In alt.alien.vampire.flonk.flonk.flonk Ms Kitty <Ms.K...@meow.mix> wrote:
> I can find a bunch of older laptops with Windows 10, but because of the
> military, my son needs Windows 7. I went to Best Buy and a few other
> places, and they want over $1,000. for a $300 computer, only because it has
> to be Windows 7. WTF, Microsoft.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> I only need it for six months, so I would be happy to rent one, if I could
> find one.
to my dismay, I find there may be good reasons* for the military's preference:
some, only some from the discussion of "Woebat" at market-ticker:
Kroyl
Do you apply the same treatment to Windows 10's Cortana (and telemetry
collection)? .... but it will send your interactions in the Start menu
(every search you do there, while you type), and will upload your
calendar info, apps your use most, etc, which can be a big deal.
Microsoft Edge will automatically sign you in if you use Microsoft
account, and you can see search history across devices (through Bing
Search). And with every update, Microsoft makes it harder to block the
data collection unless you use Win10 Enterprise in a domain.
There is no way to even buy Win10 Ent without signing a contract with
Microsoft (and paying for a minimum of 5 licenses, which must be renewed
yearly) - not an option for majority of home users. They now go out of
their way to bypass Hosts files, Windows Firewall rules, and registry
settings to prevent consumers from blocking *.
vortex.data.microsoft.com
and similar services.
This year's Microsoft Build conference was heavily promoting their Azure
"AI" platform - the current push is adding "AI" capabilities to every
application, and feeding Cortana with data is one of the marketed
"benefits" of that (see Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite -
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-pl....). So, unless you keep using
outdated software, you will really have no way of opting out soon.
Tickerguy [site owner]
Posts: 149208
Incept: 2007-06-26
Oh that's not true..... (blocking it isn't all that hard at all... you do
need a firewall box in the middle though.) You can also shut off nearly
all of the telemetry in the first place (not all, but nearly all) but you
do need to edit the registry to do so.
lost the attribution:
out of date software will not necessarily help you avoid this as it is
very difficult to know what is contained in many of the updates to say
Windows 7. Additionally, the system is a black box. The code is not
subject to audit. The goal has always been for the PC and later tablets
(phones and pads) to be marketing and data collection vehicles. it is
really sad as Windows 10 is a major improvement in terms of memory and
resource management. I am just trying it now on a non-critical PC, very
nice in many regards. waiting to see if the updates change my privacy
settings.
Karl Denninger:
The Public's Supremely Stupid Tolerance in [Market-Ticker]
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=232251