The point isnt if Microsoft spies on you or not; The point is that Microsoft does not care about you. You are not important to them. Get that thru your thick skulls. The funny thing about this is that Google is a lot worst at collecting personal data but they too do not care about YOU personally. They do not collect your stuff and personally store nude pictures of yourself. These multibillion dollar companies have a lot more to do. Honestly, if they do not shut down torrent sites with pirated copies of their software, do you think they care about personal user data? NO.
I am not...But I disabled windows update and have only SP1 installed. I am aware it's not the safest course of action but it works for me. Besides I used firewall to block all connections except whitelisted ones long before these spying allegations begun.
They do not care about you now, but what about 10 years later? Any time in future, they have the choice to have an interest in you and find out everything about you with a few clicks. Think about all the blackmail material they have. They can make you do things for them.
Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Suite can do that for you. It knows ReFS and it's compatible with Windows 7. paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/features.html#0
Seeing as how it's heavily 10 based, any of the smarter folks taken a look at Server/Server Essentials techpre 3 from a privacy standpoint? From having run a few of the scripts and tweak/block/OOSU10 (because privacy settings page like most is non-accessible), it actually looks fairly clean overall given it lacks Cortana and virtually all "apps".
@Nucleus: have You ever heard of a "BOTNET"? A botnet is where malicious code is placed into multiple machines, effectively turning them into weapons against other computers on the internet. They are usually controlled from a rogue IRC channel, and they are used to perform what is called a "DDOS" attack. D.D.O.S. is an acronym for Distributed Denial Of Service. @Ancestor(V), Yen: And this is -EXACTLY- why Smorgan and other people here have called other members in this forum stupid. The phenomena of people speaking and sometimes ranting on endlessly about something that they know -NOTHING- about. Oftentimes, they speak just for the sake of being heard. To stroke their egos and give themselves some sense of self-importance. And what's sad is that they think that they are doing no harm. They're making people laugh, or making friends with other mean spirited, egotistical, attention craving people here. MDL is not alone in carrying its' share of this psychosomatic illness. There are -many- web forums who suffer from the same blight. People of that ilk look around for a vacant soap box, jump up and start preaching. I am -NOT- condoning the actions of -ANY- member who insults others, for whatever reason. That's a knee-jerk reaction that comes from a place of anger and helplessness to be able to stem the tide of garbage and FUD. From -BOTH- sides. If either side spoke from a place of caring, I would laud their efforts, and help them to drive their point home. Sadly, they do not. All they care about is the humiliation of other people for the sake of making themselves feel superior. Other people who do not know any better, and have been inundated by the Hollywood hype about the Internet and computer technology go in search of sensible answers. So, where do they go for the truth? They come here. To MDL. Because the members here have more experience and knowledge about security and computer science than most people on the planet do. These same people go to Linux forums because they wish to learn, and are greeted with the -exact- same attitude; arrogance borne out of a need for superiority. The result is that Linux people are lumped into one category, and the spirit of Linux dies because some person insults others whose only 'crime' is asking a question. I wonder what would happen if everyone took the time to provide a sensible answer to a question, instead of slamming a n00b in the face and publicly humiliating them. I can only guess, but I'd have to say that MDL would certainly be a better place. Without compassion, life is meaningless. When will people learn this? :MJ
Any of you on the side of "blocking doesn't prevent xyz" care to provide any facts to back that up yet? Because I'm looking at two test copies of LTSB and Enterprise with the blocking scripts and firewall rules applied that have literally not sent one single packet other than to the LAN to check in - something you can try yourself with a complete Peerblock or other such log if you wish - or run one single process, in >48 hours straight now. They wanted to spy. The scripts and blocks work. The end.
I assume you missed the edit in my previous post. You are taking this way out of hand in your last few posts against PD and I, several members have read more than enough of your analysis of other members and how they are wrong time and time again. Can't be arsed. Admin/mods can have the last say on your attacks on members who's opinion you don't like. I'd rather read the forum about Windows - better than your endless paranoia rammed down everyone's throat ad infinitum.
There's only one pretty indisputable fact that matters in all of this; disabling and blocking works. Provable, testable by anyone, utterly undeniable without resorting to magic and fantasyland drivel. Anyone claiming otherwise is wrong and no more need be said on the matter.