Microsoft Confirms Massive Windows 7, Windows 8 Upgrade Changes

Then Win7 and 8.1 customers got hit with a double whammy: The "Get Windows 10" campaign and the further encroachment of Microsoft snooping. Patching has never been the same since. Customers started implementing defensive patching strategies -- protecting themselves from Microsoft's advances -- and the nature of patching changed completely.

There's fragmentation, but it's largely predictable and almost entirely dedicated to the idea of keeping Microsoft's hands off their systems.

I see two general camps of Win7 and 8.1 defensive patchers. On the one hand, there are people who will only install clearly identified security patches. On the other, we have people who have followed (or developed) long lists of patches that should be avoided to deflect Microsoft's privacy incursions. Many people refuse to install patches that are specifically designed to make the transition to Windows 10 easier: They bought and paid for Win7, and they don't want Win10.

Patch blocklists abound -- and no longer just among the tinfoil hat wearers. They reflect a genuine concern about Microsoft's new telemetry activities: the Diagnostic and Telemetry tracking service, for example; new telemetry points/snooping stations; and Visual Studio Application Insights. Many Windows 7 and 8.1 users don't see any reason to let Microsoft (or app developers) snoop any more than they already do.

So yes, there is fragmentation in patching now. But I don't think it's a case of Win7 users deciding that they want to support the Azerbaijani manat or skip the daylight savings time updates for rural Egypt. The fragmentation that's developed has a pattern, and it's due to Microsoft's intrusiveness.

Now that the "Get Windows 10" campaign is over, Microsoft has a golden opportunity to mend some fences and pull the extraneous garbage out of Win7 and 8.1. A couple months' of healing patches that get the Win10 junk out of Win7 and reduce the telemetry incursion would do wonders to reduce the fragmentation.

I don't expect that to happen. Instead we're going to see Microsoft consolidate its snooping efforts under a new banner, with fragmentation cast as the boogeyman.

The argument for a telemetry kill switch baffles me, as does the implication that telemetry data is inherently at odds with personal privacy.

As far as I can tell, that "off switch" already exists, and when it's flipped to the correct position, I believe there's virtually no chance that Windows 10 telemetry information constitutes even a remote privacy issue.

In fact, there are more privacy protections in the telemetry framework for Windows 10 than there were in earlier Windows versions. I described these privacy options several weeks ago, but will repeat that section in its entirety here, because it's worth reading carefully, and because Adrian's post doesn't seem to have considered the privacy protections already available in Windows 10.

In earlier Windows versions, the telemetry system was known as Windows Error Reporting, which traces its ancestry to the Dr. Watson feature from the earliest days of Windows.

Oh Crimeny, now I am even more confused but in some way I think thats what they want. Just confuse the masses that don't know much about this, which has to be what, 90% of the Windows users out here, so they don't bother in looking any further and think they are safe.