Windows 10 makes big gains at home, lags at work Our monthly look at desktop operating system market share has turned up something interesting: Windows 10 looks to be a hit at home but a laggard at work. We're basing that assessment on the US government's helpful analytics service, which among other things records the operating systems hitting government web sites. Uncle Sam …
when anyone with half a brain knows they are dubious at best?
There is no one I know with a W10 install that they actally use for anything serious. The telemetary stuff and forced updates messing their graphics adapters has been enough for them to 'Just say no'.
They are either staying with W7 and/or moving to Apple. I know that this is not representative but when the company you work for suddenly allows us to get MacBooks and has no plans to deploy W10 this side of 2018 at the earliest you can't help get a picture that does not bode well for MS.
Odd, nearly every person I know has moved to Windows 10 at home now. They certainly can't afford to move to Apple stuff!
Maybe you live in a bubble that differs from the world at large when it comes to home users.
Work users, you're not wrong. Companies take time to roll stuff out.
I support some home users. They all know if they move from Windows 7 then my support stops.
They also don't feel the need to move to Windows 10. All their systems have the registry entries, hosts file etc etc setup to block Windows 10 from appearing on their systems.
Before you ask, they have all seen Windows 10 and even with a decent start menu in place they don't like it.
These are all people over 60 (as am I). One couple are getting a 27in iMac (5K) in the next couple of weeks. No pressure from me. They went and played with one at an Apple reseller and made up their own mind. This will be their first bit of apple kit.
I am sure that there are lots of people sleep walking into using Windows 10. Those who don't know enough to block it suddenly wake up one morning and find it is installed and working. These same people may not know how to roll it back but as long as they can carry on using it before then they will accept it.
I am like many who post here in that Windows 10 in its current form will never be installed on my PCs.
I'm already running Linux (CentOS + Cinamon) most of the time.
Naturally, in your particular bubble them YMMV probably applies. At least we have a choice.
I support some home users. They all know if they move from Windows 7 then my support stops.
That's kinda cutting off your nose to spite your face isn't it? you are actually throwing a hissy fit so wild that you're turning away money because you don't like that OS, which is directly and by design replacing the only one you support... I run Linux so not a win10 fan by any means, but even I can use cold logic to see that your support work is going to follow a very constant downward trend unless you buck your ideas up
That's kinda cutting off your nose to spite your face isn't it?
I'd have called it self-preservation. My support of home users is on a pro-bono basis. Back when Vista was blighting my life I offered to continue support with the proviso that I would never touch a machine running Vista ever again. Many went Apple, some asked about Linux (and are still using it). I met up with the others when they went Win7.
Who said he is paid support? I support family and friends on Windows 7 and have told them exactly the same. They go to Windows 10 over my cold carcass. (For some the grief I have had trying to support the awful windows 8 which seems easier to infect with viruses because the 'admin is not an admin'. So I can't remove the stupid things) that they won't dare go to 10.
One accidentally did it and then "a friend of theirs. Accidentally updated and how do you get back??"
I saw through the ruse. Rolling back was quite easy but I am not wasting my time helping people out with something that isn't needed and is that invasive for a home user. Free or not.
Who said he is paid support?
well then i wouldn't call it "support" except in a specific "i'm just the free tech support" joking way. It's like calling your dear old mum the end user or something. I mean technically it's true but you've crossed a line into sounding like a tool
But define support?
I am not talking "can you just install this, or is that software any good?" Some of the things include a complete reinstall of windows 8 from disk because the bundled rubbish Toshiba put on it have gone bad. Or can you do a complete rebuild after a virus because for some reason the AV can't touch it and despite 2 x 4 hour stints at tackling it, a full reinstall of everything was needed. So overall 14 - 16 hours of solid effort arguing with drivers (that didn't come bundled) and trying to find a disk (because Windows 8 doesn't ship with one) and trying to then source software they "think" they had on it.
And the latest. "I accidentally installed Windows 10, tried the roll back but did it via the factory reset which has gone to Windows 10 again so roll back doesn't work anymore. What is next?"
Joking aside and having them as family or friends I find that "Support" is the word, just "helping a mate" isn't really factoring it in.
And payment is a "thank son." or "I will buy you a pint."
well then i wouldn't call it "support" except in a specific "i'm just the free tech support" joking way. It's like calling your dear old mum the end user or something. I mean technically it's true but you've crossed a line into sounding like a tool
Valeyard, you're the tool here. Recently I needed a gas leak fixed and the guy who did it is one of the guys I provide "free" computer support. Ditto the guy who lent me his trailer and helped me shift a heap of accumulated crap to the municipal tip. I haven't needed to buy honey for nearly 30 years. The nice lady from the UN gave me her Dell Latitude when she needed to upgrade her hardware a year or so ago and insisted on giving me $50 and a bottle of really decent French wine. And so on...
