# Windows 10 Upgrade



## Ziwosa

Killionaire said:


> Windows 10 is the most insanely privacy invading OS ever. You have zero privacy on it. They look at your files. They record everything you type. In the user agreement Microsoft says they will call law enforcement on your ass if they think you're doing something wrong. I hate Microsoft for a lot of reasons.
> 
> Today I have a brand new hard drive on my desk and a copy of Linux burned to a DVD. I'm probably going to install them today. Windows 7 is the last Microsoft product that I still use. After today, I'm never using another Microsoft product ever again. I've been planning on switching to Linux to get away from Windows, but the news about Windows 10 privacy invasions finally made me stop putting it off. Supposedly you can "turn off" some of the privacy invading features, but I absolutely don't believe that Microsoft will stop invading your privacy just because you changed some settings. That's a joke. They are evil and can't be trusted.
> 
> Windows 10 is an abomination.


Wait so, then how is Windows 7 any better than Windows 10 according to you? ...
If you don't believe them anyway, why wouldn't they just lie about Windows 7 also recording all your keystrokes and reading your files.


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## Witch of Oreo

Tinfoil fedoras 99% off sale!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3f38ed/guide_how_to_disable_data_logging_in_w10
Though I don't understand how anyone using, say, Android smartphone can complain about Windows privacy policy. It doesn't seem to be any more intrusive than Droid (or even previous Windows versions) and gives at least _some _out of the box control over what to share.


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## Killbain

It is absolute rubbish.

Only two options for screen resolution. My screen went portrait and the tracker pad would only work in straight lines

My security immediately bacame inoperative and sent a notification it was 'out of date' - it has 2 years to run.

The file manager hides most of the directories.

Vista was better than this and that was absolute rubbish too.

Luckily I did locate the restore function and went back to Windows 7.

No wonder Microsoft is losing market share


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## Killionaire

...


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## Killionaire

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## Donkey D Kong

I think the worst part about it is that you can't make hardware changes without needing to buy a new activation code; especially considering I'm a person that upgrades hardware often.


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## Killionaire

Donkey D Kong said:


> I think the worst part about it is that you can't make hardware changes without needing to buy a new activation code; especially considering I'm a person that upgrades hardware often.


OMG. Yes I read an article that predicted that Microsoft would forever charge you for lots of little things in order to make you pay for Win 10 forever instead of the "pay once, use forever" model. Wow. Windows 10 is like Xbox One: so many draconian anti-consumer and anti-privacy policies.


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## Chesire Tower

I finally switched to Firefox rather than the edge with their involuntary opening and closing tabs. >_<


I want to go back to Windows 7. :crying:


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## ViceCityGentleman

I not will update to Win10. 

Its horrible a spy-mode in this O.S.

Also the anti-piracy mod. I dont want to spend $200 in games from 1999, 2000 an 2003.


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## ae1905

help with privacy...


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## White River

As someone who only uses Win for games, I'll keep using 7 until new games stop supporting it. the evidence so far is that 7 actually runs games slightly better than 10. I imagine this is until Direct X 12 becomes more of a standard.

Ideally, in future, there will be more Linux support for games (Steam OS etc). Would save a lot of hassle, I'd rather not use Windows for anything.


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## Old Intern

What will I miss out on if I keep 7? Other than the visual menu layout (ugh) and I guess they have a voice assistant?, what is the plus to go from 7 to 10? What can I do or access that 7 won't give me?


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## Donkey D Kong

White River said:


> As someone who only uses Win for games, I'll keep using 7 until new games stop supporting it. the evidence so far is that 7 actually runs games slightly better than 10. I imagine this is until Direct X 12 becomes more of a standard.
> 
> Ideally, in future, there will be more Linux support for games (Steam OS etc). Would save a lot of hassle, I'd rather not use Windows for anything.


My goal is to use Windows 8.1 until support runs out and then upgrade to Linux. If most of my games aren't supported naturally or via Wine, then I'll build another computer for personal use and keep this one for gaming and only use it for Steam/GOG.


