Why the free upgrade to Windows 10 still works | Hacker News Reader

Why the free upgrade to Windows 10 still works

borncity.com

22 pointsmiles14 comments

This is just blog spam of this reddit comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/e35i4i/apparently...

Which contains a bunch of questionable statements, such as "this was brought up by the brick and mortar stores that they were doing simple clock changes on customer devices during the upgrade challenge to get around it"

This doesn't really make any sense because windows connects to a Microsoft server to validate keys, so it would presumably be possible to not allow the keys to unlock entirely different software, regardless of the PC's time.

Because Windows 10 has a negative real price. It's adware.

I don't use Windows so I only had a chance to install a copy of W10 few weeks ago. I was completely surprised by the fact that one cannot disable "telemetry", instead there is only a flag for "basic" or "full" report. It's worse than adware.

Did you enjoy auto installing candy crush?

Despite being a privacy freak this is what puts me off the most about Windows 10. If everything else was perfect I could tolerate the telemetry in certain use-cases... but the number one problem isn't even the telemetry, it's that the entire operating system is essentially one giant ad designed to waste your time at every possible opportunity.

Can you elaborate? I have been using Windows 10 for years on multiple computers and yet to see a single ad. I haven't taken any steps to disable them either.

It is a well known fact, so if I think you should elaborate what Windows version you use, what country etc.

Though I am expecting you are throwing a bait and when someone gives an example you will respond that that obvious advertising is not ads

> It is a well known fact,

Many things are well-known while not actually being facts. This may be one of them. (At the very least, the amount of advertising is enormously exaggerated)

I don't use it but I've set it up for others and I definitely remember some part of the setup where I was given an option with regards to sending personal data and the description for choosing no said something like "You wont see less advertising, they just wont be tailored to you." I'm sure someone who sets up Windows 10 more regularly could explain what this is.

On the same machine I set up Microsoft Office and it wont stop doing popups advertising their team/collaboration product. This is on Windows 10 Pro and with their top tier version of office as well I believe. So paying more doesn't get rid of the ads.

OK, so check this article https://www.howtogeek.com/269331/how-to-disable-all-of-windo...

tell me if the images are faked and maybe point to an MS website that will show that they never pre-installed candy crush, never suggested paid apps in your start menu, I am thinking maybe this people that do not see this ads are maybe considering as not ads. they used a different installed for windows that changed the settings to turn off all the crap.

I don't consider any of those to be advertising. But that's just me. I accept that they are ads for other people.

I primary Linux but have a sibling Windows 10 install for gaming and I also have not noticed any ads...

I've been using most Windows 10 versions. At home and at work. Currently this Windows is 1903. I live in Europe.

No really, I want to understand how ads are shown on Windows on some people since I haven't seen them myself and the dozens of people I see using Windows 10 don't see them either.

Why do you think it's prevalent but I don't see them?

Are the ads in some part of Windows that I rarely use? How do they show up? Maybe I actually see them but don't think they are ads.

A small but vocal minority of people that congregate here profess that they believe the entirety of Windows 10 to be adware since it comes with a few third party app icons pre-installed on their Start menu. They always name the same one, Candy Crush, because they think it's some lame game that nobody actually wants. They will also complain about error reporting that can't be turned off because they think that Microsoft cares about gathering their personal information and not just improving their products.

Meanwhile, Candy Crush has almost 3 billion downloads across all platforms. It's a very, very popular game. You can also remove these apps and for the most part...and they never come back. Some users will recount tales of how they uninstalled something and how after an update, it came back... but this is not a very common tale; perhaps something that happened in early releases. I've never seen it happen. Microsoft also doesn't make money on advertising in Windows 10, their advertising income is mainly from Xbox and Bing.

Many if not most of these same people, in my estimation, will happily use apps which have telemetry that can't be turned off on iOS, Android or even on their favorite desktop OS. Apps such as Slack or Spotify. They will use web sites and apps that use logging and error collection APIs like Sentry without a second thought, yet they decry Microsoft for doing the same.

Note: I don't use Windows for work anymore. I've moved to Linux. But that's due to the nature of my work and not any sort of beef with Microsoft. Although I wish they'd do some things better, I think that Microsoft generally makes very high quality software and they have always listened to users as far back as I can see (to Windows 3.11)

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