Microsoft publishes video to show off built-in Windows 10 apps

[TheAnimus]

LETS NOT FORGET MICROSOFT IS SPYWARE AND THEY PASS YOUR PRIVATE DATA ON TO THE STATE IF ASKED
I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE BUT I WANT TO BE IN CONTROL NOT MICROSOFT, GOOGLE, APPLE AND ALL THE OTHER CROOKED COMPANIES THAT SELL YOUR DATA.

When making tinfoil hats, is waitrose essentials OK, or do I need to buy the more expensive brands?

Any company, any one, will have to comply with the laws of the lands they operate in. Get over it.

MS are not in the same business, for now, that google is of marketing you. A lot of the privacy rants where about features unique to the tech preview versions. As MS have a lot of corporate customers, like me, who have to get legal to look at this boring stuff and ensure we aren't breaking any of our obligations to our clients by using it, I can safely say, it's not that bad for the 'pro' versions. Be weary of free versions mind, no such thing as a free lunch!

[GuidoLS]

Well, I don't know about that.

This might be the clearest hint yet of what MS meant by "changing how we monetise" Windows. for example, the article references to paid subscriptions for "ad-free streaming".

Personally, the issue of whether I "upgrade" (though I remain unconvinced it actually is an upgrade because it looks more like a large sidegrade) at all is still in the balance but my desire, or lack thereof, for an MS Account isn't in the balance at all. I do NOT want to give them ANY personal information at all, nor any sort of mandate to use it. So the chances of me buying either apps in their store or any of their enhanced services is precisely zip.

All I really want from a PC is what I've wanted from it for the last 15 or 20 years, which is running MY choice of software, and what I want from an OS is the same. For me, upgrading to Win10 is increasingly looking like buying a plane ticket to Jamaica only to board, and be told the airline thinks Uzbekistan looks nice, so they're going there, instead. Well, nice or not I neither know nor care, I just want to go to Jamaica.

To be fair, I have been pointing out that many of the apps are freemium, and that none of them are required. It's not like they're sneaking this in at the last minute. And they've been doing the account thing since Windows 8, so again, not like they're sneaking anything in. That, and it's been shown that you do not need to create an account - they'd just prefer if you did, and they don't make it really obvious on how to do so (although they make no attempt to hide it, either.)

[GuidoLS]

^^This! Entirely! Like Google, they want your data. I won't oblige them.

Google. Apple. Amazon. Canonical. Every other company in the world that deals with the public humanity. Even Samsung and Vizio TV's spy on you. Or any other smart device. People drool over the IOT... won't be long before they know how many sheets of TP you use... down to the mm...

Free clue - for the most part, they have your data from the first time you draw breath and they never stop collecting it. Here in the US, they even make it freely available after 70 years. Most folks are just too fixated on MS to realize that they're the least of your privacy worries. Or any other kind of worry.

[Saracen]

To be fair, I have been pointing out that many of the apps are freemium, and that none of them are required. It's not like they're sneaking this in at the last minute. And they've been doing the account thing since Windows 8, so again, not like they're sneaking anything in. That, and it's been shown that you do not need to create an account - they'd just prefer if you did, and they don't make it really obvious on how to do so (although they make no attempt to hide it, either.)

Some are, but as the article suggests, some aren't at least if you want the ad-free version.

They've also been pushing the MS account thing since earlier than Win8, and it's gradually been getting less and less easy to avoid, at least for the unwary. This is part of the whole 'direction of travel' thing. Maybe it will always be optional. Maybe it won't. Once they have everybody (that they're going to get) on the new 'last version' platform, who's to say that 'hard to find' won't mutate into 'simply not there'. Perhaps one of those slipstream upgrades requires new installs to have one, then re-installs, then .... everyone.

It's a bit like landing a big fish on a weak line. You bait the hook, strike, but then reel in gently, and let you victim run when he bolts. Then reel in gently again, and let him run, bit at a time, wearing him down until he's too exhausted to fight. Then you land him. And have him for dinner.

Is the hook in your mouth yet? Feeling tired?

[GuidoLS]

Is the hook in your mouth yet? Feeling tired?

Let's be real here - the hook has been in all of our mouths ever since the good old days of DOS, when Peter Norton products were worth owning, and we were fighting to configure QEMM, and for case color, you had the choice between beige and beige. I was a firm believer in the power of spray paint back then. Or for the even older folks - those of us that were hooked the first time we saw a 6502 based machine - Atari for some of us, Commodore for others, Sinclair's for the true masochists. And, much like today, the Apple, for those that had more money than sense.

This phenomenon is truly nothing new. Just the tech it's riding on. And I'm still a fan of spray paint. And, for now (note the for now), it's still far less invasive than the walled garden that is Apple.

