Windows 10: 10 doesn’t fix the desktop it fixes 8's reputation

I'll be interested in hearing the results. Though in the finished product, I'm sure that Windows 10 will have less resemblance to Windows 8.1, so I wonder if any successful hacks we make now, will work at RTM time. Remember Longhorn Beta Builds such as 3790 were more like Server 2003 than Vista. Most of 2003/XP's codebase was there. Someone debated that before on here, but this is correct.

 

If history is anything to go by - M$ conveniently disabled the registry hack for booting straight into desktop with Win8. Cortana I would have thought was vital to M$ for revenue stream purposes so my betting would go on this being mandatory. Personal privacy won't come into their thinking IMO.

 

Hi

I use Agent Ransack for my local search app.

I've used it for a long time, I'm used to it, and when Windows search couldn't find anything AR always could.
It is easy to use, but has a lot of options as to how you want to search if you want to use them.

Mike

PS. I forgot I'm also using Agent Ransack as a local search application.
Another thing I've used for years.

I'm not quite sure how the search anywhere thing works, I typed in .jpg and it showed about 3 of the hundreds of .jpg files on my computer?

When I did .mp3 I got the same thing, when I asked to "Show all Results" it opened my browser?

Mike

 

Well, deleting the "Microsoft.Cortana_1.2.0.0_x64__8xxxxxxxxxxxe" and the "Microsoft.Cortana_2014.913.601.3539_neutral_~_8xxxxxxxxxxxe" folders did not break W10. It simply shut off the "searchui.exe" and it no longer connects home. A working admin account needs to take ownership of the apps folder, otherwise the Cortana folders deletion is blocked by the "TrustedInstaller" account.

The The folder name in both cases are upended by the "_8xxxxxxxxxxxe" not for just Cortana, but all the apps within the "C:/Program Files/WindowsApps" folder (my previous post incorrectly stated this folder name). Presumably this 15 character add on is either the machine's app store ID, the advertisement id for the end user, or both.

Deleting the "explorer.exe" in the "C:/Windows" folder is not possible, the system does not allow overwriting while W10 is running. Duh, of course... I'll need to browse the vmware image and see, if I can replace it there.

Since the deletion of cortana, it seems that the system process had taken up the "slack". The TCPView showed these connections:

That's a kernel level connections and could be related to Windows update and/or feedback for the tech review version. But Amazon? Come on MS, can't you just keep it in house instead putting it on to another cloud?

 

I would be very careful about that... Windows 8.x had a lot of problems with permissions when people took ownership of things, which eventually led to various problems down the road. Not always noticeable right away.

Explorer.exe is the basic shell, not just Windows File Explorer. It is also the start menu, and it has the integrated web search. So that's why it's connecting to other stuff. You can disable this.

You really like to jump to crazy conclusions. Did you try to go to that address? If you do, it comes back as DuckDuckGo, the search engine that doesn't track you. Sounds like you installed some third party search tool. It's certainly not Microsoft.

 

I tend to agree with Layback Bear, and other, previous posts, after an initial "let down" feeling, I'm now liking the way W10 runs on my equipment, and the general feel of it in action.
Unlike many here, I missed out on W8.
I tried it, very briefly, and was just so put off by the interface, the fact that I couldn't even shut the damn thing down, that it lasted about two hours on my pc, before I sacked it, and re-installed W7 HP.
Obviously, this doesn't qualify me to judge W8 at all, I never gave it a chance. I did not feel like climbing any learning curves at the time.
I'm still not exploring the OS that deeply. For instance, I still don't really know what "charms" are. I'm just bumbling along, doing my photography, general browsing, social networking etc, and figuring things out as they happen.
The thing is, I haven't really met any obstacles yet. It's just doing things very slickly.

I understand concerns about a "call home" feature, and like the app store, I would think there will have to be some kind of choice, on or off, for the OS to get through EU privacy law.
Obviously, it is a very serious privacy issue, and not to be taken lightly, but Google knows me better than I know myself, and we did sign up for a "developer preview", with all that entails. It's made pretty clear that MS are going to be watching us, to see how we get on with their new baby.

Regarding the whole profiling issue, as I say Google knows my very soul, it stands to reason that MS will want some of that action. As I say, I think they will have to put in an "off" switch to get it through customs

Google have always done it. I suppose it's in the nature of a search engine, and has just crept up on us gradually.
I quite like not getting any spam from waterski, or mobile home vendors, but I suppose it is a bit sinister.

On the other hand, it seems the NSA can monitor anything they choose, and they can access my profile, I'm sure, as well as monitor my communications.

At the moment, we know what's going on in Hong Kong, because of Google, and Apple, messaging and internet services in general.

It would be in the interest of any government to be able to simply block Android, and Apple OS, to stop these images, and messages, getting out to the world.

It will come, I imagine.

 

Is it billions now? Whatever the figure, how does Microsoft know how many Windows 8 and 8.1 users think the OS is bad? They might have got an idea it wasn't being well-received from the relatively few (compared to millions) who have publicised the fact they don't like it ..but those who think the operating system and its tiled interface is OK wouldn't be so likely to come forward and say so. It's mainly only those who have an issue with it that would want to say or write anything. Do forums and technical articles represent all users? I sometimes wonder if they do because it's not possible to ask the silent millions of users for their opinions.