Retirement sure beats having a day job ;-)
@ Valeyard
.....you've crossed a line into sounding like a tool.....
Ha. Ha.
With one line, you have just validated who the tool is.
If I were you Mr Valeyard I would take a CLOSE note of the number of down votes you have received, and ponder further on your comment.
Fatuous comment, by an equally and obviously fatuous commentard.
Or the icon personified!
I have been doing the same thing for years.
I myself am near a 100% Linux person, I use Windows 7 and XP as Virtualbox VMs just occasionally. However, I've supported friends and family for years fixing laptops and fixing problems, invariably free-of-charge. And when they have come to me for advice for PC upgrades, I have told them that if they go beyond Windows 7, then the support stops.
I have not myself used anything after Windows 7 apart from a half-hour install of Windows 8.1 on a laptop that I absolutely hated and erased just as quickly. It's not my place to learn OSes that I will never use just so I can give other people free support, I warn them of such when they upgrade.
At work I am a Linux guy, at home I am a Linux guy, and some of my friends and family have kept Windows 7, some have gone to Ubuntu or Linux Mint with my continued support, others have decided to go the Windows 8.1 and beyond path. That's entirely their choice to make.
In my 'bubble' of home users most seem to have moved to Android or ios for daily use and their PC's are gathering dust between the rare uses. The students have MacBooks and iPads.
Ain't that the truth,no matter how the PC Master Race moan on. The PC has its place, as a Dev Tool to update my Phablet with the latest version of AOSP, or to learn a bit of C on the side. For crap like this I just use my Phablet. So much greener, and economical then my old 500w C2D nVidia Tower. For me the PC in that sence is as dead as the 90s, and I know I'm not the only one that feels that way.
Odd, nearly every person I know has moved to Windows 10 at home now. They certainly can't afford to move to Apple stuff!
You are correct Apple are overpriced. Which is why I moved my production over to Linux Mint, and my consumption (e.g. browsing this Site amongst others), to my 'Droid Phablet. It might be a bit early to call time on MicroSoft, but their best days are behind them me thinks.
Odd, nearly every person I know has moved to Windows 10 at home now. They certainly can't afford to move to Apple stuff!
Odd, nearly every person I know has been forcibly moved to Windows 10 at home now. They certainly can't afford to move to Apple stuff!
TFTFY
They certainly can't afford to move to Apple stuff!
A curiously inaccurate statement unless you mean that people should purchase the cheapest and crappiest PC they can find. I purchased my Mac Mini just after a new model came out and the shop wanted to shift the last of the old stock. While it's true that it wasn't as fast as a decent PC at the same price point, I never noticed. Browsing the Internet and checking email doesn't exactly stress the hardware. It was also one hell of a lot more stable than WinXP.
Almost everyone I know has regretted upgrading to Windows 10. I think that's going to hinder workplace adoption. Sgy would I want s toy operating system when I have work to do . windows10, aka windows 8.2 is no better than windows 8.1 or 8.0 when it comes to using it for proper work.
@AC
There is no one I know with a W10 install that they actually use for anything serious
I use it across my estate, for tasks such as University projects, to working from home (anything from pseudo real time trading systems to simple reconciliations). I don't use it for games though, so can't comment on that.
I'm not suggesting Win 10 is perfect or concern free, but for me it has been extremely stable and the patching non-intrusive, if relentless. Boot times are very much quicker than Win 7, though the system is more difficult to fine tune than 7 if you want advanced settings.
@Voyna i mor
I never said it was popular, only that *some* people use it for real work.
Given how free it is, and the generally easy install process (mother in law managed it on her own), I have to admit the take up isn't looking good for MS.
I can't imagine any large enterprise making the leap either. The relentless patching may be "free" to me as a home user, but the current pace of releases would be wholly unacceptable where I work.
My Win 7 PC at work gets updated weekly and rebooted whenever IT require it. Its basically stable, can address more than enough memory, so from a company standpoint, there's little or nothing to be gained from the move. The cost in terms of staff time for testing and patching would be prohibitive more than any licence fee that may apply in years to come. Better to sit out the next few years on Win 7 and see how the land lies then.
