Has Microsoft finally stopped trying to make "fetch" happen with Cortana?

I've been posting about Cortana, and why it should be optional in Windows 10, for a while now. By turning Cortana on by default, frustrating attempts to turn it off, and forcing all searches through Cortana, including local file searches, Microsoft basically forced users to sacrifice privacy in exchange for the use of a feature that most of them didn't care about at all.

But with Javier Soltero, Microsoft's head of Cortana, departing the company, and Alexa, the rival digital assistant from Amazon, now available on the Microsoft store, it was looking more and more inevitable that Microsoft would start backing Windows 10 away from this sort of forced Cortana integration. With the market having spoken, and saying clearly that Cortana was not a selling point of Windows 10, how long would Microsoft keep forcing its use as WX's default for all search?

The answer to that question, apparently, is "until the 19H1 update," as reported by WindowsLatest:

Microsoft is making some changes to how Windows Search works in Windows 10. With Windows 10 19H1 update, Microsoft is reportedly planning to remove Windows Search from Cortana. It’s a smart move as this could eventually allow you to use the search feature flawlessly even if you don’t like Cortana.

Windows 10 19H1 will separate Cortana and Windows Search, and two different icons will be displayed on the taskbar. It’s a pretty neat change as this would allow Cortana to act more like a personal digital assistant and you can use Windows Search if you’re looking for files, pictures, music and other stuff stored in your local drive.

Screenshots show menus which seem to allow users to hide the new Cortana button -- not quite as good as allowing users to simply disable Cortana, but when combined with the separation of Cortana from search, it amounts to functionally the same thing.

This is a good move. Microsoft's insistence that users must use features and products that they had repeatedly indicated they had no interest in using was one of the most annoying things about Windows 10. Nobody cares about Cortana, or Edge, or Bing, and yet Microsoft was dead set on making them unavoidable, in a display of either monopolistic arrogance, desperation, or simple tone-deafness, which had long since convinced a large number of Windows 7 users to put off the switch indefinitely, if possible.

If nothing else, this latest move explains by Javier Soltero is leaving the company. As someone who'd internally championed Cortana, the prospect of having Cortana de-emphasized in Windows 10, and his own role and career prospects with them, probably made leaving look like a really attractive option. But if Microsoft really are finally learning to let go, to stop trying to force with issue, then maybe that's about to change.

It's not enough to convince someone like me to switch to Windows 10, #Never10, #LinuxShift, but it is, finally, a start. Whether this first baby step has happened in time, is of course, a whole 'nother discussion.

Reminder: Windows 7 really is the new XP

Back during the darkest days of Microsoft's GWX campaign, when they'd abandoned all pretense of believing in the quality of the product and offering Windows users a free upgrade, and instead started switching users' systems to Windows 10 no matter how many times they'd refused previously, it was already becoming clear that Microsoft had done lasting harm to their own brand, and to the relationship of trust and goodwill that they'd previously enjoyed with users of Windows 7.

I wasn't alone in referring to Microsoft's GWX fiasco as "upgrade-gate," or to point out the consequences with which Microsoft would have to deal for the next several years; pieces like this one, from Makeof.com, were pretty easily found at the time:

Steve Jobs famously said “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Microsoft must think this is true for Windows 10. And so its developers keep finding new ways to trick Windows 7 and 8 users into upgrading because surely they will like Windows 10 once the see it. Or they’ll just surrender.

Personally, I do like Windows 10, but I also appreciate the reasons of those who oppose the upgrade. And I think what Microsoft has been doing is deeply disturbing and unethical. Microsoft acts as if its goal for 1 billion Windows 10 users supersedes the company’s responsibility for its existing Windows customers.

This reckless battle has unintended consequences, which not only hurt Microsoft’s customers, but also its business.

From loss of trust in the Windows; to users simply turning off Windows Update to avoid the hated GWX payloads; to actual monetary costs in the form of lost time, bandwidth, and productivity; reasons abounded why Microsoft's overly-aggressive GWX push was a bad idea. And while the worst of these for Microsoft, "Home Users Will Abandon Windows," hasn't yet come to pass, there's still no sign that consumers have forgiven Microsoft for the liberties, excesses, and borderline (or actual) abuses of GWX.

Microsoft's GWX push was of a piece with Terry Myerson's Windows-centric strategy, which Microsoft has since abandoned. Two years after GWX's failure, Myerson is no longer at Microsoft; his Windows and Devices Group no longer exists, its various teams having been redistributed across other business units which, according to Microsoft, are actually the future of the company. And Windows 10 is still not as popular as Windows 7... depending on who you ask, of course.

The fallout from GWX still hasn't stopped falling, either. Every month, Microsoft delivers updates for Windows 7, and every month, the description of those updates includes the same disclaimer: "does not include windows 10 upgrade functionality." That's still necessary, more than two years after GWX; that is truly epic levels of fail.

But it actually gets worse for Microsoft.

Windows 10 can still be had for free, weeks after they claimed to have closed the last free-WX loophole

BTW, I've just decided to start abbreviating Windows 10 to "WX," which is both shorter and consistent with GWX branding already used by Microsoft. For brevity and consistency, I'll also be using "W#" for earlier versions (i.e. W7, W8, W8.1), and simply adding the appropriate suffixes for other flavours of WX when needed for clarity (WX-Home, WX-Pro, WX-Core, WX-S, etc.).

It took Microsoft until two full weeks after their Dec. 31st deadline, and change, to finally close the Assistive Technologies loophole, which allowed users to upgrade to WX for free if they were willing to say that they used any kind of Assistive Technology... up to, and including, hot keys. You might thing that the end of the last of the Microsoft's officially free WX offerings would mean the end of stories about how you can still get WX for free.

