Microsoft will explain only "significant" W10 updates.

My opinion: They do not say what informations they collect and what they do with it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08...ws_10_updates/

Turns out that those pc savvy folks who are trying windows 10, and removing all of the clutter and turning off the MS data gathering stuffs are having troubles rolling back to their previous version of Windows http://www.thewindowsclub.com/were-s...ack-windows-10

Yet there is no warning of this issue occurring from MS, anywhere.

From my own experience, I found this when my own mother came to me asking to go back to Win8.

She bought a new laptop 2 months ago and was excited about getting a free copy of Win10 on release. Now all she uses her laptops for is Facebook, internet banking/bill payments and those hidden object games.

She actually managed to upgrade to Win10 by herself, and from following threads like this I went over the next day to turn off all the MS crap. Anyway, all was good for a couple of weeks until the last update that not only stopped her from playing her games but from accessing certain household utilities sites too. This was too much even for my technology impaired mother, who soon asked to go back to win8 (of all OS's)

So knowing she still had a week left to revert back, I went through the MS guides to revert back to win8. This rendered the Laptop in a reboot loop. I found a restore point but this still did not work.

Thankfully being 2 months old, it still had the Acer bloatware on it and I was able to take it back to factory settings and boot to an OS again.

Moral of this story... When a 63yr old technically inept woman can find fault with your OS, MS are misguided if they think they can pull the wool over the eyes of an average user.

Edit: Spelling and grammar.

Thank you for sharing this typical story about this situation and the increasing complexity to pull it off.

It reminds me of the days where I had to migrate my father's Lenovo from Windows 8 back to Windows 7.

Lessen learned, install a working copy of Windows 7, make an image of it and store it somewhere because you never know how soon Microsoft will start to update live copies of Windows 7 to openly behave in a Windows 10 way.

It seems users of Windows 7/8/8.1 are not spared -- M$ pushed updates which enable data mining like on Windows 10 ...

More info: http://www.ghacks.net/2015/08/28/mic...and-8-systems/

&

http://www.extremetech.com/computing...to-windows-7-8

KB3068708 & KB3022345 are from may/june ...

Thanks for that.
That article has exactly what I wanted.
Hard, cold ...numbers.
specifically the exact updates which should be avoided during os install / reinstall or simply removed from current installation.

I do see that eventually [sadly ..fairly soon if things keep ramping up] I will be taking my win7 offline and using it purely for that. Offline work. [It's after all... only a few penabled art programs I use it for]
Transferring anything necessary back and forth between storage and my linux systems. Small trivial inconvenience.
But if I stick with win7 use online...
and I'm gonna allow this kinda intimacy...
I do expect dinner and a movie first.
And I don't see M$ at the door with a bouquet of flowers yet...
sooo...

Check out this link to remove even more Microsoft spyware/telemetry updates:

http://www.hakspek.com/security/upda...ke-windows-10/
- in the comments user "DxF" shows how to remove those updates via cmd. Worked perfectly on my Windows 8.1 setup (no worries, I don't use Windows as my main OS ;-) ).

This might also be interesting: https://blockwindows.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/2/

But I think someone who's really worried about all that stuff, should probably consider to switch to a Linux distribution...

Heads Up.
windows telemetry ...

Last week came the warning, now comes the roll out. One of the most most controversial aspects of Windows 10 is coming to Windows 7 and 8. Microsoft has released upgrades which enable the company to track what a user is doing. The updates – KB3075249, KB3080149 and KB3068708 – all add "customer experience and diagnostic telemetry" to the older versions. gHacks points out that the updates will ignore any previous user preferences reporting: "These four updates ignore existing user preferences stored in Windows 7 and Windows 8 (including any edits made to the Hosts file) and immediately starts exchanging user data with vortex-win.data.microsoft.com and settings-win.data.microsoft.com."

And short on it's heels..
Looking like if you wish to retain
[sooner than I thought too ..in the short term...let alone the long haul]
your win 7 or win 8 ...
better start taking precautionary steps...
or think of pulling your running system from accessing the internet...
you've been duly warned.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...e-just-in-case

"Microsoft is downloading Windows 10 to your machine 'just in case'"

"MICROSOFT HAS CONFIRMED that Windows 10 is being downloaded to computers whether or not users have opted in."

Perhaps windows 10 and subsequent versions will end up great...
that is likely...
Still...right now at this time..windows 10 is not what I would wish to have running on any of my computers...
And being herded into it really doesn't enhance the love.
I like option and choice...preferably "my own" option and choice ...that is...

and the windoze world shook...
sounds epic eh?

More of the latest confidence inspiring antics...

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015...red-worldwide/

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...e62725e?auth=1

The last bit of updates on my win 7 os I have held back on installing...
rather trust my anti virus/malware/etc than deal with this ..
and currently am considering not allowing my win 7 to access the web at all anymore.
Just use it offline for my graphic work.
A little irritation ...but worth it I think.
I use my linux os's more online than my win anyway...
so it isn't a huge leap of any kind for me...
hell ...
It's been a few years since I bothered with reactos...
I think I'll see how things are going with that distro...
not quite finished....but almost there ...
in the interim I've got a good copy of win 7 32 and 64 bit versions
for installation up to Sp1 as of last July...which suits me fine...in case I need [weeeeellll ..rather "will have to eventually.." reinstall win 7 again and again and again over the upcoming years...I do enjoy some of the graphics programs and find them very good for my work..] to install it again ...but I most definitely want the os manageable before all the poo hit the fan [so to speak] ..
I'm not intending to abandon win 7 [or my xp tablet edition either] ...
but I think limiting it's online access to zero.... is what I'm going to do for the foreseeable ...

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...s-7-8-systems/

Getting better and better.

We now have systems automatically 'upgrading' themselves from W7 and W8/.1 to W10.

MS has created a monster like Frankenstein they can't dominate.