"See how Windows 7 peaks for five days, then dips? And see how Windows 10 and Windows 8.x surge at the same time Windows 7 dips? Line up the days from the data and you'll quickly see that Windows 7 thrives during the working week and other versions of Windows do better on weekends"
It has always been the case that enterprise adopts a new Windows iteration at a slower pace than the domestic retail market. I would be utterly astonished if that were not the case this time as well - it is not even yet six months since launch.
However, given that the current Enterprise version of Windows 10 enables both blocking of updates and blocking any "slurping" this iteration does not present issues for the business sector in the way that the Home and Pro editions do for private customers. That means of course that if there is no significant uptick within enterprise over the next year or so then MS would have good reason to be worried.
Would have to disagree with being able to block data slurping in Windows 10 Enterprise. Our workplace has trying to lock this down for about a month now and no matter what options are applied if you do a packet trace there is still data being sent back to Microsoft regardless.
MS made a point of announcing about four weeks ago (it was reported here at El Reg) that Windows Enterprise customers would be able to stop all telemetry if they chose to do so (as well as being able to block all up-dates until they had been tested and found by the customer to be acceptable). Has your IT dept got on to Microsoft UK and asked them what the fark is going?
With the upgrade tactics used, of course this was going to be the pattern.
It also makes the stats that much less relevant. It is a bit like counting Apple IOS upgrades. No-one does it because they *want* the new upgrade, they do it to stop the nagging, therefore it isn't an indicator that people like your product.
I am puzzled here.... Like others I support a healthy group of friends and family using a variety of operating systems (not Linux mind as I just haven't the time to become as proficient with it as needed and it would be wrong of me to offer support on that basis). I have not yet seen a single accidental upgrade to Windows 10. I have had several people say to me that they are being asked if they want to upgrade and should they. I have not has a single call saying "All my windows has changed - what's this Windows 10". This includes setups where I have made sure that Windows updates are running well.
So my question is - how many people have actually seen a malicious W10 install that wasn't either asked for or approved? Ok - I don't like the fact that it can download in the background and think that was a terrible idea; but offering to give you something free (even if some people don't like it) is surely not that bad. I think people would be complaining about MS just a much if they carried on their previous licence system and charged.
@Timmy B
One thing to remember when reading comments on the Register is that the Register and its readership is, overall, very anti-Microsoft-anything and extremely pro-Linux. That's a COMMENT, not a criticism. A single fouled-up Windows 10 installation will automatically become a rallying-point to condemn Windows 10 for a million perfectly-fine installations (yes, I am being hyperbolic). I don't like the constant nagging to install Windows 10 or the telemetry either, but as I've said before, the vast majority of Windows 10 users that I know don't seem to be very concerned about it, if at all. I disagree with this attitude but, hey, it's their computer, not mine, and nobody seems to want me to do anything about it.
IN NO WAY am I saying anything negative about Linux (or Apple, for that matter). You use what you want, it really isn't any of my business. I'd appreciate the same consideration.
Your comment was a statement of an observable fact. Furthermore, your post was very carefully objective making it clear that you were not engaging in any kind of tribalist slagging. All the same I see that some saddo downvoted you. Have an upvote to even that up.
Netmarketshare had Windows 10 kicking up from 9.00 per cent in November to 9.96 per cent
If you must continue to trot out these reports then please stop trying presenting the numbers with scientific precision. Given that they are averages this is extremely misleading.
OTOH congratulations for finding another more credible source such as the stats for US government websites, though this is limited in geography.
Nothing wrong with presenting to a certain precision - IF that is what being measured/calculated.
Different if measuring a subset of things, then it would be inappropriate to scale up to the same precision.
If a measurement uncertainty is known (in so far as it is 'known', estimated is technically the right phrase) then that should be given.
As the Register is reporting someone else's numbers, it is inappropriate to berate them for not "correcting" the precision of them. Take the issue up with Netmarketshare.
I use Win 7 & 10 at home on laptops, at work we are mainly Win 7 & 8.1
Tbh I don't see what all the fuss is about with Win10 (privacy aside).
I don't have any issue supporting Win10, but then I have taken some time to get used to it and where things are located etc.
Lets face it, every time a new MS OS comes out we have the same old story of people not wanting to upgrade as they don't like the new OS etc...
Does make me laugh though, seems to be the same people moaning as last time. If you hate MS that much then maybe you should try a Linux distro.
"I don't see what all the fuss is about with Win10 (privacy aside)"
Well if you can temporarily ignore being whored out by your OS, then the invasive pushing of "updates" where they are not needed, but simple serve to let MS whore you more effectively, is a reason to create a fuss.