Well, you would be wrong. Check out the "most relevant" result that Google News returns for "Windows 10."

Yes, that's Forbes, with yet another piece on how WX can still be had for free, now two weeks after the last free WX window was allegedly closed.

Windows 10 was free for a year after launch for anyone who had an older version of Windows. For those who missed this transition period it was possible to get an upgrade right up until the end of 2017, a loophole Microsoft has now closed - although it wasn't much of a loophole, as the company knew all about it.

However there are other ways to upgrade to Windows 10 that don't involve getting the upgrade assistant from the official site.

Yes, apparently this has always worked... meaning that this also isn't much of a loophole, since Microsoft clearly also knows all about it, i.e. working as intended.

It's unclear as to why this works, but if you have a product code for an old version of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 you should be able to enter this into a copy of Windows 10 and get an activation. You will be given access to the version of Windows 10 that matches the original product key. So Windows 8 Pro will get Windows 10 Pro, while Windows 8 Home will get, you guessed it, Windows 10 Home.

Hmmm.... so it's possible to upgrade from W7-Pro to WX-Pro? It's a shame the GWX app didn't work the same way; I might have been tempted to switch.

Right about now, you might be wondering why Microsoft would still have a WX upgrade left open that's large enough for an auto-truck to drive through? Well, Microsoft themselves are pretty quiet on the issue, but Forbes' Ian Morris has some ideas:

As I pointed out in my article about the closing of the accessibility loophole, I don't think Microsoft really cares about end users getting free upgrades. It makes more money from OEM sales of Windows 10 on new laptops and revenue from corporate users than the slender pickings of home users. Indeed, Microsoft makes more money - and more margin - on selling cloud offerings these days.

Windows isn't a cash cow when it comes to home users, so I suspect there's a lot of give built into the system.

Which makes a lot of sense, actually. It's just a shame that Microsoft are being so disingenuous about it all. I mean, they could easily partner with PC-OEMs to promote new PC sales ("Get the most out of Windows 10 with the latest AMD/Ryzen hardware!"), while also continuing to let tech-savvier users upgrade for free if they still want to... and without the fucking hard sell, this time. Because, honestly, the hard sell of the GWX campaign was a big part of the continued appeal of W7, which culminated in Microsoft simply switching over users who didn't take active steps to avoid the unwanted "upgrade," even after they'd repeatedly refused Microsoft's malware-laden Home version of WX.

Hell, Microsoft even have a better product to give away than they did a few years ago, with more features and (crucially) better privacy protections, and even better privacy tools due to be added to the platform in a couple of months. And if I can also use my W7 Professional license to upgrade to WX-Pro, rather than the gimped Home version, to gain even more features and even better privacy tools... when, that becomes one hell of a sales pitch, doesn't it?

So, what's the problem?

RIP, Cortana? (UPDATED)

When I read earlier this week that some OEMs were adding Amazon Alexa functionality to their new PCs, I really didn't think much of it. Apparently, though, I was very, very wrong about that, as this piece from ZDNet explains:

If Microsoft's Cortana can't win on a Windows PC where can it? At CES 2018, Amazon's Alexa assistant is being added to Acer, Asus and HP systems with more likely to follow.

A year ago, Amazon's Alexa everywhere strategy rolled out. At CES 2018 (see latest via CNET), Alexa's footprint is expanding throughout the smart home and via partnerships.
Cortana's future has increasingly been looking shaky as a front-end assistant. To wit:

• Microsoft has dropped plans to integrate Cortana with its Dynamics 365 ERP and CRM platforms. Microsoft did say that integration with Cortana and Dynamics 365 would happen at a future date without offering details.
• Cortana has 230 skills and that tally is well behind Alexa's 25,000.
• Microsoft and Amazon announced a pact to co-mingle Cortana and Alexa. But Alexa for Business alters the business focus for Microsoft's Cortana.

Microsoft, for their part, have started pushing back against this narrative, as reported by ZDNet:

Microsoft is trying to fight back against perceptions that Cortana may be its next consumer-centric technology to face the chopping block.

On Jan. 9, the company issued a press releasing touting recent wins for Cortana. Among these are the officially unveiled Johnson Controls' Cortana-powered thermostat (which goes on sale for $319 starting in March).

A Microsoft spokesperson I contacted said there are additional new Cortana partners not listed in the Jan. 9 blog post that are going public with their Cortana wares at CES.

"In addition to our currently supported home automation partners, we are announcing new partnerships with Ecobee, Geeni, Honeywell Lyric, IFTTT, LIFX, TP-Link Kasa, and Honeywell Total Connect Comfort. Cortana currently supports lights, outlets, switches, and thermostats across all providers," the spokesperson said.

Ah, yes... the Internet of Things. Which really isn't a thing yet, because consumers are (so far, anyway) largely uninterested in internet-enabled fridges and toasters, but whatevs. It rather begs the question, though... is a trickle of IoT/Cortana devices enough to keep Cortana alive, when even PC makers are abandoning Cortana in favour of Alexa due to a lack of demand for Microsoft's digital assistant?

The Reg didn't think so:

Torn between wholesaling and retailing Cortana, Microsoft ended up doing a bit of both, and failed badly. It's also torn between what the brand actually means – an Alexa voice assistant, or an IBM Watson-like brand for analytics, covering a multitude of products and technologies.

It's probably unfair to make any kind of pronouncement until 2017's Amazon-Microsoft deal bears fruit. Echo owners will get access to, er, Cortana – or whatever Microsoft decides Cortana is this week.

And that's the trouble.

Less than two months ago this was the Cortana Intelligence Suite, we noted. Only now all mention of the Cortana brand has been removed from everywhere except the URL.

