For some reason I believe you are being sarcastic right now or tin foil hatting.

A machine whatever it is a refrigerator or a washing machine billing you $5,000 dollars (USD) if you don't use it? I purchased a new drying machine and washing machine last year and it doesn't even have a LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) display screen or a digital clock on it and no internet or wifi.

They were both manufactured in 2014. They both have the good old fashioned 1990's style knobs.

Nope, not being sarcastic. Isn't that scary? LOL.

I apologize, I didn't speak clearly enough. The bill for $5K is from my health insurance company if I don't use my Bi-Pap sleep apnea machine enough. The machine has built in wifi service and transmits my usage data directly to the insurance company. If I don't use it as prescribed by my doctor they won't cover the cost of it and the machine is around $5K. It even has a signal strength indicator on the little screen, right next to the tiny hole in the front with what looks like a camera lens tucked just inside of it. I'm sure it's just some kind of light sensor to auto-dim the display screen at night.

I used to work on appliances. If you bought your washer and dryer new within the last 10 years it doesn't have good old fashioned knobs. They did away with those a long time ago. Everything is digital now and made to look mechanical. It has a circuit board behind the knob with layered contact sheets that are read by a digital circuit and sent to the 'brain' of the machine. Gone are the days of a potentiometers and multi-pole mechanical switches.

Samsung and LG have the microphones and speaker in their appliances. Others will soon follow, or skip it and just use wifi. A lot of GE appliances have Wifi and apps and all that happy stuff. With the LG and Samsung's, if there is a service problem you hold your cell phone up to it and it communicates through your cell phone to their service center to diagnose your problem. It sounds like an old school modem. http://www.lg.com/us/support/answers/front-control-top-load-washers2013/smartdiagnosis. I would get a lot of questions about it and not a single customer who understood what it actually was was happy about it. Nobody wants to invite anything in to their home that could potentially be used to spy on them.

All of this stuff is around us everywhere. Cell phones, cars (GM Onstar and other GPS devices), appliances, tv's, medical devices. It's not that far of a stretch to think that someone could hack in, or even be corporate sponsored, to use these things to spy. I knew restaurant owners that would put mic's above tables in the ceiling to listen to customers conversations about the service and food. You think huge corporations are beyond doing that with appliances and wifi? I sure don't. It's not foil hat stuff or paranoia, it's just the way things are but it used to be a lot harder. Now we've invited the potential right in to our homes with open arms.

But as for Window's 10, it's basically cell phone software. Everything is called an 'App' now, you have to submit to all the same 'we have access to everything and everyone you come in to contact with' agreements.

I apologize if I come off wrong. It's something I like talking about. It's been a fun read and conversation so far.


Thanks,

Shane

Yeah my drying machine and washing machine have a circuit board behind the knobs, but no internet, no wifi, no LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) display screen at all. Not even a microphone. My drying machine and washing machine are manufactured by Maytag.

Windows 10 I'm sure you can disable all of that stuff like the auto-updates.

n/m

This topic has gone off the deep end...

It's a very good thing that it's recommended. Even they say that's their last operating system, they come out with and still has no impression over me. I stick with windows 8.1 because its always worked just right since i used it.

Very true!

UAC [censored]ed and moaned every time I tried to move/install/etc files in my program folder (like, say, doing anything with mods in Beth games), so I turned it off. It was obnoxious (kind of like how the latest OS X versions either ask for admin passwords every time you try to do something by hand in the Application folder, or don't let you do it at all ).

----

Luckily, I had already turned off auto updates, since some odd Windows Update bug was making it de-sleep my PC every time I tried to sleep it. One big reason I've avoided updating to W10 so far is that my W7 license is retail, and I'm thinking of doing a major upgrade (mboard/CPU/etc) before summer. So I'd like my Windows license to remain portable, instead of becoming OEM/locked as I understand the "free" update makes it.

(Along with the usual concerns about the various "phone home"/spy issues, and software incompatibilities...)

You shouldn't install games into the Program Files directory.

Windows 7/8/8.1 Retail becomes Windows 10 Retail

From Microsoft website: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/wiki/insider_wintp-insider_install/frequently-asked-questions-windows-10/5c0b9368-a9e8-4238-b1e4-45f4b7ed2fb9

Interesting. Clearly, I was misinformed. (Of course, I haven't paid that much attention to it since, oh, late last summer.)

re: games in the program folder..... why wouldn't you install programs in the program folder? Also, that's where pretty much every installer I've ever run has pointed to.

----

In the end, I've always tended to put off updating things until something forced the issue. Took me forever to go from Mac System 6 to 7. My iPad is still running iOS 8. I might update my graphics card drivers once a year. Etc. My father's even worse about it - I had to help him through going from OSX 10.4ish to 10.10 this past year, when Turbo Tax no longer worked with stuff that old. Which then nuked half his productivity software.... none of which were eligible for cheap upgrades, since they were all 8-10+ years old. My upgrade wasn't quite as bad, it was only from 10.6 to 10.10. And the only meaningful loss was my 11-year-old copy of Photoshop CS1. Wheeeeeee!)

