When Microsoft made the Windows as a Service pivot Former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer has weighed in on why Microsoft moved from paid upgrades to Windows as a Service. As ever, the old adage applies – when the product is free, the product is probably you… Plummer, who among other things is responsible for Task Manager, stepped back in 2003, several years prior to the 2009 …
I thought it was Henry Kissinger, but it appears we're both wrong. The origin of the phrase is uncertain, but predates 1973.
Here are some links to the details of Microsoft ability to access your PC remotely :
https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-telemetry-secrets/
https://www.theregister.com/2016/02/24/windows_10_telemetry/
Of note :
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However, before more info is gathered, Microsoft's privacy governance team, including privacy and other subject matter experts, must approve the diagnostics request made by a Microsoft engineer. If the request is approved, Microsoft engineers can use the following capabilities to get the information:
Ability to run a limited, pre-approved list of Microsoft certified diagnostic tools, such as msinfo32.exe, powercfg.exe, and dxdiag.exe.
Ability to get registry keys.
Ability to gather user content, such as documents, if they might have been the trigger for the issue.
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I think people forget that Microsoft can extract your files from YOUR PC.
ability
And then you've listed three things that have restricted by security and malware limitations.
Of all the many useful things you can do with a Windows system, many (like those listed) are disabled by default, or have since been removed.
ability
Shall you only use a Windows system virtualized, in a need-to-do basis, if strictly required to do so ( like a program only running on Windows ) or to develop malware and exploits.
Otherwise, it's BSD or Linux. Encrypted with a physical key and a password.
"Real life always seems to top extreme cynicism and paranoia."
People cannot even THINK about past real life things. It would be too much for normal people. Movies are based on fragments of a great ugly circus you will never have no idea about. Think about asking how princess Diana left us (tip: I don't know)
In that ZDnet article, the implications of
"It's worth noting that the telemetry data I describe here is only a small part of the routine traffic between a Windows 10 PC and various servers controlled by Microsoft. Most network analysis I've seen looks at all that traffic and doesn't isolate the telemetry data transmissions."
are also interesting to contemplate.
"Sure, Microsoft wasn't charging for Windows 10."
This is somewhat misleading. As a preloaded OS the customer paid for it. The free upgrade from the W8 fiasco it was a PR necessity. The free upgrade from W10 to 11 for recent purchases was probably a legal necessity to avoid class actions but the H/W limitation avoided making that free for all. It's simply become a purchase plus milk-the user-entity, not one or the other.
"I for one would gladly pay $10 or maybe even $20/month for a version of Windows Pro that included no telemetry or unnecessary telematics."
Even though you have bought a computer supplied with a Windows licence, i.e. you're willing to rent Windows after buying it.
You may block the report-back, but the buggy-resource-hogging data collection still occurs... Even if you turn off the reporting itself, the os still collects the data so that turning off the reporting itself doesn't increase performance! (That was a big fix)
So the need to pull that all together is real--we are bankrolling the power/resources to collect it and b/w to report it. That's a lot of resources they get for free.
""I for one would gladly pay $10 or maybe even $20/month for a version of Windows Pro that included no telemetry or unnecessary telematics.""
Any sort of monthly OS rent must have some sort of telemetry to check if you've paid your license.
The beauty of "old fashioned" boxed software was there was no way the company knew anything about your use. If you chose to not register with them, they'd also have no idea that you have a copy.
This confusion is purely a naming issue. "Pro" is not the same as "Business" or "Professional" as seen in earlier editions of Windows. It is now simply another consumer version. More similar to "Ultimate" of the Vista era.
If you want Pro, these days grab the LTSC or Enterprise (or even Server) builds.
As for rationale, remember that bit at the end of "The Wolf of Wall Street" when he got people to sell him back the pen as a demo? One of the guys attempted by saying "This is a *professional* pen". It is basically marketing 101, it slightly strokes the consumers egos to be using "Professional" products.
