[smolder]

This is a bad move for MS. It's user hostile enough to have telemetry and ads in the OS in the first place. If they fight against people's efforts to make it usable again, they lose market share, developers/power users lose interest in the platform, less software gets bought from and made for their store, and so on. I think what they really need is a pro version of Windows that attracts pro users by removing the bullshit to start with. That shouldn't be exclusive to Enterprise.

[Ntrails]

> It's user hostile enough to have telemetry and ads in the OS in the first place.

I may be alone, but I think those two things are very different classes of feature, and am very relaxed about the former as an opt out.

[jeroenhd]

The opt-out does not exist for Home and Pro users. Only Windows 10 Enterprise can completely disable the telemetry engine. Unless you take extra steps (firewall rules, network-level blocking, etc.) Microsoft will get a ping every time a new device is plugged in and there's no way to disable that for the common user.

I used to accept most telemetry popups from Microsoft before they became opt-out, but in the scheme MS has currently set up, I don't think MS let their customers make an informed choice about their data collection. For that reason, I oppose it as much as I can.

[SkyBelow]

> I don't think MS let their customers make an informed choice about their data collection.

I think this is part of a larger problem where no single individual can given informed consent to any corporate contract because one involves a team of lawyers and the other involves an average person. Even if the single individual was a lawyer it would be questionable, but for the average person who has a limited college education and no special legal education at all, there is far too great a power difference for informed consent to be given.

[lozenge]

You can't opt out of telemetry in Windows. Everything on the list here is collected: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/privacy/required-wi...

[Xelbair]

There is no opt-out of telemetry in win10. You can only set it to basic.

[gruez]

You can set it to one level lower ("security") on enterprise and education editions.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/configure-w...

[Xelbair]

It still isn't opt-out. And you still have no exact idea what is and isn't sent - only their promises.

Personally i use ancient trick that block telemetry on metered connection, and you can set LAN to be metered too via registry key.

No idea if it still works to be honest.

[pbhjpbhj]

I don't know, but I assume the telemetry is used for marketing by Microsoft at least and probably by their partners (ie people who financially benefit Microsoft partially in return for access to "telemetry").

[iso1631]

I'm happy about the former as an opt in, and where I can target which server I want the data to go. Could be quite handy actually.

[aww_dang]

They've been doing this kind of thing for decades and still have market share.

[nailer]

The hack is probably removing even the 'Security' low-level telemetry. Which yes, would hurt users.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/configure-w...

Edit: if you don't feel like reading the link, the 'security' level is the minimum required for updates.

No updates means no security updates. Which means exploitable boxes. Which would return us to the grand old days of exploited Windows XP botnets.

[ghostpepper]

Is there any technical reason why telemetry would be required to make updates work?

[nailer]

How do you have a machine download updates and install them without tracking that it is downloading updates and installing them successfully?

[MaxBarraclough]

Every Linux distro manages this. You have the client machine determine which updates it needs, as it has access both to its own state, and to the package repository's manifest.

[nailer]

0 Linux distros manage this. Have you ever ran an apt or yum repo?

[MaxBarraclough]

If you have something substantive to say, then say it.

In what way does apt, say, not behave as I have described?