I am about to wipe this drive and go back to win 7 pro but if the new privacy policy applies to all OS then I won't. Thanks.
This may be a question best put to Microsoft directly, possibly by technology reporters and/or attorneys in a position to press for clarifying remarks. However, I'll share some of my thinking. On one side there is the client software, which determines what is sent to Microsoft. On the other side there is Microsoft's cloud/services and data handling practices, which determine what is done with the information they receive. Regarding client software, Windows 7 doesn't have the same feature set that Windows 10 has. So some of what you see in [the Windows section of] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/default.aspx won't apply. Unless all of the related features are back-ported to Windows 7, which seems unlikely given that it is in the "security updates only, no new features" phase and Microsoft is trying to lure everyone into Windows 10. In order to determine what applies to Window 7, I think you'd start by finding the last privacy statements that were explicitly released for Windows 7. I find these: https://www.microsoft.com/privacystatement/en-us/Core/otherproducts.aspx http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/windows-7-privacy-statement#T1=highlights http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/windows-7-privacy-statement#T1=supplement http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-win7-privacy-statement http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/windows-media-player-12-privacy-statement Then you'd try to identify specific newer things that you have reason to believe have been applied in a retroactive fashion. For example, one recent thing that caught my attention: Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3068708 I don't have well organized notes on this subject, but some members at http://www.sevenforums.com/ might. Regarding Microsoft cloud/servers and data handling side changes, I haven't read much or tried to figure out which if any Windows 7 phone-home features may create exposures to different practices. Windows 10 is an OS that is meant to be more tightly coupled with Microsoft's cloud/account/store/services, so you know there will be additional privacy concerns. Which of those you experience would be a function of how you configure and use your device. I'm not testing Windows 10, so I'm not sure whether it can be locked down as well as some people suggest. One thing you'd want to think about, very carefully, is what will happen during the next 5+ years of mainstream support which includes new features. Will there be new features that expose more information to Microsoft? Will end-user control over privacy reducing features be reduced in any way? Will the creation/use of a Microsoft Account become mandatory? Will a subscription or periodic upgrade model be adopted, one that would require users to submit accurate personally identifiable information to Microsoft? This could significantly increase the possibility that what Microsoft is collecting will be linked/linkable to you and vice versa. Will new services and business partner arrangements be created, which will cause new/different forms of information to flow into Microsoft's cloud and become associated with your account? If those and/or other things were to happen, how would you deal with it? Would you have at least one robustly and classically secured system to fall back on and use for private computing work?
I started to go back over my notes and make them easier to work with. Thought I'd share this portion: KB 2952664 - Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7 KB 2977759 - Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7 KB 2990214 - Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows KB 3021917 - Update to Windows 7 SP1 for performance improvements KB 3022345 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry KB 3035583 - Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 KB 3046480 - Update helps to determine whether to migrate the .NET Framework 1.1 when you upgrade Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 KB 3050265 - Windows Update Client for Windows 7: June 2015 KB 3065987 - Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: July 2015 KB 3068708 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry Most of these updates were discussed in other threads here, and there are articles elsewhere that talk about them. There are number of things one can do to try to address undesired features (like CEIP). In addition to surfaced settings, you can look for Group Policy settings, Services that can be stopped, Scheduled Tasks that can be disabled, Registry key based controls, use a hosts file, use a DNS filtering tool, use a software firewall's outbound blocking, and/or use a gateway firewall. If it is something that phones home, odds are excellent that you will find multiple discussions about it. Set aside some quality time, identify what you want to disable, do some searching, and work through it.
since going back to Win 7 Pro I have disabled automatic updates. Now it says there are 13 critical updates. How does one determine what updates are safe and needed and which ones are nasty spyware or unwanted?
I would go them one by one clicking on details til you find out what it's for and deciding if it is necessary or optional.