It would be negligent not to point out what a great thing Microsoft has squandered. Cortana is another case of Microsoft failing to make the most of outstanding lab work – it has done speech very well for a very long time – and shrewd acquisitions.

Time will tell, I suppose, but the fact that Microsoft find themselves spending PR time during CES 2018 trying to convince people that Cortana isn't dead, rather than announcing new and actually interesting things themselves, probably isn't a good sign.

Personally, I'm hoping that Cortana's demise actually is imminent, because that actually mean that Windows 10 users will finally get the option back to simply turn Cortana off entirely. Even if Microsoft keep Cortana on life support for another year, it's becoming clear that Microsoft have somehow failed to shove their spyware digital assistant down consumers' collective throats, in spite of having total control over the Windows 10 platform. Perhaps their "sales" approach was a touch too ham-fisted?

UPDATED JAN. 12th:

Paul Thurrott has an interesting take (login required) on Microsoft's push-back:

Google’s presence at the show is particularly impressive: After adding two Assistant-based devices at CES 2017, the firm this year unveiled a stunning array of partners creating Android TVs, Smart TVs, smart speakers, smart displays, smart headphones, automotive solutions, and more all running off of Google Assistant.

By comparison, Microsoft’s partners released exactly one device in 2017, the Harman Kardon Invoke. And we’ve been tantalized by a second device, the JCI Glas thermostat, which will allegedly arrive this year. (To be fair, the device is at CES.) That’s it.

For 2018, Microsoft says it has “partnered with industry leaders including Allwinner, Synaptics, TONLY, and Qualcomm, to develop reference designs for new Cortana experiences.”

Sorry. Reference designs? Guys. This battle is already over. Reference designs should have happened two years ago.

Microsoft told Mary Jo Foley that more is on the way.

“In addition to our currently supported home automation partners, we are announcing new partnerships with Ecobee, Geeni, Honeywell Lyric, IFTTT, LIFX, TP-Link Kasa, and Honeywell Total Connect Comfort,” a Microsoft spokesperson told her. “Cortana currently supports lights, outlets, switches, and thermostats across all providers.”

The delusional nature of this work is astonishing. By comparison, Google Assistant now works with over 225 home control brands and more than 1,500 devices. That’s the bar.

[...]

Brad and I were so stunned by this push for rival Microsoft technologies, that we asked representatives of several PC makers at CES about Cortana. No one uses the technology, we were routinely told. And they are simply delivering the functionality that their customers actually want.

RIP, Cortana (May 2015 - January 2018). Apparently you will not be missed.

Microsoft moguls name privacy and surveillance as major issues needing attention in 2018.

Apparently they're oblivious to the irony of taking a position like this one:

The past 12 months brought another important year in a decade filled with milestones relating to privacy and surveillance. And there is every reason to believe that 2018 will offer more of the same. Two specific topics rose to the top in 2017.

The first involves a sea change in privacy regulation, marked by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. It moves beyond the European Data Protection Directive adopted in 1995, enough so that “GDPR” has become a well - known word across the tech sector. The new EU regulation takes effect on May 25, imposing added requirements on companies that have the personal information of European consumers, regardless of where the company is located. While many regulations tell companies what they cannot do, GDPR also tells firms what they must do. Among the changes, the regulation requires that companies ensure that European consumers can learn what information businesses have about them, change the information if it’s inaccurate, move the information to another provider if desired, and delete it if they “wish to be forgotten.” In effect it prescribes new business processes and even product features.

Gee... does that mean that Windows 10 users will be able to opt out of telemetry at some point in 2018, or have an option in the control panel to turn off Cortana without a fucking registry edit? Or is Microsoft planning to continue doing the absolute minimum required to avoid (more) regulatory action, while continuing to treat users' PCs and personal data like Microsoft's pseudo-feudal fiefdom? Place your bets!

Microsoft, naturally, quickly move on to talking about government surveillance, while blowing their own bugle about the handful of court cases they're currently litigating to prevent the U.S. Government from encroaching on their big data fiefdom, but you shouldn't be fooled into thinking that Micrsoft have your best interests at heart, because they don't. This is all about protecting their interests; any benefit that you receive in the process is incidental.

This is why I'd like to see Cortana become an optional thing.

From PC Gamer:

Windows 10's search is a constant source of frustration

Small, unsolved issues with finding files and settings menus persist while Cortana hogs the spotlight.

Two years and two major updates later, Windows 10 is mostly the OS I want it to be. It's fast, stable, and the recent Creators Update included a lot of small changes we liked. But search—a feature I use every day—still annoys the hell out of me. The Windows 10 Creators Update did nothing to improve Windows 10's basic file system search results, which will on occasion omit program results for no obvious reason, bury its own menus, and default to searching the internet with a browser I don't use instead of surfacing one of my own files. These failings are a daily reminder that Microsoft's search priorities and my search priorities are not identical.

[...] When I want to set up a task to complete, I use Asana. When I want to send an email, I use Gmail in my browser. I think the real problem is less being old fashioned, and more that I already have specialized tools or preferences for doing the kinds of tasks Cortana can handle, and I don't solve most of those problem with Microsoft services.

When I hit the Windows key and start typing, there's one thing I want Microsoft's help with: getting to my files as quickly as possible. Windows 10 has some problems with that.

This, in a nutshell, is why half of PC users, and over half of Windows users, are still using Windows 7.  

Microsoft wants to be in control of every aspect of your PC use, from your choice of OS, to updating your OS, to buying the software, to accessing your own damn data. They want to be Apple, serving apps to a captive marketplace with them taking a cut of every single program installation; and they want to be Google, replacing your browser of choice with their own, and using Bing for fucking everything, even though nobody uses Bing outside of Microsoft's employees; and they want to be Amazon, skimming a little more off the top by storing your data on their cloud-based OneDrive service, and selling you extra storage space when your OneDrive is full, in spite of the fact that your Terabyte-sized hard drive almost certainly isn't. 

