Am I required to have internet service after I upgrade to Win Ten

Am I required to have internet service after I upgrade to Win Ten?

I can connect to the internet to download WIN Ten, but I rarely ever connect to other devices. Viruses, malware and worms are on the internet, and I don't want to get infected again. It is very expensive each time I get infected ( I have been told to buy a new PC or hard drive each time I get infected on my Windows PC). I have even been infected while I was on vacation and not at home on pc. I have six perfectly good Windows PC's I can't use because of the continued infections. I always use Microsoft Windows Defender Anti Virus but it does not stop infections. I have never found ONE SINGLE anti-virus that Always works- All the time. This means I won't know if there are any required Win Ten updates, so I plan to never go online with Win Ten. It costs too much money to be forced into buying more computers each time my Windows computer gets infected.. I have even been infected during Windows updates.

Are Win Ten users allowed to stay off networks , since we don't want any more malware infections? I use my iPhone when I want internet access since it has never been infected as with Windows.:)

Hello ipsita and welcome to Ten Forums. Let me start out my saying I'm not a security expert and hopefully one of the Forum experts will jump in with some additional thoughts. If all of your network computers are disconnected from the internet, It would seem to me that you are not getting your malware from the internet. It's more likely that one or more of your computers is infected and then passing that infection to the other machines via the network.

I think I would isolate each computer and run independent malware scans using multiple anti-malware programs. It's been said that no anti-malware program is 100% effective 100% of the time. It's also been said that there's no such thing as a "best" anti-malware program. If there was such a thing we'd all be using it and every other company would be out of business. That's why multiple scans with different products has the best chance of finding malware. As a last resort you could do clean installs on each machine and start all over again. It's really not necessary to buy a new computer.

No, a computer does not need to have internet access. But you'd be missing out on a whole world of information. Thousands, if not millions, of Windows users (whether using XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 or even earlier versions) are connected to the internet and do not get infected. With all due respect and no snarkiness intended, perhaps someone has access to your machines and is undoing all of your efforts to stay malware free.

marsmimar said:

Hello ipsita and welcome to Ten Forums. Let me start out my saying I'm not a security expert and hopefully one of the Forum experts will jump in with some additional thoughts. If all of your network computers are disconnected from the internet, It would seem to me that you are not getting your malware from the internet. It's more likely that one or more of your computers is infected and then passing that infection to the other machines via the network.

I think I would isolate each computer and run independent malware scans using multiple anti-malware programs. It's been said that no anti-malware program is 100% effective 100% of the time. It's also been said that there's no such thing as a "best" anti-malware program. If there was such a thing we'd all be using it and every other company would be out of business. That's why multiple scans with different products has the best chance of finding malware. As a last resort you could do clean installs on each machine and start all over again. It's really not necessary to buy a new computer.

No, a computer does not need to have internet access. But you'd be missing out on a whole world of information. Thousands, if not millions, of Windows users (whether using XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 or even earlier versions) are connected to the internet and do not get infected. With all due respect and no snarkiness intended, perhaps someone has access to your machines and is undoing all of your efforts to stay malware free.

+1 +1 +1

Also as to antivirus, Windows Defender on Win10 seems to be fairly decent.

As to staying connected, the only issue I've seen was with Office 365. A client was away from his Desktop for more than 30 days and we had to get Office 365 re-established, seems to want to 'call home' periodically to keep itself up to date. There's probably other subscription-based programs that would want to do the same.

ipsita said:

Am I required to have internet service after I upgrade to Win Ten?

I can connect to the internet to download WIN Ten, but I rarely ever connect to other devices. Viruses, malware and worms are on the internet, and I don't want to get infected again. It is very expensive each time I get infected ( I have been told to buy a new PC or hard drive each time I get infected on my Windows PC). I have even been infected while I was on vacation and not at home on pc. I have six perfectly good Windows PC's I can't use because of the continued infections. I always use Microsoft Windows Defender Anti Virus but it does not stop infections. I have never found ONE SINGLE anti-virus that Always works- All the time. This means I won't know if there are any required Win Ten updates, so I plan to never go online with Win Ten. It costs too much money to be forced into buying more computers each time my Windows computer gets infected.. I have even been infected during Windows updates.

Are Win Ten users allowed to stay off networks , since we don't want any more malware infections? I use my iPhone when I want internet access since it has never been infected as with Windows.:)

Ok. There are several things to answer here.

First, you do *not* need to buy a new computer or hard drive every time your PC is infected. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Unfortunately, the computer industry is full of the kind of liars and con artists who would tell unsuspecting users crap like this. Even assuming you cannot back up your data, reinstall Windows and any applications, then restore your date, there are companies that will do this and charge a lot less than the cost of a new PC.

Second, you are right, no Antivirus is 100% effective. However, the better ones (I recommend Avast myself) will catch over 95% of infections. Combine a good Antivirus, good anti malware system, intelligent browsing (don't use an account with admin rights, don't download any software from sites you don't know are trustworthy, don't install Flash if you can avoid it and don't allow any sites to install plug ins) and a router with a decent firewall, and you reduce your chances of getting your PC infected to near zero.


My experience? A degree in computer science and 20 years of experience of running large scale (>100 PCs) computing labs, all of which had computers running Windows and all with public facing IP addresses. In those 20 years, I've seen less than 20 infections.