PC hardware upgrade pending but have privacy concerns about Win 10

Hope it's okay to post this in General, I couldn't really see a better area on the forum.

So I have a dilemma - I'm currently running Windows 7 64-bit and love it. I do though want to completely upgrade my ancient PC to something faster, more hard disk capacity, more RAM, new motherboard .... you get the picture.

However, I hate the gross invasion of privacy that appears to be the default in Windows 10, the intermittent advertising would also drive me insane. Newer hardware and CPUs don't appear to support Win 7 either so it won't necessarily be possible to load Win 7 onto a brand new PC.

Then there's Linux - hate it.

MacOS - not a fan.


I know there are programs out there which supposedly disable the highly invasive telemetry, but do any of them actually stop it 100% ?

So either I soldier on with my PC until MS stop their Win 7 security updates in 2020, or .......... well, I have no idea.

The "gross invasion of privacy" is mostly media hype. And "intermittent advertising"? What's that? I'm not seeing it on my Windows 10. Go with Windows 10 Pro and after install uninstall everything you don't want (and, yes, there will be a couple of things you can't uninstall that you probably don't want without using command prompt commands to uninstall them). Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

So, realistically, there are no privacy concerns?

I beg to differ.

There are so many good articles on this that I'm certain it's not just media hype.

This is the most recent bit of info that I've found:

Why Windows 10 sucks or Everything Wrong with Microsoft Windows

Why do I see recommendations for Win 10 Pro when Win 10 Home would do just fine?
And it costs less.

margrave55 said:

Why do I see recommendations for Win 10 Pro when Win 10 Home would do just fine?
And it costs less.

You have more options to remove extra apps that you don't want. And you also have more options available for deferring updates and setting it to install updates when you want them installed rather than when MS decides to push them. I've got two of the tiny, 32GB eMMC type computers (in addition to about 10 standard computers) and I found that when an update was in progress, they would slow to a crawl for standard use. With Windows 10 Pro I have updates set to notify only so I can trigger the updates when I am not going to use them.

I also need to be able to remote desktop into most of the other computers on my network, and Windows 10 Pro allows the RDP server to run, Home does not.

Given the OP's privacy concerns, Pro just allows more user control without hacking the OS than Windows 10 Home does.

WinTenner said:

So, realistically, there are no privacy concerns?

I beg to differ.

There are so many good articles on this that I'm certain it's not just media hype.

This is the most recent bit of info that I've found:

Why Windows 10 sucks or Everything Wrong with Microsoft Windows

I don't think Microsoft is doing anything more than any other company is doing today to invade your privacy. Just about every major company that you do business with is collecting marketing information from you in one way or another. Anyway, however you want to hack Windows to make you feel better is up to you.

Then if you click on that link to manage information stored about you in the cloud you can also turn off more "convenience" features.

WinTenner said:

Hope it's okay to post this in General, I couldn't really see a better area on the forum.

So I have a dilemma - I'm currently running Windows 7 64-bit and love it. I do though want to completely upgrade my ancient PC to something faster, more hard disk capacity, more RAM, new motherboard .... you get the picture.

However, I hate the gross invasion of privacy that appears to be the default in Windows 10, the intermittent advertising would also drive me insane. Newer hardware and CPUs don't appear to support Win 7 either so it won't necessarily be possible to load Win 7 onto a brand new PC.

Then there's Linux - hate it.

MacOS - not a fan.


I know there are programs out there which supposedly disable the highly invasive telemetry, but do any of them actually stop it 100% ?

So either I soldier on with my PC until MS stop their Win 7 security updates in 2020, or .......... well, I have no idea.

I don't see any ads on any of my Windows 10 PCs and you can control what is transmitted under Privacy Settings. You can also use utilities like WinAero Tweaker and O&O ShutUp10 to further control the telemetry.

What are the specs of the PC you want to buy? Forum members will be able to advise if Windows 7 will run on your prospective hardware.

Thanks. I don't yet have a final spec on the PC that I want to buy, I kept looking into it then partially putting it off due to my concerns about Windows 10 (this is the first time that a Windows operating system has held me back from a Pc hardware upgrade). I'll see if I can knock some specs together in the next few days and present them here.

If you still want to stick with Windows 7 OS, you may go for Skylake build. Back in my country there are still Skylake cpu and motherboard available. Or else if you really go for the latest coffeelake or Ryzen build Windows 10 is the OS to go.

The finally thoughts up to you.

Thanks!