And, you know what? I understand that. I understand why Microsoft would love to leverage their dominance on desktop and laptop PCs into market share dominance of the cloud-based businesses that they hadn't cared about until companies like Google, and Apple, and Amazon all started challenging (or surpassing) their market cap. I get it. I really, really do Get It. I just don't care.

Here's the thing: Microsoft having missed the boat on web search, or mobile computing, or cloud-based server and storage services? Those are Microsoft's problems. They're not our problems, and I personally don't give a flying fuck about any of them. Microsoft keep trying to make their problems into our problems, and I hate that. Seriously, there are very few things that will piss me off faster, almost none of which are things that I come across on regular basis. 

And Microsoft just keep doing this, shoving all things Windows 10 under users' noses at every opportunity, over and over again as if we haven't been refusing Windows 10, by which I mean actively avoiding the fucking thing, for nearly two years now. We can't ignore their shit, and we can't forget their shit, because they won't let us.

Seriously, Microsoft, how can we ever start to miss you, if you never fucking leave us alone?

Here's why Microsoft's fans should stop defending them

Michael Allison is on a tear over at MSPoweruser. His latest op/ed piece, "Microsoft’s ads in Windows 10 are getting out of control," may not have been as polarizing as Mark Wilson's assertion that Windows 10 was more advertising platform than operating system, but a quick perusal of its comment section will show a fair smattering of the usual fallacious counter-arguments.

Allison, however, has clearly given this issue a lot more thought than those commenters, and today he posted another piece, dismantling every single one of their objections, in detail. It's a fantastic read, and not only because he used "Tu Quoque" in a sentence.

This is one of my favourite parts:

“But Apple and Google do it too”

This is what is known in logic as a “Tu Quoque” fallacy or as all people who deal with small children know the “How come he can do it but I can’t” argument. It’s not really an argument so much as it is pointing or that someone else does the same thing, ergo they should be allowed to do the same thing. In most cases, it is a logical fallacy because it a) is an attempt at deflection from the topic at hand and a red herring, and b) the comparison is never really appropriate.

Take this example where Owen Williams compares the uproar over Windows 10’s advertising and notes that Apple’s Mac OS pops up a notification whenever default browsers are changed. I’m sure some people are complaining about it, but it is disingenuous to compare to this to Windows because Microsoft does exactly the same thing in Windows 10 when you deviate from the Microsoft recommended defaults and that is not what people are complaining about.

And there's this point:

“But Windows 10 is free, how do you expect Microsoft to recoup their investment”

This is a terrible argument on several fronts.

Firstly and briefly, unless you’re a Microsoft shareholder or employee, you have no business worrying about Microsoft’s bottom line. Your contribution to Windows revenue begins and ends at the online or in-store checkout where you presumably paid for it with hard-earned money.

Secondly, Windows 10 is not free. It comes pre-installed with PCs in which case it is purchased by OEMs and then the pricing is bundled in with that of your PC, or it can be purchased by users from Microsoft who sells it at a base price of £109.99. One way or another, you’re paying for Windows.

But this may be the most important section:

Finally and more importantly, there’s is an issue of trust and trust being violated there.

Microsoft promised explicitly that Windows 10 would be free, They made great pains to explain that the Windows 10 upgrade was not free with an asterisk or with hidden terms and conditions but genuinely free. While some online pundits and commenters argued that Microsoft giving out Windows 10 for free meant that Windows 10 was being monetized and that Microsoft would slowly take control from the user, they were dismissed as crackpots and spreaders of FUD.

Playing devil’s advocate for a moment here and assuming that this is what Microsoft is actually doing, this implies that Microsoft deliberately lied to their customers when they marketed Windows 10 as free with no strings attached. Much like with the Windows Phone 8.1 upgrade “promise”, OneDrive kerfuffle a while ago, this erodes trust in Microsoft’s word. It implies that Microsoft can promise something explicitly, and then change it once you’re sufficiently locked-in.

Well said. Very well said.

And, finally,  there's this point:

“But you can turn it off”

You could turn Cortana off before too. Simply speaking, would you turn it on if it was off by default? If no, then who does it benefit.

What can I say? I agree completely. In fact, many of these are essentially the same arguments that I've been making for months, if less eloquently (or more pungently). Seriously, the whole thing is great, and if you've been following this issue at all then you should absolutely go read the entirety of it.

(Yes, I've linked to the article five different times in one blog post. What can I say? I'm hoping someone from Microsoft happens on this, and clicks a link.)

Microsoft to finally start giving users what they want

With Windows 10 stagnant, Windows 7 users digging in deeper while growing in numbers, and even PC gamers apparently abandoning the new OS for the eight-year-old one, it seems that Microsoft have finally decided to acknowledge the obvious, and start giving consumers what they want. Kinda.

From Gordon Kelly at Forbes:

In a new official blog post Microsoft has admitted Windows 10 needs to improve in these areas and that significant changes are on the way:

“Prior to the Creators Update, Windows 10 made most of the decisions for you regarding when updates would be installed and didn’t provide ways to tailor the timing to your specific needs,” explained John Cable, Microsoft Director of Program Management within the Windows Servicing and Delivery (WSD) team. “What we heard back most explicitly was that you want more control over when Windows 10 installs updates. We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time.”

[...]

Cable’s solution? With the Windows 10 Creators Update (coming next month) users will get far more options:

“For example, you can specify exactly when you want an update to occur (including the ability to reschedule an update if your original choice ends up being less convenient than expected), or ‘hit the snooze button.’ The ‘snooze’ capability allows you to pause the update process completely for three days when you need uninterrupted time on your device. In addition, we are widening the ‘Active Hours’ time so Windows doesn’t install an update at times when you want your device to be ready to use.”