The only ones that aren't hooked are those still using the old b/w ledger books, colored pencils, and ruled school paper. I know a few of them - and sometimes, I wonder who's the one that's losing out.

[Corky34]

Any company, any one, will have to comply with the laws of the lands they operate in. Get over it.

Isn't that even more reason not to trust any company with your personal information?
Not that silly things like a legal system ever prevented the snoops from snooping.

[Saracen]

Let's be real here - the hook has been in all of our mouths ever since the good old days of DOS, when Peter Norton products were worth owning, and we were fighting to configure QEMM, and for case color, you had the choice between beige and beige. I was a firm believer in the power of spray paint back then. Or for the even older folks - those of us that were hooked the first time we saw a 6502 based machine - Atari for some of us, Commodore for others, Sinclair's for the true masochists. And, much like today, the Apple, for those that had more money than sense.

This phenomenon is truly nothing new. Just the tech it's riding on. And I'm still a fan of spray paint. And, for now (note the for now), it's still far less invasive than the walled garden that is Apple.

The only ones that aren't hooked are those still using the old b/w ledger books, colored pencils, and ruled school paper. I know a few of them - and sometimes, I wonder who's the one that's losing out.

Peter Norton's Utils .... check. QEMM .... check. Also, mucking about with manually changing the order of loading drivers in config.sys, pre-QEMM.

6502 ... check. Apple II .... ummm, check. Still got it, too. And a Z80 board for XP/M. And 16k and 128k memory boards taking memory up to a wbopping 192k. And two disk drives, and a 5-high-density auto-changer ..... check. More money than sense .... in those days (late 70s) it was pretty much the only game in town, short of considedably more expensive Sirius machines a bit later. Oh, and TRS80 .... check, though only the MkII. Remember 8" floppies?

And before that, optical mark cards .... check. Punch cards .... check. 7-hole ASCII papertape .... check. Acoustic couplers .... check. And later, on PCs, Dowty Quattro modems, then UScRobotics Couriers .... check.

But am I hooked on Windows? Well, no, because I'm looking at Win10 very sceptically, with a number of aspects I'm sufficuently unhappy eith or wary of to have gone to the trouble of investigating Linux, checking out several distro's, and applications, to determine whether I can survive in a Linux world, and with the exception of a few specific Win-only applications, which can be handled by Win7 and even XP legacy systems, I can. Comfortably

Am I going Win10? Certainly not yet. Very probably not at all. Maybe MS yanked too hard on the line, and I broke it.



PS. Spray paint? Nah, even a beige case was merely a box to hold the interesting bits. And as for case windows, yuck.

[Firejack]

I just noticed they have put the fully-fledged windows backup solution back in to Windows 10. It's still annoyingly hidden but has scheduling and backup location tidy etc.

Considerably more excited about that than anything in the vid

Me too. Flung my arms in the air when this re-appeared in the Technical Preview build at the beginning of this month. Not having a proper backup tool was the main reason I stayed on Windows 8.0 and never went to 8.1.

[crossy]

Any company, any one, will have to comply with the laws of the lands they operate in. Get over it.

+1 on this, and what would worry me more is all those "grey" companies who collect and collate information on you from other sources and then sell it on. As it said in The Shockware Rider: welcome to the new paranoia

PS. Spray paint? Nah, even a beige case was merely a box to hold the interesting bits. And as for case windows, yuck.

I've got a case window in my gaming desktop - it's quite useful to be able to see the activity lights on the DIMM's (Ballistix Tracer's) and also the various status LED's on the motherboard.

Me too. Flung my arms in the air when this re-appeared in the Technical Preview build at the beginning of this month. Not having a proper backup tool was the main reason I stayed on Windows 8.0 and never went to 8.1.

Why not just buy a copy of Acronis (or similar)? From what I've seen it's better than the usual built-in ones anyway.

[Saracen]

....

I've got a case window in my gaming desktop - it's quite useful to be able to see the activity lights on the DIMM's (Ballistix Tracer's) and also the various status LED's on the motherboard.

....

Well, first, beauty is in the eye of, etc.

Secondly, my current 'main' machine has sides held on by two thumbscrews. On those rare occasions when I need to see mobo LED's, I takes me about 20 seconds to remove the case side .... after taking about 30 seconds to get my creaking knees to allow me to get down there, so I could see the LED's even with a window. As it happens, that case has a window, but only because I couldn't find suitable case that didn't. If I could get a solid side for it, I'd MUCH rather have that, as long as it didn't cost a fortune.

Third, beauty is still in the eye of, etc. If you prefer windowed case sides, .... okay. I think they're truly horrid, though. In fact, if I can track down a suitable paint for the plastic 'glass', THAT might just induce me to get the spraycan out.