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## LibertyPrime

Be careful when you upgrade as windows has several default things which track your every move and upload information about you to Microsoft so they can target you with adds and other stuff.

I recommend a fresh install without any internet connection, disabling all tracking. Find out how here: Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do – here’s how to opt out | BGR

Once you have all settings in place, firewalls up, antivirus on and you shut down most of the spy features. Its safe to log on and use windows 10.

I use a barebones windows 10 install to run my photo editing software. Currently waiting for SteamOS release & running Korora Linux as the main OS for personal use: https://kororaproject.org/

*Eventually I'm hoping to migrate completely to Linux or BSD as these spy features on windows are UNACCEPTABLE.*

I'm not using the Microsoft account, all spying features have been turned off, I disabled calendar, Cortana is disabled, One drive is turned off, I'm not even gonna load the store and i replaced most if not all apps with stuff I use on linux anyway.

Sadly no linux software is even near the capabilities and ease of use of Linghtroom at this point and adobe doesn't seem to be thinking about making Lightroom for linux..

I hated windows 7 mostly because I had to go through unpacking all my cores and hot fixing the damn thing every time I reinstalled, at least win 10 isn't a problem when it comes to this...but disabling the spying has become an even bigger hassle :/..so idk. GIVE ME LINUX LIGHTROOM PLZ!

:/ linux games are no longer a problem, I mean just look at SteamOS:


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## ae1905

Old Intern said:


> What will I miss out on if I keep 7? Other than the visual menu layout (ugh) and I guess they have a voice assistant?, what is the plus to go from 7 to 10? What can I do or access that 7 won't give me?


being new, windows 10 will be supported farther into the future...the big diff feature-wise appears to be cortana, the voice assistant, and the ability of w10 to adapt to mobile/tablet formats...if you are using a desktop or laptop w/o touchscreen, the last won't matter


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## ae1905




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## ae1905

I upgraded an old machine this morning from w7 to w10 and it went off w/o a hitch...I did the custom intall and disabled the MS tracking features and run it with the same username--ie, run it w/o a MS accnt that can be tracked...the os runs like w7, only it has virtual desktops, which I've always liked in linux, and a hybrid start button that lets me put news and weather apps where I can easily peek at and quickly access them...so better than w7 if you disable all the intrusive MS stuff

since w10 is free, the question, imo, is why not upgrade?...unless you have a good reason to stick with w7/w8 I don't see why you wouldn't?


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## Death Persuades

yentipeee said:


> Windows 10 is spyware. I run it in a VM just out of curiosity.
> 
> Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made
> 
> Windows 10 Isn’t Spyware but It Wants Your Data - Personal Tech News - WSJ
> 
> Microsoft's Windows 10 has permission to spy on you


It's not spyware if they explicitly said in the terms they would capture information. if you didn't read, that's not their fault.


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## ViceCityGentleman

Yes, the terms. But i dont think that these ones are ethicals.
Microsoft is literally spying their users.


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## The_Truth

Mr. Demiurge said:


> I can't imagine many others care about it, but they've brought back the ability to write Chinese characters rather than type them in. That was a feature way back in Windows Vista, but they required you to upgrade to the 'professional' version to use it in Windows 7 and 8. It always annoyed me that an 'upgrade' involved taking away features and making you pay extra for them.
> 
> But now it's back, without charge! Huzzah!


Now I'm really excited to use Windows 10 when I get a new lap top. :kitteh:


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## Shaolu

White River said:


> As someone who only uses Win for games, I'll keep using 7 until new games stop supporting it. the evidence so far is that 7 actually runs games slightly better than 10. I imagine this is until Direct X 12 becomes more of a standard.
> 
> Ideally, in future, there will be more Linux support for games (Steam OS etc). Would save a lot of hassle, I'd rather not use Windows for anything.


That's definitely becoming more and more of a reality. 8 of the top 10 played games on Steam right now are natively supported for GNU/Linux. The total catalogue is approaching 1400 (currently 1395), getting closer to the amount supported for Mac OS X (2173). There's 6138 games in total on Steam right now with 6136 available for MS Windows (at least 1 of those 6138 not supported is a SteamOS exclusive).