[...]

But the Microsoft confessions don’t stop there. In the same blog post Michael Fortin, CVP of Windows and Devices Group Core Quality, also stressed that “new privacy-centric features [are] coming in the Creators Update. This new functionality will make it easier to choose the privacy and diagnostic data collection settings that are best for you.”

Was it just yesterday that I was asking when Microsoft would start correcting course on their Windows 10 bullshit? Apparently these changes will be available to Home users, too, which is another change: previously, this sort of control, however limited, was limited to users with Pro and higher licences.

Kelly notes, and I agree, that this is really just a good first step, and that Microsoft still need to do a lot more, on both fronts, if they want to lure users from Windows 7 to Windows 10. He also asks the obvious question: why now?

Again it’s commendable but this sort of control really should have been in from the start. And what motivated all these about-turns? Cynics will point to the stagnation of Windows 10 adoption since Microsoft began charging for upgrades, but those more forgiving will at least be pleased to see the platform slowly heading in the right direction.

Yes, the high cost of moving to Windows 10 just got a little lower…

Yes, the cost of moving to Windows 10 is ever so slightly lower now. Is it low enough to convince deeply dug in Windows 7 users to make the switch? 

Somehow, I doubt it. 

More than a year and half after launch, over six months after the official end of Windows 10's free giveaway period (although unofficially you can still get Windows 10 for free, if you want to), and after at least a year of unrelentingly bad PR resulting from their own anti-consumer bullshit, I suspect that Microsoft will need to do a lot more than these half-measure to repair the damage done to the relationship with their long-time customers.

So, what do Microsoft need to do?

1. Telemetry needs to be something users can opt out of, completely. After a year and a half of harvesting users' metadata and sharing it with third parties, and without telling us what data they were collecting, why they were collecting that data, specifically, where they were sending it, or who they were sharing it with, there is zero trust on this issue. Ideally, telemetry would be opt-in, and turned off by default, even for Home users.
2. Updates must revert from the current "roll-up" bullshit to the itemized list they used to be, complete with descriptive Knowledge Base articles on each included update item, so that users know what Microsoft is installing on their systems and why. Updates also need to stop reinstalling Microsoft's own bloatware that users had uninstalled, and they need to stop resetting users' privacy and security settings without users' knowledge and explicit consent. Any changes that Microsoft want to make to users' settings as part of an update need to be explained. 
• Also, stop adding the "compatibility" updates (KB 2952664, KB 2976978, KB 2977759, etc.) to Windows 7's update queue. Windows 7 users are using Windows 7 because they do not want to switch to Windows 10, and given how aggressive the GWX campaign was, it's taken no small amount of effort to avoid being switched over. These users aren't just procrastinating, they're actively saying "no!" Take a fucking hint, already, and stop pushing.
3. Cortana must revert to something that users can turn off, if they don't want to use the service. I don't care that Microsoft think this is the big marquee feature of Windows 10. The numbers don't lie; Cortana is not enough to sell Windows 10, and its big-brotherly omnipresence may be keeping users away. 
• Cortana also needs to be able to work with Google and Chrome, rather than being locked to Bing and Edge. Nobody likes Bing, and nobody uses Edge, and it's time to stop trying to make "fetch" happen.
4. Speaking of, which, Microsoft need to stop pushing Edge and Bing on users who have clearly expressed a preference for a competing product, and to stop pushing the Windows Store and the Universal Windows Platform. No more scare-mongering from the start menu or tool bar, and no more pushing Microsoft-branded extensions and add-ons for Chrome from the start menu or tool bar, either.
• It would also help if Microsoft fixed their fucking browser, but that's a secondary issue; more than anything else, Microsoft need to start respecting users' choices, here.
5. The same applies with the Windows 10 Store. Does anybody really believe that Microsoft wanting to lock out Win32 apps and restrict users to the Windows Store is about bloatware? Build a better store, advertise it outside of the OS itself, and maybe the customers will come. But stop trying to push us to your broken storefront. The market has clearly spoken, on this one. Seriously, stop trying to make "fetch" happen.

That's really what all of these points boil down to: respect for Windows' users, respect for their clearly and repeatedly expressed choices and preferences, respect for the fact that PC users clearly intend to go on owning their own machines, and controlling what gets installed on them (and when, from where, and by whom).

Microsoft have been desperate to change the paradigm of Windows from an open, user-controlled one, into a walled garden: a closed ecosystem where control resides exclusively with Microsoft, where the entire PC software marketplace is transmuted into an iPhone-style App Store, and where users will do what Microsoft say, how they say, when they say it. Windows 8 was based around this walled garden approach, and PC users avoided it like the plague. Windows 10 softened the messaging a bit, but its central design philosophy was identical to Windows 8's, and users have clearly rejected it again. 

Microsoft need to recognize that simple reality, and turn Windows 10 into the user-controlled experience that PC users are clearly demanding, and on which they're clearly unwilling to compromise. This latest move looks to be a promising baby step in the right direction, but that's only meaningful if they follow it up with more steps. If this is the only step they're planning to take, if they're just trying to figure out what the absolute minimum is that they can get away with doing, then it's not going to be enough.

Cortana borked by Anniversary Update

Considering that it was only recently that news broke of Cortana's off switch being removed in the Anniversary Update, I think we can safely assume that this most recent wrinkle is a simple snafu on Microsoft's part.

From Woody Leonhard at InfoWorld:

A bad patch distributed the day before Windows 10 Anniversary Update’s release has taken out Cortana on many machines. Yesterday, I wrote about the build 14393.10 patch, KB 3176929, which Microsoft distributed to beta testers on the night of Aug. 1. I have no idea why Microsoft patched the Anniversary Update on the night before its long-anticipated general release.