Program Files / Program Files (x86) have special file access rights restrictions since Windows Vista (I believe). This was done, along with UAC to prevent malware from infecting the system (or something like that), since programs have default to that directory. The file access restriction can be 'fixed'* but generally its better not to use the directory for stuff that needs full access to the system, like games. Not all games are affected in the same way, or at all, but its better to be safe. Many people have dedicated HDD (or SSD) for games, so the issue is less common.

Since Steam (or Origin) is a direct hub for many games, you want to avoid install it inside Program Files, as well.

* You have to take ownership of the directory and modify the file access restrictions, etc etc.

So here's a question: Say you upgrade to Windows 10 from Win 7, and really enjoy it, but you get a virus, or something goes terribly wrong and you have to reformat your system and it's after the free upgrade period. What happens then? Are you stuck with Win7 then because all you have is the Win7 install disk? Is your license no longer good for Win7 because you upgraded to Win10?

Not that it will affect me, as I've said I have no interest in upgrading, at least not via the free download(I might a few years down the line) due to my 5gb data cap, and the fact that I don't like being an unpaid beta tester, but I imagine this is a good question to ask.

You cannot disable the auto updates in W10. I've managed to remove most of the apps in the Power Shell (except the new browser and the Flash player and one or two others I don't remember); not sure it solves the problems mentioned by Shane_B. though. Anyway, I don't use it, I boot on W7.

Eh, I've consider Windows Update to be a hostile application since MS started using it to push out GWX (updates only get manually installed once I've looked into each one to make sure they don't contain any undesirable elements). The direction MS has chosen to go with Win10 (removing control from the user) has ensured it will never be installed on any of my machines. I'll stick with Win7 until extended support ends in 2020, while checking out non-MS alternatives in the meantime.

I'm a Libertarian, pro gun. Anti war.


Those are enough to get on lists in America.

Oh, and for doubters....


http://www.techworm.net/2016/02/windows-10-spies-disabling-tracking-installing-anti-spying-app.html

While you do have to upgrade to Windows 10 for the first windows 10 experience. Once you do that the license it transferred to a windows 10 one.


Microsoft provides a media tool and windows ISOs to generate a windows DVD or USB stick, to do a clean install just use the windows 7/8/8.1 key. I don't know if you can reinstall windows 7.


I believe you can for a limited time (1 year?) But don't quote me on that.

I reinstalled Windows 7 without issue when my 10 got broken. No license issues with 7.

Upgrading to W10 does not void your current OS nor it's key.

If you take the upgrade route, once activated, you do not need to use your previous OS's key to do a fresh install. You simply leave the CD key box blank when installing from whatever media.

I have done it this way without issue. (OEM version of W7 Pro.)

I can even go back and reinstall W7 should I desire to do so.

Me too, not going near 10. Linux is looking really good right now.

http://www.howtogeek.com/228551/how-to-stop-windows-7-or-8-from-downloading-windows-10-automatically/

Agreed.

No idea why you consider the auto-updates of Windows 10 hostile.

Microsoft is for one of the reasons doing this so people don't get stuck with security exploits. Personally I really don't care about auto-updates for the Windows Operating Systems (OS') like I do for the PC versions of video games, two Windows 10 boots faster than Windows 7 from what people are saying, three a lot of the classic old PC versions of video games do work, four Windows 10, just maybe might be in the next year or so the Windows XP or Windows 7 legacy or whatever you want to call it.

Windows 10's adoption rate is faster than Windows 8's.

None of this is a solid reason to get Windows 10. Maybe security, but I have programs for that and in seven years I have not had a single serious issue having Windows Update disabled.

I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to switch to Windows 10, especially not considering its privacy issues.

I myself am not switching to Windows 10 yet, maybe not even after July 29th, 2016 I'm going to stay on Windows 7 for a long time even after 2020. I still have a PC plugged in that has Windows XP installed and I still purchase and play PC versions of video games on it that is the ones that run and support Windows XP. I even purchase PC versions of video games that don't support Windows XP on my Windows XP PC.

Also I never had issues with Windows updates disabled as well.

I said it before that I will continue using my Windows XP PC alongside my Windows 7 PC 10 years from now. I just cant let go of Windows XP .

Disabling Windows updates doesn't mean that updates are not installed. I install only the ones that seem useful, I hide the others. I hid the W10 update weeks ago and it never popped up again.

Oh, man. I wish my XP hadn′t crashed on me

It does on my puter

It does on my puter

Are you still wondering why you can't access Bethesda.net? If you are, you've got your answer.