For a platform that constitutes less than 1% of the userbase for Steam, having 23% of the game's total library available speaks to Valve's commitment to SteamOS as they encourage more and more devs to jump onboard in porting their games to GNU/Linux. Less than a year ago, the total amount of games available on GNU/Linux was half the amount it is today, and the total number (and percentage) has been steadily on the rise.

With native games available like Portal 2, The Talos Principle, and Bioshock: Infinite, the days of using WINE for everything (which itself has improved dramatically) or dual-booting are over. I blew out my old XP partition months back to make more room for my Steam library. I hadn't been booting into it for anything for months prior to that. I still have XP inside of a VM for a few things related to my work, but for gaming and everything else I use Linux Mint exclusively.


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## White River

Shaolu said:


> That's definitely becoming more and more of a reality. 8 of the top 10 played games on Steam right now are natively supported for GNU/Linux. The total catalogue is approaching 1400 (currently 1395), getting closer to the amount supported for Mac OS X (2173). There's 6138 games in total on Steam right now with 6136 available for MS Windows (at least 1 of those 6138 not supported is a SteamOS exclusive).
> 
> For a platform that constitutes less than 1% of the userbase for Steam, having 23% of the game's total library available speaks to Valve's commitment to SteamOS as they encourage more and more devs to jump onboard in porting their games to GNU/Linux. Less than a year ago, the total amount of games available on GNU/Linux was half the amount it is today, and the total number (and percentage) has been steadily on the rise.
> 
> With native games available like Portal 2, The Talos Principle, and Bioshock: Infinite, the days of using WINE for everything (which itself has improved dramatically) or dual-booting are over. I blew out my old XP partition months back to make more room for my Steam library. I hadn't been booting into it for anything for months prior to that. I still have XP inside of a VM for a few things related to my work, but for gaming and everything else I use Linux Mint exclusively.


Definitely - I use OSX primarily, but I support the rise of Linux as a free and open gaming platform. Because I don't console game any more though, my main concern is the AAA titles that rely on Direct X (things like Witcher 3 for example) which probably won't work under Wine I'd imagine. I hope that something makes it beneficial or easier for them to develop for multiple OSes in future (I don't know much about the technical aspects of development).


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## Shaolu

White River said:


> Definitely - I use OSX primarily, but I support the rise of Linux as a free and open gaming platform. Because I don't console game any more though, my main concern is the AAA titles that rely on Direct X (things like Witcher 3 for example) which probably won't work under Wine I'd imagine. I hope that something makes it beneficial or easier for them to develop for multiple OSes in future (I don't know much about the technical aspects of development).


Actually part of what WINE does is indeed translate Direct3D calls to OpenGL. I've been able to run The Sims 3, for instance, perfectly fine through PlayOnLinux. It's kind of a hit-or-miss proposition, however, and part of what PlayOnLinux does is configure WINE on a case-by-case basis for individual games to facilitate an environment that works best for running that particular game. A lot of the reason WINE works as well as it does is because of the commercial work of CodeWeavers.

That being said, native ports are always going to be technically superior to translation layers, wrappers, emulators, etc. Writing a game against OpenGL rather than Direct3D and OpenAL rather than DirectX Audio is a good start in setting a foundation for making your game cross-platform. Often times what APIs you use in your code can make a bigger difference than even what programming language you choose. Having to accommodate a different set of APIs means you effectively have to rewrite a lot of your code. If you rely on cross-platform APIs, however, then porting simply consists of rewriting any code the relies on core OS APIs (reading/writing files, process/thread control, etc.) and on the whole for a big 3D game that's going to be far less of a concern than the APIs you use for rendering graphics and sound.

Ryan "Icculus" Gordon (a god amongst men in the Linux gaming* community) gave a pretty cool presentation on a lot of this stuff here:





*(He also has been involved with porting games to OS X)


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## Death Persuades

White River said:


> Definitely - I use OSX primarily, but I support the rise of Linux as a free and open gaming platform. Because I don't console game any more though, my main concern is the AAA titles that rely on Direct X (things like Witcher 3 for example) which probably won't work under Wine I'd imagine. I hope that something makes it beneficial or easier for them to develop for multiple OSes in future (I don't know much about the technical aspects of development).