[...]

Many threads I’ve seen on the Microsoft Answers forum and elsewhere are simply incorrect. Users didn’t do anything to bring on the problem. It’s a bug that appears in some copies of one, specific version of Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Unfortunately, that version of Win10 AU was rolled out to a few hundred million people on Aug. 2 -- and it’s still rolling out, even as we speak.

This Cortana bug is different from the language snafu that has disabled Cortana before. It isn’t related to Cortana being pulled from Education editions. It’s directly attributable to build 14393.10. And yes, the bug was introduced the night before the big rollout.

I haven’t seen any fixes that work. If you’re in the Insiders program and roll back to beta builds 14393.0 or 14393.5, Cortana returns. If you’re not in the Insiders program and you have this problem, you can roll back to the Fall Update 1511 (Start > Settings > Update & security > Recovery, Go back to an earlier build), which takes quite a while.

That’s assuming you actually want Cortana, which is by no means a given.

Microsoft’s in an interesting quandary right now. If the ‘Softies release a manual workaround, chances are pretty good somebody will figure out a way to reverse the steps in the workaround and allow anyone to turn off Cortana. That would be something of a Holy Grail in some circles, as Microsoft makes it very difficult to turn off Cortana in the Anniversary Update.

If the ‘Softies release a patch -- perhaps yet another cumulative update for its newly released product -- some will be tempted to simply block the cumulative update and thus retain control over Cortana.

Let’s hear it for last-minute patching.

And people wonder why it's a bad thing that users don't get to control their PCs' updates in Windows 10 Home. Holy shit show, Batman!

Cortana not included in latest Windows 10 education update

Considering how hard Microsoft is pushing Cortana in the Anniversary Update, along with the Bing search service that it's married to (no Google for you), I found it rather interesting that they'd have versions of Windows 10 that don't include Cortana at all, but apparently that's exactly what they've done.

From PCR:

Microsoft has announced two new versions of Windows, specifically catering to schools.

The two new versions of the OS – Windows 10 Pro Education and Windows 10 Education – “provide education-specific default settings for the evolving landscape in K-12 education IT environments."

Most interestingly from the list of omissions from both versions is the removal of Cortana. The Microsoft Store and other productivity tips will not appear either.

Cortana, one of Microsoft's biggest selling points since its introduction in 2014, being left out of this latest update to Windows for education can be seen as an admission that the service is, as many have claimed, overly invasive.

[...]

Anybody who purchased Windows 10 Pro under an Academic Licence will see the upgrade happen automatically. This means that education users will lose the features specified by Microsoft, regardless of if they want them or not.

With this upgrade, Microsoft are announcing that it believes the most secure and education-friendly versions of Windows omits both Cortana and its own Windows help features. Some users with other licences might like to see this trend follow suit across future Windows 10 updates.

With CNIL waiting to impose sanctions on Microsoft over the invasiveness of Windows 10's data collection, I find it slightly surprising that Redmond are (a) forcing consumers to keep Cortana active, and married to Win10's built-in search functionality, while also (b) tacitly admitting that Cortana really is invasive enough that they didn't think forcing it on schools would be defensible. I have a feeling that might make things awkward for them in the coming months, as they try to find some way to convince CNIL to let them keep pursuing all of their anti-competitive and anti-consumer (but profitable!) initiatives.

Also: Yes, this is a forced update.... that will remove functionality from the OS for some users. Yay?

Cortana still spies on you, and now can't be turned off

I had a feeling that I'd made the right choice by not switching to Windows 10, and I was right.

From PC World:

Microsoft made an interesting decision with Windows 10’s Anniversary Update, which is now in its final stages of development before it rolls out on August 2.
Cortana, the personal digital assistant that replaced Windows 10’s search function and taps into Bing’s servers to answer your queries with contextual awareness, no longer has an off switch.

The impact on you at home: Similar to how Microsoft blocked Google compatibility with Cortana, the company is now cutting off the plain vanilla search option. That actually makes a certain of amount of sense. Unless you turned off all the various cloud-connected bits of Windows 10, there’s not a ton of difference between Cortana and the operating system's basic search capabilities.

[...]

But what if you still don’t want to use Cortana at all?

Refusing to download the Anniversary Update is not an option. You can delay it, but since Windows 10 updates are mandatory for home users, you’ll eventually receive the update—and its unkillable Cortana

Microsoft, it's shit like this that's making me hate you.

Reasons not to upgrade to Windows 10

Back in June, I posted my reasons for not upgrading to Windows 10. Apparently, I'm not the only one thinking along these lines, because TechRepublic posted their own five reasons today.

Their list is a little different than mine, although it includes many of the same points, but I really liked the way they broke down the privacy concerns:

By default Windows 10 collects more data than many users are comfortable with. This includes information about how Windows and Windows apps are used, what you type, your contacts, your location, calendar appointments and more. If the virtual assistant Cortana is enabled, this data extends to web browsing history, voice commands and even more information about your activity.

Users of Home and Pro versions of Windows 10 can only reduce this data collection to the "Basic" level. On this setting, Windows 10 collects information about security settings, quality-related info (such as crashes and hangs), and application compatibility. Microsoft describes this information as being essential for maintaining and improving the quality of Windows 10 and says that only "anonymous identifiers" are transmitted.

However, questions remain about the information that Windows 10 sends back to Microsoft, even when you turn the data gathering settings down a minimum. Tech website Arstechnica found that even with the virtual assistant Cortana disabled, Windows 10 sends a request to www.bing.com that appears to contain a random machine ID that persists across reboots.

