This seems like a good reason not to enable Cortana:
Section 7b – or “Updates to the Services or Software, and Changes to These Terms” – of Microsoft’s Services EULA stipulates that it “may automatically check your version of the software and download software update or configuration changes, including those that prevent you from accessing the Services, playing counterfeit games, or using unauthorised hardware peripheral devices.”
And they decide what is and isn’t “authorized.”
Has Microsoft gone insane? Who in their right mind wants this operating system on their computer?
Sorry, Microsoft’s computer, given they want to completely control what runs on it.
Yeah, I prefer a computer where I’m in control. Or even better, I’m in control and have access to system source code to to verify that.
Cortana would never download such a piece of crap. She was all about bending and breaking the rules and doing whatever was necessary to win.
I was all excited about Win10 until I found out about this. I know Rand and some of the rest of you are Linux users. Any thoughts on Mint 7.2 with Cinnamon? I tried Ubuntu about 10 years ago, but didn’t want to fuss with all the packages and command line stuff. I hear that has been streamlined for people like me who don’t want to get that deep into the weeds.
I’m mostly familiar with Fedora. There is a GUI for software install/upgrades, but I still use yum on the command line (though though I understand that the current version, that I have yet to upgrade to, uses a new type of package manager).
I use Mint 17 with the MATE interface, which is basically just a computer that looks like pretty much any other from the years between Windows XP and Windows 8. Haven’t updated it to 17.2 yet, I need to find time to make a backup first.
It’s running on a Toshiba laptop. The only issue is that I had to install the optional 3.19 kernel to get the display to work properly; otherwise it would sometimes come up in the wrong colors.
Oh, yeah, and I used to run Ubuntu until they pushed their netbook interface onto everyone. It was actually a pretty good interface on netbooks, but lousy on big screens.
I liked the gnome2 desktop that was default with Ubuntu 10. When I upgraded to ubuntu 12 I stomached the default just long enough to drop kick it in favor of their xubuntu package. I find XFCE a vastly superior desktop manager than gnome 3, the latest KDE, or “unity”. Sure it needs a bit of configuration to fit my tastes, but a big point in it’s favor is that it can be configured extensively without digging into the source code.
Windows 10 looks to me to be an abomination on several levels; mandatory updates, insane TOS, M$ getting to choose which software and peripherals you can run, etc.
Not just no, hell no!
I’m fairly happy with windows 7 (I avoided 8 because of the ghastly interface and other issues). I’ll stick with it while I can, but I suspect that, eventually, I’ll have no other option but to switch to some flavor of linux or unix. I don’t want to do that (I have a lot of legacy software) but it looks to me as if I’ll have no choice; hardware makers may stop being compatible with Win7 eventually. I’m bothered enough about this to be seriously considering building a couple of systems now so they’ll be available when this one dies.
Seconded on the recommendation for Mint and Mate. I run these on one cheap laptop, a server, and my home tower. I dual boot Windows 7 and Mint on the tower.
I’ve come to seriously like Linux over the years.
Apparently Microsoft can’t figure out how to make enough money just selling you an *operating system* anymore. An *operating system* should just interact with the hardware, expose some file/network management to applications, and allow *you* to run what *you* decide to on *your* computer. I dunno, I have this naive 90’s mentality that my computer is *mine* – one of the last few tiny cramped corners of the modern world where any of us have any sovereignty.