I may be very wrong about this, but I think DX12 games will be way easier to play in Linux because DX12, from what I've understood, uses a much more basic programming language that doesn't require as many "translations" so the OS can use it. Also, I have successfully played The Witcher: Enhanced edition and The Witcher 2 Something about Kings: Enhanced edition on Ubuntu 14.04.3... 


Well.... by successfully, I mean I was able to beat it... Geralt walked super fast for some reason, though XD


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## White River

Death Precedes said:


> I may be very wrong about this, but I think DX12 games will be way easier to play in Linux because DX12, from what I've understood, uses a much more basic programming language that doesn't require as many "translations" so the OS can use it.


Would be nice if this were true, but it's also no secret that MS like to do as much stuff as possible to lock people into their stuff so I wouldn't be so sure. I think the success of Steam machines and Steam OS is going to play a large part in whether the industry sees it as commercially viable to pay attention to Linux.


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## Death Persuades

White River said:


> Would be nice if this were true, but it's also no secret that MS like to do as much stuff as possible to lock people into their stuff so I wouldn't be so sure. I think the success of Steam machines and Steam OS is going to play a large part in whether the industry sees it as commercially viable to pay attention to Linux.


Valve already fucked up the whole steam machine idea. LOL I have an alienware alpha, but with windows 10 xD


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## yentipeee

PowerShell said:


> Did you run a packet capture and see what kind of traffic it was trying to push out as you used non-internet related things?


Hell no, but there are plenty of geeks doing it:
A Traffic Analysis of Windows 10 - [email protected]:~#


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## marblecloud95

Shaolu said:


> Actually part of what WINE does is indeed translate Direct3D calls to OpenGL. I've been able to run The Sims 3, for instance, perfectly fine through PlayOnLinux. It's kind of a hit-or-miss proposition, however, and part of what PlayOnLinux does is configure WINE on a case-by-case basis for individual games to facilitate an environment that works best for running that particular game. A lot of the reason WINE works as well as it does is because of the commercial work of CodeWeavers.
> 
> That being said, native ports are always going to be technically superior to translation layers, wrappers, emulators, etc. Writing a game against OpenGL rather than Direct3D and OpenAL rather than DirectX Audio is a good start in setting a foundation for making your game cross-platform. Often times what APIs you use in your code can make a bigger difference than even what programming language you choose. Having to accommodate a different set of APIs means you effectively have to rewrite a lot of your code. If you rely on cross-platform APIs, however, then porting simply consists of rewriting any code the relies on core OS APIs (reading/writing files, process/thread control, etc.) and on the whole for a big 3D game that's going to be far less of a concern than the APIs you use for rendering graphics and sound.
> 
> Ryan "Icculus" Gordon (a god amongst men in the Linux gaming* community) gave a pretty cool presentation on a lot of this stuff here:
> 
> 
> *(He also has been involved with porting games to OS X)


He certainly gorges himself like a god.


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## PowerShell

yentipeee said:


> Hell no, but there are plenty of geeks doing it:
> A Traffic Analysis of Windows 10 - [email protected]:~#


This doesn't surprise me especially with the terminal part since there is a huge push to cloud services. I'm actually looking to learn Android well and see if I can replace it for my desktop OS. Eventually I just want my phone to also be my primary computer if I can get to that point. I know Android has some privacy stuff but I'm planning on learning the OS inside and out and seeing if I can turn that stuff off.


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## yentipeee

PowerShell said:


> This doesn't surprise me especially with the terminal part since there is a huge push to cloud services. I'm actually looking to learn Android well and see if I can replace it for my desktop OS. Eventually I just want my phone to also be my primary computer if I can get to that point. I know Android has some privacy stuff but I'm planning on learning the OS inside and out and seeing if I can turn that stuff off.


I use Linux Mint on the desktop, but any OS can be turned into spyware. e.g. My Google Nexus 7 tablet is a spy-box, but I blame Google for that not the Android OS.