Similarly, even when Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage was disabled and Windows 10 was not tied to a Microsoft account, the OS still seemed to be sending information to a server connected to OneDrive. While Microsoft stressed there is no query or search data being sent, Arstechnica queried the inclusion of a machine ID.

ZDNet's Ed Bott has said the very basic telemetry data collected by Microsoft is anonymized and doesn't reveal anything more than very high-level information along the lines of an unidentified Windows 10 user ran a particular app for half an hour.
However, for some users, even the gathering of anonymized usage data is more than they're willing to put up with.

I'm not sure this is such a good idea

From the Daily Herald:

The Windows 10 Anniversary update adds a few features, including a major change to the company's voice assistant, Cortana. Users will now be able to ask Cortana for help even when their devices are locked, extending the assistant's usefulness and matching competitors. You won't have to be actively using your computer, phone or tablet to set reminders or check traffic.

Cortana is a cloud-based service, which calls out to online servers for everything. If you want to search your locally stored files and data, for example, Cortana does that using the cloud. This is already a privacy and security concern. So.... how does it help with either privacy or security, exactly, to let Cortana bypass your lock screen and perform e.g. a voice-commanded search?

If this is very limited, then maybe it's OK, but I see this being open to a lot of abuse. To me, this perfectly highlights one of the bigger problems with Windows 10: every useful feature comes with a privacy and security downside, which rather undermines the appeal of an OS that's billed as the most secure that Microsoft has ever made.

One way to collect data without being totally creepy

Apparently Microsoft could still stand to learn a thing or two from Apple.

From recode.net:

Apple is looking to thread a fine needle, gaining access to the data it needs to make its servers smarter while also protecting user privacy. It’s doing so by employing a concept known as differential privacy.

However, the company was initially short on details on just what data it will be collecting and how. Here are a few things we’ve clarified over the past few days.

1. Differential data is making its debut with iOS 10 and Apple says it has not yet been collecting such data.
2. The decision to allow Apple use of data will be up to the user and require their opt-in consent.
3. Apple says it is not using iOS users’ cloud-stored photos to power the image recognition features in iOS 10, instead relying on other data sets to train its algorithms. (Apple hasn’t said what data it is using for that, other than to make clear it is not using its users photos.)

As for what data is being collected, Apple says that differential privacy will initially be limited to four specific use cases: New words that users add to their local dictionaries, emojis typed by the user (so that Apple can suggest emoji replacements), deep links used inside apps (provided they are marked for public indexing) and lookup hints within notes.

Apple will also continue to do a lot of its predictive work on the device, something it started with the proactive features in iOS 9. This work doesn’t tap the cloud for analysis, nor is the data shared using differential privacy.

Windows 10's spyware coming to XBox One

From The Guardian:

Microsoft has announced a new summer update for the Xbox One console, which will include support for the company’s digital personal assistant, Cortana, and will more closely align the console with Windows 10 PCs. A more unified online store will offer both PC and console titles, and Xbox One will also be able to support some Windows apps.

Microsoft is calling the Xbox One version of Cortana a “personal gaming assistant”. As on PC and smartphone, she is able to learn your current whereabouts and where your key locations are, so you’ll be able to ask it, while you’re playing a game at home, how long it’ll take you to get to work. Any information you request from Cortana will be displayed in a panel at the side of the main game screen.

To communicate, players simply have to say “hey Cortana” – a sentence that Microsoft claims is easier for the system to pick up than the old “Xbox” prompt. Players won’t need Kinect, as any Xbox One headset with a microphone will suffice. Players will also be able to ask Cortana what their friends are doing onXbox, and it’s possible to invite friends into a Party chat via Cortana voice controls.

Remember when Microsoft first announced the XBox One? It was going to come bundled with Kinect, which was going to be on all the time, would be constantly connected to the internet, and would constantly monitor the environment for any sound or motion that it could interpret as a command prompt. And people lost their shit:

Prior to Xbox One's launch, privacy concerns were raised over the new Kinect; critics showed concerns the device could be used for surveillance, stemming from the originally announced requirements that Xbox One's Kinect be plugged in at all times, plus the initial always-on DRM system that required the console to be connected to the internet to ensure continued functionality. Privacy advocates contended that the increased amount of data which could be collected with the new Kinect (such as a person's eye movements, heart rate, and mood) could be used for targeted advertising.

Reports also surfaced regarding recent Microsoft patents involving Kinect, such as a DRM system based on detecting the number of viewers in a room, and tracking viewing habits by awarding achievements for watching television programs and advertising. While Microsoft stated that its privacy policy "prohibit[s] the collection, storage, or use of Kinect data for the purpose of advertising", critics did not rule out the possibility that these policies could be changed prior to the release of the console.

Concerns were also raised that the device could also record conversations, as its microphone remains active at all times.

So, fast forward to 2016, and Microsoft are now replicating one of the most unwelcome and problematic features of its XBox One platform, using Windows 10's Cortana, which is also causing privacy concerns:

In order to work, Cortana logs your voice (to process what you’re saying), location (to give you location-specific answers), your writing (to answer questions), your contacts (so you can reference them), calendar events (so it can create, delete, or give information about your upcoming appointments), and more. That’s a lot of stuff!

[...]

This, coupled with the “Send Microsoft info about how I write” setting mentioned earlier, is the biggest privacy concern in Windows 10, primarily because the language is so vague. The “Getting to Know You” setting does not specify where or when it can collect, say, “typing history”, which is troubling.

What could possibly go wrong? It's not like Cortana is locked to Bing, and uses a web service to perform all searches, even searches of your local files... except, of course, that Cortana does exactly that.

It remains to be seen if this causes the same kind of crapstorm among XBOne customers that GWX is causing among Win7 PC users. Gamers, generally, appear to more accepting of Win10 and its crap, and console gamers, in particular, might not be sufficiently well-informed to know about the potential problems here. No idea if Spybot Anti-Beacon will work on XBOnes, either.

