Beyond Windows 7

groze said:

lehnerus2000 if I am not mistaking the users do have choices. It can't be disabled ...

As I said, ordinary users can't opt out (W10 Education/Enterprise users may be able to).

groze said:

Some people don't mind sharing.

Apparently those users (according to MS) are too stupid to be able to tick a box to enable sharing, just like in Windows versions prior to W10 (MS may be correct on that point).

groze said:

If I read the info correctly, It can't see https:// pages and it does tells your what the data is used for. I don't think Microsoft going to keep a list of adult websites you visit, unless you share it with them.

MS, who have a proven history of exaggerated and misleading claims, provide that info.
Remember that they also claimed (a few months after W10's initial public release) that it was being used on 400 million devices, yet the Stat Counting sites clearly showed that the number was, at most, half of what MS claimed.

As for 1809:

Microsoft's disastrous roll-out of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update was put into stark focus last week when published data showed its adoption was only an eighth that of its 2017 predecessor.

According to statistics gathered by AdDuplex, a Lithuanian company whose technology is embedded in thousands of Windows Store apps, Windows 10 October 2018 Update - 1809 in Microsoft's yymm labeling format - had been installed on just 6.6% of all Windows 10 systems by year's end.

...

Only Microsoft knows whether it was pushing too hard, too fast. From the outside, the upward trending line - every upgrade besting the one before it - hinted that Microsoft was lured into arrogance or lulled into complacency. (A sign of the former: Six weeks after 1803's release, the company boasted that it was the "fastest version of Windows 10 to reach 250 million devices.")

Windows 10 1809 adoption remains in the cellar | Computerworld

Which takes us back to the question.

According to "W10 fan-persons", W10 Telemetry is an absolute necessity to ensure problem-free updates/"upgrades".

Remember how every update for Windows versions, prior to W10, totally hosed every PC that installed them?
I don't remember that and I bet you don't either.

Yet the historical record clearly shows, that despite billions of hours of W10 Telemetry, MS continues to release buggy updates/"upgrades".
In fact the 1809 "Upgrade" was so bad, MS voluntarily pulled it from their servers for ~2 months.

Anecdotally the 1709 "Upgrade" wouldn't install on my laptop or in my VM.
Since I have the rock-solid W7 (and Linux Mint) installed on my main PCs, it wasn't worth my time to download an ISO, perform 2 clean installs and reinstall all of my software.
It's certainly not worth doing it every 6 months.

offgrid said:

As someone who has tried Windows 10 for 2 years and scrapped it completely please allow my input, based on my own experience. Windows 10 is an exercise in frustration, don't take my word for it, read some of the articles from How to Geek. Even noteworthy Windows diehards like Leo Notenboom have castigated Windows for their feeble efforts to make a decent workable OS out of Windows 10.
Windows 10 has become what the Linux world calls a rolling distribution. Which means no new release, just ongoing updates. Some Linux distro's handle this well, others not so well, but all do it better than Microsoft.
After 2 years of frustration and problems with Windows 10, I sold my last Windows 10 laptop and bought a
MacBook which I have been using for one month. My only regret it that I ever went with Windows in the first place. I am posting this using my old trusty Windows 7 laptop, slow as snails but rock solid stable. I would stay with Windows 7 forever if they would support it (which they wont). Given Microsoft's arrogance and disdain for the end user, there is only one option for computer life after Windows 7, it's called Mac.
Most of the computer users in my immediate family have already switched and even the diehard Windows fans are considering it. Windows 10 is the best thing that ever happened, for Linux and Apple.

I have never found W7 slow, not even on my 2012 Dell desktop running an HDD. I think W7 was the best OS MS ever devised, and have no intention of upgrading to W10. It has always worked well and been stable, unlike older MS systems.

However in preparation for the cessation of MS support from 2020, I made the dual-boot switch to Linux Ubuntu a year ago, which I can recommend. No more concerns about licences, viruses, defragmenting, support cessation, hardware compatibility, etc. Linux looks after its users, and their software is licence-free. It's not all perfect, eg there can be issues with Nvidia GPUs as some have found, but nothing that can't be solved. After a year I can do almost anything that I could with W7. There is a serious learning curve involved, but it's worth the effort, eg just learnt how to encrypt (and decrypt) my files successfully over the past week using the excellent GnuPG (also available for Windows).

I will continue to use W7, but less frequently, as I have a couple of useful apps that work well with it, for which I haven't yet found the Linux equivalent. For those who are worried about security post 2019, worry not. As long as you have some form of AV that you can scan regularly for viruses you should be okay. I will use Malwarebytes (free) and Kaspersky Rescue Disk (on a pen drive) as my AV scanners. If neither of those find anything sinister I'll assume my W7 is clean. Also ensure you have a good software firewall installed (plenty of good free ones), and of course back up your data files regularly.

So I say carry on with W7 and don't be persuaded by the fear-mongers.

F22 Simpilot said:

I don't have this motherboard, but just wanted to update and say now Gigabyte is only offering BS Win 10 drivers. That's a crock of s*%#.

The Asus Z370 boards have Win 7 drivers. The two Tuf Z370 Gaming plus boards I ordered came in today. I'll order RAM and CPUs when I have time. But if you want one, you better move fast. The Z370 boards are becoming hard to find.

As mentioned above, I also ordered an ROG Strix 370Z-H, which is a better board, but I'm not sure how a win 7 install will go on that one.

I've also decided I'm going to build a win 10 machine with one of the latest chipset boards on a test bench and just play with it. Some say you can defeat the Telemetry issues and delay updates for up to a year.