Re: Re: Freelancer and Windows 10

I opted out of W10 and there’s dozens of failed auto-attempts of MS trying to install it.

Just a notable update to this issue with Windows 10 and Gaming (not just FreeLancer but all games) since this is a ‘stickied’ thread.

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/11/24/beware-latest-windows-10-update-may-remove-programs-automatically/

Windows 10 may auto-remove any programs/drivers/software without any warning or notice to the user (only notification AFTER the deed is done) because reasons.

That issue alone is enough to completely reject Win10 and recommend everyone avoid it. This is not to even go into the creepy privacy and horrid security concerns that the current Win10 ‘ecosystem’ has exploited.

Win10 has an embedded keylogger and will always log everything you ever type and send it to Microsoft (and any other entities they work with). Microsoft themselves have confirmed this ‘telemetry’ is unable to be completely disabled and blatantly ignores the user-specified settings across 13+ different locations to disable privacy-invading things.

There are also stability issues of unstable drivers and updates the force-install unless you do a techy workaround using a seperate download just to uninstall and block the buggy update.

Then there are the security issues of forcing Win10 upon users that may not have any idea of what is going on or why. Last I checked, Win10 fits all the definitive points of being ‘malware’.

All these actions are done without informed permission or consent of the user.

-Downloads GBs of data in the background unless you happen to do a ‘metered connection’ workaround and be tech-saavy enough to be aware of this in advance.

-Attempts to hide and mask the Win10 directories for downloading data & installing it.

-Keylogger that can’t be turned off or disabled for sensitive information (banking/financial details, etc) as long as the computer is running the OS.

-Automatically sharing WiFi passwords with others by DEFAULT.

-Resetting user-disabled settings and preferences.

-Uninstalling software without warning or notice until AFTER uninstalls.

-Modifying/adding/removing software without warning or notice until afterwards.

-Forcibly popping up the ‘Your Upgrade is Ready’ popup without a visible ‘Decline’ option.

No thanks to malware; will stay on Win7 till the heat-death of the universe

There’s so much wrong in that post that I can’t even be bothered to answer.

I’ll just say this: there’s a lot of people with zero knowledge in computers saying that Windows 10 is bad. Those people are hopelessly wrong, but convincing them is pointless.

A lot of the stuff he mentioned was covered in IT news. I don’t know if everything is true what he wrote, but most of the points were familiar to me. I guess the keylogger part comes from here: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2373838/microsofts-windows-10-preview-has-permission-to-watch-your-every-move .

They also let devices download full windows 10 installations in the background and have really nagging update popups.

The WIFI password sharing also was in the news.

All in all I can understand when people are skeptical. I myself am not sure what to make of it, especially the forced update stuff. I expect there will be times when people can’t use their PC because of malfunctioning updates (which we recently had even for Windows 7).

FriendlyFire wrote:
There’s so much wrong in that post that I can’t even be bothered to answer.

I’ll just say this: there’s a lot of people with zero knowledge in computers saying that Windows 10 is bad. Those people are hopelessly wrong, but convincing them is pointless.

FF I knew an awful ot about computer systems in general and enough to use any version of Windows to 7, but I don’t yet know much about Windows 10.

What is wrong with the statements/rumours above?

What are the serious let’s call them “disappointments”?

At the same time, bear in mind we truly can’t trust anyone to tell the entire truth any more. Lenovo has been manufacturing IBM’s laptops for a long time and has recently bought out the server production from IBM as you probably know.

Two years ago the UK government forbade IBM employees from bringing in their Lenovo laptops to government sites, and presumably this also means all Lenovos used by any person.

They were preceded by the US government but then took the time to investigate and found proof of hardware back doors and data logging tunnels before they exercised the ban. These are not “vulnerabilities”, but actually implementations in firmware and hardware.

In passing, can we trust the Chinese? No. They are completing the construction of 6 massive aircraft carriers each carrying up to 450 warplanes. That’s 2,400 fighter/bombers. Late last year they signed an agreement with an East African state (look it up) for a colossal Naval Base on the pretext of hunting pirates. That gives them control as far as India, Australia, and the Antarctic.

Paid for by us buying colossal amounts of faulty landfill from them.

They also have nuclear weapons and spacecraft technology. Many years ago they sent in 450 tanks into Cambodia on a 4-day exercise. A good number of them were destroyed by Cambodia, but they completed their exercise and turned round and went back home. The “incident” was hushed up quickly by our countries because Mr Clinton wanted to sign trade agreements with China - he was even sabre-rattling two weeks beforehand, threatening sanctions. Which resulted not in the US exporting as they wished, but in the US and all our EU countries excitedly buying bottom-end rubbish from China. Can you not imagine the premier saying “Mr Clinton, you seek to threaten us with sanctions and even military intervention? We can afford to lose 1 million soldiers every day, Mr Clinton. How many do you have?”. Never poke a hornets nest which dwarfs all other nations on earth.