Simples!
> Ultimate edition was a home version
Which Ultimate? Windows 7 Ultimate? That was definitely not a home version. I even have the packaging here, got it for a few specific reasons.
The notable differences: Bitlocker, RDP can do multiple monitors like Server 2008 R2 (I am not talking about the RDP client here), Applocker, and a few other things which are more important for companies than me. Oh, there is even a wikipedia entry for that...
Ultimate was a home version.
It was targeted at "enthusiasts who want every feature in Windows".
https://news.microsoft.com/2009/02/03/windows-7-lineup-offers-clear-choice-for-consumers-and-businesses/
And another source here:
https://news.microsoft.com/2006/02/26/microsoft-unveils-windows-vista-product-lineup/
"The Windows Vista product lineup consists of six versions, two for businesses, three for consumers, and one for emerging markets: Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Vista Starter"
You can downvote me if you are feeling strangely sensitive about it, but it doesn't really change anything ;)
The Enterprise version has most of the same shit which the Pro version has.
The only clean(ish) versions are the LTSC releases, and the server versions. I expect they are still slurping telemetry data though - when you install Server 2025 there's an option to select whether to only give them the 'required' (by whom, and for what?) telemetry, or the 'optional' telemetry as well.
"[Windows 10] was gently pushing users toward its paid services."
So "gently" now means "aggressively and annoyingly"? Or is it "gratuitously slurping up user time and screen real estate"?
The guy gets it right in the end. Windows is now an adversarial hindrance to getting things done, and that's not even counting the user experience glitches, bugs, and cloud outages.
I keep telling people you can run the “Microsoft Activation Script” (available for free off massgrave.dev which is an internet site that you access from a browser) and it will activate any Windows or Office you’ve downloaded and installed.
It seems to me that these Microsoft products have been free for awhile now?
(Some people may have a hazy recollection that you could dub off a copy of MS-DOS in just a couple minutes simply by invoking “xcopy C:\ D:\ /h /i /c /k /e /r /y”)
A well-designed drawing has no needless lines; a well-designed machine has no needless parts; and, a well-designed operating system has no needless* features or code.
* Potential vendor revenue, potential 2nd- and/or 3rd- party observation or control lacking users' knowledge of and explicit permission for, and designer and/or programmer ego gratification are not considered acceptable bases of "needed".
"users looking glumly at hardware that is blocked from installing the latest Windows 11 update."
I assure you, as someone who has deliberately hamstrung my hardware (disabled TPM2.0), I am not looking glumly at it. I'm delighted I've come up with a seemingly foolproof method to stop MS sneaking Windows 11 onto my system.
I don't see how you can call the change from 8 to 10 a success.
10 is a mess - the incoherent dual PC/tablet interface, the badly laid out and cluttered menus, the confusing and incomplete settings route.
I don't understand why anyone would want to keep hold of it, other than because 11 is still worse for data farming.
But if you're a windows user you've already sold your soul. Nothing left to lose and at at least the visual design isn't quite so randomly awful.
No, Windows is not "gently" pushing people to use their services. They're steamrollering things onto people. Like forcing people to set up a Microsoft account for no reason other than for tracking. It doesn't give you a better experience, it tries to upsell things to you.
Microsoft has never been about making any experience better. They have all this telemetry, and what do they do? Make the file explorer ever more complex. Change the location of things like the "sign out" button. That sort of thing. Nothing *useful*. EVER.
And then there's all the nagging when you dare download Chrome. It's pathetic and sooner or later, they'll be forced to stop this nonsense.
"Change the location of things like the "sign out" button."
Their panel of experts had determined that putting the sign out button in a new location was more efficient.
Customers were demanding that the sign out button was put in the new place.
Due to technical reasons, the sign out button location had to be changed.
Lies
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Truth
We wanted to move things around and couldn't give a rat's backside whether you like it or not.
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