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## LibertyPrime

Death Precedes said:


> I may be very wrong about this, but I think DX12 games will be way easier to play in Linux because DX12, from what I've understood, uses a much more basic programming language that doesn't require as many "translations" so the OS can use it. Also, I have successfully played The Witcher: Enhanced edition and The Witcher 2 Something about Kings: Enhanced edition on Ubuntu 14.04.3...
> 
> 
> Well.... by successfully, I mean I was able to beat it... Geralt walked super fast for some reason, though XD


Yeah, you know there is *Vulkan*: https://www.khronos.org/vulkan
Valve is working with Khronos (the ppl who make OpenGL) on this and it will be used on SteamOS.
^^; and ANDROID games will run on VULKAN as well







Death Precedes said:


> Valve already fucked up the whole steam machine idea. LOL I have an alienware alpha, but with windows 10 xD


 that is kind of a waste. Why buy a steam machine, when you can build one cheaper and possibly even dual boot SteamOS and Windows 10 on it? (tho I don;t see the point). >.> tho I never saw the point of buying pre-built hardware from any hardware vendor...so meh. Imo when it comes to real PC gamers these hardware vendors are kind of gimmicky. Why buy, when you can build a monstrously powerful rig cheaper and you learn something in the process?

The way I'm going to do it is to either dual boot SteamOS & Korora or Linux Mint or just run steam directly off of my Main OS on my main rig (^^; my baby lol)....alternate options include hacking away at SteamOS and using it as the main desktop OS as well.

 building a gaming rig is kind of easy tbh:






>.> I assume future savvy gamers will now be able to strip down and manually tune their OS as well for min-maxing on performance when it comes to videogames since Linux can allow them to... (so jelly, wish I was 12 again!)


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## Death Persuades

FreeBeer said:


> Yeah, you know there is *Vulkan*: https://www.khronos.org/vulkan
> Valve is working with Khronos (the ppl who make OpenGL) on this and it will be used on SteamOS.
> ^^; and ANDROID games will run on VULKAN as well
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> that is kind of a waste. Why buy a steam machine, when you can build one cheaper and possibly even dual boot SteamOS and Windows 10 on it? (tho I don;t see the point). >.> tho I never saw the point of buying pre-built hardware from any hardware vendor...so meh. Imo when it comes to real PC gamers these hardware vendors are kind of gimmicky. Why buy, when you can build a monstrously powerful rig cheaper and you learn something in the process?
> 
> The way I'm going to do it is to either dual boot SteamOS & Korora or Linux Mint or just run steam directly off of my Main OS on my main rig (^^; my baby lol)....alternate options include hacking away at SteamOS and using it as the main desktop OS as well.
> 
> building a gaming rig is kind of easy tbh:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >.> I assume future savvy gamers will now be able to strip down and manually tune their OS as well for min-maxing on performance when it comes to videogames since Linux can allow them to... (so jelly, wish I was 12 again!)



Windows 10 because it give me the freedom of a full-fledged OS with compatibility for the games and services I use. Alienware Alpha because it looks so darn cute next to my cable box!

Also I wouldn't consider myself a "real" (hardcore) gamer. But it's nice to have all my movies, music, and games by booting into a single OS, something I have not yet been able to achieve with Ubuntu, and definitely not with SteamOS.


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## Death Persuades

@FreeBeer Also, if you ever see someone that owns an Alienware Alpha, make sure to tell them to get an SSD for the OS/games and an external drive for music and movies XD the shitty 5400rpm drive this comes with was an insult to the gamers they are trying to attract xD


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## LibertyPrime

Death Precedes said:


> Windows 10 because it give me the freedom of a full-fledged OS with compatibility for the games and services I use. Alienware Alpha because it looks so darn cute next to my cable box!
> 
> Also I wouldn't consider myself a "real" (hardcore) gamer. But it's nice to have all my movies, music, and games by booting into a single OS, something I have not yet been able to achieve with Ubuntu, and definitely not with SteamOS.


o.o ah, makes sense then. You already use platform specific services.