[tomthum]

Post deleted by admin. AGAIN.

tomthum, If you want to copy someone else's words, perhaps because you agree, QUOTE THEM.

If you take entire sections of my posts again, or anybody else's and I notice it or get complaints, and just post them as your own, I will suspend your account.

That is, at best, very poor internet etiquette. This time, I'll put it down to not knowing any better, but it won't work a second time.

Saracen

[crossy]

Well, first, beauty is in the eye of, etc.

Secondly, my current 'main' machine has sides held on by two thumbscrews. On those rare occasions when I need to see mobo LED's, I takes me about 20 seconds to remove the case side .... after taking about 30 seconds to get my creaking knees to allow me to get down there, so I could see the LED's even with a window. As it happens, that case has a window, but only because I couldn't find suitable case that didn't. If I could get a solid side for it, I'd MUCH rather have that, as long as it didn't cost a fortune.

Like you I was kind of forced to have a windowed PC - personally I haven't found one yet that I've liked. But if you've got a limited budget then you get what's on "special". If I can be bothered over the winter I'm going to slap some of those stained glass transfers on it - then at least it'll be decorative.

Didn't explain myself properly original - the being-able-to-see-the-pretty-flashing-lights is not a justification for a windowed case (I'm too untidy a builder), more an incidental benefit. Again like you I'd prefer a solid side.

PS I remember having to power-cycle an old DEC punched card reader, and having to (carefully!) put away a deck of engineering data on cards.

All I really want from a PC is what I've wanted from it for the last 15 or 20 years, which is running MY choice of software, and what I want from an OS is the same. For me, upgrading to Win10 is increasingly looking like buying a plane ticket to Jamaica only to board, and be told the airline thinks Uzbekistan looks nice, so they're going there, instead. Well, nice or not I neither know nor care, I just want to go to Jamaica.

Is it just me or is there an echo in here? (see post #5)

Actually it's interesting to see that most of the comments on here are about privacy concerns rather than the benefit (or otherwise) of these new apps.

[Saracen]

...

Is it just me or is there an echo in here? (see post #5)

,...

Yes, there is/was. Again.

That section was just copied yesterday, and posted as his own. I put it down to mistake, forgetting the quotes. Then exactly the same copied post appeared again, so clearly it wasn't accidental.

[Saracen]

Like you I was kind of forced to have a windowed PC - personally I haven't found one yet that I've liked. But if you've got a limited budget then you get what's on "special". If I can be bothered over the winter I'm going to slap some of those stained glass transfers on it - then at least it'll be decorative.

Didn't explain myself properly original - the being-able-to-see-the-pretty-flashing-lights is not a justification for a windowed case (I'm too untidy a builder), more an incidental benefit. Again like you I'd prefer a solid side.

PS I remember having to power-cycle an old DEC punched card reader, and having to (carefully!) put away a deck of engineering data on cards.

...

I hear you, bro', especially about 'specials'. My windowed case, an Antec 1200, was a 'special' in that it was given to me. At £0, even I'm not ungracious enough to moan, and I am sincerely appreciative of it. And it's big enough to to hold all the gubbins I wanted in it. In fact, as it's not far off the size of a small barn, I'm surprised not to find illegal immigrants residing in it. Mind you, then maybe I could charge higher rent because it's got a window. And, given all the fans, maybe extra for air-con, too.

This window thing is growing on me.

[shaithis]

Why not just buy a copy of Acronis (or similar)? From what I've seen it's better than the usual built-in ones anyway.

1. Doesn't support Windows 10 yet
2. Costs money
3. Needs custom PE boot disk to restore, even more custom if you want to store your backups on a LAN


Personally I love being able to boot from a Windows DVD or network boot via WDS and then just restore an image if required.

[Saracen]

...

Actually it's interesting to see that most of the comments on here are about privacy concerns rather than the benefit (or otherwise) of these new apps.

Well, for my part, and I grant not everybody is as bothered, or even bothered at all, about privacy, if the privacy implications are bad enough (and they are, from what I can see) then the benefits, or otherwise, are utterly irrelevant. Given the implications of some statements in their privacy agreement and service policy, they haven't just wandered over the line but marched emphatically miles past it.

And yes, you can turn much of the nosiness off, IF you notice what they're doing, and work out what settings to change, and where, to preserve some semblance of privacy. But I'm not prepared to spend ages working out what to disable (like Cortana, for a start) and then risking missing a setting somewhere.

The only good thing I see about all this is that at least they are making some effort, albeit buried in about 40 pages of gobbledygook that only the really sad, like me, wade through, to be a bit open about assuming their right to all details of your life so they can "improve services" .... and, oh yeah, advertise to you. Unless you waste ages tracking down all the options to turn them off and disable about half the new "features".