the hosts with a firewall on the router, uninstall all of the CE apps, it's not that bad. I like it,
That is only good for a limited time. Microsoft has shown its true colors and that is measuring and monitoring you. There being very aggressive about it too.
If you care about your privacy it will be a constant battle for as long as you use windows. Microsoft will push silent spyware with patches that fix real problems and 3rd parties will study them to find the spyware and disable it.
It is not a matter of install do x,y,z and now Windows 10 is fine. Microsoft are out to make money off you and they will.
People need to get into the mindset that windows 8.1 and before where about selling you an OS for X amount in $$$ and then supporting it for the life of the product.
Now Microsoft want to monitor what you do and look at on the net and make money from you. To do that there pushing people into 10 as fast as possible.
Its something you need to get your head around and not just think it is the next version of Windows. The whole point of Windows 10 is data mining people.
Here's a cool fact. You're spied upon in all versions of Windows past XP. I'm sure more ways get pushed all of the time (unless you're on enterprise edition) You just do your best to catch them. I found a laundry list of hosts that I found on pastebin that I threw onto my DDWRT as a hosts file.