The common Chinese people are nice, innocent, and mostly very kind. But their nation is not a friend.

No smoke without fire.

I’m interested in your views on the Windows 10 back door/weaknesses/concerns.

Links:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2974057/windows/how-to-turn-off-windows-10s-keylogger-yes-it-still-has-one.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10208578/Spy-agencies-ban-Lenovo-from-secret-networks.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/29/lenovo_accused_backdoors_intel_ban/

http://thehackernews.com/2015/09/lenovo-laptop-virus.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/12/lenovo_firmware_nasty/

http://www.techworm.net/2015/08/lenovo-pcs-and-laptops-seem-to-have-a-bios-level-backdoor.html

And look: They’re all at it!:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/29/report-nsa-intercepting-laptops-ordered-online-installing-spyware/#5455033a54ae

Sorry,Ive to agree with FF here.
Most of the “problems” and fears come from users with little knowledge about the new OS.

Windows 10 is great if you ask me.
It is stable, it is fast, it is good looking… it really can be used to work and also play around with it.

The fears about privacy are of based on the features that come with windows and also the terms under which you can use the OS.
Microsoft had to write such terms in order to get such features distributed to the end user without violating any laws.
Is that a problem?
No.
Because you have very simple options to turn these features off.
“Do you want keylogging enabled?” Yes/No… make a decision.
“Do you want Cortana to listen to you or submit your local position data?” Yes/No… make a decision.

Thats not a big deal.
Everytime you google something you reveil much more information about you than Windows can collect on default settings.
Turn off these features in your windows privacy settings and nothing gets submitted.
It is your choice.

It is also your choice how updates are getting done.
There are plenty of easy to understand settings.
And if you dont find the setting you are looking for on the new windows10 settings then open up the old control panel and do the settings there.

Windows 10 in my eyes is pretty good and worth using it.
In the end you probably wont even get around using it due to the directx12 support of upcoming games.
But even older games (with a few exceptions) run perfectly fine.
Most modern games I have tried so far after switching to windows 10 got 10-20% higher FPS, which might be related to the improvements to the old dx code and also the newly released drivers.

Most old games run perfectly fine… and yes… there is this safedisc issue which prevent many old games to run due to their copy protection. Guess what… who cares… there are plenty of no-cd cracks on the net.

To be fair I have to mention that windows 10 is not a perfect OS. It has its problems.
Especially after upgrading from window7 I had problems with the start menu and cortana not responding. Thats really an issue.
But windows 10 has auto repeair functions build in… you can run them and these problems are gone.

Another issue I had for nearly half a year was that Elite Dangerous was lagging like hell in a specific game mode. Reason was a problem with the GPU drivers. That problem eventually was fixed by AMD.
I have a similar problem in another game (same symptoms) and I am pretty sure that this also is just a driver problem that is going to get fixed.

In my eyes the drivers are the main problem atm.
But I consider this normal… we got a new directx version with windows 10… and unlike before this new dx does not only add new features on top of the other versions… no… it also has improved the old dx code of the previous versions.
Its just normal that GPU drivers need to be “adjusted” to the new environment. Its a matter of time until everything is running perfectly smooth.
An no Windows version ever did run without driver problems during the first year.

Looks like they developed it for themselves, not for us. They’re alone with their garbage options, senseless services, help that’s available exclusively in the web and other their personal illusions they live in.

Vulkan has been released. Marketplace is 7. 2 + 2 = 4. The industry can’t be biased completely neither so blind. ms introduced dx12 in the manner so everybody around thought it’s absolute monopoly and now that turns out a lie and usual as expected pr in the past.

Sorry ST, I have little interest in droning out the same stuff, especially considering most people in this thread wouldn’t be swayed either way.

I’ll just say there’s a lot of leaps of logic online.

WhiskasTM wrote:
Looks like they developed it for themselves, not for us. They’re alone with their garbage options, senseless services, help that’s available exclusively in the web and other their personal illusions they live in.

Vulkan has been released. Marketplace is 7. 2 + 2 = 4. The industry can’t be biased completely neither so blind. ms introduced dx12 in the manner so everybody around thought it’s absolute monopoly and now that turns out a lie and usual as expected pr in the past.

I hardly can follow you here on that.

