[omtinez]

Also wrong. The telemetry in Windows 8 was just in critical components that had been instrumented long ago, such as Windows Update, crash management, etc. None of those were using the current universal telemetry system. In fact, I don't know if all of them moved to the new telemetry infrastructure shared with the rest of the OS or if they kept what they had and just added the new telemetry on top.

All that said, I agree with your last point about upgrading being a fair compromise compared to staying in Windows 7 or gasp Windows 8.

[morganvachon]

> The telemetry in Windows 8 was just in critical components that had been instrumented long ago, such as Windows Update, crash management, etc. None of those were using the current universal telemetry system.

Are you sure? I did a lot of Windows 8 installations when I was evaluating it, and I distinctly recall the option to turn on the same tracking features that 10 had on by default. In the Windows 8 installer they were presented up front and off by default, in 10 they are hidden and on by default.

As of a month ago this is still the case; I reset a Windows 8 hybrid laptop, going through the standard installation screens, and then upgraded it to 10.

[omtinez]

The EULA for it is the same, but the underlying system is totally different. I am 100% sure about this :-)

But, as you noted, a lot of the telemetry instrumentation has been backported so that argument is lost for someone wanting to avoid upgrading to Windows 10 from an earlier version.