- breaking a user's multiboot
- deleting user data
Even if these are not bugs and merely the result of bad UX (lack of warnings and security for the user).
Deletion of all user data upon upgrade was a common 'problem' with earlier versions of Windows (I remember having such problems into the XP era, and I hear it happened to people on W10). Breaking other installs by MS is a common theme too in dual boot setups (whereas Linux bootloaders are more likely to pick up the Win install and offer access to it).
I remember vividly the last time it happened to me. I had been dual-booting Linux for some time (on a personal laptop dedicated to work). It was my first Linux OS, I was a newbie (precisely learning bash, programming for servers, etc). After some update, Win10 broke my dual boot. I was livid. It took me the better part of a weekend to fix it and avoid loosing all my work of several months (a lot of it was in the form of system files all over the place, I had no idea how to retrieve all that without ad hoc commands etc, and I had no idea what e.g. chroot was at the time. I learned, the hard way, haha — btw thx to the Arch Wiki for that weekend. It was a life saver).
The very next thing when I got access back to my Linux OS was to backup all my data, format everything and reinstall Linux fresh.
And that was it.
I've never used Windows ever since as my primary driver, only for testing purposes in VMs. That was 2016 iirc.
There are such things as showstoppers that make you instantly drop a product, never to look back. Microsoft's Windows desktop team never learned that, I don't know how they still pretend to be for "professionals". You don't do that to people who make a living with their computer (i.e. the vast majority of businesses nowadays).
I have tried mutiboot with different Linux distros too and had it broken too many times, eventually I got sick of this shit. Fixing the bootloader should be a simple process but requires you to sacrifice a goat.
Never multiboot again, if I need another OS it goes in a VM.
When I absolutely have to, I install another OS on a separate drive with it's own bootloader and select the one I want in BIOS. That is actually reliable and never breaks.
Will this effectively encapsulate the UEFI settings? I had a problem where Windows turned off the wifi module on my MoBo to "save power" and it messed up the wifi on Linux.
does that audience lacks of experience with developing software?
Someone looking in the window and making an inventory of all my furniture doesn't impact me in any way. But it's still an invasion of privacy and wrong from the standpoint of common human decency. A concept that has become lost to a generation that's become acclimated to thinking this is normal. It is not.
I have no idea where you're getting this from. Governments regularly perform national census, and collect data from all kinds of institutions to inform their policy. Banks constantly analyze your bank accounts and activity. Utilities meter your use for both billing and their own planning.
This is not someone "looking in the window" this is two parties (you and the company providing some service or product to you) needing to exchange data so each can do their work properly.
Those "privacy standards" you cite that have existed for centuries... that's not a thing. It seems to be based on falsifying the history and present of how humans organize and govern systems out of ignorance. Data gathering IS the "normal". Of course it's been very limited and cumbersome before, now it's easier thanks to IT.
So if your only argument is a vague discomfort from this not being "normal"... you have no argument.
>Those "privacy standards" you cite that have existed for centuries... that's not a thing. It seems to be based on falsifying the history and present of how humans organize and govern systems out of ignorance. Data gathering IS the "normal". Ever thought that you and parent live in different countries with a different value for privacy? Even a "simple" thing like a census in Germany led to Constitutional Court ruling and the establishment of a new right, that of informational self-determination. And that was in the eighties and it was about a census in the form of a total survey to be carried out door-to-door by civil servants or agents of the public administration.
Now you private companies fathering more data more often than ever before. So it's worse, calling that "normal" is strange.
Probably companies haven't been able to serve billions of individuals worldwide, so they had less data. Microsoft has more customers, and has more data to process.
No one here is describing WTF is this "data" harming them personally with. It's not personally identifiable, and it's extremely mundane. Surely Microsoft will destroy your life by having some stats on how often people in a given region play Solitaire.
In other words, for TV they paid a small portion of the audience to record and report their habits.
Telemetry involves everyone by default and it's hardly optional unless you decide to actively fight it - speaking about Microsoft Windows here. The choices offered by Microsoft doesn't offer users true control over data they gather and process; hell, that actually applies to other big companies as well - you have just the illusion you are in control of what they managed to collect about you and the vague assurances, promises that they aren't up to no good with that stuff.
Government will most likely benefit from planning its politics having the data gathered from census while Microsoft might or might not use the telemetry data and honestly, seeing what they did with Windows 10 over course of all its releases, it doesn't appear they do actually use that telemetry data for anything. They don't even bother with users, power users opinions regarding the features that are causing issues in Windows.
The electric company probably needs to know usage for billing. Microsoft does not need any information about Windows users for the product to work. Even things like fetching updates doesn't need to leak information, although I'll grant that it's a little bit more work to avoid leaking any data.
Honestly, it's amazing you can say this with a straight face? You don't think Microsoft needs to know which parts of its product crash or not, and are used or not, in order to deliver a well-working product?
I don't know if most of you here work with large-scale products, but Microsoft has no the luxury of going to every Windows user personally and asking them how's Windows and what you want more or and less of. That "conversation" happens through telemetry.
Just taking it from everyone without offering the ability to turn it off is very poor practice imo. I understand they want this data to improve stuff but I should have the ability to not contribute to it.