Of course microsoft is a company which wants to make profit… just like ALL other companies. You know, employees have to be paid, new products have to be developed…etc.
Other than that I have no reason to believe that they only developed it for themselves.
Infact Windows 10 is highly influenced by user feedback. Unlike other windows versions before Microsoft did listen to the users and in my eyes they did a fairly good job at turning this feedback into a working product.

What you call garbage options and senseless services in my eyes is absolutely normal and had to be done in that way.
You completely seem to ignore that windows 10 is a cross platform OS. It works on PC, it works on tablets, it works on mobile phones.
That some features and options (such as the keylogger) dont make sense on PC seems to hyped as work of the evil company. People which do this completely ignore the fact that exactly these features make perfect sense on mobile devices. And thats what they were developed for.

Its not that Microsoft developed any hidden malware crap in their OS. No, that are open, public and easy to config features.
If i remember correctly you get even pointed to the privacy options during or after the installation.

I really dont get it why people have such negative opinons on something that is absolutely normal. You have to take a look at the whole picture. Windows 10 was not exclusively developed for PC. You can not judge about features that were developed for mobile devices when your focus is only on the PC.

Microsoft made it as easy as possible to deactivate and config features which are not for your platform. There is nothing hidden, there is nothing thats confusing… no misinformation.
Microsoft even kept the old control panel for the PC users which are more familiar with that.
How much more user friendly and open could/should it be?

Next to that… you get a brand new, much better working OS for FREE. I dont know what you are complaining about.
Sorry, I simply dont understand that.

Maybe its just the general “Microsoft is evil” opinion… dunno.
Afterall there are still enough people around which claim that microsoft is responsible for what happened to digital anvil and that Freelancer would be so much better without Microsoft.
Thats pure nonsense. Chris Roberts messed up the development of FL… the development took much longer than originally intended and of course much more expensive. FL as project was about to die in 2001 and microsoft did what had to be done to get the game released (including redesigning it).
What we got was a great game… thanks to Microsoft and the new lead designer which replaced Chris Roberts in 2001.

Microsoft is of course a company that works for its own benefit… but the point is that its not a bad company that only does evil stuff.
You have to look at the whole picture to understand that things are not as bad as some people claim.

Then may be this bundle(os+mobile) is what causing a drama. For me that’s simple: an os as kind of object is already made and ms didn’t offer any effective fundamental changes in it. It’ll take a few more earth spins around the sun before something incompatible might happen to existing infrastructure(new kind of processors, co-processors, games? etc.). Or while 7 receives security updates till 2020, at least.

Can’t disagree on latter, the freelancer we know appeared against him :x

I couldn’t help but notice all the mumble about Windows 10, followed by loads of prejudice and misconception. Here’s a few words from someone who was basically “born into” Windows::

Ever since Vista people have been complaining about Windows getting heavier and more complex. My first Windows was 98, and I always upgraded to the newer version no matter how harsh the feedback was. Sure, not all versions were really that great, but I must admit I never really had anything that made me say “wow, this is a really bad OS”. Sure, I’ve tried Ubuntu and other interpretations of Linux (as well as several versions of Mac OS), but none of them has really managed to do what Microsoft have been doing with Windows for all these years. None of them was nearly as user-friendly as Windows.

OP-R8R said it all, and I really have nothing to add about the OS itself. I just think that it’s much more competent to go ahead and try it, deal with all the issues you think you might have and eventually enjoy what Windows 10 has to offer rather than complaining about what it doesn’t.
There’s that old saying that says: “If nobody’s going to do it for you, do it yourself.” So if you’d rather build your own fully personalized OS than use Windows 10, make it your doing (or hire a crew to do it for you). Go and make the changes you want to see.

Windows 10 might not look like a revolutionary step compared to previous versions… it however does many things a bit better.

Windows 7 had hardware limitations which are gone in windows 10.
Windows 8 was a design failure which has meanwhile be corrected due to the user feedback.
Windows 10 is no perfect OS… that simply does not exists… but its easy to use, flexible and pretty powerful when you compare it to previous versions.
Like I stated earlier… it still has problems… it is relative new… drivers still have to be bug fixed in some cases… old games require the no-cd cracks due to the missing safedisc driver (which actually isnt supported for years already). Its not perfect but its clearly a good future proof alternative.

Future proof (and there we get to the revolutionary improvements) because it is has modular design.
You mentioned it… what happens if there are new kinds of hardware standards, new kind of software standards… new “infrastructure”?
We of course had this in the past… e.g. the step from 32bit to 64bit. That was a major step which required microsoft to release a new OS version.

Windows 10 was announced to be the last windows version.
If this is true… well I dont know. I can not predict the future of software development. But the new windows is supposed to be fully upgradable, even its core functions. You dont have to buy a new OS just because there is something new on the hardware market.