 

I have seen various claims that Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, etc are not members of the NT family, that they are something completely new. This is false. Windows 10 is very much a member of the NT family and in fact the core concepts (and many of the details) of it's operation haven't changed all that much since NT (3.1) was released in 1993. This is needful. It would be very difficult to design something that was really new and yet maintain compatibility with the existing application base. A new OS that doesn't maintain this compatibility would be a very hard sell.

And NT wasn't really new either, being based on VMS, a popular mainframe OS of the 1980's. And it was based on systems that preceded it.

Windows 9x isn't a member of the NT family but shares much with it. The primary design goal of Windows 95 was to be able to run most 32 bit NT applications and still maintain full compatibility with the older 16 bit applications. NT supported only well behaved 16 bit applications and many were not.

Linux and the Mac OS are not based on NT but they have much in common.

 

It's quite alright to do with a preview version, especially with vmware image backed up. It takes no time to boot up the backed up image...

I figured that much... Where do you disable the integrated web search in explorer? That I wasn't able to figure out...

I did not try any of the addresses, nor did I install third-party search tool. The "[System Process] 0", that made the connections to the two addresses, belongs to the NT kernel that has the PID of 0. The TCPview shows the name of the process, the Process ID, foreign address, etc. Maybe it connected to duckduckgo to search for something and didn't want to be tracked... *Wink*Wink

 

Dave Cutler, who came form Digital to Microsoft, was instrumental in developing the first version of NT 3.0 His last involvement with the NT OS had been 2003 server SP1. While it is true that the current version of NT originated from the first version, there had been lot of changes. The version number of 3.x had grown to version 6.4 in W10, the first number is major while the second number is minor version changes. The version 6.x tree started with Vista and it is at 6.4 with W10. They are a far cry from vesion 4.x and 5.x...

Yes, they are operating systems, but...

The Apple fans will disagree with you, the OSX is based on FreeBSD and not on Linux. And don't compare BSD to Linux for BSD fans. Their opinion of Linux is usually on the back of their t-shirt:

 

I'm not referring to the Cortana search, but rather the primary one. When you first install, you call tell windows whether you want to use this search or not.. you can disable it again later in the Metro Control Panel.

I find it a bit too much of a coincidence that someone that is so paranoid about being tracked, did not go to a search site that's logged on his computer who's primary claim is not to track searches... Perhaps you're using a different tools that uses this search internally.

 

If I am not mistaken, you're referring to is the Metro Search settings:





That does not stop the "explorer.exe" from connecting to the MS server. For that matter, it does not stop connecting to Bing either. Those settings just suppress the results from Bing.

The bing and some of the local searches results/tracking can be cleared, with some disclaimer; see the second image for details...

I know I am being tracked, it's not that. I just want to know who's's tracking and how. This is an updated OS and I have some reservation about its tracking features, based on the previous version. Some people don't care, but that's fine...

How do you figure that duckduckgo logged on to my computer? Especially in the case when the system process with PID 0 makes the connection to that site. Never mind that there's a hardware firewall between the system and the internet and then a software firewall on this system that blocks all inbound connection attempt from the internet. You lost me there...

And again, I did not install different tools for search purposes. This is a plain W10 install with Firefox, Sysinternal Tools, and WireShark. And yes, duckduckgo is the default search for IE11 and FF. I just fail to see why a kernel process would make a connection to the default search site.

 

I do believe that Microsoft monitors the web for opinions on how the world thinks about W-8.

The big thing that Microsofts monitors is sales. When sales are very bad then they will even look harder for why people don't buy W-8.
Whether it's billions or millions, Microsoft has 90% of the operating system market world wide.
I do believe that the new management is trying to listen to all those customers and react and still try to please the new markets they want to be a big part of.

Apple is very big in phones and the like but when it comes to Desktops/Laptops they hang around 5 or 6 % of the market. I do believe that Microsoft wants to take a big chunk out of Apples phone and portable market. In my opinion W-8 was reaching the poke and go crowd (Apple) but now with W-10 I believe that Microsoft has decided to take a big bit out of Apple and other but at the same time take care of their all ready established customers that use Desktops/Laptops. I'm thankful for that new direction of Microsoft.
Microsoft has the money and workers with the talent and knowledge to take care of all computing markets.
If you want to know the number of customers, market share, value or any other fact about Microsoft just Google it.

Brink has just posted this not to long ago which might be of interest to you and all.

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Desktop PCs and the Windows desktop: Endangered species?




The PC industry worldwide sold 136 million desktop PCs last year, along with 160 million traditional notebooks driven by keyboards and touchpads. Those big numbers explain why Microsoft is feverishly improving the desktop experience for "the next iteration of Windows."

At the Build Developer Conference earlier this year, Microsoft officially announced plans to return the Start menu to “the next iteration of Windows,” along with a new option to run Metro/Modern-style apps in their own windows on the Windows desktop.

Microsoft Executive Vice President Terry Myerson made the announcement at the Build Day 1 keynote on April 2, 2014. You can watch the clip on YouTube below, with Myerson's remarks coming a little more than two hours in to the morning’s proceedings.
Read more at: Desktop PCs and the Windows desktop: Endangered species? | ZDNet




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I think that Layback Bear was referring to desktop/laptop users who use W7 & XP (possibly even Vista).

MS can read:

• Market share data (XP: ~23%, W7: ~50%, W8 series: ~12%)
• Sales figures (the real ones).

Those indicate that the W8 series is not liked (to say the least).

 

You really can't admit when you're wrong, can you? You lambasted Microsoft for using Amazon for web services, which it turned out were services you yourself had configured your OS to use.

FYI, Windows has kernel model HTTP drivers.