Do you dual boot Linux and Windows?

#1

There are on line complaints that Microsoft is automatically upgrading folks computers to Windows 10 [ NOT TRUE ].

What actually is happening is there’s a warning that OFTEN is ignored because it’s obscured with the gwx [get windows 10] notice.

There may be reasons that folks don’t want to upgrade - privacy being one.
If you are one of these folks there’s an easy solution - Steve Gibson has post a nifty utility that will check your windows machine and enable you to choose what actions the utility will enable. Take a read here

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#2

Hi @pfeiffep,

I just did an update from 7 to 10 and saw no such problems, I did have a problem with the “Media Creation Tool” and ended up using an older version that I happened to have in my Win 7 downloads folder!.

As for privacy; well I switched off everything I could find and I am still not sure that there isn’t anything “MS Spyware” related?. :smiley:

#3

I don’t ever since windows 10, I decided to delete everything Microsoft related from all my devices.

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#4

I like Windows 7 quite a lot, was very disappointed by 8.x and didn’t think it could get any worse with 10, yet it did (MS now out-googling Google) … I still have a Windows 7 partition around, but I only boot it once a month for patches, and it does not get used anymore otherwise.
My “free upgrade” was essentially to Linux, not Windows 10. :wink:

#5

@pfeiffep, if people can’t see the warning, it’s the exact same thing as not asking for permission.

Thanks for the GRC mention there. I’m an avid listener of Steve Gibson’s podcast “Security Now” on twit.tv but I missed last Tuesday’s podcast and I had forgotten about it.

Gonna watch it now. For those of you who don’t know it: I recommend it. It covers mainly Security but it often drifts off towards subjects such as Privacy, Health, Gadgets, SF & TV Shows, legislations and politics that have an impact on Technology.
Anyway, it’s interesting stuff.

Protip: you can dowload the episodes using youtube-dl

youtube-dl https://twit.tv/shows/security-now/episodes/560

Cheers

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#6

Some folks call it spying others name it analytics - I’m not in favor of either if there’s an opt out function.

salient points
use a local account not a Microsoft account
don’t use Edge - Microsoft’s new browser
don’t use wifi sharing

Links provided to check your Win 10 install and what privacy setting you decide to make:

  1. https://fix10.isleaked.com/ has tips both during installation and afterwards
  2. Tech Times covers afterwards - included are tips about Win 7 & 8
  3. Tech Republic covers steps also

@wolfman check out #2 above
@jcjordyn130 I wish I could do the same - photo editing is a mojor hobby
@maximuscore YES my free upgrade came four years ago with Ubuntu 12
@ouroumov Trust No One :wink:

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#7

@pfeiffep Even if I was on windows I would still use GIMP.

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#8

Interesting read Peter thanks!. :thumbsup:

I am not too worried about it though as even MicroScrap know where to draw the line, if they were caught really snooping on people; they would be in a massive lawsuit before their feet could touch the ground!. :smiley:

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#9

I’ve played around with gimp, but I have way too much time invested and expertise in the Windows tools I use.

#10

I get it, I’ve just never use Photoshop. Too expensive.

#11

Why yes, yes I do dual-boot. I upgraded my copy of Win7 Ultimate to Win10 Pro and felt no regrets about it.

About why I bothered to upgrade, instead of sticking with Windows 7; It’s the same reason I left Linux Mint for Ubuntu MATE. I don’t want to be on some older software that may become vulnerable to threats in the future, so I upgraded Windows despite the privacy issues because not only will there be software to disable that, if you were really concerned, you can do some packet sniffing and block out Microsoft’s IP addresses in hosts.

For a single-user environment, this is all you need to do;

mklink %systemroot%\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts %userprofile%\hosts```

After, you can make changes to `%userprofile%\hosts` in a non-elevated hosts file, rather than needing to hassle with opening Notepad as admin all the time. If on the other hand you don't care about UAC, then you can just open the hosts files from its original location and tinker from there, which addresses go to where.
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#12

Same here. I run Ubuntu MATE on three laptops with no intentions to ever return to Microsoft. I don’t dual boot.

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#13

May as well mention this because I can; if you already have Windows on your machine, and somebody encounters this wanting to learn about Linux (because this thread’s title is prime real estate for learning users), you can just put any Linux OS on a 4GB drive using UUI, and install to a 64GB USB drive, leaving 32GB for both home and root (since USB drives are NOT known for being good swap devices, unless you’re using a USB 3.1 flash drive, in which case 30GB for both and 4GB swap), then you can specify an NTFS partition with your system stuff to automount in something like gnome-disks (installable from gnome-disk-utility) and symlink from the NTFS partition into your Ext4 partition for home.

Only with open systems (or systems with open kernels / commercial systems made from open source) can an external USB device have links within it from another drive. Not even Microsoft allows this, limiting mklink only to partitions on the same drive.

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#14

I dual boot with windows 7 to play some games and use some programs that don’t work well on linux. I don’t even have sp1 installed and I don’t install any os updates so fortunately I don’t receive those annoying messages to update to windows 10. Windows 7 will be officially supported until 2020 so I expect the programs I use to continue to be compatible with it for quite some time.

#15

There are always valid scenarios for using multiple OSes on a particular computer. I’m right there with you about Windows 7 being supported for quite some time if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
####However####
Having years of internet security experience with a large financial institution I strongly suggest that you re-think & reconsider your position

[quote=“Asta1986, post:14, topic:6216”]
I don’t even have sp1 installed and I don’t install any os updates[/quote]

The only scenario this position is safe - when running Windows the computer is

not connected to the internet [completely remove tcp/ip stack]
never has external media inserted
shut down immediately when session is complete

Methods do exist for keeping your Windows 7 OS updated without annoying messages.

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#16

Yeah it’s probably not the safest policy but I’ve never had a backdoor exploit screw my windows installation, windows update has done it several times though (in addition to accumulating several gigabytes of update history garbage). ATM it won’t even allow me to install it anyway, because of an ‘unknown error’. Next time I have to reinstall the system I’ll use an image with the updates already applied (except the ones regarding those annoying messages ofc xP).

#17

…the easiest one being Steve Gibson’s Never10 .

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#18

I recommend everyone who’s concerned about their privacy with Windows 10 to check this tool out

#19

I used to a few years ago but it took so long to start/shutdown even with a SSD. Had regular problems with the Realtek wifi chip aswell.
Now I just spin up (only when I need to) a stripped down version of Windows 7 on a virtual machine. It boots faster than MATE actually (…whoops!) :wink:

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#20

Windows 8 got me off the Windows bandwagon. I like Windows 7 and keep a box running for Photoshop and video edition. Gimp could replace Photoshop for me if I could figure out how to get borderless prints from my Epson 2200 photo printer. Video editing, it’ll be a while before I can give up Sony Vegas Video for something on Linux, maybe someday.

I’ve always found dual boot systems nothing but headaches. I keep a multiboot Linux system for distro testing and playing around, but without Boot Repair and Grub Customizer I’d have given up on it long ago.

I have Virtualbox images of my old Windows 2000 and XP systems that I rarely use, but occasionally a “blast from the past” re-appears so its nice to have options, especially since hard drive storage is so cheap these days. I still have a working 5.25" and 1.44MB floppy drives sitting on a shelf “just in case” although its getting hard to find a system to plug them into – my multiboot Linux system is one, quad core AMD 16GB of RAM so its not a boat anchor despite being 6+ years old.

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