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GORDON wrote:Customer wins $10k after forced upgrade wrecks her shit.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/30 ... grade.html

Although Windows 10 Express settings will get you up and running quickly, that convenience comes at a cost: By skipping over custom settings, you’re agreeing to all kinds of data collection and behavior tracking, much of which didn’t apply in earlier versions of Windows.

Automatically connect to suggested open hotspots. Not all networks are secure.

Microsoft maintains a list of known Wi-Fi hotspots around the world, and with this setting enabled, Windows 10 will automatically connect to them. While this may be convenient in some cases, open hotspots can also be slow and unreliable, and are more susceptible to eavesdropping. If you’re comfortable connecting to Wi-Fi networks on your own, it’s best to disable this setting.
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Automatically connect to networks shared by your contacts.

This setting lets you connect to any network that’s been accessed by your contacts on Facebook, Skype, and Outlook.com—and vice versa—without having to enter a password. It’s part of a broader set of features called Wi-Fi Sense, and it stirred up a controversy due to security concerns. Microsoft may be killing this feature in a future Windows update, but for now you’ll have to disable it during setup.
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Send full error and diagnostic information to Microsoft

This setting helps Microsoft fix bugs in Windows 10, but there’s a trade-off: It allows the company to collect extensive data about your PC, including personal data from your own content. Microsoft says it only collects this data when it needs to diagnose a specific problem, and only from a small sampling of affected PCs. The company also says it won’t use this data for identification, contact, or targeted ads. Theoretically, this information should benefit all Windows 10 users, but Microsoft is asking for a lot of trust in return.
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Use page prediction to improve reading, speed up browsing, and make your overall experience better in Windows browsers. Your browsing data will be sent to Microsoft.

With the Edge browser, Microsoft can guess which pages you’re about to click on, and load them ahead of time so you don’t have to wait. Turning this on will make web browsing feel faster, at the expense of more data collection. (Google Chrome has a similar feature, called prefetch.)

One last thing: Express settings don’t cover all cases of privacy and data collection in Windows 10.

If you wait to upgrade a new PC with Windows 10 Home to Pro, you'll pay $199. Ouch.

"After seven days, per our published policy for actively exploited critical vulnerabilities, we are today disclosing the existence of a remaining critical vulnerability in Windows for which no advisory or fix has yet been released," Google wrote. "This vulnerability is particularly serious because we know it is being actively exploited."