win10, they just don't get it

[Tuxman]

Of course you can disable Cortana. Just open its settings and log off of your Microsoft account.

[nikos]

or make your locale greek, where there's no Cortana to be seen

I've read somewhere in a comment that with win10 Microsoft decided that they'll make more money selling people's habits to the advertisers than selling the windows itself, that's why the free upgrade and that's why the lack of privacy. Makes sense if you think about it. Evil you may say... personally I am sure privacy is an illusion so I don't bother too much about it

[Kilmatead]

Of course you can disable Cortana. Just open its settings...

Of course it can be done, but it's made more difficult (for users in mufti) when they remove the settings option itself. This is the problem with Windows as a Service - the knowledge you had of how to use it last week becomes arbitrarily outdated and irrelevant without consultation, ultimately undermining the confidence of the users themselves over time.

Evil you may say...

Well, the point here is not about privacy, it's about no longer being able to stop Windows from automatically installing some unwanted UWP rubbish. As wacky as it sounds, they really are actively trying to shove the Win32 subsystem asunder. It's only a matter of time before they attack a part of it that you do actually care about.

But, in case you were worried about privacy, worry not for France will keep you safe.

And, if they fail, there's always the Russian approach.

[Caveatrob]

Now, when I actually have the budget to purchase software, I am unable to get a version of Windows 10 that is truly "professional" without unwanted ads and programs. That version would be Enterprise, and you can't buy that retail.

Windows 10 Pro is now borderline non-compliant for confidential programming work I do because it has mandatory updates and some of those are vectors for advertising, and then by virtue of having the ability to do that, are now potentially vulnerable to attack. Fewer features, fewer things to test.

I'm contemplating running my own on-laptop kms server and pulling down an enterprise key. Sucks. I'd rather have a Professional version of Windows. I can't use Win 7 on my Surface.

[nikos]

forget about your win10 PC, your car could be the biggest grass of them all
http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809 ... our-friend

[sanferno]

It might sound a little absurd but, since many weird things happen in our world, it makes me think of this fictional science...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)

Where are we heading to?