"If you hate MS that much then maybe you should try a Linux distro."
I grew to hate MS (or at least the corporate actions, some products they do are pretty good) and did, never looked back really. Yes its true that Linux occasionally sucks donkey balls, but I find them smaller and less throat-blocking than recent MS OS when I am no longer really in charge of what the software does (DRM, product activation, etc).
"The fuss" is about the forcing of the upgrade. Before I disabled it, there was an icon that would pop out of my system tray several times a day to tell me to upgrade to Windows 10; if I was fool enough to click on it, it would give me two options: "Upgrade now" or "Upgrade later (by which, it implied, it meant 'next time I restart')". There was no "F*** off and leave me alone" option, or even a "Ask me again in six months" - pressing <Alt>-<F4> was the ONLY way to make the prompt go away without installing Windows 10 - and even then it would keep reappearing.
How did I disable it? By editing the registry. Manually. Myself. No button to click, no options in the Control Panel would have that effect.
Now, I hear the latest version of the upgrade will, if I'm sloppy enough to allow it to be applied, actually rewrite my registry settings. So the thing I've gone (way) out of my way to opt out of, will happen anyway. At this point I'm this > < close to disabling automatic updates entirely, which is the opposite of what Microsoft claims they want their users to do.
I'm pretty hacked off about that. If Windows 10 guaranteed to preserve all the functionality of my present version (8.1), guaranteed NOT to impose any new license terms and conditions on my usage, NOT to weaken my privacy, and to guarantee me support for the lifetime of Microsoft Corporation, I'd still be hacked off about having the upgrade forced on me like that. And as it happens, it doesn't promise any of those things.
I must be in the minority here, I voluntarily moved all of my family to 10. Most of them had OEM machines with no media that were in need of blatting to remove years of bloatware anyway, so a clean install of 10 with the free upgrade made sense for me and them. All are happy with it and able to do the things they need, and the machines are running better than before.
And because I did the installs, I can turn off all of the data-sucking options for them. :-)
"You're not alone...just not the vocal minority."
This; the comments thread to any MS article on El Reg rapidly degenerates into a Linux Mint advert (with it's all-conquering 0.5% market share - good work guys, at this rate you'll catch up with Windows 98 by 2020 or so). Linux is for IT professionals to put on servers and for pen testers to wave around on $400 laptops.
Pretty much every home user I know of is now on Win 10 and doesn't have a problem with it (those who've even noticed it's a different OS from 7). Most of us in the IT department have moved our families over onto it, too, and we're trialing half a dozen machines at work to ensure it doesn't bork anything important (which it thus far hasn't) in prep for a roll-out some time this year. On the Pro and Enterprise versions, we can control telemetry and update behaviour, so we're not remotely worried about that - and things like the Business Store, the in-built BYOD, general automation and virtualization support (none of which anyone on here ever mentions, ever, presumably because they've only looked at the Home version) are the stuff we consider when deciding whether to move over.
Basically, while I'm not madly keen on MS's insistence on harvesting data, it's not doing anything Android hasn't been trying to get away with on my phone for years (and half the routers in the world now do, which broadband and mobile phone companies hand over to governments far more willingly than MS); and while there's a few things which annoy me (the split between control panel and 'settings' is perplexing) it's basically a good OS, not a lame duck like 8 was. The interface is close enough to 7 to be usable as a desktop OS, but it's a modern system with things like Hyper-V and PS 5 included out of the box.
The only thing I dislike about forced updates is that, in recent years, MS appear to have fired any QA staff they once had on windows patches (which, as far as I can tell, was just one half-blind bloke from Shetland and his incontinent sheepdog at the best of times). But overall, I'd rather have the 95% of users who know absolutely nothing about IT security being forced to update their OS and unable to turn it off rather than contributing to giant botnets and acting as vectors for malware.
There are two main issues.
1. A small, but not insignificant, number of upgrades go south. I've not had problems with machines that ship with 10, but I've had fix more upgrades than I would've expected.
