This is pretty much my exact dilemma of Windows vs Mac. As for FaceBook, I despise it, and only use it because other people I care about keeping up with use it. I wish a better alternative would catch on.
As for that forced upgrade message, I deleted one of the downloaded updates but could not delete the other two so was forced to shut down when I flew back home. (My laptop does not have hibernate available.
)
When I restarted, it went through a half hour of "configuring" and then restarted and.... still Windows 7! No more message about an upgrade.
I doubt the update I deleted was a whole Windows 10 upgrade it didn't say it was. I have no idea what happened.
Hard to say from here. It sounds more like it reverted. Although I find the whole thing rather odd because I thought MS was done offering the Win10 upgrade from previous versions via the GWX tool. I know they've left my Win8 machine alone. So maybe it started and then couldn't connect to actually download Win10. But I doubt that that's the case. Here's why.
As of a few months ago (and possibly still), anyone with a valid and activated Win7 or Win 8 installation could still legally upgrade to Win10 for free. Even though the GWX tool and the free upgrade were (I think) officially withdrawn in July of 2016, as of this past summer, anyone with a valid Win7 or Win8 could still upgrade for free by going to Microsoft's Windows 10 download page, downloading the installer, and running it. The machine would upgrade using its existing Product Key to the corresponding Windows 10 level (Home or Professional). No payment would be requested or required.
I don't know if this was intentional or accidental on MS's part. It was neither publicized nor kept a secret that the free upgrade was still available. People in the business knew and occasionally made use of the opportunity for clients who actually wanted the Win 10 upgrade (who were a minority compared to those who wanted to avoid it), but it wasn't something MS seemed to want to either publicize nor hide. It was just there. If you knew about it, you could use it.
If that opportunity is still there (and I have no reason to believe it isn't), then the files are are still there, in the same place they've been for years. So unless the installer on your machine was looking for them in some other place that I don't know about, if it was looking for the files, it would have found them.
I don't know about how it works on Win7, but I know that on Win10, some users who defer feature updates wind up getting them anyway because they're
too obsessed with avoiding the telemetry. The telemetry settings have a "0" option, which is not really "none," but is labeled "Security" and limits telemetry to only the most critical data necessary for security updates and patches. The next level up is "1" ("Basic"), and includes some additional data about app compatibility, reliability, crashes, and so forth.
Many users who want Microsoft to know NOTHING about them either disable telemetry altogether (which actually doesn't work, by the way: It's identical to a "0" setting, which still transmits security-related data), or set it to "0" either in the Registry or by using GPO. The problem is that the data on the build and feature update deferral preferences only get transmitted at a setting of "1" or higher. So users who want the deferred build, but who have the telemetry set to "0", will get the latest build regardless of their update path or deferral settings. That can be a big problem or no problem at all depending on what hardware and software they use.
I don't know how it works on Win7 these days, but maybe you declined some previous update that would have set a preference for MS not to bother you about Win10 anymore. I don't know that that's the case, but it's possible.
In short, maintaining some semblance of privacy while using Win10 is a constant challenge and a balancing act. But in fairness to MS, it's also not exactly unreasonable for users who have update preferences to allow the machine an adequate level of telemetry to let Microsoft know what those preferences are. The problem is that it's not exactly crystal-clear in the user-level documentation that the update preferences require a telemetry setting of at least "1," and you really can't expect average users to pore through documentation published primarily for the benefit of professionals to find that out.
For me, Win 10 is worth the hassle because with my current settings, it's the most trouble-free Windows I've ever used; and
I think that the data it's gathering is minimal and is limited to machine and app reliability and the like -- especially because I use a local rather than an MS login. My hardware and software are recent and mainstream; so using my update settings, by the time I get updates, they've been well-vetted in the wild and don't cause me any problems.
In short, I
tolerate -- not
like -- the
potential for snooping (because I don't
know for a fact what data MS is collecting is collecting beyond machine reliability information and the like) because the OS works well and reliably for me. This is a work machine, and reliability is what I want on it. For the first time in my career, I'm happy with all the software I use on a daily basis -- and I'd like it to stay that way.
But that nagging knowledge that Microsoft
could start gathering data I'm not authorizing them to collect is enough for me to periodically look at what Mac is up to, as well as to keep abreast of software developments in the Linux world. MS and I are at sort of a truce point. If they violate it, I'll bail.
Rich