Just like TheDvDBear I know pretty much all the Windows versions.
I grew up with DOS and then got Windows 95 which was a nightmare to me as during that time I thought “oh great, now the OS is doing stuff and I have no idea what it is”. You know… in DOS you had complete control over everything that happend.
But since new games were released for windows now I was forced to use it (putting aside that I already had experience with windows 3.1 and 3.11).
When Windows 98 appeared i also got it right after its release. Today I couldnt even tell why I did that because there was very little difference between these versions.
Same can be said about Windows ME… eventhough I had the feeling that games ran more stable on ME.
XP was then the first Windows that I really liked. It was more stable than all previous versions, it had cool new features, it was faster, it was able to run dx9.
Even today with the security problems of XP I consider it a pretty good OS for the fact that you really could use it to do work (I mean… really work).
Then somewhen windows Vista appeared. Shiny looking and with lots of problems (mostly performance wise). I kept using XP during that time.
About one year after the the Vista release I got a new notebook where Vista was installed and I simply was too lazy to install something different on it. It was a performance nightmare but on the other side it was just a notebook that I barely used.
Windows 7 was a great OS since it was an improved Vista. Good look with all the multimedia parts but this time also with good performance.
It wasnt a “working OS” but good one that you could use at home for multimedia purpose, games, etc.
Windows 8 was in backend a pretty good improvement of Windows 7… the frontend was a design failure when you only looked at PC. The tablet mode and the removal of the desktop simply didnt work well.
That was a bit corrected with version 8.1 but there it already was too late for this OS version to regain the trust of the customers.
Microsoft tried something new with windows 8 and it simply didnt work.
Shit happens.

And now there is Windows 10…

I also worked with all the server versions of windows during all the years… Windows NT and upwards (Server editions).
Here btw. I have to say that the version based on the Windows 8 tech was absolutely great (after I installed a start menu app).

SWAT_OP-R8R wrote:
Windows 10 was announced to be the last windows version.
If this is true… well I dont know. I can not predict the future of software development. But the new windows is supposed to be fully upgradable, even its core functions. You dont have to buy a new OS just because there is something new on the hardware market.

Microsoft announced: “We are making Windows a service”
That means the next Windows will be packed under Windows 10’s title, but it might be completely different. Just like Mac OS, it will occasionally upgrade, and once a period will have this “major version changing upgrade”.
That’s what sets the competition to other free OS that work the same way.

Yes, you are correct.

As usual, corporate shills shamelessly ignore the needs of consumers.
I’d rather trust the experts and actual info, thanks.
Since believing me is too difficult to do (despite tons of verfiable expert results in a simple internet search), I’ve done the legwork and linked to the most prominent results/info that I could find.

Woody Leonhard:
http://www.infoworld.com/blog/woody-on-windows/

Windows 10 Spyware Detailed (sadly turning off even as described doesn’t disable everything as Win10 deliberately ignores those settings):
https://fix10.isleaked.com/

Andy Patrizio of NetworkWorld:
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2956574/microsoft-subnet/windows-10-privacy-spyware-settings-user-agreement.html

C Mitchell Shaw of New American:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/computers/item/21400-windows-10-is-spyware

StackExchange detailed discussion:
http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/96713/how-does-windows-10-allow-microsoft-to-spy-on-you

NSA Backdoors in WIndows software (every version post-95) confirmed by cryptographers:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/microsoft-programmed-in-nsa-backdoor-in-windows-by-1999.html

There is a boatload of information available from computer security and IT professionals across the entire computing industry that point to Windows 10 not being transparant about privacy and security.

The ‘forced updates’ (that may break your computer) and the fact that these updates have and will likely continue to be this way (without proper disclosure or changelogs) are the main reasons that I discourage anyone with sense from using WIndows 10.

Also I’ll completely reject those bullshit ‘10 to 20% better fps’ claims for Win10. There is no magic under-the-hood coding that is automagically making stuff better. There is no ‘better version’ of previous releases of code that are already on previous versions of Windows. DirectX 9 is still the same as it was since 2010. And the latest .NET 4.6.1 is a free download and backwards-compatible with previous versions of Windows.

When it comes to gaming, Win7 is still the best way to go. I’ll leave it at that. If SWAT or any other #$%% idiots want to spew complete garbage, they can feel free to do so but I’m done here.

As usual, corporate shills shamelessly ignore the needs of consumers.

If SWAT or any other #$%% idiots want to spew complete garbage, they can feel free to do so but I’m done here.

I’d watch your language if you don’t want to get your ass booted into low orbit on your way out.

I’m going to lock this now because the only thing I’m seeing is a bunch of wanking.