I mainly use my rig for photographic production, learning to code and occasional gaming (getting less and less important lately now that I can't seem to have patience for more then 10 minutes of it), however windows has this nasty habit of getting viruses & now with windows 10 its spying as well. Since I don't really use any services & require something that is relatively virus free >.> the best option would be to go Linux or BSD completely.

The only thing keeping Windows on my rig is Lightroom.


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## yentipeee

FreeBeer said:


> Yeah, you know there is *Vulkan*: https://www.khronos.org/vulkan
> Valve is working with Khronos (the ppl who make OpenGL) on this and it will be used on SteamOS.
> ^^; and ANDROID games will run on VULKAN as well
> 
> 
> that is kind of a waste. Why buy a steam machine, when you can build one cheaper and possibly even *dual boot* SteamOS and Windows 10 on it? (tho I don;t see the point). >.> tho I never saw the point of buying pre-built hardware from any hardware vendor...so meh. Imo when it comes to real PC gamers these hardware vendors are kind of gimmicky. Why buy, when you can build a monstrously powerful rig cheaper and you learn something in the process?
> 
> The way I'm going to do it is to either *dual boot* SteamOS & Korora or Linux Mint or just run steam directly off of my Main OS on my main rig (^^; my baby lol)....alternate options include hacking away at SteamOS and using it as the main desktop OS as well.
> 
> building a gaming rig is kind of easy tbh:
> 
> 
> >.> I assume future savvy gamers will now be able to strip down and manually tune their OS as well for min-maxing on performance when it comes to videogames since Linux can allow them to... (so jelly, wish I was 12 again!)



It doesn't have to be one *OR* the other, you can run 2 or more OSes simultaneously. I run Linux Mint and Windows as a Guest OS in a virtual machine for running Windows apps.

The Windows Guest is sandboxed, and if your app doesn't need web access, you can disconnect Windows from the Internet with a couple of clicks. It's the ultimate revenge against Win10.


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## zynthaxx

Windows 10 will be rolled out on most laptops at work, of course, after we've enforced the necessary group policy changes to stop the worst crap choices Microsoft defaults for its users. We are a Microsoft-centric business, and that will not change. I will have a bootcamp/Fusion partition with Windows 10 on my laptop to be able to answer questions about the OS too, but most of my work is done on our servers and appliances anyway, so I don't care much about client operating systems there more than when it comes to keeping them as safe and secure as possible. 

At home, I realized that I actually don't play much which isn't supported on Mac and Linux, and so I decided to make a conscious choice to not play _anything_ which isn't supported on those two platforms after I read about Win10's "features".

As it is, my gaming rig is now converted to Mint 17, and I have yet to see any performance problems compared to Windows 8. Things aren't quite as polished as in Windows, of course (and the leap from either system to the OS X user experience still is large), but since that box is only used for games anyway, I can live with that. My media players and servers have been iOS or Linux based since forever.

TL;DR: My household is now Linux/Unix only, and I'm not letting any home edition of Windows near anything I own anymore.


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## LibertyPrime

yentipeee said:


> It doesn't have to be one *OR* the other, you can run 2 or more OSes simultaneously. I run Linux Mint and Windows as a Guest OS in a virtual machine for running Windows apps.
> 
> The Windows Guest is sandboxed, and if your app doesn't need web access, you can disconnect Windows from the Internet with a couple of clicks. It's the ultimate revenge against Win10.


Its still not the same as having a well setup import-export to storage and upload workflow which saves me time. Its ok if you have photography as a hobby, but not when you are trying to make 50% of your living from it. Not fond of needing to do workarounds which slow my work down.


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## Hollow Man

I just got the SOB, and I like it. It feels a lot like Windows 7....with friendlier Wii-like sounds...superficia


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## InfiniteBliss

This is incredibly worrying, Windows10 is spying on every single image you look at, and transferring that image onto their servers. 

They are recording the images you look at, when you look at them, and saving those images on secretive databases. 

This level of surveillance is unprecedented.


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## GoosePeelings

I got Win10 when I got the notification and with the help of a friend I (hopefully) made it so that it doesn't spy on me by changing the settings. It works fine, I find it as good as 8.1.


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