Windows 10: W10 Pro x64 1607 For businesses

Good Afternoon All,

My company is looking at migrating to W10 from W7. I spent a lot of time on my workstation cleaning off the consumer oriented junk, and closing all the nefarious spyware/telemetry. I signed up for the W10 Enterprise edition trial and threw it in a VM, only to find the same consumer junk in it as well. Wireshark also tells me that even after I used the O&O Win10Shutup tool, there are still nefarious packets spewing out of the VM. We do work for the Department of Defense. (DOD) I have removed the two "updates" to W7 that has lesser but similar behavior to keep our DOD customers happy. But the Veterans Administration will not allow W10 on their network.

I really need something like W7 without all the nasties, but with the benefit of the newer W10 OS.

I was also disappointed/angered that when the anniversary update made it to my test workstation, I discovered the junk that I had removed came back, as well as turning back on telemetry/spyware that I had turned off.

I have sent an email to a Microsoft Partner/W10 training provider with our DOD needs, with no response.

It's time consuming to use a power shell per workstation to remove this stuff, and then turn off all the spyware data/gathering stuff, then have an update undo it all.

I have no intention of being inflammatory in using the term "spyware". I am simply calling it as I see it after doing 30+ years of sys admin work.

Isn't there a utility out there that one can pay for/download that can turn W10 into a workstation, instead of a data mining tool for MS in one fell swoop?

I need a business oriented version of W10, and so far I am not seeing it. The Enterprise edition was my plan - until I put it in a VM and looked at it/tested it and found it to be just like the consumer editions.

Suggestions anyone?

Sincerely and respectfully,

Dave

:)

 

Cannot set Edge/Chrome as my default browser

I have the same issue. Unable to configure a standard browser neither through W10 settings nor through Control panel.

Windows 10 Pro - 1607 - x64 - KB3194496

 

Windows 10 Clean Install

I was told that a W10 license would probably have to be purchased. I was running W8.1 Pro x64 and performed the auto update to W10 Pro x64 and I ended up having to do a clean install.

 

Try first in VM:
Download Destroy Windows 10 Spying - MajorGeeks
Download Block Telemetry Firewall Rules for Windows 10 - MajorGeeks
Download Win10 Spy Disabler - MajorGeeks

There are other ones of similar nature on same site.
Also check Kari's guide for sysprep, you can customize a lot of it there before installing Windows in the machines.

 

Find it here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...e-sysprep.html

 

Excellent!

Thank you for the links and the suggestions. For some reason I didn't think sysprep applied to W10. I will be performing the following steps:

a) SysPrep, then wireshark the resulting installation to a VM
b) Then one by one the various tools to secure Windows 10. Again, followed by a wireshark session.

Then I'll report back here on the results as reported by Wireshark.

I really appreciate the help and assistance!

Sincerely and respectfully,

Dave

 

Here is my promised report back.

I ran the DWS utility first, then wireshark. Most, but not all spyware was shutdown. Then I ran the W10 Spy Disabler next. Wireshark now shows that the only activity is activation validation, dns queries, and the usual TCP/IP queries about who has which address, etc.

In other words, normal TCP/IP activities, sans all the nefarious stuff.

I thank everyone for their replies, you gave me what I needed!

I am still angered at Microsoft for their hubris in turning W10 into a massive data mining machine. We in industry should NOT have to use utilities to make an OS useful for a business, and we should not have to use utilities to remove all the junk that is installed without the end user having a choice. I find this type of business practice predatory and unethical.

I understand that it is all covered in the new EULA. The EULA gives the user no choice. But it doesn't mean that this is an ethical business practice.

Sorry for the vent....

Thank you again for your help. I have the tools I need now to deploy safely.

Now I need to formulate a company strategy to keep this stuff turned off and W10 spyware at bay after the users get pushed an update for which they again have no choice.