Very cool - Thanks!

Well, I'm about ready to go back to Win 7. The Start menu is still broken (still can't pin things and still no Steam shortcut found, despite reinstalling it), sound is all kinds of messed up (no rear speakers on surround, quality is crap), file indexing is useless (24 hours of indexing over a million items and it still can't find anything it couldn't find five minutes after upgrading)... loads of little annoyances all over the place with no clear fixes... I've never had this much frustration with a Windows upgrade, and I've run upgrades on almost every version of Windows going back to 3.1.

What is the alternative?

Mac? for the rich yes
Chrome? more power to google and make us even more dependent?
Linux? for the desktop?
How do I know a piece of hardware will run with linux?
Also how about all my legacy software from windows?
And finally a UI that is pleasantly aesthetic and familiar?
Even the more ugly windows desktop like Win3 or Win8 are so much better compared to the best Linux GUI

windows has 90% desktop market share not cause its great, but cause there is no alternative

Mandatory updates, crappy interface with mixed shit everywhere, crapware and bloatware like a freemium Solitaire, the death of privacy everywhere (Cortana, kill yourself already), cloud bullshit, "Microsoft account"-based login, even more cloud bullshit, mobile-based "live" tiles I can't possibly give a flying fuck about on a desktop PC, etc.

Yep, Windows 10 is the best Windows ever. If you are a retarded monkey, who never used a computer, and have a QI 100 points below the Forrest Gump level.

No thanks. Upgrading to Windows 7 (I've got Vista SP2 right now, and I'm lazy with my upgrades), Microsoft can go fuck itself with its "Windows as a service" bullcrap.

Call me when the first Directx 12-based game will be out, I will consider installing Windows "bestest" 10 as a secondary OS then...

Thanks for the post
So basically not only you have forced auto-updates, but your computer is basically hijacked by microsoft to act as a file server to spread those same forced updates to other users
And people still wonder why Microsoft is giving win10 for free
We windows users really have to be masochists to endure this

You can change it so that it only communicates updates with PCs on your LAN and not any over the internet, which is actually really useful. One PC pulls the update, the rest on your LAN pull from that PC. If you've got multiple Win 10 machines on the same network, it actually saves you bandwidth.

Certainly doesn't make up for the rest of the crap 10 came with, or the "torrent sharing" option being enabled by default, but as a feature its not as bad as it sounds, once properly configured.

Exactly! for me the same, it continues to be unacceptable

Btw, with no alternative, I'm poor so I can't buy a Mac, Chrome being dangerously close to Orwells 1984 and Linux still amateur and ugly my plan would be win7 until 2020 and from 2020 to 2023 win8.1
Ok win8.1 has a horrible interface but at least I have exactly the same control over my computer as now with win7.
I can turn off auto-updates and check them manually and select individually which ones I want.
So at least until 2023 I have a plan to boycott win10 forced auto-updates

Can be disabled, and you can select what to update. Requires a normal to high IQ though, so not for, what was it, ah, yes "retarded monkey, who never used a computer, and have a QI 100 points below the Forrest Gump level."

Modern UI totally optional, unless you want to use it.

Totally optional, unless you want to install it.

Opt-out available for all of that, assuming you have 2 brain cells to look for them

Cortana requires you to give her permission

Optional.

False, local login available, unless you choose the MS account one.

See above

Removable, no need to see them.

FTFY

macs are not that expensive anymore
you can have a mini for "just" 499 and an imac is around 999
yes that still a hefy chunk of money but the time when a macintosh would cost you 20 to 40 grand is long long gone

the biggest problem with macs these days is that they are closed systems
what you buy is what you get
upgrading is nigh on impossible you either have to take the whole damn thing apart
or there is no room
or everything is soldered or glued together

and unfortunally most macs have a piece of shit intel HD video card so its hardly usable for gaming
at least untill apple stops supplying their computers with intel pieces of trash video cards

in short an apple macintosh is an ultrabook in a desktop

DRM-free? I can only think of Linux there.

1. All I've tried worked out of the box.
2. Some stuff runs better in WINE than it does on modern versions of Windows, especcially Win95-era games.
3. Too many to mention.
4. Which ones have you tried?
5. Windows has the big market share because systems get shipped with it and most people wouldn't change the OS if they already paid for the one that is already there.

Most of what you wrote was certainly true 10 years ago, but today those are just prejudices.
Which distros did you try and which GUIs?

My desktop experience is great and I can play games with excellent graphics like Shadow Warrior on highest settings on an old system with only 4gb of slow RAM.

Watch out, we've got a serious Microsoftie fan here. I really have no time to waste to answer your nonsense here. Because almost everything you said is nonsense.

Fact checker actually.

Take your time. I've already posted how to disable automatic updates, in this very thread. Go ahead and do your best.

Edit: linky

Pot, Kettle.

He's simply correcting misconceptions, you're talking nonsense.

No offense, but I stil can't believe how you once upon a time were a writer for a tech website with all the hate you keep throwing around for anything new.

Yeah. If I squint I can see why MS is doing this - but seriously, how did they think this is OK? It's not OK to hijack someone else's computer and internet connection without telling them.

The only reason people aren't up in arms over being turned into part of a botnet by default is because MS isn't explaining this to anyone.
1) There is no way to argue with the fact that MS removed functionality from Windows Update and wants to force users to install all updates.

After a significant outcry and nuking people's computers with bad drivers they released a hidden tool that lets users remove a bad update after it has been installed. This in no way replaces the efficient and effective abilities Windows Update has prior to Win10.

Your 'solution' - needing to run a script only available after signing up for a random forum and then follow some process (also not available without a forum account there) - is completely unacceptable for a mainstream OS. A user-derived stopgap for fixing a glaring flaw in the OS, that's not available to average users and is unsupported by the OS devs, so subject to change at any time? It's definitely not a replacement for Windows Update.

2) No, the Metro UI is not optional. For one thing, MS has changed many GUIs for desktop programs / etc to mimic the Metro look, which is less functional (harder to distinguish separate elements) and which many people find ugly / cartoonish. For another, the new Start menu has been completely Metro-ized, and lots of included apps are Metro-style.

The cloud crap is only 'optional' if users are willing to go into the registry, change service permissions, etc. Removing OneDrive integration, for example, is impossible for the average user. This isn't 'optional', this is MS burying any options beyond the reach of the average person so they can forcibly lock users into their cloud.

MS wants to mimic Google's cloud services, but forgets that people use Google cloud services because they want to - Google products are functional, user-friendly and easy to access. MS is trying to strong-arm users into products without regard for existing workflows or product choices, and that's completely not OK. It's an abuse of the power and trust that comes with writing the OS.

That users can work around MS' arrogance and bad decisions doesn't make MS any less arrogant, or make the bad decisions any better. It just means that MS hasn't locked everything down completely yet (thank goodness). MS is obviously trying to lock things down though, which is not something I look for in my OS or for the office PCs. Win10 seems to be the death of a thousand paper cuts from an IT admin perspective - keeping an office of Win10 computers secure and stable is going to be massively more work than Win7.

The more generally troubling part is that MS clearly doesn't see other people's PCs (or internet connections) as other people's properties. They're assuming the options they want are appropriate for everyone, and that everyone is OK with making those defaults mandatory. This is probably driven out of a desire for integration and updates instead of anything more nefarious, but that doesn't change the impact of things like forcing users to download updates and turning everyone into P2P nodes by default.