2. Respect. Show some Microsoft. I, my company, or clients paid good money for the existing computers and we are relying on them to get things done. Nag a little - that's OK. But what [blankty] [blank] [blank] you [blankers] at some point Repect the fact that I (or the client) have chosen to decline the free up grade for a good reason - or bad - and the problems with having an old OS are on me. It could be inertia, liking the look of Win7, or it could be an office full of machines that have to connect to an application that requires IE-10 or lower. I might already be [blanked] off at the application vendor who still has no timetable for getting off IE-10 when you decide to it's a fine time to nag me YET AGAIN while getting sneaker and more insistent, making hate not so much Win10 as Win10Upgrade badgering ...and leaving me no choice but to go rant on el reg.
pretty simple reason. Enterprise users replace stuff on a cyclical basis. We're a win7 shop but when I come to lease another batch of desktops they'll be Win10. I have already completed testing on all our apps and everything deploys and works fine with 10. As for moving to Apple, yeah right, why would we do that.
No company wants those 5 DLL's that phone home to Microsoft on what they are doing!
Imagine it is imperative to install software at your company and the software maker says it works fine on 10 but some new windows updates of windows 10 makes Windows 10 uninstall it on the fly.
Imagine Microsoft having that kind of control over your company! Hell no!
Ok, I have meddled with "sc" since Windows NT4 on almost all Windows NT releases since (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, 2008 ...) and Windows 10 needed 3 reboots to delete and recreate a service, never seen that happen before. I stopped a service, waited a while and, since Windows 10 was soo slow, I ended up killing the process (after about 1 minute waiting)..., once the process was killed, I deleted the service, that was one reboot to get the state from "Stopping" to "", after the first reboot, the service framework was completely pants, sc was not functionning at all!!!!! , another reboot allowed me to re-create this service but not start it ???!???, a third reboot and the service started automatically, can be stopped, started, and restarted, now ... go figure.
Redmond, we have a problem with the services framework ...
Nuff said.
Gimme FreeBSD 4 anytime other this junk (current version is also 10, BTW).
for how long? Months - a year? And, their pitiful net-share is minimal. Obviously, MS must have offered some inducement to this pimp author to "polish the turd".
W10 is an all-out invasive program designed to destroy any remnants of privacy or security. In fact, the forced updates for non-enterprise editions declares boldly that home users are to bloody stupid too use a computer.
Linux has been given out for free for how long? I make it Win10's share on the desktop is a tad larger than Linux on the desktop.
Try again and yes I have a Linux web server and both Linux desktop and Win10 laptop, the difference between you and me? I'm not so blinkered I choose the wrong tools for the job.
It's an improvement over Windows 8/8.1 and in many ways better than Windows 7. Yes there are bits I dislike (vagueness and lack of control about privacy and updates) but they are arguably getting stick partly as they've been more open than many other vendors about what they are doing, even if they remain a little vague.
I moved to Windows 10 shortly after it came out having never tried the development versions, I was pleasantly suprised, turned off Cortana after trying to get it to work and then just got on with it. Having Windows 10 installed hasn't upset my Linux Mint laptop one bit, it's still talking to me.
Just a bit bored of the whole anti-MS bandwagon around here, give it a rest, actually come up with some valid experiences of having used it rather than theorycrafting your own linux/mac/W7/WXP fanboy fantasies of it not working for you.
Just a bit bored of the whole anti-MS bandwagon around here, give it a rest, actually come up with some valid experiences of having used it rather than theorycrafting your own linux/mac/W7/WXP fanboy fantasies of it not working for you.
My valid experience of w10 was that it had a severe graphics issue. At least that's what the dialog box that w10 kept putting on the screen said. So, I did the rollback to w7. That resulted in a completely unusable machine. Changing window focus took minutes. Reinstalled w7 and would have been happy to remain there, but...
MS then pushed seven extra copies of w10 onto my computers using up all of my Internet bandwidth. Maybe I'm the only person on the planet who has to pay for Internet access, but that really pissed me off. Being shaped to 256 kb/s for a fortnight also royally pissed me off. This is not a "fanboy fantasy".
For you anti-Linux fantasists, the Linux of today is not the Linux of fifteen years ago when it was a case of swapping DLL Hell for Dependency Hell. It's not perfect (nothing is), but it's much more user-friendly. More to the point, I know it's not going to download gigabytes of data without my permission. Nor is it going to force an "upgraded" driver that bricks the machine. (Service Pack 3 for XP bricked my Toshiba laptop.)
One of the nice things about my move to Linux is that it runs w7 very nicely in a VM that is disconnected from the Internet so MS can't steal bandwidth from me. So I get to still keep using the few applications that don't have a Linux equivalent. As well, I can pin folders to the taskbar in Mint, something that w7 doesn't allow, so I can be more productive. Mostly I'm finding Mint more user-friendly than either w8 or w10. That is, it lets me get on with doing interesting things rather than trying to discover where MS have hidden things I'm used to using.