Would anyone recommend updating to Windows 10?

For anyone who hasn't already found their way to Slashdot, there's a pretty good discussion of the pro\s & cons of migrating going on there. The Slashdot crowd are pretty tech-savvy, and include a lot of IT professionals, and tech support people in particular; although they do seems to skew in a pro-Linux direction, their consensus opinion would be well worth giving a good read, if you haven't already made up your mind (or are considering changing your mind) about MS's new OS.

One of my favourites is this, from ilsaloving:

Windows 10, from a purely technical perspective, is great. It's fast, clean, stable, and relatively secure. Heck, it's the first ever Microsoft OS I've seen that is able to upgrade the average computer without turning it into goat vomit. Prior to Windows 10, this was practically a guarantee.

From a policy perspective.... To quote Darth Vader, "I have altered our agreement. Pray I do not alter it further."

That is basically Microsoft's slogan for Windows 10. Unless you are willing to drop $500 for the Enterprise edition of Windows 10, Microsoft has dictated very clearly that you do NOT have control of your machine. They *will* pull telemetry at their pleasure. They *will* force updates onto your machine whether you want them or not. Hell, they even have the power to copy any data you have on your machine. They will not permit you to block them, at least not at the OS level. If you want to block their shenanigans, your only realistic option is to either buy Enterprise or put a hardware router between your computer and the internet, and do your blocking from there. Or just use it as is and hope Microsoft doesn't continue to alter their agreement further. (Fat chance)

And we all know that Microsoft is far from perfect when it comes to releasing stable updates that don't brick people's machines.

Whether you are fine with this, is up to you. As a sysadmin who is ultimately responsible for the productivity of the employees under my charge, this is completely unacceptable, and we're going to be sticking with Windows 7 as our desktop standard.

What pisses me off the most is that Microsoft's obnoxious behaviour is forcing me to set up a WSUS server, because I now need to vet every single update Microsoft release.

Then there's this, from Solandri:

I upgraded my main PC to it a few weeks ago (after blacklisting a whole bunch of hosts and IPs on my router, and immediately installing Spybot Anti-Beacon after).

Pros:

• UI makes more sense than Win 8.1. Less schizophrenia about whether it's a desktop OS or a tablet OS.
• Games run better. A lot of the microstutters I attributed CPU load spikes or having to read stuff off the SSD are gone.
• Icon/text scaling with DPI is much improved, though still not perfect.
• I like the minimalist black and white icons in the notification bar, instead of the horrible color clash it used to be with different apps showing notifications with different colors.
• They "fixed" the popup stealing focus problem. Now when you're typing a reply on slashdot and a system warning dialog pops up, focus stays with your browser. The dialog no longer disappears an instant after it pops up before you can read it because you happened to hit the space bar an instant after it popped up.
• If you're used to Unix from the 1990s, Microsoft finally added multiple virtual desktop support.
• The animated tiles in the Start menu are much less annoying that the full-screen animated tiles in the Win 8 Start menu.

Cons:

• The animated tiles are still annoying.
• Can't turn off updates. Not that big a deal for me since I run most of my apps in a VM running Windows 7 (I got tired of having to reinstall everything every time I upgraded laptops). But could be an issue for small businesses if you're running a mission-critical app, and a forced update breaks it.
• Certain apps don't make the transition properly, and you may have to reinstall them. Others you can get working again with a few tweaks.
• File explorer windows now default to quick access instead of library + This PC view. So it's now a two-click operation to actually browse your drives, instead of one-click.
• It really, really pushes Cortana.
• Network access is flakier. I'll try to open a network share or web page and sometimes it'll take a few seconds instead of opening instantly like on Win 7/8. Might be because I'm blocking certain hosts, and it's getting confused for a few seconds when it can't phone home to report which URL I'm visiting.
• Task manager can't seem to remember the "hide when minimized" option even though I set it every time.
• The popup stealing focus fix causes other problems. If I start a new app, it sometimes doesn't start with focus. I haven't quite figured out the pattern yet. e.g. I'll start a browser and immediately type ctr-l and the URL I wanted to go to, and nothing happens because the browser doesn't have focus. I have to click on it first before I can type ctrl-l and the URL.
• Edge browser is extremely non-intuitive when changing the defaults (like homepage and search engine). You can't enter it manually. You have to browse to the page you want as your home page or your search engine, then go to the settings and the option to make that page your default shows up.
• If you use IME to occasionally type in a foreign language, the desired setup is to make IME your default keyboard. That way you can use the right alt key to switch between typing in English and the other language. Unfortunately, they combined the keyboard preference option with the language preference option. If you make IME your default, now all your notifications and apps and even certain language-aware web pages default to the other language instead of English. If you leave the English keyboard as the default, any time you want to type in another language, you first need to click to switch from the English keyboard to the IME keyboard, then switch IME from English to foreign language typing mode. This is a major PITA for those of us who are multi-lingual but prefer everything be in English.

So yes it's worth upgrading, but no it's not quite ready yet. But you don't have to decide by July 29. You can upgrade to it, and roll back to your previous OS. The upgrade will register your system as having qualified for the free upgrade, and you can upgrade to it again any time in the future. http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-lock-in-your-free-windows-10-upgrade-and-keep-using-your-old-windows-version/

Hmm.. take Microsoft for the free upgrade, then roll back to Windows 7 and stay there indefinitely? That genuinely hadn't occurred to me. I may have to re-think my "never 10" strategy now. Of course, some people have had issues with both the upgrade and the roll-back, and I can't help but notice the length of the "con" list, compared to the "pro," so it's not a risk-free strategy, but it may be worth doing. Dammit.

Back to my reading...