[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.