I've been Microsoft pretty much 100% for 15 years. I've never been pro-Linux or anti-Microsoft.
I've been having a profitable time repairing windows 10 installations. I delivered one back on Saturday - Asus T100 tablet/laptop which did the upgrade and then the touch screen didn't work any more due to no drivers for Win10. I picked up a laptop this evening which has just been accidentally 'upgraded' and now Windows Live Mail and the printer won't work. I have a client booked in on Wednesday who did the Win10 upgrade 6 weeks ago and keeps losing internet access.
I am only a very very small business but I am seeing at least 3 people a week with failed Windows 10 upgrades.
I find it very galling that I am having to say to customers "no, this Win10 upgrade is shit and will ruin your computer" because I like Microsoft's products for the most part. The problem is they are NOT MARKET READY. I have a client running Outlook 2016 which keeps chucking up the oddest script errors. I have another running Outlook 2016 which produces another error when checking IMAP emails but not POP ones. And I have far too many customers running Windows who are bamboozled by upgrades and then can't find the stuff they're looking for.
"... let alone a tracking for advertising machine called Windows 10."
Anyone who has searched the web using Google, or has advised someone else to "Google it" in the last five years automatically forfeits the right to complain about Microsoft tracking users.
"Anyone who has searched the web using Google, or has advised someone else to "Google it" in the last five years automatically forfeits the right to complain about Microsoft tracking users."
But it's true! Microsoft does track it's users. If you don't believe me, just Google it.
Those graphs could just as easily be explained by this:
Monday - Wins 7 dominates the internet
Tuesday - Microsoft security patches automatically begin upgrading non-tech savvy users
Thursday - It completes downloading over your grandmother's DSL connection and has completed upgrading her carefully configured PC to Windows 10
Friday - She calls her grandson who is "good with computers" to tell him something is wrong with her computer
Saturday - Sunday - Windows 7 re-installation
Rinse and Repeat...
Well here we are again.. this time the "hate Windows 10 brigade".
If you tried Windows 10 in 2015 - IT WAS WAY TOO EARLY! Of course you don't like beta software..
Try it now - it's much better and as good/better than previous Windows versions. Or just cover your ears/eyes.
I use Windows 10 and Linux - great combination no complaints.
What was Microsoft thinking to even allow a download of Win10 over the Internet, without two or more absolute confirmations from the computer owner and what the download would entail? There should have been nothing automatic about it.
You should blame Windows 7/8.x & MS trying to force Windows 10 on you, not Windows 10. I'm talking about the OS. I assume you probably haven't even tried it if you are already regarding it as "shite" before installing the darn thing.
Win 10 has turned out nowhere near as bad as I had been lead to believe by all the comments I've seen in various places.
Knowing that in due course SWMBO would insist I updated her laptop I decided to upgrade mine (dual boot Win 8.1 Pro and Mint Cinnamon) over Xmas and see how it all went.
I made images using Clonezilla at each key point in the process (including the fully patched and up-to-date Win 8.1 and Mint installs, before even starting), expecting from what I'd read to have to at the very least go to some trouble to get the dual boot working again - and that's assuming Win 10 hadn't gratuitously destroyed Mint while installing itself.
Win 10 was eventually installed and behold! - the dual boot was totally unaffected. Next step, install various means of killing Cortana, Bing and telemetry - and make another disk image.
After some updates, including "important' security updates, check everything; no, none of the settings I had made have been changed and CBS (Cortana, Bing and Slurp) are still all firmly disabled. The next step - activate Bitlocker. Part way through this I realized it was going to take forever to finish because I'd set encryption for the full Windows partition, so I powered down the machine and restored from the previous disk image - once again, all fine and as I'd left it, including the dual boot.
Second attempt at Bitlocker - sectors in use only this time. Much quicker, but after a couple of days I decided I didn't want encryption at the moment, so once again load the Win 10 + Mint image - still no problems.
So far the only complaint I've got with Win 10 is that it doesn't tell me when it's updating - but I can easily kill the auto updates anyway by disabling an extension in Chrome that allows it to intercept search requests headed for Bing - for with Bing blocked and nothing else intercepting and acting on search requests directed at it, Win 10 doesn't seem to be able to determine if there are any updates available - in fact, it reports that it is unable to contact the update server.
At this stage Win 10 will be staying on my laptop, along side Mint - although just in case I've got images going back to Win 7, which is what the machine originally came with - a large beer for the person who invented the high capacity USB 3 portable hard drive.
Now, if only I could get Mint to work with Sky TV!
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